This is “The Watchlist.”
“The Watchlist” is a weekly column designed to help you monitor and pick up players in the coming weeks. Whether they’re waiver wire or trade targets, these are the players you’ll want to add now before becoming the hot waiver commodity or trade target in a week or two.
Using underlying and advanced metrics, “The Watchlist” will help you get ahead of the competition in your league and reap the rewards later from your pickups.
The players could be anyone from a prospect in an ideal situation close to the Majors, a reliever in a saves+holds league, or even a starter doing well with misleading surface-level stats like ERA.
They might even be hitters with quality underlying stats. Or they could be none of those types of players and a different kind of player entirely. The point is that they’ll help you find success in your fantasy league while staying ahead of the curve of your league mates.
The payoff might not be immediate, but they should eventually provide significant value, more often than not.
These are some of those players for this week.
Will Vest’s ascension from non-roster invitee to high-leverage bullpen arm seems complete after entering the Tigers’ 4-2 win over Baltimore last Friday.
Closer Gregory Soto hit Jorge Mateo and Trey Mancini on back-to-back pitches. And while he then struck out Anthony Santander, he proceeded to walk Tyler Nevin to load the bases and put the potential winning run on first.
Enter Vest, who A.J. Hinch summoned from the bullpen. The former Rule 5 pick, who Seattle selected from the Tigers and then returned last season, struck out both Ramon Urias and Rylan Bannon on a combined eight pitches (including four swinging strikes) to end the game.
Of course, this was nothing new for Vest this season, who has impressed in the Detroit bullpen with his ability to miss bats and induce grounders.
The 26-year-old is one of two relievers with both a strikeout rate north of 36% and a ground ball percentage of 48% or better. The other is Twins relief ace, Jhoan Duran.
Speaking of other relievers, let’s look at some blind resumes so far this season:
- Reliever A: 17.0 IP, 11.65 K/9, 2.12 BB/9, 36.7 K%, 2.12 ERA, 2.83 FIP, 0.65 WHIP
- Reliever B: 16.2 IP, 11.88 K/9, 2.16 BB/9, 36.1 K%, 2.70 ERA, 1.17 FIP, 0.66 WHIP
- Reliever C: 20.0 IP, 12.15 K/9, 1.35 BB/9, 38.0% K%, 0.90 ERA, 2.14 FIP, 0.60 WHIP
- Reliever D: 13.2 IP, 13.17 K/9, 2.63 BB/9, 35.1% K%, 2.63 ERA, 1.04 FIP, 1.17 WHIP
Reliever A is, of course, Vest. Reliever B is Kenley Jansen. Reliever C is David Bednar, and Reliever D is Aaron Ashby when he’s pitched out of the bullpen.
The question now becomes Vest’s fantasy role and ceiling. He’s unlikely to unseat Soto as the team’s primary closer – the left-hander did receive and convert Detroit’s next save opportunity – but with the way Hinch manages his bullpen, there’s room for multiple relievers to receive save looks.
Even with a bullpen that also features Soto, Michael Fulmer, Alex Lange, and Andrew Chafin, Vest could still log upwards of five saves with a healthy number of holds throughout a full season if he keeps pitching like this. Though at the moment, he’s probably more valuable in saves+holds leagues.
Also of note; The right-hander has pitched more than an inning in five of his 13 appearances so far. If there’s a reliever in this bullpen who could become a multi-inning option, it might be Vest. And while that would certainly help the Tigers, it could be valuable for your fantasy team in terms of keeping your weekly WHIP and ERA down. He might not end up a closer, but he could certainly work in a multi-inning role like Ashby.
Overshadowed to a degree by fellow young pitching prospects Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning, and Casey Mize, Alex Faedo also had Tommy John surgery in December of 2020 and missed the 2021 season. The 2022 campaign is his first full season back from the procedure. He began the year in Triple-A as Detroit’s rotation featured the aforementioned trio plus free agent signings Eduardo Rodriguez and Tyler Alexander (serving as a placeholder for Michael Pineda).
Mize, Manning, Pineda, and Alexander all now find themselves on the IL for varying amounts of time. And Eduardo Rodriguez departed his start on Wednesday early due to a side injury. This opens up an opportunity, and Faedo has certainly seized it.
Through his first three starts, Faedo owns a 2.87 ERA and a 3.99 FIP in 15.2 innings. So far, he’s struck out only 6.89 batters per nine frames (more on that shortly) but has also walked just 2.3 batters per nine innings. And while Faedo may not have drawn the same fantasy headlines as fellow rookie starters did, his early effectiveness and Detroit’s injuries look to have earned him a rotation spot moving forward.
Furthermore, his slider is something that should draw headlines. In just three starts already, Faedo’s slider is in the top 40 league-wide (39th at 44.4%) among pitchers who have thrown at least 70 sliders this season. Among the 398 pitchers ranked ahead of him, just 13 are starting pitchers.
Highest Slider Whiff Rate Among Starters Who’ve Thrown At Least 70 Sliders:
- Kevin Gausman, 52.4%
- Josiah Gray and Corbin Burnes, 51.2%
- Andrew Heaney, 51.1%
- J.T. Brubaker, 50.5%
- Brandon Woodruff, 50.0%
- Shohei Ohtani, 48.9%
- Bruce Zimmermann, 47.8%
- Bryce Elder, 47.5%
- Frankie Montas, 46.6%
- Shane McClanahan, 45.9%
- Kyle Gibson, 45.7%
- Max Scherzer, 45.2%
- Alex Faedo, 44.4%
The pitch has been Faedo’s primary bat-missing weapon and a true-out pitch in a small sample size. Batters have managed just a .211 average, a .196 xBA, a .255 wOBA, and a .242 xwOBA against the pitch. He’s also generated at least three whiffs on each of his four-seamer and changeup in both of his most recent starts, which is promising.
