The two players I’m recommending this week share almost nothing in common. One is young, powerful, and crushingly enticing. The other is nearing the end of a magnificent career with the same fleetness of foot he enthralled us with 15 years ago. Endless potential versus a potential storybook ending. And if you own either of them right now, you’re likely playing in a very, very deep league.
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In this week’s edition of Deep League Waiver Wire, we take a look at a reliever and a catcher unclaimed in a vast majority of leagues yet worth a closer look.
Michael Feliz (7% Yahoo, 7% ESPN, 11% CBS) – 2016 hasn’t been a good season for fantasy owners who prefer to accumulate saves through the waiver wire. That there have been relatively few closer controversies during the first two months has forced the save-starved to speculate on relievers two or three promotions from the ninth. And Michael Feliz is no exception*.
The Closer Grid on Rotograph’s Bullpen Report has featured the same three Houston relievers for quite some time now: Luke Gregerson, Will Harris, and Ken Giles. But a reliever outside of those three leads the bullpen in K%-BB%, xFIP, and in limiting hard contact. And with 25.2 IP under his belt, he’s been there nearly the whole time, quietly dominating as the rest of the pen accumulated 9 blown saves. As you might have guessed, that reliever is THIS INANIMATE CARBON ROD! Just kidding, it’s Michael Feliz.
Hyun-Soo Kim (3% Yahoo, 2.4% ESPN, 8% CBS): Kim’s comic book plate discipline numbers in Korea made him a favorite of mine entering the season. I wrote about him here during the pre-season and in following my own advice, drafted him in multiple leagues. Even when writing about Joey Rickard’s hot start, I couldn’t help but lament that it came at the expense of Kim’s ABs and that my endorsement of Rickard was contingent upon his benching. Well, there’s a lesson to be learned here: just hit .400 long enough and you’ll get your shot.
Kim has now started six straight for the Orioles, batting 2nd in each of the last 4. His walk rate on the year is a shiny 12% and his strikeout rate just marginally higher at 14%. Kim has certainly benefitted from his share of good fortune over the 58 plate appearances he’s amassed so far but that’s hardly the point here. Aside from the sample size, most of those 58 plate appearances came in piecemeal playing time so it’s quite difficult to take anything away from his stat line, especially batted balls.
Kendall Graveman (3% Yahoo, 1.6% ESPN, 11% CBS) – on its surface, Graveman’s 5.48 ERA is enough to scare off most casual fans. And his 5.91 FIP and 4.33 xFIP suggest there’s little to see here. Yawn. Move on, right? Well, maybe. But depending on your league size, Kendall Graveman could be a surprising source of productive innings moving forward.
First, the bad. I’ve already touched on his disappointing ERA and the indicators that support it. He’s also walking more batters than he did last year. In fact, his 3.59 BB/9 would be by far the worst of his career, including his time in the minor leagues. After his start on Thursday, his Zone% is sitting at 42%, a 4-point drop from his 2015 rate. And then there’s the home runs. His HR/FB% is a ghastly 25%. As you might suspect, this is where we start looking for upside.
Oswaldo Arcia (1% Yahoo, 1.6% EPSN, 8% CBS) – the dude seems like he’s been around forever but he actually just turned 25 yesterday. After a disappointing 2015 in both Minnesota and Rochester, Arcia is swinging a hot bat, producing at the level Twins fans envisioned given the promising start to his career. So far, he’s cracked 4 homers in just over 70 plate appearances on his way to a shiny 135 wRC+.
It’s easy to look at some obvious data points and scream regression. His .382 BABIP and 40% HR/FB rates will assuredly normalize. And his career-high GB/FB ratio is, on its surface, alarming. Dig a little deeper and we find his ground ball rate has remained stable while his fly balls have simply turned into line drives. As for the quality of Arcia’s contact, he ranks 57th out of 287 in average FB/LD exit velocity among those with at least 30 balls-in-play.
