Ottoneu Cold Right Now: June 5, 2023

Much like Hot Right Now, Cold Right Now will be a weekly Ottoneu feature, primarily written by either Chad Young or Lucas Kelly, with a focus on players who are being dropped or who maybe should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. Hot Right Now will focus on players up for auction, players recently added, and players generally performing well. Cold Right Now will have parallel two of those three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players with high cut% changes.
2. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

There won’t be a corresponding section to Current Auctions because, well, there is nothing in cuts that correspond to current auctions.

Roster Cuts

Matt Moore, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 30.13%

It feels like ages ago that Moore was an exciting young SP coming up through the Rays system. It also feels like ages ago that it became apparent he was never going to be the ace we all hoped. But the last two years, now in his 30s, Moore has re-invented himself as a solid reliever, throwing 99 innings with a 1.82 ERA. After piling up 14 holds last year, he is already at 12 this year, and he keeps the ball in the ballpark, making him a nice Ottoneu reliever. Moore, however, has three flaws.

1. Mostly due to walks last year and K’s this year (see #2), his FIP, xFIP, and SIERA all point to a pretty middling reliever rather, not the stud his ERA suggests.
2. After striking out more than a hitter per inning in 2022, the Ks dried up this year, and that really gets in the way of accruing value in fantasy.
3. He’s hurt, having gone on the IL with an oblique strain about a week ago.

Given how he has performed, managers would live with #1, and they might accept #2, but there is no need to use up a roster spot on an injured reliever unless tey are one of the very, very best in the game. Add Moore to your watchlists though – if you see he is on rehab assignment, you might be able to grab him cheap in time for his return.

Robbie Ray, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 27.88%

Ray is merely a re-cut, 30 days after he appeared in this column, after he had surgery. I still believe what I said at that time:

If he was cut in your league, I wouldn’t bother trying to pick him up as a stash – anything over $5 is just too much for me to sit on with Ray.

He’s still a $10 player on average, and I still won’t be interested when that gets cut in half again in July.

Jesse Winker, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 26.28%

Like Ray, Winker was in this column on May 1 and is now popping up again as managers reduce their cap penalty on him. As of that writing, I was giving up on Winker and his 78 wRC+. Since then, his wRC+ is 44. I have no idea what happened to Winker, who was one of my favorite Ottoneu OF for years, but there is nothing to like here.

Jorge López, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 18.27%

Lopez was the second option in Minnesota, and maybe still is, but over the last couple of weeks, he has made six appearances facing 26 hitters and managed just 10 outs. He has given up a hit for each out and allowed almost as many runs (9) as outs. He has just two strikeouts vs. three walks. His downfall has been the long-ball, as he has given up five homers in that stretch.

Lopez was never an elite Ottoneu reliever and I am not inclined to believe he will be in the future.

Cold Performers

Player stat lines reflect last 14 days among players with at least 20 PA in that time frame.

Jose Miranda:  48 PA, .250/.313/.318 in Triple-A

I was extremely high on Miranda going into the year. In fact, I was pretty high on Miranda going into last year, so I was just enjoying the ride when this season started. And then things got ugly.

Before being sent back to the minors in May, Miranda got 142 MLB PA and put up a .265 wOBA and 2.86 P/G in Ottoneu points leagues. As you can see from the line above, he has been no better in Triple-A.

There were some positive signs in Miranda’s time with the Twins this year. His walk-rate was up vs. 2022, and his strikeout-rate was down.

If I only showed you that chart, and you knew about his cold start to 2022 and his strong finish, you would (understandably) think he was picking up right where he left off.

But if you look at this, you can see he was definitely in a downturn.

He’s not just getting worse results, there is a pretty clear downward trend in his xwOBA. It’s not a huge trend – he started this year picking up where he left off and his fall has not hit the lows he hit early in 2022. But it’s enough.

Part of the problem is that Miranda didn’t have a huge margin for error. His .329 wOBA last year came with a .317 xwOBA and just middling quality of contact – 55th percentile average exit velocity, 63rd percentile hard-hit rate, 33rd percentile barrel-rate. All of those have dipped this year – 41st percentile average exit velocity, 39th percentile hard-hit, 19th percentile barrels. His hard-hit rate only dropped from 42.1% to 38.5%, for example, but that was enough to move him from solidly-above-average to solidly-below-average. Add to that going from outperforming xwOBA by a bit to underperforming by a bit (.265 wOBA vs. 286 xwOBA) and you have a recipe for losing your job.

And, again, it hasn’t gotten better with the demotion. If you have Miranda, I think you can move on. There is still hope here, but the lack of performance in Triple-A makes it hard to wait. If he is a free agent, I would watch for some news that he is showing increased power in the minors. He hit 30 homers across two levels in 2021 and looked like a 20-25 HR hitter by the end of last year. The plate discipline is fine, but he needs to start punishing the ball if I am going to pick him back up.

Anthony Volpe: 44 PA, .095/.114/.190, -0.5 P/G

Volpe hit a HR last night and these numbers would look better with his 2-for-5 effort included, but they would still be bad, and he would still be worth discussing here. Because Volpe hasn’t just been bad for a couple of weeks, he has a .278 wOBA on the season and less than 4 P/G (and that is including his big Sunday night).

Volpe has shown some good things – a double-digit barrel rate is good and that is built on a strong hard-hit rate. He has very good sprint speed. He has a strong walk-rate. But his strikeout rate is up over 30% and before you start thinking, “yeah, but he is 22 and still learning!” you might want to be aware that things are not improving.

Strikeouts and walks are both trending the wrong direction. Volpe also struck out more than 30% of the time in Triple-A last year, and you have to wonder if he needs to solve that level before he solves this one. It’s not like he crushed Triple-A – he put up a .320 wOBA, which is impressive for a guy who turned 21 about a month into the season, but it doesn’t scream “get him to the bigs today!” To make matters worse, Volpe never was viewed as a great defender but his 11th percentile Outs Above Average suggests he really isn’t doing much of anything to help the Yankees right now.

Meanwhile, Oswald Peraza is setting the world on fire in Triple-A and waiting his turn.

I still like Volpe long-term, and I like him as a buy-low. But I don’t think this is going to fix itself, and I would not be surprised to see him sent down as the Yankees give Peraza a shot to claim the SS job (which, to be honest, he should). If you are trying to compete now, you should probably be shopping Volpe for upgrades, and ideally before he gets demoted. Maybe you can use that HR last night to turn him into someone who can help you today.