Hello deep leaguers! It is July and it is hotter than two rats in a wool sock out there. I know he says August in the clip, but at this rate, August will hit three rats. I’ve been tracking team offenses in these intros all season, and your top five scoring teams for June were the: Brewers, Rockies, Pirates, Athletics and Dodgers. Nothing too surprising there, the Buccos have been hitting all year, we all know the A’s play in a twin sized bed masquerading as a baseball stadium, and we know to avoid Coors and the Dodgers pretty much all the time. Kansas City was the 8th highest scoring team in June, and might not be the streaming target they were for the first couple months. On the other side, the Padres and Mariners continue to struggle offensively, while the Braves (who had a top 5 offense at the end of May) and Guardians have been without their superstar hitters. The Diamondbacks are the surprise team at the bottom. Carroll and Marte are not a lineup unto themselves.
Fallers
Nathan Lowe, First Base, Cincinnati Reds – 2% Rostered
I know I just covered Lowe as a faller back in week 12. Back then he was scuffling, but I still really liked his underlying rates, especially his hard hit and barrel rates. He had the best launch angle of his career! Well, he just finished June with a .343 BABIP and that translated to a .226/.349./.283 line with no homers and somehow no RBI. He played in 23 games in June – that’s more games played than he had in either April or May and he failed to drive in a single run despite a very lucky BABIP.
Lowe’s barrel and hard hit rates have dropped about three percentage points a piece since I last covered him, and he continues to pull everything he makes contact with. I was really expecting to see a steep decline in his process chart but…
Everything is trending upwards! His decision value is right where it was three weeks ago and his contact rate and power output have increased! What?! I don’t trust charts now. We’ve watched Lowe lose 200 points of OPS between April and May, and then another 130 point OPS drop from May to June. This is all despite him carrying a BABIP over .300 for each month.
We all know that if Lowe had a big June, I’d be using that big BABIP to warn you he might regress, and a part of me wants to ignore the goose egg of offense he laid over the past month based on his process chart and barrel rate. So I’m gonna say hang on in the deepest of leagues. I won’t cut him in my 20 teamers, but in anything smaller than that, my patience has worn out.
Chandler Simpson, Outfield, Tampa Bay Rays – 51% Rostered
It has been a while since I included a faller with such a high roster percentage. Simpson also had graduated from the deep league ranks after he batted .295 and stole 44 bases in 109 games as a rookie last season. Fantasy managers were counting on Simpson as a potential category winner and batting average asset.
He started strong, batting .314 and swiping 11 bases in 14 tries in April. He batted just .255 in May, and was much less successful on the bases, getting thrown out in 5 out of 8 attempts. He did swipe five bases in June, but they all came in a five game stretch from 6/20 – 6/24 and he’s batting just .206 for the month.
We don’t care one iota about Simpson’s power, we just want him to get on base and run. And to that extent, he’s improved his walk rate ever so slightly this season and he strikes out in just 10% of his at bats. But he is at the absolute bottom of the league in barrel rate, hard hit etc. He might as well bunt in every at bat. Honestly though, this is the profile we want. He puts the ball in play with a 60% grounder rate and runs hard. He has just a .230 BABIP in June, which is extremely low for this type of player.
My biggest concern here really is his poor success rate on steal attempts. Players generally need to be successful on 75-80% of stolen base attempts for the benefits of moving into scoring position to outweigh the extra outs. Simpson has been successful on 19/28 attempts which is less than a 70% success rate. He becomes even less viable in leagues that use OBP or OPS as scoring categories too. If you need steals, check to see if Nasim Nunez or Henry Bolte are still available in your leagues.
Bryce Elder, Starting Pitcher, Atlanta Braves – 49% Rostered
I know it’s only July, but Elder might be turning into a pumpkin. He opened the season strong with a 1.88 ERA, 1.04 WHIP and a 39/13 K/BB ratio in April. He was still pretty good in May, clocking in with a 3.41 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and a 25/9 K/BB. He kept his K/BB steady again in June with 22 Ks to nine walks, but he was hit hard, and ended the month with a bloated 8.10 ERA and 1.63 WHIP. The poor outing included clunkers against the Mets and most recently the Giants. Those are not powerhouse offenses.
Elder did run into some bad batted ball luck. He carried BABIPs around .250 for the first two months of the season, but had a slightly elevated .329 mark in June. We’ve already established that his strikeout-to-walk ratio held steady as did his strikeout and walk rates per nine innings. He allowed more hits and more homers. In fact, Elder allowed seven homers over 26.2 June innings after allowing just five homers over his previous 72 innings.
