Affordable Buy-High Candidates

Around this time of year when trade season starts open up in earnest, you consistently hear one maxim: buy-low, sell-high. It’s the tried-and-true method of trading and is ideal for what I hope are obvious reasons. However, it’s a lot easier said than done, particularly in the internet age of fantasy baseball. The statistical revolution and internet have colluded to equip all fantasy managers with any amount of data they desire about their players. You will still see lopsided deals, but outside of blatant cases of collusion, a deal that you deem as lopsided is still just a difference in player valuation.

The market inefficiency is in buying-high (I would be much more cautious with the inverse, but there could also be a market to exploit by selling low). Given how often fantasy managers are looking to sell high, there is a larger pool players to choose from and of course there is also more willingness to move them which adds to the likelihood of a deal getting done instead trying to pry someone your leaguemate wasn’t looking to sell in the first place. Buying high is easier, but it can be tricky (You don’t want to get smoked, but we’re talking buying-high, not buying-highest. you should never buy-highest… in any sense of the word). However, some players are seen as sell-high candidates while having a good shot at maintaining a high level of production and their price won’t always be commensurate with said production making them the ideal buy-high candidates.

Here are five such candidates:

John Jaso: The hang up with Jaso is that he only has first base eligibility and the power-hitting focus at the position leaves Jaso coming up short. His career high of 10 HRs came back in 2012. While he does lack the power to carry first base, he is an interesting corner infielder or utility as a high batting average hitter atop a proficient lineup. Plus, let’s not completely sleep on the fact that he has hit three homers, putting him on pace to crush his previous high.

He’s pacing for 14 more while the projections see 6-10 more (6 for ZiPS, 10 for Steamer & Depth Charts). Above all else, he needs to stay healthy, something that has been a career-long challenge as he’s never cleared 110 games played. If the perfect world scenario plays out and he maintains this pace, he’ll be this year’s Logan Forsythe. I’d settle for this year’s Mark Canha.

Daniel Murphy: Murphy is always underrated in fantasy baseball. He has averaged 582 plate appearances of a .291/.331/.421 line the last five seasons and yet always feels like an afterthought at the draft table. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have a standout counting category as he’s never reached even 15 HRs and only once eclipsed 20 SBs with 23 back in 2013. Even a flashy postseason didn’t really push the hype up. I understand the reluctance to put too much weight into October, but it still happens regularly and yet Murphy was only the 10th 2B taken in an underwhelming pool.

Plus, his power surge wasn’t just the playoffs. He popped 4 HRs in both August and September before his insane 7-homer playoff run. Four homers in a month might not feel like much of an outburst, but it’s a 24-homer full season pace which would nearly double the 13 that currently stands as his career-high. With a .429 BABIP charging his .398/.439/.650 line, Murph is again being overlooked as everyone waits for the other shoe to drop. And I’m not here to suggest he’s going to chase down Ted Williams’ .406, but a .300 AVG, 12-14 HRs, 7-9 SBs, and 65+ R/RBI the rest of the way is the kind of studly line that Murphy is capable offering the rest of the way.

Odubel Herrera: Being on the Phillies is enough to keep a guy underrated, especially a relative unknown like Herrera. I liked him in the offseason so I’m certainly not going away from him now. In fact, I’m looking to take on more shares. A sharp change in approach has Herrera with more walks than strikeouts so far while also pacing toward a 15 HR-25 SB season. He hit .297 last year over a full season so his .319 AVG right now is hardly unrealistic, but even if he’s more of a .275 hitter the rest of the way with 10 HR and 20 SB, that is still very useful. The former Rule 5 pick has definitely raised his profile, but hardly to a level where the asking price will be high. He will be seen as a classic sell-high, but I think those selling might regret it a bit when they see him maintain a lot of what he’s done so far.

Trevor Story: With 11 HRs and 50 combined R/RBI, Story won’t exactly come cheaply, but the question is will he be valued as a top-3 shortstop in trade talks? My guess is no and yet only Carlos Correa (38) and Jonathan Villar (35) top his remaining 31 projected HR+SB from ZiPS. The focus seems to be entirely on the strikeout rate and what it might do to his batting average, but even that argument is flawed because I don’t think enough attention is given to what Coors Field will do to offset that AVG hit.

ZiPS is the lowest on projected AVG the rest of the way and they give him a .248. That’s passable, especially with the kind of counting category upside he offers. Too much energy is expended discussing what Story doesn’t do. I understand the Joc Pederson comparisons and have made them myself, but I’ve done so while acknowledging that his AVG is unlikely to sink quite as low because of that incredible home ballpark.

Brett Lawrie: I’d say Lawrie is a divisive player in the fantasy community, but he’d need a lot more backers for that tag. I’ve liked him – especially relative to my colleagues – but the two biggest camps seem to be disdain and indifference. Some are just 100% out because of the underwhelming returns paired with the… energetic personality that rubs some the wrong way – I’m fairly certain the dude pisses Red Bull. Many others just didn’t really consider him on draft day. After all, second base was deep with Lawrie types: guys who did a bit of everything, but had no carrying fantasy category.

Lawrie built a lot of hype on just 171 PA back in 2011, but the fact that he has never come close to that level again has left many soured on him. The case for him coming into this year was that he is still just 26 years old, has shown some pop in spurts since ’11, has defense to keep himself in the lineup, and he was leaving Oakland for Chicago – a sharp boost in offensive environment. The counter was that we had 1862 PA of modest production (97 wRC+) since that debut burst, the favorable environment in Toronto didn’t exactly bring the numbers, and he was just 14-for-21 on the bases since his 13 SB season in 2012 so he wasn’t really a power-speed threat anymore.

The thing that not even his backers saw coming was the incredible change in approach that has him much more selective at the dish (yielding a career-best 13% walk rate) and hitting for power we haven’t seen for a while. He’s hitting the ball in the air way more than ever with a 49% flyball rate and it has translated into 5 HRs already. We saw some power like this in 2012 when hit 12 HRs in 70 games, but a fractured finger and strained oblique cut that season drastically short.

Unless you happen to be playing with a big Lawrie proponent, the asking price won’t be severe. Plus, if you are in league with someone like that, chances are they won’t make Lawrie available anyway. The projections see another 12-14 HRs, a handful of stolen bases, but modest R/RBI totals. It is those last two categories where I think he can beat the projections and wind up as a strong buy-high. The bulk of his career and all of this season has been spent in the 6th and 7th spots of the lineup, but I could see him trading with Jimmy Rollins if both keep at or near their current lines. Rollins has just a .247/.315/.361 line after a .224/.285/.358 last year. Even Lawrie’s uninspired .256/.300/.412 from 2014-15 combined beats that out while this new, elevated version is a much better fit in between Adam Eaton and Jose Abreu.

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Have you bought high on any of these or any other early surprise standouts? What’d you pay?