Oak's Corner: Trea the Slugger?

The Week That Was

By the time you are reading this, we somehow will only have three and a half weeks left in this wild season and only three more FAAB bidding periods. Before you sit down with your bids this Sunday, I highly recommend doing a full audit of your teams to decide your strategy for the final kick in this 60-game sprint. For me, this review consists of a deep dive into the standings in each of my leagues to see realistically where I am and where I can get to within each category, so I can adjust my rosters as efficiently as possible. The nice part about trailing right now is that there is still plenty of movement in leagues, and it'a instrumental to sit down with your league standings and figure out where you can gain and how many points you can gain. I promise, you will be surprised how far you can move with a great week considering we are only working with seven weeks of stats.

Conversely, if you are doing well or leading your league, don't think this is a normal September when you can cruise home, as teams will make runs, and a couple bad days will drop you very rapidly. Study those categories to see where the bunching is and where multiple points can be made up quickly, and also study your rosters to see if you're carrying players on whom you probably should have given up or who don't help you in the categories you need. Huge runs will be made over these final three weeks, so do your best to not caught on the wrong side of one because you didn't sit down and really get in deep with your squads. Heck, this is the last nonfootball Sunday you're going to get; there really is no other time!

We knew this season might get a bit wacky in a number of different ways, but how about the season Trea Turner is putting up? Turner was drafted in the middle of the first rounder in most leagues this preseason because he can win you the stolen base category while also contributing across the board, unlike many other stolen base specialists. After a bit of a slow start that saw him hitting .196 after 12 games, Turner has been absolutely on fire, and that streak got ridiculous last weekend when he had three or more hits in four straight games, including a 5-for-5 game in Fenway against the Red Sox. After three more hits on Thursday, Turner is now hitting .366 on the season and an insane .448 over his last 23 games. 

Of course, with all those hits, we would assume Turner is leading the world in stolen bases, but he has only attempted seven steals and has only been successful on three of those. It is probably a weird sample size fluke on the steals, but what cannot be denied is how much better a hitter Turner has become in 2020. He has dropped his strikeout rate to a career low 14 percent, while jacking up his slugging percentage to a career-high .634, which puts him in the top 10 in baseball (yes, in slugging!). Interestingly, Turner's hard contact numbers are about the same as last year with a 40.2 percent hard hit rate and a 6.8 percent barrel rate, but he has bumped his launch angle to 11.2 degrees. Turner has not slowed down at all, as his spring sprint is still in the 100th percentile per Baseball Savant, but if you drafted Turner, the three stolen bases have likely messed up your team build. You can never be disappointed with a player raking this on your roster, but it will be interesting where he ends up in drafts in 2021 without a little stolen base spurt at some point over the next three-plus weeks. My lean at the moment would be to be aggressive with Turner as he has shown signs of being a better hitter with the same speed, and I think over the course of a six-month season, those stolen bases are going to come (and they often come in bunches), but this time they are paired with a much better set of batting skills.

FAAB Feelings

As I noted above, there are only three FAAB periods left, and if you happen to be sitting on a bunch of money still, make sure to get out there and use it to at least get three weeks from your new players. You can't take it with you, and while you want a few bucks for the final two weeks, you certainly don't want your big purchases to contribute to you team for only a week or two.

Michael Pineda – Pineda returned from suspension this week and, surprisingly (to me at least), he looked to be fully stretched out and threw a full six innings against the White Sox, allowing only two hits and two runs. Pineda has always been frustrating, as he limits walks and gets some strikeouts, but when it comes down to it, his ERA has been over 4.00 for the last four seasons he has pitched (he missed all of 2018). But in 2019, when a lot of pitchers got lit up by Happy Fun Ball, Pineda was pretty darn solid last year with a 4.01 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP in 146 innings. His strikeouts were under one per inning, but his impeccable command continued with a 1.7 BB/9 walk rate, which does help the WHIP a lot. The homers are always an issue, but he found a way to limit the blowup outings for once, allowing more than four earned runs only three times all year and only once in his last 20 starts.

Solid starting pitchers are tough to find right now and, most importantly, Pineda is widely available right now. He's only owned in 15 percent of NFBC Main Event leagues, as he was not drafted often as no one wanted to stash him for six weeks. He is only four percent owned in NFBC 12-teamers. Pineda may get two starts next week as he goes on Monday, but the Twins have an odd schedule next week with two off days (they moved their Wednesday game to a double header Tuesday to help the Cardinals), so they may have to end up using six starters to make the schedule work. But, even if he only goes once, he would likely go twice the weekend after, so with four more starts likely and with a good offense behind him to try and grab some wins, I'll definitely jump in on Pineda bids this week.

Ke'Bryan Hayes – The Pirates top hitting prospect got the call this week and started the first two games (and homered in the first one) before sitting on Thursday. I'd assume the Pirates called him up to play and am going to consider his bid with that assumption in mind unless I see something different over the weekend. Hayes spent 2019 in Triple-A for the first time and responded by hitting .265 with 10 homers and 12 stolen bases. It was his first season with double digit power, but he has been a solid stolen base source throughout the minors. What I like most in the 23 year old's profile is his history of solid strikeout rates in the minors. He never registered a strikeout rate over 20 percent at any level. By all accounts, his defense at third base should help him stay in the lineup even if he slumps early on. I think the power is still a work in progress, and for fantasy leagues, Bryan needs that to happen to be a big contributor. While the consistent playing time will make him a bid in 15-teamers, in that Pirates lineup, I think he is a very small bid at best in 12-teamers.

