Oak's Corner: Dealing With Slow Starters

The Week That Was

Coming into this shortened season, we knew that hot streaks and slumps were going to be magnified, as there would be significantly less time to break out of the slump or regress off the hot streak. Even with that in mind, there sure feels like there are a lot more players than usual drafted in the Top 150 who are off to especially slow starts, and I've received questions about whether to bench or drops these guys, so figured I would quickly hit on a few of them. I was going to originally lead off with my buddy, Andrew Benintendi, but his injury makes him not worth breaking down at the moment. Also, I also won't bothering touching on elite players like Christian Yelich or Cody Bellinger as obviously no one is dropping or benching them anyway.

Matt Olson has recently ramped up the power numbers, slugging his sixth homer on Wednesday afternoon and just missing on his seventh, but somehow he only has four non-homer hits, which has led to a brutal .149 average through 83 plate appearances. Olson's strikeouts are down to 22.9 percent, and he's still contributing to the A's offense with a massive 19.3 percent walk rate. Without the strikeouts, the average is puzzling, until you scan over and see the truly absurd .095 BABIP so far, which places him dead last in all of baseball with anyone with at least 40 plate appearances. He's still hitting the ball exceptionally hard with a 58.3 percent hard hit rate, which puts him third in baseball behind only Fernando Tatis and Willson Contreras. After this closer look, I have zero concern about Olson going forward despite the crazy low batting average, and he would be at the absolute top of my buy low list in any sized league.

While I remain very positive on Olson, one guy drafted right at the end of the Top 150 whom I have concerns about is Eduardo Escobar. Through 18 games, Escobar is hitting only .171 with a single home run, and I don't like what I see with his strikeouts so far this season. Even with his power bump in 2019, he still maintained a solid 18.6 percent strikeout rate, and he has always been somewhere in that general ballpark. In his 75 plate appearances in 2020, Escobar has already been punched out 19 times, good for a 25.3 percent rate. On the plus side, his swinging strike rate has dropped a bit to 10.8 percent, so the bump could be a small sample outlier.

Coming into this year, I was worried about Escobar's status as a high level home run hitter as his hard contact numbers just did not mesh with those of a guy who was going to repeat the power and he's still low there with a 29.4 percent hard hit rate and only two barrels so far this season, putting him under the 25th percentile in both stats. I like Escobar as a player, but I think he's currently overvalued for fantasy, and if I had him on my roster this year, I'd sell as soon as he shows a little bit of life and I can get a price for him that isn't quite the discount it would be right now.

Robbie Ray is a tough one for me to evaluate in his current state, as I'm not someone who drafts him, because, despite the strikeouts, I do my best to avoid pitchers with walk issues this early. I feel like they start with a hole in Whip, plus Ray also has a history of allowing a lot of hard contact. In the offseason, there were positive reports about Ray altering his arm angle, and combined with the annual high strikeout rates, he gained a good amount of helium in drafts and ended up at pick 122 in the 38 NFBC Main Event drafts.

It would be an understatement to call his start rough as he has a 10.59 ERA through his first four starts, only logging 17 innings total. The strikeouts are still there at a 12.2 K/9 rate, but the altered mechanics have clearly not helped the walks, as he currently sports a 7.4 BB/9 walk rate. It's all been really ugly, and I realize this short season has different rules, but drafts were a little more than three weeks ago, and if you liked Ray enough after all your offseason work and research to draft him where he was picked, I think you have to hold for now. The leash is definitely shorter this year, but four starts isn't enough for me to cut someone I drafted this early. He gets a start this weekend against the Padres and then next week in Oakland. I'd wait through those two starts before deciding what to do on Ray. In a 15-team league, whatever pitcher you pick up for him is not likely to be great and certainly won't possess anywhere near the upside that Ray can deliver if he gets into a good run of starts. The best way I can sum up my feeling is that even though I never draft Ray, if he were to be dropped in my league, even I would bid on him.

FAAB Feelings

I won't cover Dylan Carlson in depth as he was drafted in a lot of leagues, but a lot of fantasy managers (me included) had to drop him because we need some bats with all the missed games. It goes without saying, if he is available, he is a must bid this week as it sounds like he will join the Cardinals this weekend in Chicago, assuming their games get played.

