Big Kid Adds (Week 8)
While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even a larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They were originally named “High Stakes Leagues” and this year there are ten of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers try to gain any advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in five or more leagues.
Batters
Luke Raley (8): Raley’s playing time has shot up with Sam Haggerty on the IL and Raley playing some first base (6 games). A .397 BABIP (career .332 BABIP) has him hitting .311/.343/.456 with 3 HR and 3 SB. He seems to have sacrificed some power (91.1 AvgEV to 88.5 AvgEV, 13% Barrel% to 5% Barrel%) for a level swing (17 degLA to 10 degLA, 42% GB% to 51% GB%) and more contact (64% Contact% to 72% Contact%, 32% K% to 25% K%). Without elite power, the level swing helps him max out his talent.
While Raley is now facing lefties, he’ll struggle against them (career .587 OPS vs LHP, .790 OPS vs RHP).
Overall, he has to be added now to see if the adjustments are legit.
Jake Meyers (8): Some Davis Schneider vibes surround Meyers. Both were hitting above league average (Meyers 152 wRC+, Schneider 138 wRC+), but their respective teams refused to play them. Schneider is finally getting the opportunity and just this past couple of weeks, Meyers got his (seven starts over eight games).
For the season, Meyers is hitting a respectable .290/.355/.530 (.329 BABIP) with 5 HR and 2 SB. He dealt with shoulder issues the past two seasons but is now posting similar stats to his rookie season. Over the previous two seasons, he’s struggled to recover from his 2022 shoulder injury while posting a combined .647 OPS over that time frame.
I took a chance on him getting healthy in several leagues, but his playing time dried up when he struggled over the first two weeks (.192/.250/.423). Since then, he is hitting .324/.390/.568.
Even this increase in playing time comes with some trepidation. Chas McCormick (.603 OPS) and José Abreu (.269 OPS) are both about to return to the team.
Luis Matos (7): With Jung Hoo Lee 이정후 out for the season, Matos is now the default centerfielder. In 30 PA, he is hitting .333/.333/.633 in the majors with 2 HR and an insane 17 RBI! The results are a surprise after he hit just .218/.308/.355 over 143 PA in the offensive-happy Pacific Coast League (PCL).
To understand the type of player he is, here is a look at his Steamer600 comps.
These well-rounded hitters won’t win a category on their own. When provided with full-time at-bats, they can be nice bench-streaming options.
In other weeks with multiple new targets, Ramos’s bids would not be so high. He’s probably just a 15-team regular. In one of the 12-team high-stakes leagues, he went for $22 with no backup bid. He just happened to be the best option in a down week.
Jordan Beck (7): It’s tough to get too excited over a hitter with a 39% K% and no walks so far, but some fantasy managers are diving in. Since May 11th, Beck had been on fire hitting .300/.300/.567 with 2 HR and 1 SB in 30 PA. At the end of this hot streak, he’s moved up to hitting seventh instead of ninth.
For at least the next month, the Rockies play one series at home each week and one on the road, so the managers are adding in the hope that he’s startable on the road.
Kevin Pillar (7): Are we sure this isn’t a typo? So far this season, Pillar was released by the lowly White Sox and then the Angels added him to their roster. In 45 PA with the Angels, he is hitting .442/.467/.744 (.521 BABIP) with 3 HR and 4 SB. Yes, he’s on a hot streak, but the 35-year-old has hit a combined .239/.279/.432 over the past four seasons. Also, he’s on the short side of a platoon with nine starts in 18 games. Finally, he’s never shown signs of a positive BABIP as seen by his career .289 mark.
There is no reasonable reason to be rostering Pillar in the year 2024.
Miguel Vargas (7): While the 24-year-old was destroying the PCL (.295/.436/.583), his major league promotion points to him being the bench outfielder with Andy Pages, Jason Heyward, and Teoscar Hernández being the outfield regulars with Enrique Hernández getting part-time at-bats.
