Ottoneu Hot Right Now: June 12, 2024

The 2024 version of Hot Right Now will typically include three 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.

As Chad Young has done in previous posts, I am also going to rate each player on the following scale:

• Don’t Bother – This means that even as auctions are started, other teams are adding this player, or he is on a hot streak, I am just not interested in adding this player. I don’t see them being worth a roster spot.
• Don’t Stress – I can see why you would add this player. I can totally understand placing a bid, but I am not super worried about winning this player. I would bid $1 for sure, maybe a bit more, as long as it doesn’t impact my roster at all.
• Don’t Go Crazy – I would like to add this player, but I am not willing to hamper my team to do it. I’ll look for cuts, and if I can clear money to make a big bid without losing players I’ll regret cutting, I will do it.
• Don’t Lose – These players rarely come up but they do, from time-to-time. These are guys that I am willing to make a difficult cut to add. Don’t expect to see this designation used often.

Current Auctions

Spencer Horwitz – 42 current auctions

Last week, the three players highlighted in this section had 66, 57 and 49 auctions going. This week, our leader has just 39. That’s quite a drop and represents what I think is legitimately less excitement about the current crop of free agents. And that is despite the fact that the Ottoneu Prestige League snapshot for round three is overnight tonight, making this a prime window for aggressive auctioning.

Horwitz has been good but not in a way that feels very sustainable. He’s walking 17.6% of the time and while he’s always walked at high levels, pitchers aren’t going to throw him many balls if he doesn’t show he can hit. And right now, he isn’t showing that. Through 61 career PA, he has yet to hit a ball over 103.5 mph and his max EV this year is 98.2.

He’s also limiting strikeouts (11.8%) but there’s nothing in his history to suggest he can be quite that hard to K moving forward.

He does have a lot of line drives and unimpressive liners have a tendency to get over the dirt and find grass in front of an outfielder. That kind of contact explains the .417 BABIP and the lack of extra base power.

He’s also limiting strikeouts (11.8%) but there’s nothing in his history to suggest he can be quite that hard to K moving forward.

Even in the minors, he hasn’t shown much pop, and high BABIPs have driven his performance, made possible by what does appear to be very, very good player discipline.

The overall profile looks like a poor man’s Bryson Stott, with less power and no MI eligibility, though that’s temporary. His next start at 2B will be his 5th, which certainly helps his value.

He’s also a good example of why xwOBA isn’t predictive – those soft hit line drives have high xwOBA but they aren’t indicative of a talent for getting hits that he can sustain. I can understand him as a desperate OPL play, but I don’t see a ton to be excited about.

Verdict: Don’t Bother.

David Hamilton – 36 current auctions

As I write, I wait for a Hamilton auction to end. I won another Hamilton auction about an hour ago. So I suppose that’s sufficient insight to tell you I am intrigued.

Hamilton has looked like a patient hitter willing to take even strikes to find pitches to hit, based on his minor league numbers, and his intro to MLB looks similar. He is sporting just a 24.3% O-swing and 61.5% Z-swing in his 131 MLB PA this year. Both would be among the 20 lowest swing rates among qualified hitters, if he qualified. Being that selective leads to good walk rates, but can also drive high strikeout rates. So far this year, he is posting a K-rate over 25% but just a 6.9% walk-rate. That isn’t terrible, but he has never posted a walk rate below 10% at any minor-league stop.

He is also putting up a .376 BABIP, which feels out of line with both his historical performances and a relatively weak batted ball profile. Weak contact with an acceptable (but decided not-Horwitzian) 19% LD rate isn’t what you expect to lead to that result. Hamilton’s 70-grade speed does help explain that BABIP, but still, regression is coming.

If his walk rate is likely to go up to 9% or more and his BABIP is likely to drop to .320 or less, does that all come out in the wash? Not quite, but close. Looking back, four more walks over 131 PA would leave him with a 9.9% walk rate and six fewer hits would then move him down to a .321 BABIP. Plus, no matter what your little league coach told you, a walk isn’t as good as a hit. So there’s probably a step back coming.

