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Each week I look at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 20% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy Pros) with a few extra sub 10% discount options at the end, pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

Let’s highlight my ten favorite starting pitcher options that may be available on your waiver wires, ordered by ownage %:

Under 20% owned

Tyler Mahle (Cincinnati Reds) – There’s good reason to be repulsed by Mahle in standard leagues. He’s allowed four earned runs or more in five of his last eight games. Mahle is wildly prone to the longball with his current 1.60 HR/9 sitting lower than 2018’s mark. His pair of secondary pitches are far from consistent, leaving his strong fastball on its own often in outings. Despite all these shortcomings, Mahle still possesses the upside to carry his 25% strikeout rate through the season with an impressive 5% walk rate that will tamper his WHIP to an acceptable level. And hey, there’s a chance his deuce and split-change develop further and Mahle improves to his current 3.71 SIERA. With his excellent strikeout rate sticking through it all, that’s worth a shot.

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An all-Orioles edition of the deep league waiver wire?! YOU BETCHA! While stinky teams are no fun to root for, there are certainly benefits to following them as a fantasy owner. That’s because a stinky team is likely composed of a slew of stinky players, and those stinky players are likely to get replaced by other, hopefully better, players. That time has come, as two new arrivals have made their way to Baltimore with an expectation of every day at-bats in the near-term.

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This past week’s Sunday night’s FAAB bidding was fairly calm after FAAB-ageddon. Even with else action, I find some of the drops interesting.

Note: Normally, I focus on players dropped in 10 or more leagues of the 38 but the five players dropped in nine leagues are the most interesting so I included them.

Injured

• Wilmer Flores (27): Fractured foot means bye-bye.
• Andrelton Simmons (20): I held onto Simmons utilizing the following news. Rostering him with limited roster space comes down to how many other injured players are on the team.

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I’m dragging right since I’m been dealing with groundwater flooding in my basement.  The analysis will be short to non-existent. I will provide the projected FAAB values along with last week’s bids and the bids from a year ago.

The 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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Each week I look at the collection of starting pitchers owned in under 20% of leagues (consensus Yahoo/ESPN ownership from Fantasy Pros) with a few extra sub 10% discount options at the end, pointing out the options to consider if you need an extra arm or two at the end of your staff.

Let’s highlight my ten favorite starting pitcher options that may be available on your waiver wires, ordered by ownage %:

Under 20% owned

Tyler Mahle (Cincinnati Reds, 12%) – It’s rare to see an arm with a 3.51 ERA and comparable SIERA and FIP this wildly available, but Mahle and his fantastic 26% strikeout rate are out on many wires and ready to join your squad. Paired with a fantastic 5% walk rate, Mahle has the peripherals to back up what has the makings of a breakout 2019 campaign. I’m not entirely convinced that his new curveball and splitter combination is enough in his back pocket to complement his excellent high-four-seam approach, though nine games of success should be enough to convince those in need to take a chance, especially after he survived his latest test against the Dodgers.

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Last week was seemingly historic for the number of prospects we opened our FAAB wallets for, but that doesn’t mean there’s no one left to fill your deep league roster holes. Another day means more injuries, and these two could benefit.

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With FAAB-ageddon over, it’s time to see who were the most dropped players in the 38 NFBC Main Event leagues.

Injury

• Jonathan Loaisiga (32): Shoulder issues have him out at least two months.
• Miguel Andujar (29): Out for the season with shoulder surgery.
• Anibal Sanchez (18): All ready barely startable and the injury made him expendable.
• David Robertson (18): Non-closer on the IL is worthless.
• Jed Lowrie (17): Bum knee and hamstring.

Demoted

• Teoscar Hernandez (22): I was using him as a spot starter on a couple of my teams hoping he’d get hot. It was nice to have the Blue Jays to make the decision to move on for me.
• Jeimer Candelario (20): Another borderline talent coming into the season who was sent down.

Note: In “The Process”, we wrote: “Any major leaguer with an OPS below .635 looks to be below average and could be replaceable.” Candelario was at .573 and Hernandez was at .562. The current low OPS list (min 100 PA) is littered with hitters who have been demoted (Justin Bour and Mallex Smith) or “injured” (Travis Shaw and Ender Inciarte). Any player under a .635 OPS and especially a .600 OPS could be at risk for losing their job.

• Nick Margevicius (16): Optioned to the minors with his 4.96 ERA and matching ERA estimators.
• Delino DeShields (14): A .605 OPS (see the above Note).
• Garrett Hampson (14): A .493 OPS (see the above Note).
• A.J. Minter (13): BS + L = 5. W + HLD + SV = 4. 9.32 ERA. Not the numbers a team wants from their closer.
• Kelvin Gutierrez (11): Nicky Lopez gets the call, Gutierrez heads down.

Other

• Francisco Cervelli (17): He’s not hitting (.505) and losing playing time to Elias Diaz (.537 OPS). It’s a pillow fight between these two.
• Aledmys Diaz (16): He could have been placed under the Injury heading since a hamstring issue may bench him some this week. And Jose Altuve may be back at the week’s end killing all of Diaz’s current fantasy value.
• Nick Kingham (15): He was demoted mid-week to the bullpen but now he may be starting on Wednesday.
• Brandon Kintzler (14): This Saves grab didn’t pan out.
• Derek Holland (14): Moved to the bullpen after struggling (7.36 ERA).
• Ryan O’Hearn (13): While his .648 OPS is above the demotion line, he’s useless to fantasy owners.
• Erik Swanson (13): Nine runs in three innings in his last start. He can’t even be streamed at this point.
• Eric Thames (12): He’s played in 18 games this month and started in only nine of them. The results (.189/.434/.270) are Joey Votto-ish.
• Austin Hedges (11): There are even a baseline catcher hitting thresholds and a .531 OPS doesn’t cut it.
• John Means (11): One start this week at Colorado. A reasonable drop but might be a cheap add later if he gets pounded.
• Julio Urias (11): Administrative leave for domestic battery.
• Junior Guerra (11):’He’s got a couple of Saves but Josh Hader looks to be the closer.
• Lou Trivino (11): Some owners were slow at dropping Trivino after picking him up when Blake Treinen had an injury scare.
• Emilio Pagan (10): Not the official closer but might get 10 Saves with elite counting stats (13.5 K/9, 0.68 WHP, and 0.61 ERA).
• Ian Kennedy (10): Another potential closer in which some owners were tired of holding on to.
• Jackie Bradley Jr. (10): A .421 OPS
• Jeremy Hellickson (10): Owners who took the Hellickson two-step were rewarded with a 4 K’s, 2.13 WHIP, and 9.00 ERA. Congrats.
• Trevor Cahill (10): I was looking to add Cahill when possible this past FAAB period. While I’m not keen on his matchup this week (home versus Minnesota), he has a nice two-step at Oakland and at Seattle next week.

Here are the players dropped in five or more leagues.

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This week’s mixed league FAAB run, especially in The NFBC where Corbin Martin is still available, will have the most money spent that I can ever remember. It reminds of an Only league at the trade deadline. There are just so many moving parts. I’m going to try to cover it all but let me know if any questions come up and I’ll try to answer them.

The 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.

Read the rest of this entry »