Is this new batted ball profile sustainable? Who knows? But if you buy into the crazy narrative that greater selectivity at the plate can often lead to better contact, then perhaps some of it is. Arcia is chasing pitches outside of the zone a career low 28.5% of the time, about one point above the league, but an eight and a half point drop below his career average. He’s also cut down on his whiff rate while spending more time in favorable counts. This helps to explain his career best walk-rate, making him suddenly very interesting in OBP leagues.
We’d obviously like to see him hit more fly balls as the sustainability of his current power output, given his batted ball profile, is slim. Nevertheless, the plate discipline gains and improved contact are a boon to fantasy owners looking for outfield help.
Aaron Hicks (1% Yahoo, 1.3% ESPN, 6% CBS) – I was actually planning to write about Dae-Ho Lee but then I just saw Hicks hit another home run. So I figured that Lee will probably be available to write about for at least another week and it’s more helpful to, you know, focus on the guy who actually has a starting job.
And that guy, for the time being, would be the aforementioned Mr. Hicks. I’ve been riding the Hicks train for a while now. I touted him in a previous piece, picked him as an UDFA sleeper in our annual RotoGraphs Staff Picks, and rostered him in a few leagues, and not just those of the deep variety. Obviously, I’ve been disappointed.
Prior to A-Rod landing on the DL, Hicks hit .067/.125/.067 with a -58 wRC+. I know, it’s bad. But that came over just a handful of starts and piecemeal playing time. Now with A-Rod on the DL, Jacoby Ellsbury dealing with what appears to be a minor hip injury, and Carlos Beltran showing his age all in the context of a 11-18 start, Hicks appears to have a nice window of opportunity.
Remember, this is the same guy who combined double digit homers and steals last year with a plate discipline profile that placed him in some pretty lofty company.
| PA | HR | SB | K%-BB% | |
| Manny Machado | 713 | 35 | 20 | 5.8% |
| Anthony Rizzo | 701 | 31 | 17 | 3.9% |
| Paul Goldschmidt | 695 | 33 | 21 | 4.7% |
| A.J. Pollock | 673 | 20 | 39 | 5.3% |
| Jason Heyward | 610 | 13 | 23 | 5.6% |
| Jose Altuve | 689 | 15 | 38 | 4.9% |
| Brandon Phillips | 623 | 12 | 23 | 6.6% |
| Mookie Betts | 654 | 18 | 21 | 5.5% |
| Michael Brantley | 596 | 15 | 15 | -1.5% |
| Aaron Hicks | 390 | 11 | 13 | 8.20% |
The biggest knock on Hicks is admittedly a big one. He can’t hit righties. Or rather, he hasn’t yet shown the ability to hit them. Coming off the bench, we were never going to find out if he could but the playing time we anticipated looks like it’s finally arrived. Snatch him up in deep leagues because if he picks up where he left off last season, this power-speed threat won’t be available for long.
The A’s may not boast one of the more prolific rotations in baseball but entering the season they certainly featured one of the deepest. Now with Felix Doubront lost to Tommy John Surgery and one of my favorite sleepers, Chris Bassitt, likely facing a similar fate, the rotation suddenly looks a tad shallower. So this week we look at two pitchers available in a vast majority of leagues who’ve either made it back to the East Bay or who we can expect to arrive there shortly.
The biggest challenge writing for deep league managers is trying to cover the broad continuum of league depths in a limited space each week. In response to last week’s column, one commenter lamented that both of the players recommended had been rostered in his 20-team league since the start of the season. So for you masochists out there languishing in the bowels of waiver wire obscurity, I present you with this special Über Deep League Waiver Wire edition.
This week we look at two hitters available in deep leagues whose uncharacteristically good contact thus far warrants a closer examination. Obviously, as should be stated with almost any analysis at this point in the season, small sample caveats apply. And now that we are disclaimed, let’s irresponsibly dig for upside!
Preston Tucker (2% Yahoo, 2.8% ESPN, 8% CBS) – Tucker burst onto the scene last year in Houston posting a .243/.297/.439 slash line. Wait, that’s not very good. Why did I say burst? Oh right, because Tucker actually posted a 120 wRC+ through July before tanking in just 83 plate appearances the rest of the way. Tucker’s decrease in playing time obviously coincided with the arrival of Carlos Gomez.
