Pardon the brief intro, but I’m coming to you live from Disney World! I wanted to give you a few guys to look for on your waiver wires this weekend!

Mike Tauchman OF – NYY | 141 wRC+

With the absurd number of injuries that have struck the Yankees, it’s kind of surprising that Tauchman is just now breaking through. He got some playing time in April, but couldn’t make it happen, posting just a .177/.282/.387 line as a .211 BABIP held him back. He has become a lineup staple since the All-Star break and he’s absolutely raking. He has a .413/.471/.825 line with 6 HR and 4 SB in 70 PA and I’m sure Alex Chamberlain’s wife is tired of hearing about his crush’s numbers every night! With Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks on the IL, Tauchman’s playing time should be solidified for the foreseeable future. Buy!

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8/8/19

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Mitch Keller recalled (1:25)

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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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8/7/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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Paul looks at the remaining August schedules and highlights some potential streamers so you can get a leg up before they are front and center on the waiver wire.

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As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us or comment with fantasy questions.

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Approximately 36 minutes of joyous analysis.

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I had some doubts about this list’s usefulness a couple of weeks back and yesterday I tried to find ways to improve it. I came to the conclusion that players in the 10% to 25% dropped range were the most interesting. This works out to players dropped in four to nine leagues. Before, I was just looking at those in 10 or more leagues. I was way off target.

After looking over the players, I’m going to squeeze the range a little more from those dropped in six to nine leagues which works out to 34 players this week. I’d like to focus on 20 or so players each week but know that there was a post-deadline frenzy pushing the total up.
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The Orioles season in a nutshell:

DJ Stewart: Major League Baseball Player. pic.twitter.com/zqCdGBhtRF

— Dead Serious (@Deadseriousness) August 7, 2019

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8/6/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
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• @jasoncollette – Co-Host

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Josh Bell getting a rest (1:20)
• Jose Leclerc returns to closer role (7:43)
• Kolby Allard debuting Friday (8:00)

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First, sorry about no drop list article last week… more on that later. Second, today’s experiment stems from HappyFunBall’s comment from a couple of weeks ago.

I was well into the analysis last week and found I was not answering the right question and had the wrong data. The drop comparisons need to be a little forward-looking, not backward. The data collected from the sites was after the NFBC FAAB ran. The other sites I used allow daily or quick-draw pickups, so some of the news from the Monday was getting baked in. I wanted the rates to be taken from similar timeframes.

My original question focused on which players I should analyze so owners can gain an edge. The edge could be knowing who to drop because they are no longer fantasy-viable. Also, the hope is to find some players whose owners gave up too early on. The hope is that one of the other platforms can provide more insight than the NFBC Main Event.

Several issues exist with this study. First, it’s just one week and a busy week at that with the trade deadline. The increased activity may help to offset the lack of moves since it’s later in the season. I’m not 100% sure but I may run the same analysis again but I need to do it before the head-to-head playoff start and main teams get abandoned.

Finally, the table is a mess. A big one. What Happy Fun Ball and I hoped for didn’t materialize but a few interesting observations can be made.

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Taking a closer look at what drove the biggest risers in my latest SP rankings.

Jeff Samardzija, SF | +65 to 52nd

For those of you who don’t have Shark on a team or aren’t familiar with his numbers this year, take a quick guess at his ERA and WHIP on the season. You may be surprised to learn that he’s at 3.70 ERA and 1.16 WHIP in his 126.3 innings of work. He isn’t just leveraging Oracle Park, either. His home/road splits are very close as his ERA is just 0.25 points higher on the road while his WHIP is actually 0.05 points lower. He is carrying a heavy platoon split (LHB are +186 in OPS at .803) so you might be careful with him in switch/lefty-heavy matchups like Arizona (potentially 6 switch/lefty batters on any given day).

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Kevin Pillar is just unreal:

Could Kevin Pillar BE any more like Superman?
#Friends25 | #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/9PAsCqvcTt

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) August 6, 2019

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