I am writing during the final day of the MLB Trade Deadline, which means I’m refreshing the MLB.com home page between every sentence I type. It is early in the day as I pen this brief introduction, and my spirits are high. With just under nine hours left till “last call” on rental bats and future stars, my hometown Buccos are above .500 and I have unreasonable hope that they land a solid outfielder like Taylor Ward (mentioned here last week) or Brent Rooker. Also, I’m pretty shocked at how expensive relief pitchers have been. But this article isn’t about the trade deadline, it’s about Deep League Risers and…
Fallers
Connor Wong, Catcher, Boston Red Sox – 42% Rostered
Wong has a fantastic .300/.363/.450 line, with ten dingers in 280 at-bats this season. He’s been a big asset both for the high-scoring BoSox and for fantasy managers who jumped in on him early this year. However, the 28 year old backstop has slowed significantly over the past month. Wong slashed just .222/.300/.389 with three homers and six RBI over 72 at-bats in July.
Wong carries an average exit velocity, hard hit rate and and barrel rate that sit in the league’s bottom quartile. He has an average strikeout rate at around 21%, but a below average walk rate of just 6.4%. He also got pretty lucky on balls in play, carrying a BABIP north of .375 for the first three months of the season. His BABIP for July fell back to earth, but not to an “unlucky” level, at a reasonable .277.
The Sox also traded for Danny Jansen at the deadline. Jansen has struggled lately, posting just a .134/.232/.196 line since the start of June, but Boston didn’t give the Jays three prospects just to park Jansen on the bench, so Wong could be looking at a dip in playing time as well as regression towards his true talent level. If Wong has been your only catcher for a while now, you should at least check who might available on the wire, or consider making a move before fantasy league trade deadlines come and go.
Zack Gelof, Second Base, Oakland Athletics – 40% Rostered
Gelof appeared in this article as a Riser back in week 14. He deserved it, as he posted a helpful .247/.281/.529 line with six homers and four stolen bases over 85 at-bats in June, albeit with a .341 BABIP. His July line was a much less helpful .151/.250/.329 with just four homers and three steals over 73 at-bats. It is nice that he still provided a bit of pop and speed, but that .151 batting average is a killer, and his average on the season still sits below the Mendoza line.
Gelof did suffer from a .163 BABIP in July, and does carry above average exit velocity and barrel rates on the year, but both of those metrics have declined some since his rookie campaign. He also whiffs and strikes out as much as any hitter in the league with both rates in the MLB’s bottom two percent. Gelof has also been dropped to the bottom third of Oakland’s lineup, and with the emergence of Lawrence Butler, will likely remain there.
I do think he will still be a decent source of both homers and stolen bases for the remainder of the year, and I very much like him as a target in keeper and dynasty formats. Oakland has also been scoring a ton of runs lately, but that could change depending how hard they sell at the deadline. Rooker is still an Athletic as I type these words, but if he and/or Bleday get dealt that could take some of the shine off of other Oakland hitters.
Carlos Santana, First Base, Minnesota Twins – 21% Rostered
Santana appeared here as a Riser in that same week 14 article alongside Zack Gelof. He also deserved it, slashing .337/.396/.565 with four homers, fourteen runs, sixteen RBI and even a couple of bags over 92 at-bats. He also fell back to Earth in July, slashing just .203/.317/.362 with two dingers, five runs and eight RBI on the month.
Santana is still a patient hitter with a strikeout rate under 17% and a walk rate around 10%. He is 38 years old, though, and father time remains undefeated. It is worth noting that his strong June came with a .355 BABIP and his weak July came with a .240 BABIP. The Twins have a top ten offense and Santana is still hitting in the middle of the lineup. For managers out there that may be looking at an extended Christian Walker absence, Santana should be on your radar.
