Hello and welcome back to DLRF. We are just a week away from the MLB trade deadline. What an exciting time to be alive! My Buccos are clear sellers again this year, and while I’ll miss some of the players for whom I’ve rooted, it’s always fun to see some fresh faces. Will they make room in the rotation for Bubba Chandler? For deeper fantasy leagues we need to pay attention to the players that come up and get their shots to start after the bigger names are dealt away. I plan to pay particular attention to the Diamondbacks, who appear poised to have a few open spots in their lineup August 1st.
Fallers
Cam Smith, Third Base and Outfield, Houston Astros (48% Rostered)
Smith, who was acquired in the Kyle Tucker trade, has had a solid rookie season for the Astros. He’s posted a 269/.335/.404 line with seven homers, five steals and just over 80 combined runs and RBI. He had his best month as a pro in June, finishing the month with an .849 OPS, (.377 BABIP) and four dingers. However, Cam has been slumping a bit lately, with just a .614 OPS in July, and a .487 (Despite a .367 BABIP) mark over the last couple weeks.
Smith has great bat speed, clocking in at over 74 MPH, but has struggled to make consistent contact. He’s posted a league average hard hit rate, a sub-par barrel rate and an exit velocity just under 89 MPH. He also chases too often, at a nearly 30% clip, whiffs a lot at 28% and as you can guess from those rates, strikes out more than we’d like, with a K rate in the league’s bottom 10%. His contact ability chart really captures the flow of his season so far.
It’s easy to see Cam’s production peak in June before regressing downward back towards where he was in May. Smith also has top of the chart’s sprint speed, but has attempted just six swipes on the season, successfully stealing five bases.
Cam is just 22 years old and has a bit of the same contact-consistency issue we see with a lot of high bat speed sluggers. But overall he’s having a very promising rookie season. He could be slumping at just the right time to pry him away from a contender looking to make a run. If you can swing it, he’s a prime target for teams that may be selling off and looking for potential long term assets as our fantasy trade season starts to heat up.
Carlos Narvaez, Catcher, Boston Red Sox (18% Rostered)
Narvaez was an absolute monster in May, slashing .356/.427/.961 with a couple homers (accompanied by a .480 BABIP), over 73 at bats. He came down to Earth in June, slashing a still helpful .254/.357/.423 with another couple homers and a more reasonable, but still elevated .320 BABIP. He’s carried a league average .280 BABIP this far in July and has posted a less-than-pedestrian .220/.283/.341 line over 41 at bats.
Narvaez does have a nice 91.2 MPH average exit velocity and a walk rate over 10%, but those are the only two metrics where he really stands out. Other than that, his hard hit and barrel rates are right around league average and his whiff and K rates are chilling around the league’s bottom quartile. His hot streak in May-June sticks out like a sore thumb on his process chart.
That might be one of the most tell tale charts we’ve ogled this season. If you buried that chart under your floor boards, you’d be driven mad by the incessant sound of whiffs and ground outs until you simply had no other choice but to tear up that hardwood and confess your crimes to MLB authorities.
It’s pretty obvious that Narvaez’s big month(s) were buoyed by some big BABIP luck and he’s not someone you should feel comfortable counting on as your backstop.
Trevor Larnach, Outfield, Minnesota Twins (8% Rostered)
Larnach is coming off back to back months in which he slugged four dingers a piece and recorded an OPS over .770. And he did that with mostly normal BABIPs of .338 and .279. In July however, he is slashing just .184/.268/.306 with a single long ball. On the season, Larnach has a .243/.313/.408 line with 13 dingers, a couple steals, 46 runs scored and 42 driven in. The MLB average triple slash for 2025 is currently .245/.316/.401.
Larnach, and his OPS+ of 97 is just about the textbook definition of an average MLB hitter in the year 2025 and his underlying metrics agree. Larnach has produced a solidly above average exit velocity but carries a poor whiff rate. His barrel percentage, hard hit rate, chase rate, K rate, bat speed and walk rate are all within spitting distance of the Major League average. He’s basically the even-Steven of Major League Baseball.
