We are still just 20 games into the 2020 baseball season, but we are finally getting to the point where some actionable advanced statistics are starting to emerge from beneath all the small sample background noise.
I tend to spend an inordinate amount of time staring at Fangraphs’ player pages, but this week I’ll take a closer look at Statcast’s expected statistics to try to uncover some buy-low and sell-high targets for you. For those who are unfamiliar, these Statcast metrics are valuable because they focus on the quality of contact that is occurring rather than simply the batted ball outcomes.
As always, if you’d like my opinion on a player, trade, 1980’s action figure line, or 1990’s rock album, you can reach me on Twitter @andrew_seifter. If not, that’s ok too. Now onto this week’s top buys and sells.
Note: Some stats are through Sunday’s action.
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Hitters to Buy
Cody Bellinger (1B – LAD)
A consensus top-four selection in fantasy drafts this summer, Bellinger is off to an ice-cold start at the dish, hitting just .187 through Sunday’s games. He deserves much better based on the frequency he’s making contact — and the quality of that contact. Part of what made Bellinger’s 2019 season so special is that he swatted 47 home runs and still only struck out in 16.4 percent of his plate appearances. Well, this year he only striking out in 15.3 percent of his plate appearances! The problem is that his BABIP is over 120 points lower than last year, and it isn’t simply because he’s making weak contact. Yes, his hard-hit rate is down quite a bit, but we are still talking about a very small sample size, and even based on the contact he’s made, Statcast projects that both his batting average and slugging percentage should be around 80-100 points higher than they currently are.
Players to offer: Bryce Harper, Jose Ramirez, Juan Soto
Eduardo Escobar (3B – ARI)
With a batting average under .200 through 21 games, Escobar has already begun to pop up on some waiver wires. Some skepticism was certainly warranted after Escobar produced a career year at age 30 in 2019, but his numbers were impressive enough that he could afford to endure some regression and still be a mixed-league asset. What’s happened, instead, is that his batted ball outcomes have overcorrected this year. Based on the quality of contact he’s been making, Statcast says Escobar’s batting average should be more like .290 than .190, and his slugging percentage should be quite a bit higher as well. He was never going to produce at last year’s 35 HR/118 RBI clip, but a 30/100 pace from here on out is still entirely doable and the price to find out shouldn’t be high at all.
Players to offer: Ryan McMahon, Ian Happ, David Fletcher
Eugenio Suarez (3B – CIN)
Another player who has come down hard after a career year is Suarez, who has followed up his 49-home run 2019 season with a .123 batting average and two homers so far this year. With a painfully high 31.6 percent strikeout rate, there’s no question he’s making some of his own misfortunate. But he also has the fourth-lowest BABIP among qualified hitters, and Statcast’s expected batting average and expected slugging percentage data also point to some poor batted-ball luck for Suarez. Like Escobar, Suarez was always a poor bet to repeat last season’s numbers, but he was also pretty darn good in 2018 when he hit .283 with 34 HRs and 104 RBIs. This is a premium power bat that can currently be acquired at a significant discount.
Players to offer: Kyle Seager, Donovan Solano, Yuli Gurriel
Pitchers to Buy
James Paxton (SP – NYY)
According to Statcast, Paxton currently has the biggest differential between his batting average allowed (.333) and expected batting average allowed (.263) of any pitcher who has faced at least 70 hitters. He’s also among the pitchers with the biggest differential between their slugging percentage allowed and the slugging percentage you’d expect against them based on the quality of contact they’ve induced. His .409 BABIP allowed and 2.35 HR/9 are also highly flukey. In other words, Paxton has pitched a heck of a lot better than his 7.04 ERA would indicate, which really isn’t surprising given his long track record of success as a high-end fantasy starter. Make an offer now before his numbers improve.
Players to offer: German Marquez, Kyle Hendricks, Merrill Kelly
Tyler Glasnow (SP – TB)
Do you feel lucky? I can’t say I’m nearly as confident that Glasnow will fix his 7.04 ERA as I am that Paxton will fix his, but I recommended buying Glasgow in Week 1, and this week I am doubling down. If he can get back on track, the payoff will be immense. After several years of stunted development in Pittsburgh, Glasnow was pitching like a bonafide Cy Young candidate and fantasy MVP for the Rays last season, before a forearm strain wrecked his season. Now the command issues from his Pirates days have suddenly resurfaced, as he’s already walked 10 batters in 15 1/3 innings. But Glasnow is still missing bats at an elite level, and Statcast data shows that opposing hitters are having trouble squaring up the ball against him. If he can simply limit the free passes, Glasnow could quickly become a huge difference-maker in fantasy leagues.
Players to offer: Masahiro Tanaka, Zack Wheeler, Lance McCullers
Yusei Kikuchi (SP – SEA)
Kikuchi’s 5.28 ERA through 15 1/3 innings looks an awful lot like the 5.46 ERA he posted over 161 2/3 innings last year, but that is where the similarities end. His velocity is noticeably higher through his first three starts, and he is generating significantly more swings and misses as a result. Statcast reports that he’s been unlucky in terms of both his batting average and slugging percentage allowed and that he has the fifth-lowest expected slugging percentage allowed of any pitcher who has faced 50+ batters. It’s quite possible that Kikuchi is finally translating the success he had in Japan, and his surface numbers just aren’t showing it yet.