Risers
Eugenio Suárez, Third Base, Arizona Diamondbacks – 35% Rostered
Eugenio finished June with a .196 batting average and just six home runs over 276 at bats. He then batted .300/.376/.638 with seven homers, 16 runs scored and 22 driven in over just 80 at-bats in July. I’ll have what he’s having. He had BABIPs around .220 for May and June, two months where his batting average dipped under .200, and his BABIP did jump to .340 in July, which is well above the MLB average, but not enough to chalk up Suarez’s hot month to just good luck.
Eugenio had just 27 walks compared to 92 strikeouts (276 at bats) at the end of June, but drew 10 free passes while striking out 25 times in July (80 at bats). So he did cut down on strikeouts a bit, and upped his walk rate nicely. As we can see on the graph below, his gains in strikeout and walk rate and overall production look legitimate based on Suarez’s improved decision value. He’s swinging at much better pitches to hit than he was earlier in the year.
Eugenio feels like he’s been around forever, but he’s just 33 years young. He’s also rounding into form at the perfect time, and bats in the middle of the lineup for the third highest scoring team in the Majors. If Christian Walker is forced to miss time, it will likely hurt the Diamondbacks’ offense overall, but could allow Suarez to move up in the lineup. There is a lot to like about Eugenio Suárez right now.
Michael Toglia, First Base and Outfield, Colorado Rockies – 34% Rostered
Toglia has steadily improved as the season has progressed. The massive, 6’5″, 225-pound slugger logged an OPS of just .505 in limited action through April. He started to show some progress with a .238/.292/.488 line with five homers over 80 at-bats in June, and really busted out with a .256/.340/.622 line with nine dingers in July.
Toglia, as I mentioned earlier, is a big man. He hits the ball like a big man, with an average exit velocity of 92.5 MPH that sits in the league’s top 10%. He does it consistently too, with barrel and hard hit rates in the top 5%. He does suffer from the same issue that plagues many gigantic batters though, with whiff and strikeout rates in the bottom 5% of the league.
With Rockies players, we always have to worry about how much the excellent hitting environment is driving their success, but Toglia sports an .822 OPS away from Coors, and a .760 OPS at home, with 12 of his 18 homers on the season having come on the road. He is not just a product of the thin air.
It might be too late to get in on Toglia, but he is still available in two thirds of Yahoo leagues as of this writing and he really should be rostered in all formats at this point. If you can get him, do it now.
Nolan Schanuel, First Base, Los Angeles Angels – 10% Rostered
Schanuel is breaking out and 90% of leagues are ignoring it. He has improved his batting average, slugging percentage and OPS every month so far this season. He came into the league as a high batting average and on base percentage player with limited power upside despite his 6’4″, 220-pound frame. His on base skills are legitimate, as he possesses chase and whiff rates in the league’s top 10% and walk and strikeout rates in the top 20%. With a career .360 OBP as a 22 year old with 450 MLB at-bats under his belt, his batting eye and plate disciple are extremely advanced for his age.
But Schanuel has also shown more power this season than most experts expected and really started to tap into it with a .314/.467/.500 line with three dingers and 12 RBI over 70 at-bats in July. Check out this chart below to see how his Power+ rate his improved over the course of the year.
It almost looks like Schanuel flipped a switch at the start of July, as he jumped from the bottom quartile into the top quartile of the league from the end of June to end of July. Schanuel not only managed to add a good bit of power to his game over the last month, he did so while increasing his walk to strikeout rate. Schanuel drew 27 walks while striking out 54 times through the end of June. He flipped that rate on it’s head in July drawing 18 walks while striking out just 12 times over 92 plate appearances.
This is exactly what fantasy managers and Angels fans would have hoped to see from Schanuel. He looks like he could be more than Nate Lowe 2.0, and he is available in 90% of leagues right now. This is me sounding the alarm on Schanuel. This may be the chance to get him at a discount before everyone else catches on.
Thanks as always for reading. I have to get back to refreshing deadline updates. Good luck out there Deep Leaguers!
Featured image by Justin Paradis