Three Undervalued Players: Dietrich, Lamb and Gausman

This isn’t necessarily a free agent/waiver piece, though, these three players are under owned and available in many leagues. If this trio of players isn’t available in your league, don’t fret. I’ve chosen to highlight them because I believe their rest-of-season value outpaces their current production or how they’re being valued — at least how I perceive them to be valued based on their ownership rates. If they’re owned, consider trading for them.

Derek Dietrich – 2B/3B/OF – Miami Marlins (CBS: 31%, ESPN: 17.0%, Yahoo!: 11%)
This isn’t the first time I’ve discussed Dietrich, and I’m not sure what he needs to do to net a higher ownership rate. Since writing about him nearly a month ago, Dietrich’s ownership rates have risen only approximately 10% across each of the major fantasy baseball sites. Every year in the majors he’s improved offensively, and he’s setting new bests in walk rate, strikeout rate, batting average, OBP, slugging, wOBA and wRC+ this season. The left-handed hitter has a substantial platoon split, and since last year, he has 365 plate appearances against right-handed pitchers in which he’s ripped 21 doubles, five triples and 12 homers with a triple-slash line of .290/.384/.506. His batted ball profile is solid too with a 20.7% line drive rate, 43.5% flyball rate and 36.4% hard-hit ball rate against righties in that time frame. Dietrich is seeing some extra playing time against southpaws this year and not vomiting all over himself, but the sample is extremely small. Regardless, even if he’s only used on fantasy rosters against righties, he’s done enough to warrant ownership in even shallow leagues.
Furthermore, his positional flexibility is quite helpful. Dietrich will continue to man second base until Dee Gordon is eligible to return from his PED suspension (July 29th). Head-to-head gamers who are worried about losing Dietrich down the stretch probably shouldn’t push the panic button yet. Dietrich has experience playing first base, third base and the outfield in addition to the keystone position. Martin Prado’s mediocrity against righties — sub-100 wRC+ versus them every year since sporting a 108 wRC+ in 2012 — and excellence against lefties could set the table for a platoon at the hot corner if the Fish are willing to sacrifice defense for offense. A lot can happen between now and then in terms of the health of other starters, so enjoy his production now and worry about crossing the playing time bridge later. Speaking of health, Dietrich appears to have dodged a bullet. He was hit by a pitch on Wednesday, but emerged with merely a bone bruise and is considered day-to-day.

Jake Lamb – 3B – Arizona Diamondbacks (CBS: 72%, ESPN: 39.7%, Yahoo!: 38%)
Eno has been beating the drum for Lamb much longer than I have, but I’ve joined him on the bandwagon. Judging by his ownership rates, there’s plenty of room for others to join us. Like Dietrich, Lamb is a lefty with a sizable platoon split. I wouldn’t write him off against southpaws just yet, though. It’s only 39 plate appearances against lefties, but Lamb is showcasing a willingness to walk (17.9% walk rate this year) and has cut his strikeout rate down to a palatable 23.1% mark. He routinely sits against lefties, but gamers in dynasty and large keeper leagues should file his advancements against them away in their memory in the event he gets some extra reps against them over the summer.
He isn’t being highlighted for his work against southpaws, it’s the beat down he’s laying on righties that fuels me touting him. The 25-year-old third basemen is hitting .317/.384/.592 with a 9.4% walk rate, 19.5% strikeout rate, 14 doubles, two triples and seven homers in 159 plate appearances against right-handed pitchers this season. His efforts to lift the ball that Eno noted in March haven’t come to fruition with his flyball rate in 2016 (32.1%) a near carbon copy of his flyball rate in 2015 (31.4%). One notable change in his batted ball profile is another step forward in the hard-hit ball rate. As of Wednesday night, among batters with a minimum of 100 plate appearances against righties, Lamb ranks 25th with a 41.1% hard-hit ball rate. He’s smoking the ball. And if you prefer a larger sample size, his 38.0% hard-hit ball rate in 609 plate appearances against righties in his big-league career is nothing to sneeze at.
David Peralta is nearing a return, but his absence has opened the door for Lamb to claim the cleanup spot in the lineup against righties. Paul Goldschmidt is an OBP-machine, and hitting fourth is a boon for Lamb’s RBI potential. When Peralta rejoins the active club, Lamb could move out of the cleanup spot, but he’ll likely either hit second — which would obviously reduce his RBI potential but bump his runs potential up a few notches — or fifth. Neither lineup spot would damage his fantasy value. In fact, having another righty killer in the lineup when Peralta is back should be viewed as a plus for Lamb.

