Ottoneu Hot Right Now: August 9th, 2023

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August 9, 2023

The 2023 version of Ottoneu Hot Right Now will include three different sections:

  1. Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
  2. Roster Adds: Analysis of players with high add% changes.
  3. Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

The FanGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.

Current Auctions

Emerson Hancock– 73 current auctions

Bryan Woo has hit the IL with a right-forearm injury and the Mariners will be calling up Hancock, their 2020 first-round pick and fifth-best prospect in the Mariners system from our own Eric Longenhagen’s latest assessment. According to Daniel Kramer who covers the Mariners for MLB.com:

The Mariners haven’t confirmed that Hancock, Seattle’s No. 4 prospect according to MLB Pipeline, will take Woo’s next turn through for Wednesday against the Padres, but it seems likely. He’ll join Bryce Miller and Woo as the third starter called up from Arkansas this season.

It’s certainly exciting as Hancock has been a touted prospect for a few years now, but he hasn’t played above AA and his 2023 numbers at that level don’t necessarily jump off his player page. He has a 4.32 ERA and a 3.49 BB/9 in the minors this season. Hancock will likely need some more time to develop and as Longenhagen wrote:

He isn’t a slam dunk mid-rotation prospect and is more of a contender’s no. 4/5 starter.

Chase Silseth –  64 current auctions

Posting a 2.79 ERA in AAA through 42 innings pitched earned Silseth four major league starts (21 IP) so far this season with the Angels. As a starter, he has a 13.29 K/9, which is very impressive. For context, the only qualified starter with a higher K/9 is Spencer Strider (14.35) though he has accumulated 132.1 IP so far this season. Silseth has also appeared in 15.1 innings as a reliever in 2023 and his K/9, oddly enough, shrank to 5.87 with his BB/9 at a way too high 7.04. Here’s a summary of those splits:

As a reliever: 15.1 IP,   5.87 K/9,   7.04 BB/9,   4.11 ERA,  1.17 HR/9

As a starter: 21 IP,   13.29 K/9,   1.71 BB/9,   3.43 ERA,  2.14 HR/9

From this breakdown, Silseth is much better as a starter, but he’s got a home run problem and we’re working with a small sample. He’s projected as an SP4 by RosterResource and his last three appearances all came as a starter. The 23-year-old righty is likely to have games where he gives up home runs and walks while racking up strikeouts.

JoJo Romero –  19 current auctions

The 26-year-old lefty recorded his first save of the season on July 30th. That was his 16th relief appearance of the season and he now has 18. As a reliever in 2023, Romero has a 3.42 ERA (3.08 xERA), has limited home runs with a 0.38 HR/9 but hasn’t kept opponents off the basepaths with his 3.04 BB/9. With injuries to a few Cardinals relievers and the trading away of others, perhaps there is some hope in the fantasy community that Romero will start to earn more holds and/or saves, but I’m not sure I would bank on that. RosterResource does have him as the second up to Andre Pallante who is first up behind Giovanny Gallegos for closer duty, so it’s not unfounded.

Gary Sánchez – 16 current auctions

In his last 10 appearances, Sánchez has been in the DH spot three times and behind the dish the other seven. He’s hit five home runs, crossed the plate seven times, and knocked in nine. Sánchez is hot right now and you can hear the clock ticking. This season he has hit 15 home runs, so he’s accumulated a third of his total home runs in his past 10 games.

Gary Sánchez wOBA

This season’s performance, from a wOBA standpoint, isn’t out of the ordinary. While he is outperforming expectations currently, he’s doing it by swinging outside of the zone (28.3%) less often than what he has done in his career (32.3%), and he is swinging and missing (9.8%) far less than he has in his career (12.4%) as well.

Ceddanne Rafaela–  14 current auctions

The 22-year-old outfield prospect for the Boston Red Sox is ranked fourth in the system by Eric Longenhagen. Earlier this summer he wrote:

Despite that extreme amount of chase, he only struck out at a 21% rate last season and also doubled his previous career high in homers with 21. Most of Rafaela’s underlying contact rates and measurable power data is middling, and his peak exit velos aren’t what you’d typically expect from a 20-homer threat, except he does seem to hit the ball fairly hard and in the air frequently relative to his peak exits….There’s still risk that Rafaela walks the Cristian Pache path, as his issues are similar to the ones that have apparently undone the young Phillies outfielder. More likely is that he’s akin to Kevin Pillar, and there are scouts who think Rafaela’s frame will continue to add strength such that he hits for more power than Pillar was able to at peak.

