In my chat last night, I felt I was not informed enough on a few players and I am going to examine a couple today, Luke Voit and Billy McKinney. Both are producing and playing regularly with their new teams. They could be a couple nice sleepers in deeper leagues over the season’s last month.

Luke Voit

I laughed when Yankees picked up Voit from the Cardinals at the trade deadline. I figured they’d make an impactful move, which wasn’t Voit. I’ve been wrong so far.

In his first 20 games with the Yankees, the 27-year-old first baseman started just four of them. In the last four, he’s started three going seven for 11 with three homers. On the season, he’s hitting .325/.400/.625 supported by a .444 BABIP.

Before getting too far along finding a value for Voit, a quick Greg Bird detour needs to be made. Simply, he has been horrible hitting just .199/.288/.390 on the season. The playoff-bound Yankees can’t expect to make it far in the playoff with a first baseman hitting like a catcher. I additionally checked to see if Bird was nursing an injury and nothing. It seems like Voit may have won the first base job. At least until reality sets in. While Gary Sanchez may return and play some first base, I will just assume Voit will have the full-time role until he doesn’t.

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With the non-waiver trade deadline over, it’s time to focus on mixed-league actionable moves. With most of the trades, a player’s value didn’t change enough to make a roster transaction. For example, Chris Archer was owned in all leagues before the trade from the Rays to Pirates and will be owned in all leagues after the trade. Many of the biggest trades are just mixed-league irrelevant. I ranked the players who should be moving on and off rosters in the next few days as the dust settles.

Note: I’m 100% sure I missed something obvious. There was just a ton of moves. I will update this article as I find more players or my obvious errors are pointed out.

Top Gainers (Waiver Wire Targets)

• Jose Leclerc (Rangers): After the trade of Keone Kela to the Pirates and Jake Diekman to the Diamondbacks, the Rangers have a new closer. The 24-year-old righty has been a dominant setup man this year with a 12.7 K/9 and 2.27 ERA and should be a fine closer. There is a chance Alex Claudio gets this role.

• Kirby Yates (Padres): If owners were reluctant to roster own him with the chance he’d also get traded, they can pick him up now.

• Mychal Givens (Orioles): With Brad Brach, Darren O’Day, and Zach Britton traded away, Givens is in line for a handful of Saves.

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The phrase “Buying Low” gets thrown around in the baseball community. I’m not sure if owners can actually buy low on many of these frustrating but talented players. Owners need to be willing to sell. I going to try to redefine the concept of buying low concentrating on drop rates and go over a few potential targets.

When I hear or read about buying low on a player, the touts are focusing on buying a good player during a cold streak. Paul Goldschmidt fits this label with his .208/.324/.380 slash line. Owners paid first round prices for replacement level production. But are Goldschmidt’s owners selling low? Probably not.

Going over some recent trades at the Yahoo trade tracker, Goldschmidt is being traded straight up for players such as Clayton Kershaw, Joey Votto, Patrick Corbin, and Shohei Ohtani.

His value is down some (and should be with the K% spike) but not horribly. He’s still owned in 99%+ of leagues at ESPN, Yahoo, Fantrax, and CBS. Even the most frustrated owners in shallow leagues aren’t moving on. So why should owners focus their time and energy on players who even the most frustrated owners aren’t moving on with?

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Masahiro Tanaka decided to create more questions than answers in my life. I just released my first 2018 pERA run and Tanaka’s pitches and control point to a 2.88 ERA but he’s posting one nearly two points higher at 4.95. I dove into his stats hoping to find a simple answer, instead, I found someone struggling out of the stretch while throwing harder. While it explains his struggles, I am not sure any of it matters. At least not yet.

The first item I checked for with ERA and estimators diverge is a high BABIP which was only at .243, about 30 points lower than his career average (.276). Nope, not BABIP.

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Andrew Heaney

The Andrew Heaney breakout is in full swing with him posting a 10.3 K/9 and a 3.35 ERA. It was tough to find any support for a Heaney breakout going into this season with his injury history and subpar 2017 production.

Heaney’s health has been the number one concern since having Tommy John surgery early in 2016.

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A week ago, I examined how prospect rankings could add more context to hitter projections. It’s time to take the research a step further by dividing up the prospect list to see if projections can be refined. And they can be.

Initially, I shied away from dividing up the prospect lists because the sample size quickly gets into single digits. I started dissecting the data hoping to keep reasonable sample sizes. I sort of achieved my goal.

I used the same parameters in the last article. I compared a hitter’s Steamer projected OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) from 2010 to 2017 to the actual results in their debut season. To designate prospects, I used Baseball America’s top-100 which has been compiled since 1990. I collected the average and median change in OPS. The median value helps to smooth out any major outliers.

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My focus is on lineup position and the amount of regular play each hitter get. I’m not concentrating on positions played. Also, if a team isn’t listed, I didn’t find any new information.

Note: I highlighted what I consider to be the seven most important findings.

Angels

• Zack Cozart’s value is taking a major hit as he’s been drawing the short straw when Shohei Ohtani DH’s.

Astros

• Evan Gattis owners may need to start looking for a replacement as his struggles with the bat (.187/.260/.275) has led to him starting three times in the last 10 games.

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As a Royals fan, I try my hardest to not roster any to make sure I limit my hometown bias. Two bats, Alex Gordon and Jorge Soler, are heating up to the point they are being rostered in 15-team leagues and even some shallower ones with Soler. It’s time to perform an unbiased examination of the pair.

Alex Gordon

All I’ve been able to hear when Alex Gordon’s name is brought up is:

“F’ it, I guess I’ll take Alex Gordon.”

One of my league mates blurted this statement after struggling to locate an available outfielder in my home AL-only league auction.

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I’m of the belief that there is a group of similarly talented players who owners should keep churning to find the latest true breakout. Lewis Brinson (64% FanTrax ownership) and Jacoby Jones (24% owned) are two such players. While Brinson was part of the draft endgame with a 275 NFBC ADP, Jones was waiver wire fodder in almost every league with an ADP of 660. If given the option, I’d gladly own Jones right now.

What’s wrong with Lewis Brinson?

Brinson has been a highly touted prospect for several seasons with Baseball Prospectus having him on their Top-101 back in the 2013 but he jumped onto all major lists starting in 2016.

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Craig Kimbrel

The Kimbrel discussion starts with this graph:

Plenty of narratives can exist explaining the initial velocity drop. He missed a good part of spring training. The cold weather is keeping his velocity down. He’s still warming up.

The drop doesn’t bother me as much as the trend. If he’s still building strength for the season, shouldn’t his velocity start trending up at some point?

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