Kevin Gausman – SP – Baltimore Orioles (CBS: 76%, ESPN: 36.4%, Yahoo!: 40%)
Gausman opened the year on the disabled list, but he drummed up some buzz after four solid starts from late April through early May. The buzz has died down of late. In his last four starts, he’s allowed four earned runs or more in three of them. Homers are chiefly to blame, and he’s coughed up six in his last two starts combined. Serving up taters isn’t a new problem for Gausman, but the righty’s 17.6% HR/FB is high even by his standards. Prior to this year, his HR/FB was 11.2% as a starter. Some regression is probably in order.
It hasn’t been all bad. The young righty has struck out 21 batters in his last three starts spanning 17.2 innings. For the year, his 3.78 ERA is right in line with his 3.77 xFIP, and he’s been stingy with free passes (5.6% walk rate) while punching out plenty of batters (22.8% strikeout rate). He’s also been helpful in the WHIP department with a 1.13 WHIP thus far. Circling back to strikeouts, there’s upside for more.
Gausman’s 11.2% SwStr% is well above the league average of 9.9%. If he had enough innings to be a qualified pitcher in 2016, it would rank 21st sandwiched between Vince Velasquez, Stephen Strasburg (11.5% for each) and Madison Bumgarner (11.0%). That’s elite company. The 25-year-old has a variety of options to turn to when he needs a punch out with four pitches earning a whiff rate north of 10%, per Brooks Baseball. His fourseam fastball — which is his most frequently thrown pitch at 63.79% usage — is even an above average bat-misser. Among fourseam fastballs thrown a minimum of 200 times by starting pitchers this year, his ranks 48th out of 112 in whiff/swing rate, per Baseball Prospectus’ PITCHf/x leaderboard. His slider is a solid offering to turn to when he needs strike three with a 18.75% whiff rate, but he’s thrown it just 4.53% of the time this year. The curve isn’t too shabby with a 10.94% whiff rate and ranking slightly above average in whiff/swing rate, either. The righty’s splitter is downright filthy, though.
Overall, it has a 31.90% whiff rate this season and is his second most frequently thrown pitch at a 16.41% usage rate. He uses it more frequently against lefties (22.27%) than righties (13.08%), but it’s a great strikeout pitch against either handedness hitter with a 26.32% whiff rate for lefties and a 37.29% whiff rate for righties. Why doesn’t he throw it more frequently to righties? The answer appears to be clear. He’s allowed a .412 ISO to right-handed batters this year on the pitch and a .500 ISO last year. His first two years throwing the pitch to righties provides some optimism he can reel the power output against it in a bit (.111 ISO in 2013 and .235 ISO in 2014). The splitter isn’t used much around the league, but of the 17 thrown a minimum of 50 times by starters this year, Gausman’s is easily the leader in whiff/swing (48.78% for Gausman and 45.16% for he second highest mark).
Right-handed batters have pummeled Gausman this year (.548 slugging and .376 wOBA) and last year (.526 slugging and .358 wOBA), but the depth of his arsenal gives him hope for making big gains against same-handed foes. For his career, he’s allowed a .469 slugging and .339 wOBA to 639 right-handed batters faced, and even settling in around those marks would pair fine with his dominance against lefties (.375 slugging and .295 wOBA allowed in his career). Cut him some slack for getting knocked around by the Red Sox in his last turn, no team has been better against righties this year than Boston. His next turn is against the Yankees on Sunday and makes for a favorable matchup with the Bronx Bombers doing little bombing this year and ranking near the bottom of the league offensively.





You can follow Josh on Twitter @bchad50.

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Avi24
7 years ago

I have two of the 3 after reading articles here about them (Gausman and Dietrich). Problem is that Gausman isn’t getting so lucky (benched him smartly on Tuesday) and Dietrich gets unlucky with hit by pitches. I guess both are kind of unlucky.