Alec Bohm – Bohm was called up by the Phillies on Thursday and started at third base, hitting sixth in the lineup. He is the Phillies top prospect on offense, and one would think that he has been called up to play quite regularly and that was also noted by the Phillies GM on Thursday. The move likely pushes the slumping Scott Kingery to a utility role for now. The 24-year-old Bohm was the third overall pick in the 2018 draft, coming off a year at Wichita State where he hit .339 with 16 homers in only 57 games.

Bohm split the 2019 season between Single-A and Double-A,  mashing 21 homers in 540 plate appearances while hitting .305 and slugging .518. He would have started this year at Triple-A if there were traditional minor leagues, and while he has never played above Double-A, it has to be a good sign that he adapted so well to his promotion to Double-A last year, although he was hitting in a very hitter friendly park in Reading. Most scouting reports question whether he can stick at third base on defense, but his hit tool is well thought of, although it doesn't appear scouts project him to be an elite hitter right away. I would bid on Bohm for sure in deeper leagues as I think he will be solid, but I also will not be going crazy as I don't think he's going to take the league by storm in any way, and a bid is a hope that he's a solid everyday player who helps you across the board in a pretty good lineup, but not a league winning/empty the FAAB coffers kind of bat.

Austin Slater – Slater has stormed onto the fantasy scene this week with stolen bases in four of his last five games in addition to three recent homers, including a multihomer game in Los Angeles with both big flies coming off Clayton Kershaw. Overall on the season, through 45 plate appearances, Slater is hitting .342 with a .632 SLG and a 1.076 OPS. In a short season, we have to play the hot streaks in fantasy, but we are also seeing teams play them as well, and he's earning more and more playing time by the day.

Slater was solid last year in Triple-A with a .308 average and 12 homers in only 70 games, but struggled with the Giants, posting a .238 average with five homers in 192 plate appearances. He also struck out way too much at 30.7 percent, but that number is down to 24.4 percent so far in 2020, more in line with his 23.3 percent strikeout rate in Triple-A in 2019. Despite the poor results in the majors last year, Slater did have some really nice batted ball stats, sporting a strong 48.6 hard hit rate to go with a barrel rate of 10.1 percent. Those numbers have translated so far to 2020 as he has a 48.1 percent hard hit rate, and the barrel rate has climbed even higher to 14.8 percent, which puts him in the 88th percentile in MLB.

Importantly, Slater is still available in a lot of leagues, as he's rostered in 49 percent of the NFBC 15-team Main Event leagues and a mere 11 percent of the NFBC 12-team leagues. Anyone running this much clearly deserves a bid in 2020, but with the hard hit data looking really good last year and so far this year, I'm definitely in on a bid on Slater this weekend, provided the right elbow soreness he has is minor, and he's able to get back in the lineup this weekend.

A Closer Look

After a few crazy weeks in FAAB (the newest closer, Rafael Montero, emerged last weekend and garnered massive bids), the closer market has finally mellowed out a little bit as some of the newer guys have locked into jobs and stabilized a few situations. While I'm trying to not really carry closers in waiting, with quality backend starters hard to find and going fewer innings than ever, an effective setup guy who gets a lot of strikeouts and could roll into a closer job at some point can help a roster, so I have been looking for a couple of those.

Before getting to those names, we discussed the Angels last week, and I maintain that the team will give Hansel Robles another shot in the role and he has finally started to look like the Robles of 2019 in his last three outings, walking no one while striking out seven over three innings. If he was dropped in your league (and I saw a lot of Robles drops over the past two weekends), I wouldn't wait any longer to grab him.

Jonathan Hernandez – I wrote about the Rangers bullpen a couple of weeks ago, but Montero was hurt at the time, and now it's clearly his job based on his effectiveness and how the Rangers are using him. The Montero emergence caused some people to drop Jonathan Hernandez, and I still love him and think he's worthy of a roster spot. Montero has had his share of injuries and if another were to occur, I think they would trust Hernandez to amass some saves, but while still being a multi-inning guy. The spring and summer ravings have definitely turned out to be legit as Hernandez has now thrown 11 innings without allowing a run and striking out 15. If you use a starting spot for a nonclosing reliever, a multi-inning guy with a lot of strikeouts is the formula you want. With the late game multi-inning role, Hernandez should fall into a couple more wins and has already compiled three of those in 2020.

