It’s hitter week here at buy/sell, and as is fast becoming standard practice, the list will include a couple Cubs. We’ll also get to one Diamondback slugger to buy and one to sell, before turning our attention to a couple young NL East hitters off to fast starts.

But first, a quick programming note: This is a prime time in the season for trading. We’re more than a month into the season, so your league mates could be starting to lose patience with some of their underperforming early-round picks, at least to the extent that they’re willing to move an elite player at a slight discount. At the same time, we’re still early enough in the season that some players who started on a hot streak are at their peak value and make for intriguing sell-high candidates, even if they will still likely be quite good for the rest of the season.

With that teaser out of the way, here are you buy and sell candidates of the week.

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Players to Buy

Anthony Rizzo (CHC)
Rizzo has had rotten batted ball luck so far this season, so if the Rizzo owner in your league is sick and tiered of seeing 0-for-4s in his/her lineup, now could be the perfect time to pounce. Rizzo’s career batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .283, but this year it’s .169, even though his exit velocity and hard hit percentage are both higher than ever, according to Statcast data. Rizzo’s walk rate is down a lot, but he’s actually been swinging at fewer pitches out of the strike zone this year — and swinging and missing less as well. So if anything, Rizzo’s batting average should approaching a career high, not sitting below the Mendoza line.

Kris Bryant (CHC)
Bryant hit 39 home runs and drove in 102 runs in his MVP 2016 season, but those numbers dropped off to 29 homers and 73 RBIs last year. The early returns in 2018 would appear to suggest a repeat of Bryant’s 2017 power numbers is in store, but that conclusion is premature. Bryant’s hard contact rate is much higher than it was last year — and even slightly higher than it was in 2016. It’s worth pointing out that Bryant is hitting the ball on the ground more frequently, but as FanGraphs’ Travis Sawchik noted, Bryant’s mechanics don’t look to have changed, which suggests his power could return soon in a big way. Meanwhile, Bryant has continued to cut down on his strikeout rate, meaning he could be transforming into a true .300 hitter right before our eyes.

Bryant has now homered three times in his last five games after hitting just two homers in his first 23 games, so the buy-low window could be closing rapidly. But it’s still worth a shot to see if you can get any kind of discount on a player who’s fully capable of top-10 hitter production from here on out.

Paul Goldschmidt (ARI)
Usually, I like to dig into a bunch of advanced statistics to uncover players who are due for positive regression, but sometimes we have to just take a deep breath and remember that players have slumps. Sure, it’s theoretically possible that Goldschmidt will continue to strike out in over 30 percent of his plate appearances the rest of the season, but he hasn’t had a strikeout rate above 23 percent since his first cup of coffee in the Big Leagues in 2011. Goldy is also hitting the ball with less authority when he does manage to make contact, but there’s no real reason to expect that to continue, either.

The AZ Snake Pit blog posits that the problem could be Goldschmidt falling behind in the count and then having to swing at more off-speed pitches. Whatever the case may be, Goldschmidt looks lost at the plate right now. But we’re talking about a proven producer who is still in the prime of his career, so I’m willing to bet this turns out to be little more than a temporary rough patch.

Players to Sell

A.J. Pollock (ARI)
Pollock was the fourth-most valuable hitter in standard 5×5 roto leagues in 2015, so there is no doubting that he can be a true difference-maker when he is healthy and producing. But 2015 also happens to be the only year the 30-year old Pollock managed to play in more than 137 games, and he’s failed to make it through even half a season in two of the last four years.

Pollock’s strikeout rate has shot up this season, and his current HR/FB rate probably isn’t sustainable, but that is mostly nit-picking. He is an excellent fantasy option, and I wouldn’t blame you if you want to ride his production for as long as you can. But if I saw the opportunity to deal him for a similarly elite performer who doesn’t have the same lengthy injury history, I’d take it.

Ozzie Albies (ATL)
Albies is another player who would be understandably hard to part with right now. I anticipated that he would be a very good fantasy option from Day 1, and yet he’s managed to completely blow past my expectations. In keeper and dynasty formats, I’d most likely sit tight and see just how good he can be. But in single-season formats, I’d at least be curious to see how much he’s worth on the open market.

Albies is displaying more power, earlier in his career, than most people expected, but he’s not likely to be a 30 HR guy when the dust settles, let alone the 40+ HR guy he looks like right now. He’s hitting a lot more fly balls than he ever did in the minor leagues, but his HR/FB rate is a bit inflated based on the amount of hard contact he’s making. Albies has pretty good contact skills for a rookie, so he could maintain a batting average in the .280 range, but he will need to start stealing more bases to come anywhere close to the fantasy value he’s had over the season’s first month.

Odubel Herrera (PHI)
Herrera is off to a terrific start hitting third in an improved Phillies lineup, but he could turn out to be more valuable to the Phillies than to his fantasy owners. Fresh off a two-homer game, Herrera has now hit five home runs in his first 33 games, but there’s not much reason to expect a power breakthrough here. Herrera has never hit more than 15 home runs in a season at any professional level, and his hard contact rate and fly ball rate are actually down a little from last season.

Early in his career, Herrera made up for his relative lack of power by stealing a lot of bases, but his stolen base total fell precipitously from 25 in 2016 to eight in 2017, and he’s stolen just one base so far this season. He has proven that he is capable of posting a batting average in the .280-.290 range, but his current .341 average is being driven by an unsustainable .378 BABIP. Add it all up, and you get a .285-15-10 kind of player, which is nothing more than a fringe option in standard 12-team fantasy leagues.

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Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.