I’ve been going over lineups at the end of each week for about a month now. I’ve found doing the entire league at the same time is too much for several reasons. From now one, I’m going to take turns between leagues.

Big Five

• Michael Taylor and his 17 stolen bases may be headed to the bench or another team.
• Maikel Franco is riding-the-pine-for-nine since J.P. Crawford has returned from the DL.
• Scott Schebler has heated up over the last 28 days (.329/.406/.494) and is now the Reds leadoff hitter.
• Jon Jay is now the Diamondbacks everyday leadoff hitter.
• Dominic Smith is starting at first base for the Mets but doesn’t hit well enough to be major league first baseman.

Braves

• They are completely set in their ways with a constant lineup. A future change is Ronald Acuna coming off the DL and replacing Charlie Culberson.

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Teams are beginning to make the hard call if they are going to buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. I’ll start investigating the players most likely to be traded, how their value will change, and their possible replacements. I’m not going to make the call on who is or isn’t going to be moved. I’m going to rely on the great writers at MLBTradeRumors.com and use their top-50 trade candidate list. I’ll start with the top five players.

1. Manny Machado

Machado is nearly a perfect trade chip. A complete hitter who can play either shortstop or third base. I can’t envision a single scenario where his value takes a hit. He may end up in a pitcher-friendly park but he’ll be hitting in the middle of a better lineup. It can’t be worse than Baltimore’s lineup.

Every single contending team could use Machado as an upgrade while some teams need him worse. Trying to pick a destination right now is about impossible. I’m a little worried he’s more likely headed to the National League for those owners with him in AL-only leagues. I don’t see Baltimore trading him to the Yankees or Red Sox to help them win a World Series.

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A few years back, I created a system to help me find under the radar prospects using just position, age at the level, and minor league production (wRC+). I wanted a system besides industry lists to use in dynasty leagues and it worked fine. At the same time though, FanGraphs hired this guy named Chris Mitchel and he created KATOH. His system quickly outperformed mine, so instead of trying to keep up, I asked him to join my fantasy teams. With Chris now gone, my old system is back and running to help find some diamonds in the rough.

As I previously stated, the rankings are just based on age at the level, position, and production. The final value created by the program approximates the players value based on lining up the player to actual prospect grades (80 = MVP, <20 = minor league filler). Obviously, the ranking isn’t close to the final say but I find some hitters before other do.

Note: If any player type seems misplaced, let me know. From eye-balling some values, catchers may be getting too much of a position adjustment.

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In my chat last night, I got several questions on Joey Votto and his power loss. I decided I investigate the drop along with several other regulars who currently have an isolated power (ISO) less than their projected Steam projections.

To get a list of hitters, I took the hitter with a least 150 PA this season and compared their projected and actual ISO’s. Here the top 20.

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Big Five Value Movers

1. Danny Valencia looks to be hitting fulltime in Baltimore.
2. Greg Bird is batting 3rd for the Yankees.
3. Cleveland’s and Houston’s outfields are in flux with players returning from the DL.
4. Heyward and Almora are playing fulltime with the Cubs.
5. Joe Panik is leading off for the Giants.

Angels

• I can’t believe the lack of talent surrounding Mike Trout. In their last game, the Angels figured Martin Maldonado was their fifth best hitter.
• For the few fantasy-relevant hitters on this team, they are set at the lineup’s top except Albert Pujols who has been dealing with an ankle injury the past few years days.

Astros

• Josh Reddick’s return has caused a ripple effect with Tony Kemp, Jake Marisnick, and Marwin Gonzalez each seeing their playing time cut. For now, I would stay away from them all.
• Evan Gattis is back to being the permanent DH. After struggling out of the gate, he has hit .286/.350/.714 over the past month with nine home runs.

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The MLB Draft is unique in that it happens during the season. For the football and basketball drafts, they happen well before the season starts because the players can contribute for the upcoming season. With baseball, the odds are against one single player getting the call this season. That doesn’t mean fantasy owners, especially those in keeper and dynasty formats, shouldn’t possibly be making some moves depending on their needs.

The biggest key for anyone considering rostering a just drafted player, know your league rules. First, some leagues may not allow the drafted players to be rostered until the next offseason draft. Other leagues don’t allow owning a player until they’ve at least played a minor or major league game. In some other leagues, the players are rosterable this next FAAB period. Each one is unique. Let me start the discussion with the last league type.

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I’m going to blame Mark Melancon. I started out yesterday with the hope of writing about him. The article was selfish because I took a chance on Hunter Strickland before he was named the closer and my gamble paid off. With Melancon back, I wanted to see if his reduced velocity cutter would still be useful. And that was as far as I got with the article.

I was sick of thinking about fantasy baseball.  The problem is that when your livelihood requires continuous fantasy baseball content, this sickness can’t last. I tried to move onto another topic with no luck. After a few unproductive hours, mainly wasted on Twitter discussing valuing player risk, I just gave up. The dog days of summer hit me head on and I lost.

This event usually occurs me a couple times during the summer with content and demands coming at me constantly. I approach them two ways. Either I just power on and produce 20-grade material or beg my bosses for a break. As this article demonstrates, I am going with the first approach.

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Batter production can roller coaster up-and-down during a season and many times the player’s production eventually stabilizes at an expected level. But sometimes a hitter intentionally or unintentionally changes his plate approach to achieve a new talent level. I’m going to examine three top hitters, Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jose Altuve, and why their struggles are caused by changes in approach.

Over my years of research, I’ve found three main items which point to a true talent change, swinging at pitches out of the strike zone, hitting pitches in the strike zone, and groundball rate (verified with launch angle). When one of these items change, the hitter’s production should also change. Luck could still be a factor in the short run but given enough time, there will be a new output level.

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