Hitters Available Under 40%/Cuttable at 60%+ #5
One issue I’ve had with pick up articles in the past is that so few ever recommend anyone to cut so which is arguably tougher than recommending who to pick. Sure, a player in question should probably be on a roster, but should it be your roster? I have a group of interesting free agents but also a player at each of those positions who you can consider cutting as well.
This article is designed mostly for 10- and 12-team leagues as a lot of these guys aren’t available in 15+ teamers and the recommended cuts are likely worth giving a bit more time to in deeper formats as well. I’m using ESPN’s roster rate for guidance.
Available Under 40% | Cuttable at 60%+
- C Yan Gomes – 4% | Gary Sánchez – 89% (the cut recommendations at this position are for 1-C formats)
Gomes is still in a timeshare with Kurt Suzuki, but he’s doing enough in his time to merit consideration. Over his last 50 plate appearances he’s hitting .362/.400/.617 with 2 HR, 7 RBI, and 8 R. He slots as a top 10 catcher over the last month (9th) and 15-day (6th) periods.
Sanchez was in this spot a week ago and has done nothing to change the outlook, hitting .100/.217/.250 in his last seven games. How is he still toting this high of a roster rate?
- 1B Brandon Belt – 22% | Carlos Santana – 89%
I’m recommending Belt in back-to-back weeks because he’s only gone up four points in roster rate despite continuing to rake with a .429/.556/.786 line including four extra-base hits (3 2B, 1 3B) and a 1:1 K:BB ratio (4 apiece).
Santana hasn’t been able to hold his AVG from 2019 (.281) as he’s hitting a career-low .205 in 162 PA after giving back all the exit velo, Barrel Rate, and hard-hit gains. He’s leading baseball in walks (33) so he’s still delivering value in OBP (.370), but a potential cut in standard setups.
- 2B Kolten Wong – 31% | Mike Moustakas – 83%
Wong has eight games next week with a pair of doubleheaders on the docket for St. Louis so this is definitely a volume play. Wong also seems to be heating up a bit with seven hits in his last three games along with 4 RBI and 5 R in 14 PA.
Moose is laboring through an ugly season and in a normal 6-month season I’d hold out a bit longer, but we don’t have that kind of time. He’s hitting .214/.333/.314 with just 2 HR, 10 RBI, and 5 R in 84 PA.
- 3B Jeimer Candelario – 17% | Eduardo Escobar – 76%
Candy’s surge has been instrumental in the Tigers inexplicably staying in the hunt at .500 as we enter the home stretch. He’s hitting .298/.350/.509 with 13 extra-base hits (4 HR), 17 RBI, and 18 R in 123 PA. He’s been particularly hot the last two weeks with a 1.017 OPS and 3 HR in 57 PA.
Escobar has had a massive falloff from 2019, though his underlying stats don’t match a near-halving of his wRC+ (from 109 to 58). His Barrel and Hard-Hit rates are in line with last year while his strikeout and walk rates are actually both a bit better. All that said, we’re running out of time for things to come back in order so I’m open to cutting him in shallower formats.
- SS Jon Berti – 29% | Jorge Polanco – 88%
Isan Díaz is slated to return after opting back recently, but he’s not back yet so Berti is the man at 2B in the interim. Once Diaz does return, Berti will be a super-utility and play all over the place. He’s doing what many expected Adalberto Mondesi to do. Berti has 8 SBs, 18 R, and even a couple homers.
Generally, I’d want to hold onto any part of the Twins lineup after their 2019 performance, but they’ve fallen off and Polanco’s uninspiring numbers are part of why. The Twins are 20th in wRC+ on the season and Polanco is hitting just .268/.309/.366 with 3 HR and 1 SB in 154 PA.
- OF Tyler Naquin – 5% | Joc Pederson – 72%
Naquin’s season didn’t get started until August 11th and even then, he sputtered a bit in his first seven games with just a .492 OPS, but since then he’s hitting .349/.356/.744 with 4 HR in 45 PA. He’s in a platoon so he sits against lefties, but there are only three on the schedule in their next 10 games.