Larnach’s process chart is actually trending positively, and he’s had his worst batted ball luck of the season, with a .235 BABIP this month. He’s just been so aggressively average this season, that it feels inevitable he’ll regress back to the mean. It’s honestly difficult to form much of an opinion. Larnach is the gray-beige of baseball, he should be fine, but isn’t exciting. He’s not going to move the needle, but also shouldn’t hurt you if you need some help in your outfield.
Risers
Giancarlo Stanton, Outfield, New York Yankees (30% Rostered)
Stanton is a 16 year MLB veteran with 434 career homeruns. We don’t need charts, we know who he is. He has prodigious power, but health issues have limited him to just over 100 games played each of the last 3 seasons. Those issues have also clearly affected him at the plate when he’s playing. However, despite struggling to hit for average, Stanton has still slugged at least 24 dingers in each of those injury marred campaigns.
Seemingly healthy, Stanton is back at the top of the bat speed charts with a ludicrously powerful 80.9 MPH swing. His exit velocity is just shy of 95 MPH, his barrel and hard hit rates are elite and he’s walking a ton with an 11.8% BB rate. He does have a BABIP over .360 a 29% K rate and his powerful and frequent whiffs (37%) are providing free air conditioning to the fans in the front row, so that .284 average likely won’t last.
The power, however, is obviously legitimate and the bombs will continue as long Stanton can stay in the lineup. He’s not a young man by MLB standards, and the health risk is well known, but if you need a power boost down the stretch, there really aren’t many, if any, higher upside options more likely to be available or acquirable than Giancarlo Stanton.
Austin Hays, Outfield, Cincinnati Reds (20% Rostered)
Sticking with veteran outfielders, we turn our attention to one of the free agents I had really hoped to see in a Pirate uniform this season. Hays has had a couple trips to the IL this season, and since returning from his most recent injured stint on June 27, has logged 4 homers, 15 RBI a .254 average and an .818 OPS.
His exit velocity is just under 90 MPH, and his hard hit rate is just over 40%, but Hays does have a nearly elite barrel rate over 14%. His contact numbers are little less exciting, as he has a chase rate over 35% and a whiff rate over 32%. It’s actually a bit surprising his K rate isn’t worse than it is, currently hovering around 25%. So there is a risk of streakiness here, but not to the degree of the 30% K rate guys we really worry about.
Hays also has the benefit of playing half is games in one of the league’s friendliest parks for offense, and gets to bat right behind the electric Elly De La Cruz. His Process chart is trending up lately too.
Hays is a career .260 hitter, and does strikeout plenty, so I wouldn’t expect that .284 (Coincidence?! Hardly!) mark he’s currently sporting to hold up either, but he’s a solid hitter in a good offensive environment who looks as healthy as he’s been all year. Hays is a excellent target if you are in need of offense in your outfield.
Angel Martinez, Second Base and Outfield, Cleveland Guardians (14% Rostered)
Martinez’s season line of .248/.272/.387 is entirely underwhelming. However, Cleveland’s keystone has been scorching hot in July, slashing .297/.319/.609 with four homers in just 64 at bats. That’s good enough to make him a top 10 option at second base over that span.
But I’m gonna go ahead and throw some cold water on this situation before we get ahead of ourselves.
I’m including Angel’s contact chart because he is pretty good at getting the bat on the ball and I’m not trying to be unduly negative. But, the rest of Martinez’s offensive skill set is not exactly conducive to fantasy production. Or real life production. His biggest issue has been his decision value. Get the kids out of the room, this next chart is a horror show.
Martinez likes to swing and he does it often. He has one of the worst chase rates in the league at 43% and walks at just a 3% rate. He does make contact though, with a whiff rate under 22% and a perfectly average 21.7% K rate. The other problem is that Angel’s contact isn’t all that impactful.
His exit velocity, hard hit and barrel rates are all in the bottom 20% of the league. Martinez has slightly above average speed, and has swiped six bags, but isn’t enough to make him much of a contributor on the base paths, and as we mentioned, he doesn’t walk much to get stolen base opportunities. His .928 OPS in July looks to be as lucky as it is impressive. I think this is nothing more than a nice hot streak.
And that’s all for week 17. Here’s hoping we get to see some big fun trades over the next week. Good luck out there deep leaguers!
