Hello deep leaguers! I hope you are all enjoying MLB All Star week. I want to see more skills competitions in addition to the derby. Let’s see pitchers hit targets while bending pitches around obstacles. Let’s get a relay drill with outfielders and/or cut-off men throwing the ball home with a timer or a runner. I want to see who can bunt a ball closest to the third base bag. Like bocce, but with bats. Anyway, on to the…
Fallers
Mitchell Parker, Starting Pitcher, Washington Nationals – 31% Rostered
Parker, a 6’4″ rookie hurler for the Nats has given fantasy managers a very useful first half of the season. The big southpaw has compiled a 3.90 ERA and 1.137 WHIP with 5-5 record, and a 76/21 strikeout to walk ratio over 92.1 innings thus far. Unfortunately,!he’s been inconsistent month to month. Parker recorded a stellar 1.69 ERA through April, slipped a bit to a 4.45 ERA in May, split the difference with a 3,15 mark in June and has gotten roughed up in July with a 7.24 ERA over 3 starts this month.
A big part of that inflated era can be attributed to Parker allowing five runs while recording just two outs this past weekend in Milwaukee, but he also got stung for five runs by the Mets earlier in July, including three dingers. Parker has only allowed a dozen homers on the season, and carries a better than average homerun per flyball rate, but six of those twelve homers allowed have come in Parker’s last five outings.
If gopher balls do become an issue for Parker, that could certainly lead to trouble, since he allows more than his fair share of flyballs. He also allows more than his fair share of hard hit balls. Parker’s average exit velocity allowed, hard hit rate, and barrel rate all sit around the league’s bottom third. His main path to success so far has been a strong walk rate, and until recently, a very low homerun/flyball rate.
Parker’s walk rate of 5.5% sits prettily among the league’s top 15%, and while his 20% strikeout rate leaves much to be desired, (just 7.4 strikeouts per nine innings) he was fanning batters at a much better 11.3 strikeouts per nine innings before his call up. I would be much more excited about his future prospects if he was able to get that K rate closer to where it was at AAA. As it stands, Parker is getting very close to eclipsing the 124 innings he threw last season, and with his recent struggles, I am wary of fatigue setting in. He’s not someone I’d expect to bounce back over the second half to carry my team to a championship, but I think he has shown enough that he’ll be on my radar as a mid-to-late round target next season.
Ben Lively, Starting Pitcher, Cleveland Guardians – 53% Rostered
Like Parker, Lively is another starting pitcher with lower velocity offerings that got off to a great start this season, only to see his performance begin to taper off recently. Lively has had a bit more linear progression, though. He finished April with an ERA of 2.30, then pitched to a 3.07 ERA in May, a 3.42 ERA in June and carries an ERA of 5.94 through 16.1 July innings.
In a weird twist, Lively’s BABIP has dropped each month as his ERA has risen. Not by a significant amount, with a high point of .276 in April to a low of .256 in July, but it’s weird to see a pitcher get “luckier” on balls in play while his ERA increases.
Lively also has that pesky homerun issue that might be sneaking up on Parker. It’s not as much of a new issue for Lively, but it has gotten worse lately. He allowed ten dingers over his first 70 innings this year but has given up five already through those 16.1 July innings.
With Lively, it is actually a little difficult to understand how he was having so much success. His exit velocity allowed is in the bottom 5% of MLB pitchers and his hard hit rate is not much better, sitting just above the bottom 20%. His strikeout and barrel rates are very much average, and he’s stingy with free passes with just a 7% walk rate, but that’s nothing particularly special.
With 88 innings logged so far, Lively is just three outs away from eclipsing both his innings total from last season and his MLB career high. It is certainly possible he’s getting a little gassed, but I see even less reason to expect him to get back to the level of production he gave us over the first months of the season than I did with Parker. As a 32 year old veteran of both the MLB and KBO, I’m also less excited about Lively as a potential keeper or target for next season. If you’ve rostered Lively for much of this season, he’s been very helpful, but I think his best innings this season are behind him.
And he’s not related to Blake—saved you a google search.
Michael Massey, Second Base, Kansas City Royals – 4% Rostered
Massey returned from a back injury in the last week of June, but he has been unable to regain his level of production from earlier this season. Before landing on the IL, Massey was slashing .294/.306/.529 with six homers and 23 RBI in just 102 at bats. That’s a very nice pace projected over a 500 at bat season. But since his return, he’s slashing just .222/.239/.378 with two homers and three RBI in 45 at bats.
There are some disturbing trends in Massey’s profile. His exit velocity, barrel rate and hard hit rate has dropped in three consecutive seasons. His walk rate dipped from just over 5% last season (already very low) to under 2% this season, and his ground ball rate has spiked from 31.4% last season all the way to 48.5% so far this year. On the other hand, Massey has dropped his strikeout rate all the way down to 14.1%, which is borderline elite.