Elder isn’t blowing anyone away averaging 92.5 MPH on his heater, and his chase, whiff and K rates are all well below league average. On top of that, his current home run per fly ball rate is under 16%, which is actually much lower than the 22% rate his posted each of the last two seasons. He’s had a homer problem, but was able to keep it in check for a couple months. As the weather has heated up, he’s getting hit harder and the balls are leaving the yard.
I don’t like where this is trending, and Atlanta has had difficulty scoring for the last month too. I have very little confidence in Elder vs NYM on Friday, and if that one goes poorly, I think I’m out entirely.
Risers
Caleb Durbin, Second Base and Third Base, Boston Red Sox – 36% Rostered
Durbin socked 11 homers and stole 18 bases over 136 games as a rookie for the Brewers last season, and was the key player Boston acquired in the deal that sent Kyle Harrison, Shane Drohan and David Hamilton to Milwaukee. Harrison has been the best player moved in that deal so far, but after failing to post an OPS above .540 during his first two months in Boston, Durbin’s bat has come alive.
The 26 year old slashed .325/.360/.614 with six homers and five stolen bases over 24 games in June after homering just once and stealing four bases over his prior 52 games. His June BABIP checks in at .313, a bit higher than league average, but nothing that screams “unsustainable”.
Durbin doesn’t walk much, but he also rarely chases bad pitches and carries an elite whiff rate. He’s struck out in fewer than 15% of his at bats, runs well and has nine steals in 12 attempts on the season. What does scream “unsustainable” are his underlying power metrics. His exit velocity, barrel and hard hit rate all rank in the league’s bottom 10%.
His process chart reinforces our assessment as we can see Durbin’s obviously strong contact rate and decision value. What we don’t see is any uptick in power that coincides with his recent power surge. Durbin has been so hot, that I really expected or at least hoped to find some encouraging data, but I can’t say I’m overly impressed. The Sox don’t score a ton, Durbin doesn’t walk enough and I don’t expect the homers to keep coming. He might get to 20 steals and bat closer to .250 but I’d be shocked if he reached 15 dingers on the year.
Dominic Canzone, Outfield, Seattle Mariners – 16% Rostered
Canzone’s roster percentage is way too low. He had a rough month of May that saw him hit just .218 (with a .205 BABIP), but he still launched four homers and finished the month with a .787 OPS. He had batted .284 in April and got right back in the swing of things after his down month, slashing .314/.385/.643 with six homers and a 7/14 K/BB ratio in June.
Canzone has monster power metrics too. His average exit velocity of 93.4 MPH and 16% barrel rate rank in the top 6% of all hitters and his hard hit rate is just outside the top 10%. His chase and whiff rates are both just above the bottom quartile, but despite that he has just a 21% K rate that’s actually better than league average. He doesn’t run, but he does walk enough with a perfectly average 9.1% BB rate.
He’s mostly been in a platoon, but has hit lefties to the tune of .238/.429/.524 over a tiny 28 plate appearance sample. We don’t even need a chart for this one, what are you waiting for? We have a player with top of the charts power metrics and a perfectly acceptable K rate and he’s available in more than 80% of leagues. I want to see his roster rate over 50% by the time I write week 16.
Kyle Karros, Third Base, Colorado Rockies – 2% Rostered
It’s Eric Karros’ kid! No relation to Kratos, God of War though. Karros started the year slow but has gotten better as the season has progressed. The 23-year-old finished April with a .602 OPS, then posted a .675 OPS in May. He busted out his hittin’ stick in June, slashing .353/.429/.574 with a couple homers and a 7/11 BB/K ratio. He did have a .400 BABIP, but made excellent strides with his K rate, striking out just 11 times in 68 at bats after doing so 46 times over his first 163 at bats.
Karros’ K rate on the season comes in at just over 21%, but we’ve noted a dramatic improvement recently. He also has a great walk rate at 12%, which is a great combo for OBP leagues. His 44% hard hit rate is above average, as is his 89.6 MPH average exit velocity, but his barrel rate is just a bit below the mean. We always have to check the home/road splits for Colorado hitters, and Karros does have a better OPS at Coors (.778) than he does on the road (713), but that is less extreme than we often see and he has more road homers than home dingers.
I love seeing young players with advanced plate discipline, especially young players with the power potential of a 6’5″ 225 pound frame and Karros fits the bill. He also has solid power metrics, and his process chart is trending up sharply.
I really like what I’m seeing here, and this is becoming a trend with Rockies, as Jake McCarthy and TJ Rumfield have received strong recommendations too. And Karros is still available in 98% of leagues. Go get him.
That’s it for Week 15! Thanks as always for reading, and good luck out there Deep Leaguers!
