As the fantasy season draws to a close, I'm trying to direct a fair portion of my focus toward the fringe guys. That could mean guys whose bats are hot right now despite their season-long counting stats perhaps not standing out to a less investigate eye. Or it could refer to guys who are ending the year on an unexpectedly good note and discovering a part of their game that was previously unharnessed. It could absolutely apply to a guy like C.J. Cron, a low-lineup guy who has spent some time in the minors this year for both injury-related and performance-related reasons. That sort of description probably doesn't give you a warm or fuzzy feeling about what he could do for you in fantasy right now, but that's why we analyze rather than just categorically write off. In 40 games played since the All-Star break, Cron has hit .305 with 12 homers and 36 RBI. For context, his last recall from Triple-A was on July 7, so these second-half stats give you a good idea of the player he's been since that wake-up call. More specifically, he hit .308 and slugged .604 in the month of August while scoring an impressive 15 runs from what's usually below the heart of the order. Cron has also already doubled, tripled and twice homered in September. With a 3-4, 2 R, HR, 3 RBI, BB, K performance at Oakland last night, he has put the punctuation on the sentence that states, "I deserve fantasy consideration!" He is sporting a hard hit rate of 44.2% since the break to complement an appealing 24.5% HR/FB ratio in the same span. If you have a need for RBI and don't hate having bursts of power while a dark horse hits for average nicely, I don't know what you're waiting for with Cron. He's only owned in 17% of Yahoo leagues and 10.6% of ESPN leagues, so the chances are good you could nab him if you want him.
Let's take a quick peek at what else happened around the world of hitting yesterday:
Would you drop Haniger for Cron? I need help in both OPS/SB categories but I’m not so certain either would help much in SBs, so guess we’re mostly looking at OPS help here. Cron looks to have been so much more consistent than Haniger. Is the answer obvious?
Yeah, Cron is definitely the preferred option over Haniger. I’m advising differently if we’re back in April, but Haniger was never the same after he went to the DL. Cron has the 17th-best wOBA in the league during the 2nd half and the 14th-best mark of 162 wRC+ in the same timeframe. It’s a no-brainer to get him on your roster and trim the fat to do so.
Oh, and his 2nd half OPS is .992 (18th-best) in between Nolan Arenado and Joey Votto. You’ll be in great shape with Cron.