Pederson is also a platoon bat, but he’s not doing nearly enough against righties to maintain a 72% roster rate in shallow leagues. He’s hitting .189/.298/.389 with 5 HR, 11 RBI, and 17 R in 105 PA. He probably shouldn’t even have a roster rate this high in 15+ team leagues, so it’s definitely far too high for 10- and 12-team setups.
Naquin over Tapia and Pillar?
Maybe I am the high guy on Pillar, but dude has a 108 wRC+ and now plays at Coors. That is a borderline fantasy superstar. Arenados career wRC+ is 119, and it is 85 this year. Obviously Arenados will go up, and Pillars should go down, but if he is a 109 wRC+ guy at Coors that is like a .300 30/10 fantasy superstar.
Except you can’t take what he did in Boston and push it over into Coors. Projections have him at a 91 wRC+, not 108.
91 wrc at Coors is still a good fantasy player. Projections think he hasn’t changed anything but he has upped his walk rate, still chases a lot, but less and is making the best contact of his career. To me I feel like in today’s environment short term noise needs to be examined because of all the technology readily available to players. Besides this is about fantasy. He is basically the perfect Colorado player. Gap to gap good contact, sb going to increase with more plate appearances, etc
I was going to disagree with you but you know. . . .I went and pulled all qualified Rockies seasons the last 20 years and you can indeed find some good seasons that low – 2015 LeMahieu, 2001 Juan Pierre are the only 2 that were exactly 91 & both had good fantasy seasons (though neither is a great comp for Pillar) and there are plenty of other useful seasons around that number with BA in the upper .200’s and R or RBI over 80.
I don’t know, maybe he is playable. . . .
Mostly it’s me wishing it into fruition because I own him in main(s). But he has always been a better fantasy hitter than hitter because of his low walk rate, but letting any pitches go to me is a plus. Dude swings at first pitch curveballs in the dirt all the time. Coors= more at bats. More at bats is likely more counting stats.
Except that isnt how wRC+ works, it is context neutral so 108 is 108 anywhere.
Umm ya lol that is my entire point.
An example that always comes to mind with me. Belt has a higher career wrc+ than Arenado yet outside of obp leagues has basically always been unrosterable (maybe bringing fence in helps) yet Arenado is a top 10 pick every year. Hell even this year Arenados 85 wrc has been the 214th overall in 5×5 vs Belts 235th overall with a 180 wrc. That is entirely the point I am trying to make. Belt has literally been more than twice as good at the plate this year according to wrc and has been worse at fantasy.
An 85wRC+ for Arenado = .261 7 hrs, 17rs, 20rbis where do I sign for that line for Pillar for rest of the reason? Plus stolen baes? That means over the course of a season Arenados 85 wRC+ would be 35 home runs, 100rbis, 85 runs etc. Not quite top 10 pick material, but this is why I was using wRC+ as a baseline for hitters moving to Coors, but not once then are actually at Coors.
Yeah, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say it penalizes Coors players a bit too much.
No disagreement. Who knows what Pillar will do. I do think he is a must play now, though, at least at home. He could go 0-15 vs LAD and that wouldn’t change my opinion. Going from altitude to sea level is crazy. Balls break more, and there is the whole mental thing as well. Anecdotal I used to play in Reno. I’d hit home runs in batting practice (think pre bbcor bats) that would literally leave the entire ballpark and go across the street. Then we’d go play in Portland or heavy air places and I’d tag one in batting practice and it would land on the track, or go off the wall… it messes with your head too. You pull off, you pull more balls, all kinds of bad stuff for hitters (at that level). Course this isn’t MLB level baseball, but it messes with hitters. You fly out to the warning track when you are sure you got it etc.