Players to offer: Randy Dobnak, Brad Keller, Adam Wainwright
Hitters to Sell
Mike Yastrzemski (OF – SF)
As someone who grew up in the Boston area in the decade after Yaz hung up his cleats, I’ve enjoyed his grandson’s breakthrough as much as anyone. But the numbers don’t lie. While Mike Yastrzemski is currently hitting .305, Statcast pegs his expected batting average at just .242. It’s a similar story with his slugging percentage. One ray of hope is that Yastrzemski has shown excellent plate disciple so far, taking 18 walks versus 21 strikeouts, but it’s still hard to see him coming close to keeping up his current level of production once his batted ball outcomes normalize. Trade on his famous last name and perhaps you’ll find a league member who has visions of Yaz’s storied triple crown season.
Players to target: Starling Marte, Ketel Marte, Adalberto Mondesi
Hanser Alberto (2B – BAL)
After wasting away for four years in Texas, Alberto headed to Baltimore and impressively hit .305 over 139 games, although it came with just 12 HRs, 4 SBs, and mediocre run production. This year, he’s up to .313, but it’s mostly due to an inflated .350 BABIP. Alberto is striking out more and still barely walking at all, and the quality of contact he’s making is more worthy of a .270 hitter with minimal power. It’s unclear how much you can get for Alberto, given that he has just three combined home runs/steals and plays for the Orioles. But then again, second base is weak this year, and Alberto is currently the fourth-most valuable player at the keystone in standard 5×5 formats, according to Baseball Monster. Perhaps you could offer him to the owner of D.J. LeMahieu, who just landed on the Injured List.
Players to target: Keston Hiura, Jonathan Villar, Eduardo Escobar
Renato Nunez (3B – BAL)
Nunez is another Oriole who had some success last year and is currently playing well over his head in 2020. In 2019, Nunez swatted 31 home runs and reached 90 runs batted in, but he was of little use elsewhere. This year, he’s showing the same kind of power but also hitting .304 through 21 games, giving him the look of a four-category player (R, HR, RBI, AVG.) rather than just two categories (HR and RBI). But a closer look reveals that his strikeout rate has actually gone up from 2019, and Statcast puts his expected batting average at .264. It is unlikely that Nunez is truly emerging as a plus in batting average, but it’s worth seeing if someone in your league disagrees.
Players to target: Justin Turner, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Yoan Moncada
Pitchers to Sell
Merrill Kelly (SP – ARI)
Kelly currently owns a sparkling 1.71 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, and three wins, numbers that have provided top-15 starting pitcher value through the season’s first three weeks. He’s helped himself out by walking just three batters over 26 1/3 innings, but he’s not missing more bats than last year and has benefited from his fair share of good fortune. Kelly’s .233 BABIP allowed is due for quite a bit of regression, and he’s not going to continue to strand 100 percent of his baserunners, either. Statcast similarly notes that both his batting average allowed and slugging percentage allowed are due for a major correction.
Players to target: Frankie Montas, Cristian Javier, Charlie Morton
Adam Wainwright (SP – STL)
Wainwright has made just two starts so far this season due to the Cardinals’ Covid-19 outbreak, but both of those starts were excellent. However, he’s benefited from the second-lowest BABIP allowed among qualified starters, and he’s been the single most fortunate pitcher who has faced at least 40 batters, according to Statcast’s expected statistics. It’s too small a sample to say much of anything about his rest-0f-season value but could open a small window to sell him. Wainwright was once one of the best pitchers in fantasy baseball, but it’s been five years since his last useful season, and he isn’t going to suddenly regain his form at age 38.
Players to target: Yusei Kikuchi, Andrew Heaney, Mike Minor
Dallas Keuchel (SP – CHW)
Keuchel is a player I’m just about always recommending you sell, thanks to his abysmal strikeout rate. So far this season, that strikeout rate has been even worse than usual (4.91 K/9, blech), and yet his 3.07 ERA and 1.06 WHIP compare favorably to his best seasons. The reason, as you might guess, is unsustainably good batted ball outcomes in terms of both BABIP and home runs allowed. According to Statcast, he’s outperformed his expected batting average allowed by 78 points and expected slugging percentage allowed by 152 points. Keuchel has proven over the last couple years that he can produce a high-3.00s ERA based on guile and pitching acumen alone, but that simply doesn’t have much value when it puts you so far behind the eight ball in the strikeout and WHIP departments.
Players to target: Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jesus Luzardo, Ross Stripling
Week 4 Trade Advice
When it comes to making trades, sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Exhibit A is being a prisoner of the value we placed on players on draft day. Things change, and while we shouldn’t overreact to small sample sizes, we also have to be able to just admit when we were wrong on a player entering the season. Sometimes the worst thing we can do is stubbornly hold onto a player we irrationally believe is going to suddenly turn it around when nothing in the underlying data supports that proposition.
One player this applies to for me is Kris Bryant. I expected nothing short of superstardom from him, which is why I owned him for an entire year before he was called up in a league where we only keep six players. I was quickly rewarded with his dominant 2016 season, but it’s been a lot of frustration since then. I finally pulled the plug this week, dealing Bryant for Jose Altuve. I haven’t been particularly high on Altuve the last couple years, but I decided that he would give me a boost in the scarcer categories of batting average and stolen bases over Bryant, while also covering a scarcer position. That was worth the 1 3/4 year age difference.
If I had been willing to admit sooner that the 2016 version of Bryant wasn’t coming back, I probably could have got more in return. And this advice applies even more to a non-keeper league, particularly in this 60-game season. This season is far too short to be stuck in your ways. Evolve or lose, it’s that simple.
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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.
