Matt Joyce & Mitch Garver: Deep League Wire

Do you like M&M’s? Of course you do! Here are two hitter M&M’s for your pleasure.

Matt Joyce | OF OAK | CBS 8% Owned

It seems silly to include Joyce here, who is a known quantity, but it’s even sillier that he’s owned in just 8% of leagues. In fact, I never would have guessed he was owned in fewer than 10% of leagues to even qualify for this series and only discovered this was the case when spotting him on the CBS Roster Trends page of most added players. Joyce has been used mostly as a strong side platoon player, though with a .299 wOBA versus lefties, should probably be a strict one.

It’s against righties that he has been quite solid – a 13.5% walk rate and better than average 20.4% strikeout rate, a .235 ISO and 14.9% HR/FB rate, and tons of fly balls (47.9%). His BABIP has hurt him, as it sits at just .249 against right-handers, despite a low pop-up rate. The high fly ball rate certainly deserves most of the blame, but it should still be a bit higher than its current mark. Interestingly, he hasn’t really been bad in the way you might think against southpaws. His walk and strikeout rates are nearly as good as against righties, and his BABIP is actually higher. The difference comes solely from his disappearing power (.113 ISO, versus .235 against righties), which is the result of a surprising extreme ground ball tendency (56.4% GB%) against them. His HR/FB rate is only a touch lower than against righties, so if he simply lifted the ball more often, he could break the platoon role.

He’s been hitting leadoff most nights, which will curb his RBI opportunities, but it will boost his at-bat and runs scored totals and give him additional chances to leave the yard. And the Athletics have a respectable line of big boppers behind him to knock him in.

While he’s no shallow mixed league play without full-time at-bats, no speed, and a batting average that while due for improvement, will still hurt, he’s a more than acceptable deep mixed and AL-Only league play. This is especially true in leagues that count OBP instead of batting average.

Mitch Garver | C MIN | 3% Owned

Who? I love when guys like this are called up because it reminds me how ignorant I am of the minor leagues. Garver was recalled in the wake of Robbie Grossman’s injury and will be given an opportunity to earn lots of playing time. He’s a bit old to be considered a real prospect at age 26, but it’s not like he’s been around in the minors forever, as he just enjoyed his first taste of Triple-A action last year.

While his offensive performance in the minors was unremarkable heading into this season, he was still ranked as the Twins 10th best prospect. Of course, the ranking was assuming he was a catcher, meaning he would be worse if we just cared about his offensive contributions as a DH. But there’s the rub — he qualifies at catcher in fantasy leagues! So that’s the big bonus and means that the bar isn’t set very high for him to earn positive value.

Garver enjoyed a breakout 2017 campaign during his second tour of Triple-A duty. He upped his walk rate to a career high by a smidgen, while keeping his strikeout rate at a reasonable clip. He also followed up last year’s inflated Triple-A BABIP of .436 by BABIPing .347, suggesting maybe he has some high BABIP skills in that bat.

Most exciting was his power surge. His previous career high HR/FB rate was set in 2016 at Double-A, when he posted a 10.4% mark, but he nearly doubled that with a 20% mark at Triple-A this season. His ISO spiked to .250, which now makes him look like a real potential contributor, and not just a guy with solid plate discipline skills. With the playing time there if he hits and catcher eligibility, he’s a sneaky add.