My opinion is wRC+ for the whole NL west is screwed up because of Coors, i.e the rest of NL west hitters are too high, and Rockies hitters too low. When hitters leave Coors they struggle usually more the first couple games than hitters should. Then when hitters go to Coors they have sea level baseline usually (NL West at least) and they tend to hit better then Rockies hitters do there whose baseline is Coors because they are used to balls not breaking as much or w.e various reasons. But yea, someone should write it up imo. This sort of flies in the face of what I said about Pillar, but I still think Pillar is good enough to own in all 12 teamers.
Someone should write up Pillar or the Coors Hangover Effect? The latter has def been done a good bit
lol, well he better go ham then. Meant more opposing teams, what happens when they go from sea level to there, or after they leave as well. Not a big deal anyhow. I am a fan of chaos though, so I want a Mexico City team to come and make Coors look like Safeco though.
Joc looks mostly like a babip problem, his statcast numbers are pretty much the same as last year, and hes hit pretty well the past couple weeks.
I can see naquin’s merits, but i wouldnt drop Joc for him.
But he doesn’t ever put up good BABIPs so there’s no a lot of movement back to his career numbers
Ugh, I guesssss Sanchez is cuttable in Re-draft leagues.
But I’m eyeing that .133 BABIP, .30-point underperformance of his xWOBA, and still-elite Exit Velo and probably targeting him as a buy-low next year.
Ya I have a hard time with the Sanchez one. He has had months like this every single season of his career. Last year in July he had a -7 wRC+. In 2018 he had a 31wRC+ in June, and a -31 wRC+ in July. Same thing literally every season of his career. He has a months where he looks like he entirely forgot how to hit. Similar in a lot of ways to Upton (who is def a cut last couple years regardless).
Ya but this isn’t a 6-month season
One thing to check is the splits on his grounders/liners/flies to see if a certain category is lagging heavily. If his Liners is below .600 then yes he could have some positive regression but only if his hit tools are there. But otherwise, Sanchez isn’t going to improve much unless his HR/FB increases or his FB% decreases. And it looks like this year his Fb% has increased while his HR/FB has decreased.
Also check if his launch angle is drifting upwards. There was an article a little while ago here about Altuve and his bat angle was drifting upwards and that was a trend that could spell disaster. I think that is also an area to see for Sanchez to determine if his hit tool has changed.
I get your point, but I think comparing it to his entire body of work doesn’t do it justice imo. Try comparing it to his previous awful months (July 2019, June and July 2018) and I’d bet it is pretty similar to what he is doing now. Sanchez has consistently looked lost for long periods of time, then the switch just comes back on again. Sure, I don’t really care about dropping him in a 1 catcher league, w.e, but look at his upcoming schedule and penchant for doing this year in and year out.
With that said, has Altuve been featured here? I think he is an actual cut in 12 teamers .
yeah, it was about what could be causing him to suck and it was related to his bat angle and its drift upwards.
He has not, though there have been a couple other articles about him on FG with I think it was Ariel doing a piece on how inconsistent his contact has been.
I have him and I’m ready to pull the plug. He’s broken. He’s never been an EV All-star per Statcast so to succeed he needs to not strikeout (up this year) and hit tons and tons of line drives (down the last couple years). His plate discipline numbers are all trending the wrong way (more chasing, less contact meaning higher SwStr%).
All the projection systems had him right around a .360 wOBA to start the year. Well ZiPS is down to .330 ROS. Steamer is more optimistic at .343 but man he’s been a hard hold through all the crummy weeks. His numbers have picked up lately but it’s all singles and he has stopped stealing.
Now he’s dinged up and almost certainly not going to play for a few days while sucking up a roster spot. Like I said, I’m ready at this point. . . .