The slider being this good certainly isn’t anything new. It’s what helped Faedo get drafted in the first round in 2017 and what made him one of Detroit’s better pitching prospects in the years since. In their breakdown of the Tigers’ top-34 prospects in January, FanGraph’s Eric Longenhagen and Kevin Goldstein gave Faedo’s slider a 60/60 in terms of present and future grades.
The slider has been the driving force in Faedo logging a 12.8% swinging strike percentage so far. For reference, just 12 qualified starters logged a swinging strike rate of 12.8% or better last season. Of those 12, 10 finished with a strikeout per nine innings rate in double digits. And one of the two who didn’t reach double digits was Luis Castillo at 9.21 punchouts per nine frames.
So, it’s certainly not a guarantee that a high swinging strike percentage will lead to more strikeouts. Still, if Faedo can keep this up with his slider-fronted pitch arsenal, he has a real chance at finishing the season with a double-digit strikeouts per nine innings rate.
Like any rookie, he’ll likely have his ups and downs. But fantasy managers in slightly deeper leagues looking for a rookie starter to add to their rotation need to look no further. The big question now is how many innings will Faedo have this season.
Manning should return sooner rather than later, but Faedo has outperformed fellow prospect Beau Brieske in the Majors so far. Provided Mize, Pineda and Alexander can be a part of the rotation mix later in the season, Detroit might want to limit Faedo’s innings to a degree. However, that’s purely speculative on my part.
Either way, much like a hitter with a low BABIP or high barrel and hard-it rates and nothing to show for it, Faedo should see an increase in his strikeout metrics sometime soon.
In his first season in San Francisco after spending the entirety of his career with Kansas City, Jakob Junis’ pitch usage has been markedly different this season.
The right-hander has scrapped his cutter entirely and relies more on a sinker than a four-seam fastball. He’s thrown the four-seamer just five times so far.
But perhaps the most significant change has been using the slider more than any other pitch. Junis has uncorked the offspeed offering 56.3% of the time this season. While it hasn’t been as effective as Faedo’s from a whiff rate standpoint, it’s gotten the job done.
Jakob Junis’ Slider In 2022:
- 56.3% Usage Rate
- 32.1% Whiff Rate
- .157 batting average
- .210 xBA
- .208 wOBA
- .269 xwOBA
And it seems like those changes have been for the better. The former Royal has made four appearances for San Francisco so far. In his first two, he worked as the bulk pitcher after an opener. In his last two, he started from the beginning of the game. In all four, he threw exactly five innings each.
Jakob Junis CSW% By Appearance:
- April 22 vs. Washington: 36%
- April 27 vs. Oakland: 33%
- May 8 vs. St. Louis: 39%
- May 14 vs. St. Louis: 30%
As long as Junis sticks in the San Francisco rotation, he should be in line for plenty of wins. Since the 2020 season, only five teams have more rotation wins than the Giants’ 84 victories. So far this season, Logan Webb, Carlos Rodon, Alex Cobb, and Alex Wood have combined for 15 pitcher wins, the fifth-highest in the league. Each of the quartert has more pitcher wins than the entire Pirates rotation. In short, pitching for the San Francisco Giants is ideal for fantasy purposes, especially when chasing pitcher wins.
And with a quality pitcher like Junis potentially stepping in alongside those four, it isn’t out of the question that he could reach 10 wins this season. The right-hander already has one in his four appearances.
Three Arizona relievers have logged multiple saves this season in Mark Melancon, Ian Kennedy, and Joe Mantiply.
Melancon has seven saves this season in 15 appearances. That number, the league’s joint-seventh highest, is helping your fantasy team if Melancon is on it.
What’s not helping any fantasy managers’ weekly numbers is that the veteran has allowed three runs or more in three of his last six outings. And though his 9.0% swinging strike percentage is in line with his past swinging strike percentages for the previous seven seasons, the veteran has just four strikeouts in 12.1 innings.
Then there’s Kennedy, who has three saves but is missing bats at the lowest rate of his career with a 5.5% swinging strike percentage – down from 12.8% last season – and 6.48 strikeouts per nine innings.
Arizona is currently hovering around .500 with an 18-21 record, but they entered Thursday tied for the fourth-most saves in the league.
If they continue to win games, it might make sense to turn things over to the third bullpen member with multiple saves, Mantiply. Of course, that’s purely speculative, but Mantiply has far and away been the most effective of the trio.
While his curveball (38.7% whiff rate) and changeup (29.4% whiff rate) have both showed promise, the 31-year-old’s sinker has been his most utilized offering.
Joe Mantiply Pitch Arsenal:
- Sinker: 41% usage rate, 13.9% whiff rate, .284 wOBA, .283 xwOBA, -2 run value
- Curveball: 30.2% usage rate, 38.7% whiff rate, .223 wOBA, .218 xwOBA, -1 run value
- Changeup: 26.8% usage rate, 29.4% whiff rate, .089 wOBA, .200 xwOBA, -1 run value
- Four-Seam Fastball: 2% usage rate, 50.0% whiff rate, .000 wOBA, .000 xwOBA, 0 run value
Pair that sinker with Mantiply’s propensity to limit walks (1.9% walk rate), and you have a late-inning option that can limit base runners and damage. That’s been evident this season, especially when delving into the left-hander’s expected stats:
Joe Mantiply Percentile Rankings:
- xwOBA: 97th (.221)
- xERA: 97th (1.69)
- xSLG: 97th (.284)
- xBA: 86th (.210)
Also, he’s given up just 10 hits, one walk, and one earned run in 14.2 innings this season while registering three holds and two saves. It would surprise no one if he found himself as Arizona’s closer sooner rather than later.
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