Last week, I tried to find any positive mid-season changes a pitcher has implemented to improve their fantasy stock for the final few weeks. I started with pitchers owned in 16% to 30% of Fantrax leagues and will now be digging even deeper after Mike Montgomery popped up on my radar as someone making positive skill changes.

A pitcher I targetted this FAAB period was the Royals Mike Montgomery. With the Royals, he's improved his ERA, K's, BB's, and GB% by changing his pitch mix

He's increased his cutter (12% SwStr%) usage from 4% to 20% and dropped his sinker (6% SwStr%) usage from 35% to 22%

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) August 19, 2019

Jordan Zimmermann (16%): Whoa, he’s changed his arsenal around with a mid-season introduction of a sinker (11% SwStr%, 69% GB%). It’s tough to buy too much of the change since he has a 6.29 ERA in the season’s first half and 7.31 ERA in the second half. It wasn’t until the last four starts when he started using his sinker even more (14% usage) and therefore has a 4.35 ERA, 7.4 K/9, and 0.9 BB/9.

Also, August was the first month he threw his slider (40%) more than his four-seamer (36%). He pulling out all the stops to remain relevant. Even with the changes, he’s likely a 4.25 ERA pitcher at best but in some leagues, that production level is useful.
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I find this week’s drops sort of useless. The hitters being dropped are below-average performers in part-time roles.  The pitchers are home run prone. Maybe owners should check over the list to make sure none of these has-beens are filling up a roster spot. So, here are the players being dropped in six to nine leagues.

Hurt

• Roman Quinn (9): Providing some power and speed in sporadic playing time before going on on the IL.
• Pablo López (8): He has been slow at coming back from the IL and owners can’t wait.
• José Martínez (7): Shoulder issues keeping him on the IL.
• Michael Chavis (7): Slowly regaining his strength.
• Carlos Carrasco (6): If he even returns, he supposed to throw out of the bullpen. Fine drop.

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With no big wallet busters this week, some owners may slack on their adds but several players could provide nice value. Nothing sexy, just useful.

The projection guidelines:

• The ownership rates are from CBS since they have some quickdraw waiver wire leagues where players can be picked up at any time.
• The FAAB estimates are based on the 2018 15-team mixed NFBC leagues which used a $1000 FAAB budget. Owners are going to need to convert these values to their own league.
• The ownership values were taken from Saturday and lots can happen in between when they publish and FAAB bids run.
• Only players owned in 50% or fewer of CBS leagues are examined.

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Angels

• David Fletcher lost his hold on the leadoff spot to Kole Calhoun and Brian Goodwin by hitting .250/.294/.313 over the last month.
• Luis Rengifo has started 14 straight games while just hitting .246/.328/.366.
• Matt Thaiss has started four of the last five games (three at third base) while hitting .208/.300/.453 over the last month.

Astros

• The lineup remains consistent. Some changes happened while Alex Bregman dealt with a sore shoulder.
• Josh Reddick plays three games and then sits for one.
• Aledmys Díaz has taken over the utility role since returning from the IL while hitting .235/.341/.412 in 41 PA.

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Every week for Sportsline, I write an article on available starting pitching and I lucked into a nice find. Using the criteria of owned in 60% or fewer leagues, increasing ownership, and they’ve never been profiled, Joe Ross met the criteria. I noticed Joe Ross reinvented himself as noted here by MLBDream.

Joe Ross throwing a curveball [h/t @jeffwzimmerman] and upping his sinker usage

👀 @JSpauny 👀 pic.twitter.com/LtkrEQc1CI

— MLBdream (@MLBdream) August 14, 2019

Today, I going to go through some lowly owned starters (in the majors and not on the IL) and see if any have made any positive or negative changes to their repertoire to utilize for the final quarter or the season. I’m going to look at pitchers owned in 16% to 30% of Fantrax leagues (Joe Ross was at 31% ownership).

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Today’s list is a weird group of players. Most should have been dropped last week once the ramifications of the trade deadline were known. Discrepancy Theory #1 is that about 20% of the owners blew off the post-trade deadline FAAB period (tough to miss this one) and finally caught up. If there was any week to be paying attention, it was the previous bidding period.

Or Theory #2 is that these owners were sheep waiting to see what other owners did with their drops. Most of the drops (e.g Tim Beckham) I would consider obvious, but maybe these owners need confirmation on making their moves. Or they use the platform’s ownership rate to see who to drop. I’m not sure if it’s wrong or right to wait a week on dropping someone. Waiting might be the correct move. It’s interesting and I’ll ponder the delay a bit more.

Also, if anyone happened to missed the last few articles, I’ve been trying to improve this article’s content. The major change is that I’m concentrating on players dropped in six to nine leagues. For now, this range seems the most useful for fantasy owners.

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For those few owners with any FAAB left, it looks to be another interesting week of bidding with The Punisher likely getting the top bid. Besides Aristides Aquino, some other players should face a high demand with J.D. Davis and Mike Tauchman on the hitting side and Aaron Sanchez and Aaron Civale on the pitching front. Besides the top adds, check-in on several bullpens to see if there is anyone to add.

The projection guidelines:

• The ownership rates are from CBS since they have some quickdraw waiver wire leagues where players can be picked up at any time.
• The FAAB estimates are based on the 2018 15-team mixed NFBC leagues which used a $1000 FAAB budget. Owners are going to need to convert these values to their own league.
• The ownership values were taken from Saturday and lots can happen in between when they publish and FAAB bids run.
• Only players owned in 50% or fewer of CBS leagues are examined.

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Angels

• Overall, it has been consistent for weeks but with Andrelton Simmons on the IL, David Fletcher has been the full-time shortstop and Matt Thaiss has taken over at third. While a 35% K% will limit Thaiss’s AVG (and OBP), he has shown some power hitting five homers in 65 PA.

Astros

• The lineup is the same with Josh Reddick getting most of the starts (13 if 16) in right-field.

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