Fantasy Roundtable: Roundtable: Stretch Value
This is the weekly Fantasy Roundtable, where the writers of Rotoworld Baseball let the readers of Rotoworld Baseball in on a quick staff discussion. It’s water cooler talk … that we’ve decided to publish. Look for it every Tuesday.
Drew Silva: I feel like our next good topic is going to center around September callups, but it’s too early for that. So let’s do something kinda simple — and maybe somewhat insightful for readers — in this week’s Roundtable. Give me an under-the-radar player (or players) who you think will provide significant fantasy value down the stretch …
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David Shovein: A couple of names come to mind. The first: Jesus Montero. It looks as though he has supplanted Logan Morrison as the everyday first baseman in Seattle, and the team should use the final two months of the season to see exactly what they have in the 25-year-old slugger heading into 2016. After crushing the ball at Triple-A Tacoma, Montero has hit .325/.372/.575 with a pair of homers and nine RBI in his first 40 at-bats with the big league club. He is batting near the middle of the M’s lineup, and has a chance to be an impact addition the rest of the way.
Another player that I think has been flying under the radar a bit is Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman. After being an absolute train-wreck through his first 14 starts (6.22 ERA), the right-hander has fixed his flaws and has begun to turn his season around. Over his last six outings, he sports a miniscule 1.09 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, and 30/6 K/BB ratio in 41 1/3 innings. If he keeps putting up numbers anywhere in the vicinity of those, he’ll be a tremendous addition down the stretch in all mixed leagues.
Bill Baer: Wei-Yin Chen has been an under-the-radar performer all year long and will continue to be over the final two months, I think. The Orioles’ lefty held the Mariners to one run in 7 1/3 innings on Monday. He’s held the opposition to three or fewer runs in 11 of his last 12 starts. He has a 3.21 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP, and a 111/32 K/BB ratio in 137 1/3 innings. His 20 percent strikeout rate is a career-best and he has a sub-six percent walk rate as well. Chen has only allowed line drives on 17.7 percent of hits, a career low and well below his 21.4 percent career average. Somehow, he’s only owned in 54 percent of Yahoo leagues.
As for a position player, I like Ryan Zimmerman. He’s having a career-worst offensive season due to more injury problems but he doubled twice on Monday against the Dodgers after homering twice on Sunday against the Rockies. He has multiple hits in three consecutive games. Plantar fasciitis is a nagging injury and I don’t doubt it will affect him throughout the rest of the season. With strategic rest, however, I think the Nationals can keep him fresh and relatively comfortable, and he could bounce back in the final 51 games. Zimmerman will prove important to the Nationals’ quest to win the NL East over the Mets.
Nathan Grimm: “The radar” and who may be under it is obviously subjective, but I really like a couple pitchers who I believe are under-owned. Robbie Ray isn’t yet 24 years old and is already on his third organization, but that isn’t a knock on his talent. The left-hander is striking out 22.2 percent of his batters faced while walking just 6.6 percent, and nothing about his 3.13 ERA screams huge regression despite being owned in just 13 percent of leagues. He’s got just three wins, due in part to some short starts, but the Diamondbacks have enough hitting that he could grab a few more wins down the stretch with good strikeout and ERA numbers in tow.
Somehow, Erasmo Ramirez, everyone’s favorite sleeper for years while with the Mariners, is also being overlooked this year. The righty, now with the Rays, has an 8-4 record and 3.83 ERA with 81 strikeouts in 103 1/3 innings. Moreover, in his past 12 starts Ramirez has a 2.38 ERA and 0.99 WHIP. Yet he’s owned in just 27 percent of Yahoo leagues. Owners looking for pitching help could do much, much worse.
Ryan Boyer: Jesus Montero was my first instinct when trying to come up with an under-the-radar hitter. Dave beat me to the punch there, though, so how about Chris Coghlan? Coghlan fell off the map for a few years after winning Rookie of the Year back in 2009, but he’s batted a solid .267/.344/.436 the last two seasons after resurfacing with the Cubs. The 30-year-old has cranked 11 homers and stolen 10 bases this season, making him an underrated power/speed guy who is unowned in the vast majority of fantasy leagues. Manager Joe Maddon has put Coghlan at second base of late, shifting Addison Russell over to shortstop and Starlin Castro to the bench. Not only could Coghlan be adding a position to his eligibility, he’s also hit third in each of the Cubs’ last four games.
As far as pitchers go, R.A. Dickey has rather quietly turned his season around over the past month. The knuckleballer has seen his ERA drop from 5.02 to 3.93 over his last six starts, having put up a 1.25 ERA over that stretch to go along with a 29/9 K/BB ratio. According to our Season Pass Player Rater, only Jake Arrieta, Sonny Gray and Clayton Kershaw have had more fantasy value among pitchers over the last 30 days.
Matthew Pouliot: Dickey seems like a good bet as far as pitchers go. Joe Ross is owned in a mere 40 percent of Yahoo leagues, but he’s probably long gone in most of the competitive ones now, as well he should be. I think Derek Holland could help teams once he returns in a couple of weeks, assuming that he does so as a starter. There’s been some talk of putting him in the pen, allowing him to help now, but it’s a lot more likely that the Rangers will add him to the rotation, perhaps in Nick Martinez’s place.
For batters, I think Jonathan Schoop is a great grab right now, and he’s owned in just 12% of Yahoo leagues. He’s batting .316 with five homers in 95 at-bats since coming off the disabled list last month, and the Orioles recently moved him from eighth to sixth in the lineup. If he keeps it up, he’ll soon be batting fifth behind Adam Jones and Chris Davis.
Drew Silva: I feel like there are a ton of under-the-radar starters heading into the stretch run. It’s the nature of this era of pitching-dominated baseball. You guys have named many of them, but how about two of the three prospects the Tigers got from the Blue Jays in last month’s David Price trade? Daniel Norris was installed immediately into Detroit’s starting rotation and looked terrific in his debut, allowing only one run while pitching into the eighth inning. He struggled in his next outing, but I think the 22-year-old is a good bet to finish strong with his new team. Matt Boyd is the other one. He has a 2.92 ERA and 8/1 K/BB ratio over his first two starts (12 1/3 innings) with Detroit. And he has put up a 1.65 ERA and 0.855 WHIP this season in 114 2/3 minor league innings. Comerica Park will be much more friendly on these fellas than Rogers Centre.
As for a hitter … Stephen Piscotty of the Cardinals is a guy we touched on during our trade deadline series of Fantasy Roundtables. Matt Holliday‘s injury has opened up everyday playing time for him in left field, and it looks like newcomer Brandon Moss is going to be used primarily at first base. Piscotty, a consensus top-100 prospect heading into the 2015 season, is batting .328/.375/.431 over his first 64 major league plate appearances. He’s already hit second in a few games for St. Louis.
And a quick one from the relief side to top this all off: Jean Machi looks like the preferred fill-in closer in Boston now that Koji Uehara is done for the season with a fractured wrist. Junichi Tazawa might be a decent speculative add too, but he’s showing signs of fatigue here in mid-August.
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