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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German’s Home Run Troubles Continue

Domingo Germán came out of the break with six scoreless against Toronto, but has struggled mightily to keep the ball in the yard in his other seven starts. He’s allowed 14 HR in 39.3 innings (3.2 HR/9), including four straight multi-homer outings. The schedule hasn’t been friendly with starts against TB, MIN, BOSx2, and TOR (the baby Jays are 7th in HRs v. righties since the break) not to mention a trip to face the Dodgers on the docket later this week. German could be hitting a wall coming down the stretch of his first full MLB season as a starter. If you need the strikeouts, keep him in the lineup, but if you’re protecting ratios, consider sitting him in these more difficult matchups.

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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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Remember kids, anything is possible:

Albert Pujols robando base > Rickey Henderson robando base. 😅#LasMayores pic.twitter.com/vdoCnkr1WA

— LasMayores (@LasMayores) August 20, 2019

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The 2015 draft started off with a run on college players who have gone on the become solid big league contributors. Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman were then followed by high school infielder Brendan Rodgers, who was selected third overall but has yet to establish himself in the Major Leagues. However, Rodgers has had a taste of big-league action as a member of the Rockies’ 40-man roster.

There many former high school picks from the 2015 draft that have yet to even make it onto a 40-man roster, let alone reach the Majors. And this fall will represent the deadline to add those prep players to the 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 draft in December. Let’s take a look at a few names that could be added to teams’ 40-man rosters and also potentially help fantasy owners in 2020 and beyond.

Tyler Stephenson, C, Reds (AA): The Reds organization lacks a true starting catcher (apologies to Tucker Barnhart) but that could change when Stephenson reaches The Show. He was selected 11th overall in 2015 but, as is often the case, the high school catcher’s development has been a slow one. Stephenson has yet to tap into his raw power potential but he’s posted three straight seasons of offensive results surpassing the league average. Even without the home-run results to show for it, he’s getting stronger and has hit a lot more line drives over the past two seasons. The young catcher also has posted three straight seasons with walk rates above 10%. Along with the patient approach, he shows a good eye and has struck out just 55 times (17% K-rate) in 79 games this year. Stephenson is a tall catcher so it’s taken time for him to show improvements on defense but he has a very strong arm and has used it to throw out 28% of base runners so far this year. There are few concerns about his ability to stick at catcher and be able to play every day.

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Is there a more fun player in baseball?

https://twitter.com/Indians/status/1163149944288661504?s=20

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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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I recently did a solo pod covering my top 30 and I made some mistakes. I didn’t include Madison Bumgarner in the honorable mentions and I forgot to transfer Jose Berrios from the scrap list to the main one I used on the pod (that’s what I get for using two different files). I decided to do a write up and get a bit deeper on the ranking. There are a lot of changes! If you listened to the pod, have fun finding all the differences.

Obviously, they are going to change even more as the season finishes and we get into the offseason, but I was somewhat surprised at how much I changed things over the course of two days just by doing some deeper research. Maybe that’s not surprising at all… of course more research should influence my thoughts on these guys. Anyway, let’s get into it!

Let me know what you think in the comments. There are 52 names listed with the Honorable Mentions (and yes, the HMs are ranked, unlike on the pod), did I miss anyone that has to be within the top 52? As for ranking disagreements, I’m particularly interested in the sharper disagreements (like 7-10 spots). Flipping #22 and #25 is more a personal preference but thinking #30 should be at #19 or something like that is worth some discussion.

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