At this point in the season, it becomes harder and harder to make a significant change to your fantasy baseball roster utilizing only the waiver wire. Of course, top prospects can make a splash, but many of these players are already stashed in competitive leagues. As a result, fantasy baseball owners are left looking into trade opportunities to upgrade their teams.
So, for those of you hoping to find a jolt on the market, we’ve asked our writers to provide the players that they are targeting the most in trades.
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Which player are you trying to buy the most in fantasy baseball?
Eloy Jimenez (OF – CWS)
Assuming you don’t play with a lot of White Sox fans, I would be trying to acquire Jimenez everywhere. His current slash line is .217/.259/.406 — not impressive on the surface — and his expected batting average and slugging percentage support the surface-level numbers. He ranks in the 73rd percentile in exit velocity and 76th percentile in hard-hit percentage, which has led to barreling balls 10 percent of the time (league average is about six percent), and he’s hitting the ball about three miles an hour harder than league average. This tells me that there are signs that he will turn his rookie year around, and soon. Remember Ronald Acuna last year? He hit .235 in May, went on the DL in June, hit .256 in July, then took the league by storm in August. I’m expecting Jimenez to do something similar — he is simply too talented to have those numbers. After dealing with a family member passing and an injury, there’s no doubt his mind was elsewhere. I expect him to be able to focus on baseball now, and his numbers going forward will reflect that.
– Carmen Maiorano (@cmaiorano3)
Jose Ramirez (3B – CLE)
In my humble opinion, Jose Ramirez has been THE story of the 2019 fantasy baseball season. This is a player who was taken third overall almost everywhere and is slashing .197/.297/.295 coming out of Memorial Day weekend. He has hit just four homers, driven in 15, and scored just 17 runs. The Indians have already dropped him to fifth in their order, which is saying something since their lineup is (to put it nicely) atrocious. Compare this to the performance of Nolan Arenado, who was going fourth in drafts on average, and it’s easy to see how Ramirez’s fantasy owners could be beyond frustrated. This is why you should be trying to acquire Ramirez. It’s almost June and the third-overall pick isn’t producing. The Ramirez owner in your league is probably ready to shake things up, which means you could get him at a significant discount. Ramirez already has 12 steals on 14 attempts and is still walking at a good rate. At just 26 years old it is hard to fathom that he simply “lost it.” His exit velocity is similar to last year when he was one of the most valuable assets in fantasy baseball. The reason you should proactively try to acquire isn’t so much that he’s guaranteed to break out soon but rather because the frustration level of the Ramirez owner in your league should be at an all-time high. Therefore, he could be had dirt cheap.
– Brendan Tuma (@toomuchtuma)
Josh Bell (1B – PIT)
Odds are, the Josh Bell owner in your league feels one of two ways right now. Either they love him and value him sky high, or they want to unload him for as much as possible before they feel he inevitably cools off. If the Josh Bell owner in your league seems to feel the latter way, he makes for a heck of a trade target. Yes, Bell is going to fall off from his current pace of 55 home runs, but his production is real. Bell is hitting the ball as hard or harder than anyone in baseball so far, as evidenced by his miniscule 7.8% soft contact rate and absurd 51% hard contact rate. If you play it right, you could probably acquire Bell for a solid number two starting pitcher and a lesser bat. And at this point, that seems like a great deal.
– Alex Altmix (@altmix_23)
Max Scherzer (SP – WAS)
Unless you believe in voodoo curses, Scherzer is still the best pitcher in fantasy baseball and a phenomenal buy-low target. Thanks to his two measly wins and a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) allowed that is about 100 points higher than it should be, Scherzer currently ranks outside the top-35 starting pitchers in fantasy value accrued in standard 5×5 leagues. But his 6.0 strikeout-to-walk ratio is even better than last year, and he currently ranks among the top four starters in FIP, xFIP, and SIERA — the three primary advanced predictors of future ERA. Anyone who has played this game long enough knows how fickle wins can be, but Scherzer has averaged 18 victories over the last three seasons and that is about the rate we should expect going forward. Things have been flat-out ugly in our nation’s capital so far this year, but there’s simply no way Scherzer can continue to pitch this well and not start getting significantly better results. If you can get even a slight discount on his draft day cost, it’s a clear win.
– Andrew Seifter (@andrew_seifter)
Zack Wheeler (SP – NYM)
There still might be time to buy Wheeler at a discount because of May 16’s 10-hit, six-run shelling by the Nationals. Those who roster or acquire the 28-year-old righty might want to sit him against his NL East rival, as he has a 7.94 ERA in four starts against Washington and a 2.66 ERA in seven other turns. Those rough outings by Washington’s hand have bloated his 2019 ERA to 4.63, but he still sports a 3.22 FIP and 3.88 SIERA — right in line with last year’s respective marks of 3.25 and 3.87 — with 78 strikeouts in 70 innings. Often done in by one bad inning, he has worked at least six frames in each of his last nine starts. Such durability is nearly impossible to find these days, and it will steer him to 200-plus punchouts if he stays healthy. Wheeler still looks every bit like the top-25 starter many drafters signed up for this spring. I’d gladly exchange Domingo German, Mike Minor, or a hot hitter like Michael Chavis or Domingo Santana for Wheeler.
– Andrew Gould (@andrewgould4)
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