Let’s once again continue reviewing new everyday starters, but flipping over to the National League.

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The carousel of everyday starters never ends, so instead of jumping to the NL, we’ll continue with the new faces in AL lineups today.

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As we push through the dog days of the summer, the backend teams of the league are churning through their reinforcements, and it is not uncommon to come across someone you just don’t know that well. You might’ve forgotten about them if they were once notable, or they may be deep on prospects lists (if they are listed at all) and you are just wholly unfamiliar with them. Let’s take a closer look at 10 such hitters and see if there might be some fantasy value to uncover.

Jorge Mateo | BAL, OF – 71 wRC+, 2 HR, 8 SB in 129 PA

Mateo might fall under the Yankee Prospect Hype Machine wherein a prospect gets a bit more juice than they deserve simply by being in the Yankees org. He was traded over to Oakland in the Sonny Gray deal where he continued to generate interest but failed to get a chance (even with a rabbit ball-fueled 19 HR season at AAA in 2019). He was traded to a worse situation when the A’s flipped him to San Diego, though he finally debuted in 2020 with a meager 20 wRC+ in 22 PA. A 57 wRC+ in another 57 PA was all San Diego needed before he was selected off waiver by Baltimore.

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With a number of new faces showing up in the starting lineup each day over the last couple of weeks, let’s get back to discussing these new everyday starters. We’ll break it up by AL and NL this time. We’ll start with the AL.

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After spending the first two days of the week reviewing the last 30 day HardHit% gainers, let’s finish by shifting our attention to the other end of the list — the decliners. Yesterday, I discussed the AL guys, so today we’ll flip to the NAL guys and discuss those who have lost the most HardHit% compared to earlier in the season.

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After spending the last two days reviewing the last 30 day HardHit% gainers, let’s now shift our attention to the other end of the list — the decliners. We’ll start with the AL guys and discuss those who have lost the most HardHit% compared to earlier in the season.

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Yesterday, I reviewed and discussed the hitters who had posted the largest HardHit% gains over the last 30 days. In inadvertently filtered for AL batters only, so today, I’ll flip on over to the NL hitters. Remember this HardHit% includes all batted ball types, so an increase shouldn’t necessarily drive a higher HR/FB rate.

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Hitters go through slumps and hot streaks as a normal part of the season. These types of trends are magnified at the beginning of the year, but can easily get overlooked in the middle as a couple of weeks of good or poor performance don’t dramatically change the player’s full season results. It’s difficult to determine whether a hitter on a hot streak has made a legitimate change that has taken his skill level higher or is simply experiencing the standard ebbs and flows of a season. Let’s review the hitters who have posted the largest gains in HardHit% over the last 30 days. We can’t be sure if this is a new skill level, but it could be a sign of just that.

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Just a quick note: This article got “lost” and was not published early last month. The information is still applicable.

Early last month, I was surprised by the scrub hitters being rostered for a game at Colorado.

These hitters would never be considered in a normal week but were assumed to morph into All-Stars. Truthfully, I didn’t have a good way to set an ‘add/no add’ cut-off, so here is my best attempt at a simple solution. I tried to come at the answer several ways, but I think the following procedure would be the easiest to use across most fantasy formats. Read the rest of this entry »

Everywhere you look, there’s a new starter. So let’s keep it going until I run out of names to discuss.

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