Who’s Being Dropped: Week 23

In my last article, I contemplated if fantasy owners care too much about who to add and not enough on who to drop. I’m going run an experiment over last few weeks of this season to see what can be extracted from league drop trends.

For reference, I’m going to analyze the 34 leagues in the NFBC Main Event. These are 15-team mixed leagues using batting average and no trading. With each team putting $3K on the line, more of these owners haven’t thrown in the towel than in most leagues.

This first week, I went through the 30 most dropped players. The reasons behind the most dropped players were obvious, mainly they were hurt, lost a role, or demoted. Next week, I may concentrate on the players dropped between 5 and ten leagues. These players aren’t the most obvious drops and analyzing them may be the most helpful.

Name: Number of teams who dropped him (of 31)

Buster Posey: 20
Mark Trumbo: 18
Welington Castillo: 13
Yu Darvish: 13
Jeremy Hellickson: 13
Hurt

Cameron Maybin: 13
Maybin is having an unproductive season (.241/.322/.323) and is headed to the bench even more with Ben Gamel being recalled. The move is perfectly understandable.

Hector Rondon: 12
Rondon lost his starting role to the woman assaulter. There is no chance for Saves with Rondon especially with so many other bullpens (Marlins, Twins, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, Nationals) in flux.

Kelvin Herrera: 12
Hurt

James Shields: 10
I didn’t get the rush to roster him a couple months back. Did owners really think when he posted a 2.01 ERA (6.54 xFIP) over five games in late June the results would continue? We are discussing James Shields. He has below average strikeouts (6.9 K/9) and above average walks (3.4 BB/9) and home runs (1.4 HR/9). I’m a little surprised it took owners so long to come back to reality.

Corey Knebel: 9
Demoted

Tyson Ross: 9
Ross was rosterable for the first two months of the season but there were signs of the wheels coming off before he imploded with an 8.87 ERA in July.

Month: ERA, K%-BB%
Apr: 3.24, 17%
May: 3.25, 15%
Jun: 3.38, 9%
Jul: 8.87, 0%
Aug: 2.79, -2.5%

I’m surprised so many owners kept him around so long with the horrible July and a negative K%-BB%.

Hunter Strickland: 9
Sean Doolittle: 9
These two may move from the most dropped to the most added in the next week or two with both of their bullpens in turmoil. Strickland picked up a Save with Will Smith struggling to close out games. The Nationals bullpen is a disaster and once Doolittle comes off the DL, I expect him to immediately be the closer.

Devin Mesoraco: 9
Mesoraco just played 10 games this month because of an injury (neck) and Kevin Plawecki is hitting decent (.732 OPS).

A major note with catchers, some can be high maintenance. There are about ten to 15 set-and-forget catchers. The rest can quickly lose playing time and others may step up. Also, small injuries which don’t require DL time, like the case with Mesoraco, pop up all the time. The catcher positions can end up being a steaming option until the right pair is found.

One of my favorite options is to target those few catchers who don’t kill or AVG or OBP. The counting stats are just icing.

Christian Villanueva: 8
Hurt

Josh Harrison: 8
Owners have cut Harrison for the simple truth, he’s not playing. Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman have been playing at second and Colin Moran has been playing a respectable (.277/.338 /.392) third base.

Additionally, Harrison hurt himself (hamstring) after these drops ran so he’ll be playing even less.

Brad Peacock: 7
This one surprised me a little bit. While Peacock only one got one start which lasted just 1.2 innings, he’s still rosterable. Owners knew he’d have a short leash since he hasn’t been stretched out.

Peacock should be owned by teams looking for good ratios (1.09 WHIP, 3.12 ERA) while still getting a good number of strikeouts (13.4 K/9). I’d rather roster Peacock than Shields any day.

Scott Alexander: 7
It didn’t take long for Alexander to lose the Dodgers closer’s role

Devon Travis: 7
I wonder if owners jumped the gun a bit with Lourdes Gurriel coming off the DL. Since Gurriel has returned, Travis (2B) and Gurriel (SS) have started in three of the last four games. I could see him get added some this next week for teams needing middle infield help.

Lance McCullers: 7
Hurt

Steve Pearce: 7
I’m not sure why Pearce was picked up after being traded by Blue Jays to the Red Sox. He’s started in just 24 of 53 games since the trade. Owners can afford half-timers.

Felix Pena: 7
He was a two-start pitcher last week against Houston and Arizona. It was not the easiest two starts. I was a little surprised to see a pitcher with a 9.3 K/9 with ERA estimators near 4.00 get dropped. After digging around, he’s not the same pitcher who started the season.

First, his strikeout rate has dropped each month.

Month: K/9
May: 10.8
June: 10.7
July: 9.2
Aug: 9.0

And his velocity has dropped 2 mph this season and about 4 mph from when he was a reliever last season.

He could be adjusting to starting or hurt but his talent hasn’t leveled off yet.

Elias Diaz: 7
With Cervelli healthy, Diaz normally only catches against an opponent’s lefty starter.

Austin Jackson: 7
I figured it was a playing time issue behind Jackson getting dropped but he’s started 27 of the 30 games since going the Mets. And it’s not his over performance with a .319/.368/.440 slash line after the trade. The biggest issue with Jackson is that he’s only stolen three bases and hit two home runs this year.

I believe he belongs on some team’s roster, especially with so many outfield platoons right now. He’s a nice value for teams needing an accumulator.

David Freese: 6
A hot July (.364/.426/.618) boosted his ownership but the hot hand no longer exists with him hitting his normal .259/.279/.397 in August. While the power is playable, Freese is just not playing with Colin Moran regularly at third base.

Kenta Maeda: 6
He was probably more of a speculative Saves play and with Jansen coming back, owners are moving on.

Tyler Anderson: 6
Anderson seemed to be a be a useable Colorado pitcher whose production improved over the course of the season. At least until August.

Month: ERA, WHIP
Apr: 4.10, 1.52
May: 5.28, 1.21
June: 3.52, 1.17
Jul: 2.16, 0.87
Aug: 11.39, 2.02

Owners knew that Anderson wouldn’t likely continue with a sub-4.00 ERA. His 2017 and 2018 seasonal ERA (4.81 vs 4.78) and FIP (4.67 vs 4.73) are almost identical.

I dug a bit to see if anything has changed. He’s throwing his cutter more and putting fewer pitches in the strike zone but neither point to a major change.

Russell Martin: 6
First Danny Jansen joined the Jays and then Lourdes Gurriel took over at third so Martin’s playing time keeps taking hits

Sean Manaea: 6
Hurt

Ty Blach: 6
In the bullpen





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.

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Gavin
5 years ago

This is fantastic.