Ottoneu Cold Right Now: September 25th, 2023

Much like Hot Right Now, Cold Right Now will be a weekly Ottoneu feature 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

Gregory Santos, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 22.12%

Santos has, at times, looked like the best reliever in the White Sox pen and while that isn’t all that impressive, it does mean he has had a chance for saves and holds on a regular basis. That wasn’t enough to make him “good” (6.06 P/IP for a RP) but it was enough to make him rosterable. Until mid-August he was closer to 6.5 P/IP, but over a one-month period, he put up 34.57 points over 9.1 IP. That is both a relatively limited work-load and a well-below-replacement-level P/IP. That rough stretch coincided with a pretty clear drop in his velocity and ended with an IL stint.

Mediocre numbers followed by bad numbers followed by an injury is a recipe for a reliever to be cut and he should be cut everywhere. He isn’t good enough to keep and he is probably only a “buy” in auctions next year if he either starts off well or has a nice jump in velocity (or both).

Hunter Renfroe, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 21.79%

Renfroe wasn’t having a great season for the Angels and they put him on waivers. The Reds claimed him and, to be honest, I hoped that would be a nice landing spot for him. Instead, over 17 days he got 44 PA and posted a 17 wRC+ and the Reds cut him loose. Renfroe turns 32 this off-season and came into this year with two very solid offensive years in 2021 and 2022, so you would imagine he lands somewhere for 2024, but as a fantasy manager, I think I am staying away.

He had a bit of an odd season. His BB-rate was higher than those two strong years and his K-rate was almost perfectly in-line with those two years, despite the fact that he was more aggressive at the plate (chasing more and swinging in the zone more), didn’t make more contact, and ran a higher swinging-strike rate. That success with his plate discipline didn’t lead to success overall because his power dried up. After averaging 30 HR and .239 ISO in 547 PA the last two seasons, this year he hit 20 HR with a .183 ISO in 548 PA. His hard-hit and barrel rates both decreased, and he decreased his fly-ball rate, as well, hitting more grounders instead. He used to punish fastballs, and that wasn’t the case this year. You can see this in his Baseball Savant Swing/Take profile: last year he was +19 runs on pitches he took and this year he was +17 (not a huge shift), but on his swings he went from -13 runs to -26. Part of that is just that he swung more, but the bigger issue is he simply didn’t punish the ball when he swung. This was almost entirely in the “Shadow” zone – pitches around the edge of the strike zone – where he swung a bit more and was far less successful. In 2022, his wOBA on contact in the shadow zone was .357 with a .319 xwOBA. This year it was .267 with a .265 xwOBA.

This all looks to me like a guy losing bat speed, making more aggressive swing choices to make up for that, and not being able to create the quality of contact he expects. That’s not something I want to buy in on.

Alex Cobb, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 12.82%

Cobb threw an absolute gem against Cincinnati, then made three horrific starts and hit the IL. He just hasn’t been good enough to keep around through an IL stint, but he will assuredly show up on rosters again next year. He always does enough to tantalize.

Colin Holderman, Leagues with a Cut (7 days) – 12.82%

Holderman is an easy one – he has been a decently good but not-great RP and now he is hurt. No need to holderhim.

Cold Performers

To measure cold performers this week, I’m looking for players with low P/G or P/IP in the last 14 days.

Sean Murphy,  -0.83 P/G:

Sean Murphy has done wonderful things for fantasy teams all year but over the last couple of weeks, it has been ugly. I am not sure if I am more concerned about the -5 points or the fact that he has made just six appearances, but neither is good. Though it is worth nothing that because I am writing this on Sunday night, his Sunday afternoon home run hasn’t hit these numbers yet and would certainly help. But no matter how you look at it, Murphy has been so bad in September that it has tanked his entire second half line. For now, there isn’t much you can do. If you have a backup C you like, you may need to use him more to fill out games played, as Murphy is clearly being given plenty of rest ahead of the post-season. But other than that, you just have to ride through this because Murphy is a legitimately elite C and you probably want to keep him for 2024.

C.J. Cron, -4.00 P/G:

Is this cheating, given he played just one game? Yes, it kind of is. But Cron came to LA, got hurt, played one game, and got hurt again. But even around that, he was not good in Colorado this year and he was putrid with the Angels. He’s an easy cut, at any price, right now, and going into 2024, he isn’t more than a late-draft flyer, and that assumes he has a starting job somewhere.

Jon Gray,  -4.04 P/IP:

Holy smokes, Gray tanked his season in a hurry. As of the end of August, Gray had 137.2 IP and put up 547.59 points for 3.98 P/IP. That isn’t good, but it is bordering on useful especially if you can play matchups with him. An abysmal September, especially his last three starts, has him at 3.75 P/IP on the year. He’s not only played his way into being an easy cut today, I think he is going to be hard to roster next year.