But even beyond the trade deadline’s roster crunch ramifications, Tucker just stopped making good contact. His soft% increased to an alarming 32% from August onwards. He also stopped taking walks, reaching base via the free pass just 3.6% of the time.
I just spent that last two weeks on vacation with my family. Hoping to escape the dreariness of the wettest Seattle winter on record, we embarked for the warm and artery-clogging bosoms of New Orleans and Miami. The first week of the season is always a cause for celebration in my house but I have to say watching the grand ol’ game with a mouthful of beignets made the start to this season even more special. I think players would be far more receptive to the tobacco ban if MLB replaced tins of Skoal with beignets from Café Du Monde or Morning Call.
I also picked up a pretty rad souvenir for my 8-month old son at the Miami airport. I know that Legos aren’t really age appropriate since he currently feels the need to fit absolutely everything he sees into his mouth so it’ll remain perched far above where his grubby little hands can reach for some time.
But it wasn’t all powdered sugar smiles and medianoches at mediodía. There was plenty of belt-loosening self-loathing, GERD, and of course, fretting over my fantasy teams. You see in my home league, a 14-team keep-6 now in its sixth year as a keeper format, I was the proud owner of both A.J. Pollock and Kyle Schwarber. And while I had tempered expectations for both entering this season, I didn’t expect to have to replace 1/3rd of my keepers before the first week of April concluded.
So as with my son’s new Lego Ichiro, I’m tasked with piecing together a team from the waiver wire in the hopes that it’ll ultimately prove greater than the sum of its awkwardly shaped plastic brick parts. And with that in mind, I’d like to recommend a few players available in deep leagues to replace the Pollocks, Schwarbers, and Tyson Rosses of the fantasy world.
Barry Bonds leads the Marlins in home runs. OK, so this won’t happen but you so know he could.
1. Aaron Hicks finishes as a top 24 outfielder
I made my fondness of Hicks pretty apparent in a previous piece on the Yankees’ playing time battles. In limited plate appearances last season, Hicks kept some pretty impressive company combining speed, power, and plate discipline. In fact, over 600 plate appearances, his numbers pro-rated to a 17/20 season. Moving from Target Field to Yankee Stadium, a 20/20 season seems plausible.
For Hicks, it comes down to two things: playing time and improvement versus righties. Given that Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran are the walking embodiments of a week old French loaf, the boldness in this prediction comes from betting on gains against righties. If he can do it, watch out.
Continuing with the Yankees…
2. The three most valuable position players on the Yankees at year’s end will all start the year as backups or minor leaguers
Of course for this prediction to come true, it hinges on the first. Perhaps it’s unwise to compound predictions. Perhaps I should diversify. Perhaps I’m just really excited for a Yankees youth movement. And no, I’m not a Yankees fan, apparently just an enthusiastic observer.
So obviously, I’m talking about the aforementioned Hicks. The other two missing pieces to the Morris Avenue Miracle are Greg Bird and Gary Sanchez. We saw what Bird was capable of last season when his number was called and ZiPS’ confidence in him bodes well.
Sanchez is the real stretch here but given his advanced approach at the plate and that he held his own as a 22 year old catcher in AAA, it’s not out of the realm possibility that given an opportunity, he provides above average production at a premium position. Now Top 3 on the Yankees? Look, this ain’t 2009 but this team still scored the second most runs in the AL last season. A lot has to go right for this to happen.
So, let’s say the Yankees lose Mark Teixeira for a prolonged period because, I don’t know, he hurts his wrist or he falls into a coma after watching one of his post-game interviews. Brian McCann strains a back muscle yelling at someone flipping a bat. Meanwhile, Hicks has already carved out a spot in the lineup spelling Ellsbury or Beltran and the offense teems with the Yankees’ future realized a couple years early. It could happen.
I suppose if you’re being litigious, you could argue that a breakout year by Dustin Ackley could place him in the top 3, making this prediction come true. And to that I say fine. Except that would never happen because everyone knows that the dividing line between a bold prediction and a crazy one is Dustin Ackley.