The Hottest Pickups This Week 7/18: Yay or Nay?

It’s been a month since I last checked in on the hottest pickups in CBS leagues. So let’s take another gander. Below are the players whose ownership rates have increased most in the past week on CBS. Are owners justified in rushing to the free agent pool to add these players?

The Hottest CBS Pickups 7/18
Player Previous Week Current Week Change
Nicholas Tropeano 22% 38% 16%
Tyler Anderson 18% 30% 12%
Ryon Healy 1% 13% 12%
Eduardo Rodriguez 29% 37% 8%
Kendall Graveman 17% 25% 8%

Our biggest ownership riser this week is Nicholas Tropeano, who missed a little over a month with shoulder tightness, but has returned to make two starts so far in July. The good news is that his fastball velocity has been fine upon returning. Also good news is he has induced a ton of swinging strikes. The bad news is everything else. Obviously, fantasy owners are focusing solely on Tropeano’s shiny 3.12 ERA, but a look just a tad deeper suggests that is in no way sustainable. His SIERA is far higher at 4.49, as his ERA has been benefiting from an insane 90.8% LOB%. He’s not going to continue stranding such a high percentage of his baserunners — no one is that good, at least starting pitchers. I love the strikeout potential, but as an extreme fly ball pitcher who has had difficulty throwing strikes, he’s nothing more than a risky streaming option in shallow mixed leagues. I don’t think his ownership rate should be as high as it is.

Who would have thought a Rockies starter may actually be worth considering in anything more than NL-Only leagues? Tyler Anderson is making a strong case to be that starter. He’s throwing strikes and inducing tons of ground balls. Being an extreme ground ball pitcher is one way to succeed in a park that massively inflates home runs! I’d be a bit nervous about Anderson due to his mediocre minor league record and averageish strikeout rate, but in 15-team mixed and deeper, he’s certainly worthy of keeping active. Fantasy owners are rightfully noticing and a 30% ownership rate seems fair.

The 24-year-old Ryon Healy was called up on Friday and has started at third in each game since, oddly taking the job away from Danny Valencia, who will likely rotate between multiple positions if he isn’t DFA’d as speculated. Healy was ranked as the Athletics’ 21st best prospect in the preseason by Dan Farnsworth, but he would probably have moved up thanks to his strong offensive performance at Double-A and Triple-A this year. While his BABIP jump is probably not going to be repeated in Oakland, the ISO surge is an excellent sign. Since the playing time is there now, he’s absolutely worth a flier in deep leagues and owners are rightfully noticing.

Eduardo Rodriguez had intriguing sleeper appeal heading into the season, after posting a 3.85 ERA over 21 starts for the Red Sox during his rookie campaign. But after a knee injury delayed the start of his season, he was a disaster over his first six starts, posting an 8.59 ERA (5.34 SIERA). For his work, he was demoted to Triple-A, but a couple of weeks later, he’s back. He didn’t exactly do anything in the minors to regain our confidence though — his strikeout rate sat at a lowly 15.6%. In his first start back with the Sox, he only allowed one run over seven innings, but that came with just one strikeout. His velocity is down a bit, but not a significant amount, so I’m not sure where the strikeouts went. At this point, I wouldn’t touch him in anything but AL-Only leagues, and he’d be planted on the bench in those formats. Unless 37% of CBS leagues are of the AL-Only variety, I don’t see why he’s owned in such a high percentage.

Kendall Graveman continues doing what he does — induce ground balls, display average control, and strike out few. I’m guessing his ownership rate has climbed recently solely due to his last two outings in which he allowed a total of three runs. It’s just another example of the “what have you done for me lately?” mentality that typically drives fantasy transactions. Of course, those games came with a sad 10.9% strikeout rate, so it’s not like Graveman is any different. He just so happened to only allow a couple of runs, which over a two game span, has absolutely no predictive value. I see no justification for his ownership jump until he changes his pitch mix to start punching out more batters.





Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year. He produces player projections using his own forecasting system and is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. His projections helped him win the inaugural 2013 Tout Wars mixed draft league. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.

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feslenraster
7 years ago

Healy should be playing first everyday over Alonso, but that’s not happening. They need to save face.
Respectfully speaking, I’ve owned Jon Gray for more than 7 starts now, he’s definitely a Rockies’ starter worth owning in mixed leagues and NL-only formats. I considered Anderson, but he was plucked by a rival owner.