Looking at his xwOBA (.288) and his projected wOBAs (ranging from .279 – .307), it’s hard to have a lot of faith in his actual wOBA (.347). So why am I in on Hamilton? Two reasons:

1. One place I picked him up was for OPL. I needed a pretty significant roster overhaul and he is regularly playing and hitting second. Plus, while stolen bases are not huge for Ottoneu points leagues, they don’t hurt, and if he can keep walking and running, that will allow him to put up a decent number of 5-7 point games. His average P/G might not be high, but he’ll help when he scores and he should score often.
2. The other place I picked him up is a 5×5 league. He has stolen 50 bases each of the last three seasons and has 13 SB in 131 PA this year – a 60 SB pace if he managed 600 PA. Of course, he will not get to 600 PA, maybe not even 500, but plugging a guy into your 5×5 lineup when he starts and getting a 50-60 stolen base pace is a pretty nice bonus.

Verdict: Don’t Stress (except in 5×5, there, Don’t Go Crazy).

Corey Julks – 35 current auctions

The good: the White Sox are terrible and there’s no reason he shouldn’t play regularly. And so far, he is playing a ton and seems to have found a home leading off for the Sox. In Ottoneu points leagues, that’s pretty useful!

The bad: He was not good with Houston last year and projections range from a very useful .339 wOBA from ATC to a very not useful .293 wOBA from THE BAT.

There are some clear improvements this year, with his walk rate up (6.8% to 9.5%) and his K-rate down (23.2% to 21.4%). Slight increases in hard hit rate and barrel rate are pushing up his HR/FB rate and with fewer GB he has more opportunities for HR or extra bases.

He’s making more contact, but chasing more and swinging less in the zone, which I don’t love. He’s making more hard contact but going the other way more and pulling less, which I also don’t love.

I expect he’ll regress from where he is, but the wide range of rest-of-season projections shows that it’s hard to predict where he’s headed. I’m taking a couple of shots on Julks but only with OPL teams where his regular role and lead off spot he’ll out a ton. I don’t expect him to last long on my rosters, but I’ll ride the hot streak.

Verdict: Don’t Stress.

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Roster Adds

Heliot Ramos – Add% Change (7 Days) – 50.9%

He was in last week’s edition and I wrote him up in an article not long before that and Justin Mason covered him and there has been plenty of ink spilled, so I’ll just note this: Lucas had his verdict as “don’t bother” last week, but I am a little higher than that. I would happily ride this hot streak and see if it turns out he is a post-hype breakout. If he’s not, you’ll move on.

Verdict: Don’t Stress.

Matt Waldron – Add% Change (7 Days) – 35.0%

Another repeat from last week, as well as from Jake Mailhot’s May 30 Drip. Not a ton more to say here.

Verdict: Don’t Stress.

Matt Vierling – Add% Change (7 Days) – 24.7%

ANOTHER repeat from last week. In that week, he has played five games, and managed just two hits and four walks. Is it cheating to say I was lower on Vierling than Lucas, given I got to see this ugly week and he didn’t? Even a week ago, I was more interested in Ramos, and that gap has grown the last few days.

Verdict: Don’t Stress.

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Hot Performers

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

Aaron Judge – 16.3 P/G

I don’t really have any analysis of Aaron Judge, I just wanted to list a guy with 16.3 P/G over a two-week stretch. And to note that he was in this space on May 22, with over 14 P/G. He is at 14.4 P/G since May 8, more than a month ago. The next best hitter with more than 100 PA in that stretch (157 total hitters) is Gunnar Henderson at 9.2. Aaron Judge is just absolutely destroying baseball right now.

Andrew Vaughn – 9.5 P/G

Vaughn is rostered in less than 50% of leagues and with good reason given his track record, but a two-week stretch of 9.5 P/G is worth paying attention to. Or at least looking deeper at. While Vaughn has just an 87 wRC+ on the season, he is at 126 since the arbitrarily selected date of April 29. Since that date, he is walking less but also striking out less and has hit all seven of his HR. While one of the other changes are drastic, his barrel, hard-hit, pull and fly ball rates are all up.

 

There is certainly a bit of “won’t get fooled again” coming from a guy who has never really broken out the way we hoped, but that is more than half his season-to-date and it is pretty interesting. I could see buying low, especially in the more-than-half of leagues where he is a free agent.

Garrett Crochet – 7.7 P/IP

April 19 and 24, Crochet put up -27.7 and 2.1 points over two starts against Philadelphia and Minnesota and it was fair to wonder if his hot start was a thing of the past. It is not. There is still reason to be concerned about his innings pitched and his availability for the fantasy playoffs in H2H leagues, but Crochet is an ace.