A Closer Look

The trade deadline caused some upheaval in the closer world as the trades of Archie Bradley and Taylor Williams opened a couple of jobs for the final stretch. With three weeks left in the season, make sure to take a close look at your standings in the save category, and if you're tightly bunched there, as most leagues are, grabbing even two or three additional saves down the stretch could be a massive difference.

In Arizona, Bradley was the clear closer all year, so this is a wide open job now, and the first save opportunity went to Kevin Ginkel, who immediately gave up a home run to Mookie Betts (no shame in that) to blow that save. Of course, giving up a run to the Dodgers is not an issue, but if he had locked down that first one, the confidence from his manager could have started to really build. Ginkel was really good last year in his short time with the D'Backs, posting a 1.48 ERA over 24.1 innings, but 2020 has been a different story so far. He has had walk issues with nine walks allowed already, although two of them were of the intentional variety. He is still striking out more than 10 batters per nine to go along with a nice 13.8 percent swinging strike rate.

At first glance, the other obvious name to jump out in the Arizona bullpen is the veteran Hector Rondon, but he has struggled, too, sporting a 9.00 ERA over his 12 innings this season. Even more concerning, his velocity has dipped to 95.3 mph and his swinging strike rate is down to an ugly 8.5 percent; he is just not someone on whom I want to speculate. Junior Guerra has been effective with a 3.14 ERA, but he isn't a strikeout guy and has had some walk issues of his own.

The most interesting guy in this pen right now might be Stefan Crichton who has a 3.06 ERA so far, and his walk rate is skewed by four intentional walks issued already, as apparently Torey Lovullo likes to put guys on base. Crichton was effective in 2019, striking out 9.8 batter per nine while posting a 3.56 ERA over 30.1 innings. I think the D'Backs would like to see Ginkel succeed in the job, and he's likely going to be my top bid in this pen depending on what happens over the weekend, but I think Crichton is the sneaky guy to grab a few saves down the stretch.

In Seattle, Williams had been the leader of that committee, but with his trip down the coast to San Diego, along with a number of his bullpen friends, I think the job goes back to the spring trainer assumed leader for saves, Yoshihisa Hirano. Hirano had a late start to the 60-game season due to his placement on the COVID-19 Injured List but he seems to be fully recovered, making four appearances over the last 10 days. Hirano is 36 and holds very little long-term value for the Mariners as they try and rebuild their squad, but he has experience closing for many years in Japan and there really is no one who jumps off the page to shut the door for Seattle, so I imagine they go to the vet down the stretch. Hirano was not very good in 2019 for the D'Backs, as he had a 4.75 ERA in 53 innings but was able to punch guys out at a 10.4 K/9 rate. He does induce swing and misses over his three years in MLB, and while I am not excited about this option or the team he pitches for, I think he's the guy for Seattle down the stretch, at least for any save opportunities they may create.  

Series of the Weekend

Padres at A's – My apologies for being a homer, but this was an easy call (even with the intriguing Cardinals at Cubs matchup), as we get the exciting up-and-coming Padres coming off a trade deadline where they clearly went all-in, facing an A's team that has the second best record in the American League, but has played two games over the past seven games and none since last Saturday. The Padres are barely hanging in there against the powerful Dodgers, but with no other teams over .500 in the NL West, their chances of making the expanded playoffs are sky high. While the Padres got all the attention at the trade deadline, the A's did quietly bolster their pitching staff with the addition of lefty start Mike Minor.

While the attention, deservedly, has been on Fernando Tatis and Manny Machado in San Diego, they have received contributions from all over, but none more surprising than the breakout from infielder Jake Cronenworth. The former seventh-round pick of the Rays has forced his way into every day at-bats for the Padres, hitting .346 with four homers and two steals over 116 plate appearances in his first taste of the majors. He was really good in Triple-A last year with a .334 average across 88 games with 10 homers and 12 steals, but was not on many radars and was ranked as just the 15th best prospect in only the Padres organization preseason by Baseball America. He has done nothing but smoke the ball so far in 2020, sporting a 47.7 percent hard hit rate, and he already has 12 barrels on the season. His eligibility at first base, second base and shortstop only boosts his fantasy value, especially in this crazy season where flexibility is golden. Even wilder, he actually appeared as a pitcher in seven games in Triple-A in 2019, serving as an opener on multiple occasions. I love random breakouts, and baseball seems to deliver them more than any other sport. With Cronenworth playing every day in this powerful lineup, I'm enjoying the ride.

While the A's have been winning a lot of games, their starting pitchers, surprisingly, haven't been good at all, with all five starters posting an ERA over 3.70, and three of the five starters over 4.75. Of course, their new addition, Minor, has struggled himself with a 5.60 ERA over his first seven starts, which brought down his price significantly in the trade market. Minor was very effective last year for the Rangers with a 3.59 ERA while throwing more than 200 innings. So far this year, the home run ball has bit him even more than usual with a 1.78 HR/9 home run rate, and he has also been hurt by a 65.5 percent strand rate. It's unclear at the moment how the A's will use Minor since their five starters are currently healthy, but they are going to need more than five starters over the next few weeks, as they have three doubleheaders, so I imagine they go with six starters at least for now and then see after the schedule chills out a bit who they want to ride with in their playoff rotation. An extra arm was going to be a must for the A's either way, and I tend to think Minor ends up sticking in the rotation, likely displacing Mike Fiers.