Trout and Evans: Waiver Wire
Mike Trout (8% ESPN, 12% Yahoo) – Coming into the season, Mike was considered one of the top prospects in baseball. Since starting his first game on July 8th, he has struggled a bit in the majors by producing a slash line of 0.220/0.282/0.420. Fantasy owners have noticed his struggles and his ownership rate has dropped to 8% in ESPN leagues and 12% in Yahoo leagues. Several factors point to him being a valuable assest over the last few weeks of the season.
First, he is exhibiting reasonable power. His 0.420 SLG is comparable to Chris Young and Andre Ethier this season. Also, he is getting a decent amount of home runs (5) from a good FB% (42%) and HR/FB% (16%). His power stroke is working just fine.
The second factor that could contribute to him improving is that his BABIP (0.230) is significantly below his xBABIP (0.340 – thanks to slash12 for the formula). It is the main force in driving down his 0.220 AVG. In the minors, he always had a BABIP greater than 0.340, so I expect to see some correction.
Finally, if you are in a keeper league, he should not be on the waiver wire. Pick him up now.
Mike is showing a decent underlying skill set of plate discipline and power. Right now, his BABIP is suppressing his AVG, which has led to less RBI and Run chances. If you are needing some OF help, he should be available in your league to contribute.
Nick Evans (10% ESPN, 3% Yahoo) – Nick is getting a chance to be the everyday 1B with Ike Davis out for the season. He is not exactly tearing the cover off the ball, but is putting up reasonable numbers. One of his best features, besides being generally available in most leagues, is that he is quailifed at both 1B and OF.
Nick has played for the Mets in 4 different season and is finally getting close to a season’s worth of stats to examine. He has a 0.270 AVG with decent power (4 home runs) in 133 plate appearances. These numbers line up with his minor league production. He has no speed (0 SB in 358 PA).
The main attributes he has is that he is playing everyday, won’t kill your AVG and will contribute a few counting stats. He should not see any playing time next season, but for now, he can be a positive contributor to your team.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Good article, I was wondering why Trout’s BA has been so low.
I was just looking at the article about the xBABIP calculator by slash12, but when I try to download the calculator from filefactory I can’t figure out how to download it. Am I completely missing something? Thanks for your help.
Let me see if I can contact him and work out an easy spreadsheet using our batted ball data.
xBABIP =0.392 + (LD% x 0.288 ) + ((GB% – (GB% * IFH%) ) x -0.152 ) + ((FB% – (FB% x HR/FB%) – (FB% x IFFB%)) x -0.188) + ((IFFB% * FB%) x -0.835) + ((IFH% * GB%) x 0.500 )