Richard Rodriguez – This one mostly comes from the fact that if Keone Kela is good for the next couple of weeks, it's very likely that the Pirates try and find a new home for him at the trade deadline. With Kyle Crick still coming back from a shoulder injury and Nick Burdi on the 45-Day IL, Rodriguez is the likely next man up and he quietly has been very good so far. He has thrown eight innings and has a 3.38 ERA, but, even more impressively, he has struck out eleven batters against only one walk.

Looking at his profile so far this year, albeit in a small amount of innings, he's using his breaking stuff more, which is leading to more swing and miss, as his swinging strike rate is way up to 16.3 percent. His slider achieved a 40 percent whiff rate last year, but he only used it 14.3 percent of the time, relying on his four seamer on more than 80 percent of his pitches. Through the first three weeks of 2020, he's using his slider over 30 percent of the time and his curveball over 20 percent of the time. Rodriguez is only a possible add (or at least on the watch list) for deeper leagues, but I always like to try to find early-season relievers who are under the radar and look to be improved from the year prior as sometimes those hit, and in this case, it is also someone with a possible path to saves.

Series of the Weekend

Brewers at Cubs – With all the news in the NL Central focusing on the Cardinals and when they will be back on the field, the Cubs have quietly cruised to the best record in baseball, entering this weekend with a 13-3 record after beating the Brewers in the opener on Thursday night. The Brewers, thought to be strong contenders in the division this year, have sputtered a bit to begin 2020 and find themselves at 7-10 entering what is a very big series for them. It's obviously still early, but the Brewers are already 6.5 games behind the Cubs and a poor weekend could put them in a really tough spot in the division considering there are only six weeks left. 

With their success so far, it's a bit surprising that a lot of the Cubs regulars on offense have been just okay, but one regular excelling so far is Ian Happ. Happ was a much buzzed about fantasy draft name two years ago who set Twitter afire with a first pitch homer on Opening Day, but then he struggled much of the next two seasons. Heading into the weekend, Happ is hitting .302 with three homers while playing just about every day for the Cubs.

The most exciting thing we are seeing from Happ is a very clear change in his plate discipline. He already has 10 walks and his once astronomical strikeout rate (36.1 percent in 2018), which dropped nicely in 2019, has dropped even more so far this year to 22.6 percent. Happ has shown pop in the past as he had 24 homers for the Cubs in 413 plate appearances in 2017, but also has been a sneaky stolen base source too with 11 steals last year across MLB and eight for the Cubs both in 2017 and 2018. If Happ can find a way to sneak up the order for the Cubs (he's starting to already), he could really rack up the counting categories, and with the strikeout rate down, I would try to trade for him in leagues.

With the Brewers offense struggling and this season being so compacted, it's time for the Brewers to insert their young upside guys, Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta into the rotation and let it ride. Peralta has had a few shots with the Brewers with some mixed results as he has had issues with both walks and home runs. His first start of the year was a rough one against the Cubs, but his two outings since then in relief have featured a total of seven innings with zero earned runs and 14 strikeouts.

Of course, it is possible that Peralta is just more comfortable coming out of the pen, but with how he's looked in his last two outings, I'd definitely give him a chance in the rotation, as his upside is considerably higher than that of Brett Anderson. While Anderson was serviceable for the A's in 2019, it's not like he has some solid floor that helps the Brewers. Moving from Oakland Coliseum to Miller Park is going to highlight his homer issues even more, and ratios just aren't going to be good. I think the Brewers will figure it out (they sent Eric Lauer to the alternate site on Thursday), and if Peralta has been dropped in your league (I had to do it in one also, as I needed more bats last weekend), the time to grab him is now, as the Brewers are likely to stretch him out as a starter before this season slips away from them.