Injuries have pushed these two hitters into starting roles and without a whole lot of fanfare, are therefore likely to be available in your deeper league. With only two and a half weeks to go, buying playing time is the best strategy to fill holes.
There’s only three weeks left in the regular season! If you haven’t already done so, now is certainly the time to completely ignore player values and just pick up what you need and drop what you don’t, given your place in the various category standings. One of the easier places to make up ground is stolen bases. So let’s discuss a bunch of lesser owned (all these guys are owned in 60% or less of CBS leagues) hitters who have attempted at least six stolen bases over the last 30 days.
Ever since his exciting debut in 2014 that came over a small sample size, we’ve been awaiting a full season of strong offensive performance from Jorge Soler. Actually, we didn’t even require a strong performance, we just wanted a full season for once, gosh darn-it! Since that 2014 debut, Soler’s career high in plate appearances has been just 366, thanks to injury after injury. Finally, this year he has surpassed the 500 plate appearance plateau. Not only has he given us his first full season, but he has paired it with strong offensive performance for a true fantasy breakout.
Seemingly every season, a hitter comes out of nowhere to enjoy an insane couple of month stretch. In 2015, it was Franklin Gutierrez, of all hitters. In 2016, it was Gary Sanchez introducing himself as the next top catcher. In 2017, it was Matt Olson and Rhys Hoskins as the newest pure power hitters. And last year of course, it was Luke Voit and Ryan O’Hearn (and one might be inclined to include Max Muncy who did it over a larger sample size). This year with power settling in at record levels, we have several candidates. The best of these candidates is the guy easily leading all batters with at least 120 plate appearances in ISO (.422) and slightly leading in wOBA (.441). His name is Aristides Aquino and unless you’re a fantasy player or Reds fan, you probably never heard of him.
It’s an exciting time in the fantasy world when the calendar flips to September, as rosters expand, resulting in call-ups galore. New players get opportunities for playing time and it gives us fantasy owners a chance to plug some holes with a month to go in the season.
Today’s deep league waiver wire features a Triple-A breakout stud and a closer speculation.
INSANE…ly good, that is. That’s the only way you can describe the performance of baseball’s newest offensive sensation, Yordan Alvarez. You might not realize how good he actually has been. If I filter our leaderboard for all rookie seasons since 2000 with at least 220 plate appearances, Alvarez sits atop the list after sorting by wOBA. Of course, it’s easier to do that over 228 plate appearances than the 678 that Aaron Judge did it over two seasons ago when he posted a .430 wOBA. But still, while you can kinda fake an inflated BABIP (Alvarez has a .376 mark), it’s far more difficult to fake a .365 ISO. But how real has his performance been so far?
Heading into the season, Cavan Biggio was a good, not great, prospect for the Blue Jays. He was perhaps more known for his bloodline, being the son of hall of famer Craig Biggio, than his future potential, as he was ranked as just the 12th best prospect in the Jays system before the year began and slapped with basically average skill grades across the board. After a call-up in late May, he has now amassed nearly 300 plate appearance, representing about a half a season worth of stats to evaluate. A quick look at his underwhelming .314 wOBA suggests he hasn’t enjoyed a very strong start to his career. A deeper look, however, reveals a very different story.
With a month and a half left in the season, you must keep focus on your placement in the various categories. Forget about overall fantasy value and worry about how each player on your roster will help you gain (or prevent you from losing) points in each category. If you find yourself in need of speed, here are six names that are likely available in many leagues that have been running over the past month.
Welcome to another exciting edition of the deep league waiver wire! Today, I discuss two youngsters getting their first tastes of big league action.