Without the playing time, Vargas has zero fantasy value.
Nick Gonzales (5): After crushing AAA (.358/.431/.608), the former 7th overall pick is up in the majors and hitting fine (.265/.297/.471 with 2 HR and 1 SB). In the 10 games he’s played since being recalled, he’s started in nine of them.
His projections expect 12 HR and 5 SB with a .240 AVG over 600 PA. Those stats are nearly useless except to fill in as an injury replacement.
If rostered, look to upgrade.
Javier Báez (5): If fantasy managers take a chance on Gonzales, they might as well try rostering Baez. Baez’s struggles continue with his .510 OPS with 1 HR but 6 SB. It’s possible fantasy managers used the last 7-day option to find that he is on a roll. Over the last seven games, he’s hitting .333/.333/.482.
The rebound could be from his BABIP normalizing from .207 before the hot stretch to .391 since it started. During those same stretches, he cut his strikeout rate from 21% to 15%.
I could see using Baez as an injury replacement to see if this small turnaround is for real.
Willie Calhoun (5): Leave it to the Angels to find a way to start Calhoun in 16 of 17 games while primarily batting him cleanup. Over the 29-year-old’s career, he has posted a .257 BABIP. This season it’s a .339 BABIP leading to .323/.338/.508 with 1 HR and 0 SB. Besides the BABIP, he’s cut his strikeout rate from 13% to 9%.
Besides years of below-average production (career 87 wRC+), he’s Utility-only qualified with just one game at first base.
Colt Keith (5): After struggling in March and April with a .387 OPS, he has a .811 OPS this month. He’s hitting more (.192 BABIP to .389 BABIP) with more power (.011 ISO to .075 ISO) and fewer strikeouts (18% K% to 11% K%). Even with the improvements, he has yet to hit a home run.
Mike Yastrzemski (5): He has been on the strong side of a platoon for most of the season. With Jung Hoo Lee on the IL, Yastrzemski started against the last lefty the team faced.
He’s in his hottest stretch of the season with just a .779 OPS over the last 12 games. A warm cromulent body.
Otto Lopez (6): Lopez has nine straight starts at second base while hitting .296/.339/.519 with 3 HR and 2 SB. Projections love his batting average with a range of .270 AVG to .281 AVG. Where they disagree is with his home run power.
While his 7 degLA is not ideal and leads to a 53% GB%, he’s hitting the ball hard (11% Barrel%, 51% HH%, 109 MaxEV). The projections don’t believe the power increase is real and maintain he’s a high batting average, low power threat.
He came out of nowhere, but between the volume and balanced production, I bet he’ll start flying off the waiver wire.
Starters
In these deeper leagues, there are no starters available. In my 12-team leagues, Patrick Sandoval was the prize this week. In leagues where no decent starters are available, I’m filling out my rotation with bullpen starters. These starters have been decent this season but have been forced to the bullpen because of full healthy rotations. The two guys I’m hoarding are Hayden Wesneski (possibly now) and Spencer Turnbull. Other options are Ben Brown (I think Wesneski gets the first shot at the rotation), Albert Suárez 수아레즈, and Nick Martinez (already back in the rotation).
I prefer these stashes over minor leaguers or guys on the IL because, in a pinch, they can be inserted into a weekly rotation while helping a team’s ratios and adding a few counting stats. A team doesn’t need to roster each of these guy, but I find them superior to other options.
Trevor Rogers (5): Rogers has not been helpful this season with a ratio killing 5.79 ERA and 1.76 WHIP. The hope is that his .360 BABIP would regress bringing both ratios down. A 4.1 BB/9 will keep both elevated and the WHIP might remain unrosterable.
Also, he’s not improving, but getting worse with a 3.87 xFIP in April and a 5.23 xFIP in May. A roster-and-bench.