But what can we expect from him going forward? He doesn’t walk, which severely limits his run scoring potential and doesn’t run much at all, which is a problem when 18 second base eligible players have double digit steals at the All Star Break. Massey’s value is dependent on him driving in runs while batting the middle of the Royals lineup, behind on-base machines Bobby Witt, Vinnie P, and Sal Perez.
I’m willing to explain away some his recent struggles on the back injury and a .172 BABIP in July. He’s barely rostered at the moment, and I have no intention to change that, but Massey is a watch list guy for now. If he looks healthy coming out of this break, he could be a decent power and RBI source over the second half.
Risers
Harrison Bader, Outfielder, New York Metropolitans – 18% Rostered
Bader has been putting together a nice season, with an OPS more than 100 points higher than his mark for the 2023 campaign. And he has been especially hot since the start of July, slashing .297/.308/.487 with two dingers and two swipes over 12 games. He’s been a top 100 player in standard leagues over the last 30 days.
I don’t really buy Bader as a legitimate power source, though, since he ranks in the league’s bottom quartile in exit velocity and hard hit rate, and he has not topped 16 homers in a season during his MLB career. He does run well, and his 13 steals on the season put him on pace to surpass his career high of 20 set just last season. Although his low walk rate, (he has no walks in July, and just three over his last 114 plate appearances) and spot in the bottom third of the Met’s lineup limits his opportunities.
Its been a very nice run for Bader, but in the end I just don’t think the quality of contact he makes will lead to consistent offensive production. If he got on base more often, or hit higher in the lineup, he would be a good speed play, but as it stands, I just don’t think he’ll get enough volume.
Tobias Myers, Starting Pitcher, Milwaukee Brewers – 46% Rostered
A former 6th round pick by the Orioles, Myers did not have a ton of minor league success until this season. He recorded a 4.93 ERA over 140 innings split between AA and AAA in 2023. He only pitched 18.2 innings in AAA before his promotion this season, but he had a 1.45 ERA and 1.07 WHIP in that small sample.
Myers has had a great start to his MLB career, though, with a 6-3 record, 3.13 ERA, 1.125 WHIP, and 62 strikeouts with 20 walks over his first 72 innings (13 starts). And he’s been getting better as the season has progressed. Myers pitched at least five innings only twice over his first six starts, and never more than that. Over his seven starts since the calendar flipped to June, Myers has recorded five quality starts, 5 of his 6 wins, and has gone at least five innings in every outing.
Myers does get hit a bit harder than I’d like to see with an exit velocity allowed of 89.5 MPH, but he carries slightly above average hard hit and barrel rates. He does a good job limiting free passes with just a 6.9% walk rate that sits in the league’s top third. He’s not overpowering with his 93 MPH four seamer, and has struck out just 7.8 batters per nine innings in the Majors so far, but he did strikeout more than 11 batters per nine innings in the minor leagues over the past two seasons.
I’d be comfortable running Myers out there regardless of whether I’m competing for a championship this year or not. He throws a solid mix of pitchers, plays for a division leader, and has been trending in the right direction for over a month now. I think the Brewers and fantasy managers have another solid starting pitching option in Tobias Myers
Lawrence Butler, Outfielder, Oakland Athletics – 15% Rostered
Butler has just a .211/.280/.406 line on the season, but he has been doing his best Aaron Judge impersonation since the start of July. Butler has come on like a heat wave, slashing a robust .317/.349/.854 with 7 homers, 17 RBI, and even a couple steals in just 43 July plate appearances.
Over that span, Butler has moved up from the seven hole in the A’s lineup to the middle of the order few games and then to leadoff for a couple contests before the break. He seemed to enjoy leading off as he cranked three dingers, helping to power Oakland’s 18 run outburst against the Phillies last week.
Butler did have a pretty solid minor league season last year, slashing .284/.350/.475 with 15 long balls and 21 stolen bases over just 412 plate appearances. He’s also crushing the ball with a 92 MPH average exit velocity an 11.8% barrel rate and a 48.7 percent hard hit rate. He walks enough with an 8.8 percent rate that he could stick at leadoff (especially for the A’s), but his strikeout rate of nearly 30% is a legitimate concern.
Honestly, except for the team environment and strikeout rate, there is an awful lot to like about Butler. He is a big, (6’3″ 210) strong hitter making good contact, and while he does not possess great speed, he’s been effective on the base paths, stealing six bases without being caught. I’m in on Butler as a fun and likely cheap addition for a playoff run, and even more in on him as a target for teams with next year and beyond on their minds. There is a good mix of talent and opportunity here.
That’s all for week 15 of DLR&F. I hope everyone enjoyed this little break from the regular reason and now trade season, one of the most exciting times of the year for fantasy baseball. Until next week, good luck out there deep leaguers!
Featured image by Justin Paradis