Ottoneu Cold Right Now: Most Cut Players

I thought about making this a special Joey Gallo edition of Cold Right now. Gallo has been cut in 11.75% of leagues over the last week and in nearly a quarter of leagues over the last month. And while there are some other players who have been cut more, none offer the potential of league-altering production the way Gallo does. But rather than focus on just Gallo, I want to take a quick look at some other names before figuring out what to make of Gallo.

The Injured PitchersAnthony DeSclafani, Adrian Houser, and Lucas Sims – All three of these pitchers have been at least a 6th of leagues in the last week, with DeSclafani leading the way at 36.96% of leagues. His roster percentage has dipped to nearly 40% and is still falling.

And really, I can’t blame you for cutting any of these three. Sims had back surgery that will end his season and, as valuable as relievers can be, sitting on Sims for an entire off-season just doesn’t seem that enticing. He’s had one good Ottoneu season (2021 at 7.29 points/IP) and one acceptable one (2020 at 6.44 P/IP) and that’s about it. If he is healthy and velocity looks good during spring next year, I would gladly take him for a dollar or two on my roster, but there is just no need to roster him now.

Similarly, DeSclafani is done for the year and has a track record that doesn’t scream “stash this guy!” 2021 was great, and he has flirted with “useful” the rest of his career, but this year was a disaster. Could he be solid rotation depth in 2023? Sure. And he offers some upside as shown last year. But he isn’t helping you now and he isn’t important enough to need to sit on all off-season. Given he is on the 60-day, you might as well hold him, if you don’t need the cash, but I think it is unlikely you are keeping him in January anyway. I would consider putting him on my watchlist, though – if you enter September with cash to burn, there are worse ways to spend a buck than a possible end-of-the-rotation starter who doesn’t take up a roster spot.

Houser, meanwhile, offers DeScflani-like rotation depth but isn’t yet ruled out for the year. Pitching has been hard to find on the wire, at least for me, so I can see the appeal in waiting on Houser, especially as his timeline isn’t clear yet and he could theoretically be back this month. That said, his low-K profile just doesn’t offer much upside so I would happily move on and replace him with someone healthy if there are options on the wire in your league. My leagues have seen recent auctions for Jose Urquidy, David Peterson, Tyler Wells, and Aaron Civale – any of them are healthy, pitching and more useful to you than Houser.

The Role PlayersJake Burger, Owen Miller, and Jeimer Candelario – Even as I type this header, I can hear someone telling me that Candelario doesn’t belong in this trio, but it’s my article, and I think he does. I will admit that, of the three, he is the one I am most interested in. 3B is a pain this year and Candelario has been over 5 P/G the last two seasons.

His issues this year come down to two things: 1) He is swinging way more than he used to, plummeting his walk rate, which has always helped buoy his low-power offense; 2) his BABIP is way, way down. The problem is, without power, which he just doesn’t offer, he needs both of those things to revert to have value. And the BABIP can’t just get back to league average – his two seasons of >5 P/G he had BABIPs of .372 and .333. If the walks come back, I might gamble on the BABIP following, but I don’t think it is a great bet to make right now.

Burger, meanwhile, is arguably more valuable at 3B than Candelario, but he’s currently on the IL and his roster rate started slipping before the injury because he had basically stopped playing. Prior to his injury, he had played three times – twice as a pinch hitter – in about 10 days. He has no clear path to playing time, even when he gets healthy. Feel free to pick him back up in the White Sox have another rash of injuries, but otherwise, he is pretty well buried.

Owen Miller is playing but he is, to be blunt, not useful for fantasy. He’s a utility man cast into a starting role in Cleveland right now. He had a BABIP-fueled hot start, but has come back to Earth and if you haven’t moved on, you should.

Joey Gallo – Onto the main course. Let’s start with what we all know:

  1. Joey Gallo has a big, big power bat, and an elite eye, so he walks a lot and homers a lot
  2. Joey Gallo plays in hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium
  3. Since going to hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium, Joey Gallo has not been good

What happened? A couple of things. First off, the power has dried up. Not like, completely – he has 23 HR in 458 PA as a Yankee, which is still pretty close to a 30-homer pace. Of course, historically 30 is a down year for Gallo, so this is still a step back. Second, his BABIP has cratered. Gallo has never had a great BABIP, but prior to the trade to New York, his career BABIP was .271. Since coming to New York, it is .216.

The power issue is a combination of more strikeouts – he is chasing a lot more than he used to, and while his BB-rate is only down a little, his strikeouts have increased a fair bit more – and a decrease in HR/FB rate. HR/FB rate can be noisy, but Gallo is also hitting the ball with less authority. In his prime seasons, he had Hard-Hit-Rates (balls over 95 mph EV / batted ball events) over 50% and barrel rates over 20%. Neither of those numbers are way down this year (48.6% and 19.6%), but more strikeouts means fewer batted balls, so the share of his plate appearances ending in barrels (or even just hard hits) is down even more.

So can he get back to better numbers? He did, sort of, for a period of time. From April 23 through June 17, Gallo had a 125 wRC+. His HH-rate and Barrel-rate were both up. His BABIP was back up. He basically looked like a version of his old self – not absolute-best-case-scenario Gallo, but very-good-and-worth-his-Ottoneu-salary Gallo.

It didn’t last, and so here we are with people bailing on Gallo once again.

I’ll be picking him up where I can. I think that chase rate shows that he is pressing, and that run from late-April through mid-June shows he can still be the guy we expect him to be. If he is getting dropped in my leagues and I have the cap space to add him at $15 to maybe $20, I will. I understand why people are cutting him, but I am not there yet, and I don’t think it is likely I will get there this year.





A long-time fantasy baseball veteran and one of the creators of ottoneu, Chad Young's writes for RotoGraphs and PitcherList, and can be heard on the ottobot podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @chadyoung.

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phoenix2042member
1 year ago

Re: Gallo, if one is in a keeper league, he should hopefully see an uptick in BABIP with the shift ban. He pulls the ball a ton on the ground and line drives that get eaten by the shift right now. He’s probably one of the more affected players. I believe he’s a free agent after this year so his value also depends on where he ends up and how much playing time he gets given his struggles this year and second half last year.

Saltymember
1 year ago
Reply to  phoenix2042

I drafted Gallo thinking the shift ban was this year (whoops). I wonder if he would be better suited in a bigger ballpark next year, creating more space for his singles to fall, and he already has enough power to hit it out of any ballpark.