Also ya know the whole cheating thing. Some hitters are going to benefit more, some less. It seems awfully coincidental that the guys that put up huge numbers but sucked via statcast Altuve/Bregman are all doing a lot worse this year. I mean think about those two guys, neither hits the ball very hard, both seem to hit the ball with poor launch and get a ton of just enough home runs. Almost like ya know maybe they know what is coming? And even if it isn’t that and all teams are doing it etc, simply being the face of a scandal probably takes a toll on someone as mentally as well. And remember half of this game is 90% mental.
Enh, I don’t know. Bregman’s numbers aren’t THAT far off what he did last year and his peripherals are pretty identical overall. Plus he’s been dinged up and it’s only 1 month. As for Altuve, if you dig into his numbers he really started to decline last year. This year is just a continuation of that.
He has a good eye. No one was expecting 40 home runs I guess anyhow. He just hit so many balls that landed in the area in lf that would be fly balls in other places. When I picture bregman I picture fly balls eeking out. Who knows. I am low on bregman for sure
What about SPs?
That would be a nice addition, but honestly I’m clutching onto anyone with a pulse at this point in this Old West of a season.
Need a little follow-up on some of these pieces. There have been some good calls (dumping Mondesi for Cronenworth) but the 1st article recommended dumping Yadi for Danny Jansen. There was also a recommendation to dump Hosmer but I can forgive that one since who knew he would actually finally join the fly ball revolution.
Sanchez still has a bunch of games against Baltimore and Toronto so I think you have to hang on and hope. Even as bad as he has been, over the past month he has 3x more homer and 2x the RBI of Gomes. In a short year AVG means less and he is one of those players who can have a good series and outproduce most of the rest of the C contingent for the year. (fingers super-crossed)
Edited: He just hit a homer.
Right on queue!
I feel like it’s been well-researched that being “hot” or “cold” doesn’t really exist — or at least that it’s impossible to predict the beginning or ending of a hot/cold streak. If Escobar’s 2020 underlying stats and 2019 real stats say that he should be hitting a 109 wRC+, then there’s no reason to expect that he shouldn’t start hitting like a 109 wRC+ hitter today, regardless of the bad-luck driven first six weeks of the season.
If that’s the case, whether there are three weeks left or three months left is irrelevant.
I’ve found some good adds in your “under 40%” lists, but overall I’ve been holding the “over 60%” types pretty hard, and even buying in where I can. Results are very mixed.
If I’m wrong, and that we ARE supposed to (say) cut Escobar based on his underperformance, I’d like some help in understanding what I’m missing.
I completely disagree that the time left in the season doesn’t matter, but even more than that, I’m doing these for 10- and 12-team leagues where the waiver pools are much richer and thus burning and churning is much more viable. You’re also acting as though projections are gospel and will just magically come to fruition which also isn’t true.
Thanks for the response. I’m just genuinely trying to figure it out.
If a hitter is underperforming or overperforming because they’re doing something different — sure, time left matters, and adjust your expectations. If they’re doing the same things as previous years but getting worse results, then the projections are still going to be the best guess we’ve got, even in the short term — right?
The tough part, of course, is that it’s always somewhere in between the two.
Thanks for the series, I’m a big fan.
“ I feel like it’s been well-researched that being “hot” or “cold” doesn’t really exist — or at least that it’s impossible to predict the beginning or ending of a hot/cold streak.”
I’ve read much of the “hot hand”/“in the zone” research, but I’ve also heard from several statisticians/PhD economists that it seems like an area where it would be folly to completely discount practitioner experience. You’re probably correct that predicting start/stop is difficult, if not impossible, but I have trouble dismissing the idea that periods of being “in the zone” (e.g. basket looks bigger, Incoming pitches feel slower, etc.) exist.
We’re still in SSS territory. Remember last year when Vogelbach was tearing it up through ~40 games and it was supported by statcast? I would consider dropping established players if they’re playing through a nagging injury because there’s not enough time to recover, but not for subpar performance absent any injury reports.
If you had a choice, Berti or Wong?
Who would be your choice between Moreland, Nunez or Belt at 1B?
Ty France. Batting 5th in Seattle now.