Rafaela played 60 games at the AA level this season and slashed .294/.332/.441. Then, he was promoted to AAA and slashed .321/.370/.672. While that is a marked improvement, his K% went up between levels, 20.7% in AA and 21.9% in AAA. He’s certainly a good prospect stash in Ottoneu leagues, but the Red Sox have a lot of outfielders and there doesn’t seem to be much room for a raw prospect like Rafaela in 2023.

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Roster Adds

Davis Schneider – Add% Change (7 Days) – 28.85%

In only four games Schneider has hit two home runs, scored three runs, and knocked in five runs. At the AAA level in 2023 before promotion, he slashed .275/.416/.553. Schneider is 24-years-old and he’s been in the Toronto minor league system since 2017. Jeff Zimmerman thinks he’s an add in all formats and wrote a nice summary of Schneider in his recent “Big Kid Adds (Week 20)“. I think Schneider is particularly useful in Ottoneu points leagues, given his ability to slug.

Cole Ragans – Add% Change (7 Days) – 17.95%

Nick Pollack got all giddy in his thread on a recent Ragans outing:

He was traded to the Royals by the Texas Rangers at the deadline and has made three starts with the Royals since. In those three games (17.2 IP), he has put up an 11.21 K/9 and a 2.04 BB/9 while giving up no home runs and recording only two earned runs. The nice part about this move from Texas is that Ragans is now listed as the SP1 on the Royals RosterResource page.

Cade Marlowe – Add% Change (7 Days) – 16.34%

The 26-year-old outfielder has mostly been plugged into the left field spot and the bottom of the batting order in his 14 major league games this season. He’s hit two home runs and stolen two bases while slashing .278/.381/.556. His K% soared to 38.3% in AAA in 2022 and though he improved upon that with a 25.4% AAA K% in 2023, there’s still a lot of swing-and-miss potential. Ranked 27th in Eric Longenhagen’s 2023 Mariners Prospect Rankings, he had the following summary written about his approach:

Marlowe has hit 20 bombs each of the last few seasons and is on pace to do it again in 2023. He has a narrow approach at the plate that helps him walk a lot and also allows him to do damage when he does make contact, since his swing is geared for lift in the middle of the zone. His stiff front side makes it tough for him to get the bat head on pitches in the bottom third of the zone, and Marlowe does swing and miss quite often.

Kutter Crawford – Add% Change (7 Days) – 12.82%

Starting for the Red Sox in his last 12 appearances, Crawford averaged only 4.5 innings per start. As Jeff Zimmerman put it in his recent “Waiver Wire Report (Week 20)“, Crawford has been “Legit decent” as a starter. RosterResource has him as the number three starter in Boston, but he could certainly be utilized in a long relief role down the stretch. His four-seamer (7.0 Pitch Info pVal), cutter (0.4), and slider (2.6) have all been decent pitches and he’s been able to get batters swinging outside the zone (37.8%) more often than the major league average (31.8%)

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Hot Performers

Stats reflect the last 14 days for both hitters and pitchers.

Jeimer Candelario (9.08 P/G) did not stop hitting once he was traded to the Cubs. So far in his Cub tenure, Candelario is slashing an incredible .483/.545/.759. He has moved over to the first base spot and now has eligibility in Ottoneu leagues at 1B. He’s been great all year, accumulating 6.10 points per game for the season in points leagues. Mike Tauchman (8.43 P/G) has also been great for the Cubs, slashing .367/.429/.667 in his last 10 games. He’s played all around the outfield and has lined up in the DH spot plenty of times.

Johan Oviedo (6.2 P/IP) has struck out 11 in his last two starts, though he has walked five. He only gave up one run in that two-game stretch and no home runs. Both games were good for a win. His ERA on the season has now been lowered to 4.18. Gavin Williams (7.5 P/IP) recorded 18 strikeouts with no home runs and only two earned runs in his last two starts. His ERA sits at 2.90 in 49.2 IP this season.





 

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