Relievers
Adam Ottavino (6): With Edwin Díaz removed from the closer’s role, managers assumed Ottavino would take over the job.
| Name | Leagues Added | High Winning Bid | Low Winning Bid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luke Raley | 8 | 49 | 4 |
| Jake Meyers | 8 | 21 | 1 |
| Luis Matos | 7 | 84 | 17 |
| Jordan Beck | 7 | 36 | 10 |
| Kevin Pillar | 7 | 31 | 1 |
| Miguel Vargas | 7 | 26 | 6 |
| Adam Ottavino | 6 | 41 | 11 |
| Otto Lopez | 6 | 27 | 1 |
| Nick Gonzales | 5 | 45 | 4 |
| Trevor Rogers | 5 | 19 | 5 |
| Willie Calhoun | 5 | 15 | 4 |
| Colt Keith | 5 | 13 | 3 |
| Mike Yastrzemski | 5 | 10 | 1 |
| Javier Baez | 5 | 7 | 1 |
| Ben Lively | 4 | 52 | 4 |
| J.P. Crawford | 4 | 45 | 7 |
| Reed Garrett | 4 | 41 | 15 |
| A.J. Puk | 4 | 25 | 3 |
| Dylan Moore | 4 | 21 | 1 |
| Patrick Sandoval | 4 | 19 | 3 |
| Jake Bauers | 4 | 16 | 9 |
| Miguel Sano | 4 | 10 | 5 |
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Hi Jeff, Great column, but since you are by definition working with mostly less-known players, could you stick their team names into your comments? Thanks.
Respectfully, just Google the player’s name and you’ll figure it out pretty easily. And most of the names are hyperlinked to the player page. Just click the name.
You really should not have to go elsewhere to learn that info — even rabid fans cannot keep track of the teams of every guy being picked up in FAB runs in 15 team leagues. But to be fair to Jeff, this is an issue industry-wide — the writers are so deep in their knowledge, they forget an average reader cannot quite be sure where a Nick Gonzales or a Luke Raley has landed for 2024 (and if you expect the reader to infer it from the blurb’s reference to a guy like Sam Haggerty competing for playing time with Raley, you are really deep in the weeds).
Disagree. Hitting a hyperlinked player name is as easy as it gets. Including the team name for every player detracts from time and effort spent on more valuable content / analysis. A fantasy player in deep leagues should absolutely be expected to learn MLB player teams. And I suspect better fantasy players make that effort by performing their own very easy, cursory analysis (simply looking at player pages and stats).
The idea that including a two or three letter team abbreviation the first time a player’s name is used in an article like this (I.e., Luke Raley (TB)) would detract from anybody’s reading time and effort is just not credible.
Contrast that with what has to happen to look up the player’s team — hover over and click on the hyperlink, wait for the browser to display a new page tab, click on the tab once displayed, wait for the browser to resolve the new page, locate the team info on the page, hover and click the tab delete X on the new page, wait for the browser to delete the page and resolve and display the original page, and re-find the spot I was reading. Perhaps your laptop is more responsive than mine, but that is at least a 10 second operation for me even if I am efficient. If I have to do that several times in an article (and I often do) just to remember what team a player is on, it definitely detracts from the user experience.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
Manually adding team abbreviations for every player takes more time than clicking on the player name. Since presumably, a reader isn’t interested in every player listed. Having the author add this would absolutely take time that could be spent penning another blurb. Helpful hint: right-click the player link and open a new tab. Whatever painful, time consuming process you just listed is not the common experience. Literally just took me 3 seconds to open a player page. The team name is the first thing listed, right under the player name. Sorry man, but if you don’t learn most of the teams for most of the players in a deep fantasy league, then you’re putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage anyway. And you want a single fantasy author to spend more time to bridge that gap? I don’t want this game to be inaccessible. But Christ, we’re on fangraphs. Clicking through stats and research content is what this site is about!
Anybody got too much time on their hands bitching about not having enough time on their hands? Geez