Welcome back, deep leaguers! Only two weeks of regular season left for standard public leagues, and some of our private leagues may have begun playoffs already. This week saw a big name call-up as the Cubs promoted Owen Cassie and also some huge injury news. Zach Wheeler might be out for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery to remove a blood clot in his shoulder. That’s a scarier injury than a flexor strain for sure, and we wish Wheeler a speedy recovery. Does this mean we get to see Andrew Painter? Probably not, but we can dream. Let’s get to it.
Fallers
Alek Thomas, Outfield, Arizona Diamondbacks – 1% Rostered
Alek Thomas is an intriguing player. He possesses good speed and has produced a .317/.390/.501 line over 350 minor league games. He’s been considerably less successful in the Majors with a .232/.277/.364 triple slash over 386 games. Arizona ended up as a seller at this year’s trade deadline, which has allowed Thomas, still just 25 years old, to get back into the lineup consistently.
Thomas started hot immediately following the deadline, logging four consecutive multi-hit games and launching two homers over Arizona’s first two series in August, but has slumped badly since, batting just .174 with a .405 OPS over the last couple of weeks.
Thomas has produced slightly above average exit velocities this year, but his K rate holding over 25% and walk rate under 5% keeps him in the bottom half of the lineup and prevents him from being able to utilize his speed. His process chart is downright ugly and trending downward as well.
I said “ugh” to myself when I first looked upon this eyesore. It’s a shame. The Diamondbacks still feature Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte, and Thomas could have been a nice boost in both the desert of Arizona and the desert that is the deep league waiver wire. Alas, with nearly 400 major league games under his belt and a 250-point difference in his major and minor league OPS, Thomas is very much starting to look like a Quad-A player.
Matt McLain, Second Base and Short Stop, Cincinnati Reds – 61% Rostered
I know that roster percentage is high, and I’ve been a big Die Hard fan since he came up back in 2023, but I have to include McLain here. He missed all of 2024 following shoulder surgery and several other injuries over the course of his rehab from that surgery. Sadly, he has been unable to regain his form from his excellent rookie season, in which he hit .290/.357/.507 with 16 homers and 14 steals in just over 400 plate appearances.
Back in 2023, McLain had some swing and miss issues and a K rate over 28% but he also produced above-average exit velocity along with hard hit and barrel rates. None of that holds true for the 2025 version of McLain. His exit velocity and hard hit rates are barely above the bottom quartile, and he’s still striking out too much. He has gotten a little better at drawing free passes, but that isn’t making up the difference. I held out hope that he would settle in as the season progressed, but he hasn’t, and his chart makes me sad.
I, along with many other fantasy baseballers, had dreams of 20/20 McLain seasons entering this year, but in the sobering light of this hideous process chart, and with his underlying metrics staring me in the face, those dreams evaporate. Right now, McLain looks like a peppy middle infielder with some nice speed but just moderate power, if that, and a pretty big strikeout issue.
Christian Moore, Second Base, Los Angeles Angels – 2% Rostered
The Angels are aggressive when it comes to promoting recent draft picks, and have had success with Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel, so it wasn’t entirely surprising when they called up Christian Moore earlier this season. Moore batted just .200, but slugged 3 dingers and a .701 OPS through his first month in the Majors. He then spent most of July on the IL before returning to the big club in early August.
He has mostly picked up where he left off, slashing just .189/.300/.243 with zero dingers over 43 plate appearances since his return. His charts were pretty useless due to his missed time, and his underlying metrics are generally lackluster. He’s produced an average exit velocity of just 87 MPH, a 4.9% barrel rate and a 31% hard hit rate.
But it hasn’t all been terrible. Moore does appear to possess a solid batting eye, as he has excellent chase (21.8%) and walk (13%) rates. He’s also got good sprint speed, but while he’s stolen 9 bases in the minors this year, he has yet to even attempt a steal in the Majors. Moore doesn’t look like he’ll be much help this season, but I do see a decent fantasy skill set here. He’s absolutely someone to keep an eye on for next season, and could be an excellent off-season target.
Risers
Paul DeJong, Third Base and Short Stop, Washington Nationals – 5% Rostered
If it seems odd that the Nats, who feature so many young players in the lineup like Brady House, CJ Abrams, and James Wood, would trot out Paul Dejong, a 32-year-old journeyman infielder, as an everyday player at this point in the season, that’s because it is odd. But the Pirates are still playing 37-year-old Tommy Pham every day, and while it might make more sense for those teams to promote young players and see what they can do, the vets are mashing and we can and should take advantage.
Dejong has hit .308/.357/.692 with five homers and a stolen base in just 42 August plate appearances. His process chart is also silly looking, so here it is:
It features a big gap, since DeJong missed a large portion of the season after Mitch Keller hit him in the face with a heater back in mid-April. I’ll never understand how hard it is to get back in the box after an incident like that, but Dejong is a braver man than I and is both back and raking. His process chart does show a nice upswing coinciding with his recent offensive outburst, but really, things are just getting up to MLB average levels, and a lot of DeJong’s underlying metrics are less appealing.
His 89.5 MPH exit velocity, 10% barrel rate and 42.7% hard hit rate all sit right around league average (just like the chart says!), but he doesn’t walk much at all and his 33% chase rate, nearly 30% whiff rate and and 27.7% K rate all scream streakiness. I would ride Dejong as long as he’s hot and playing daily, but with that swing and miss profile, I would not expect this to continue much longer.
Pedro Pagés, Catcher, St Louis Cardinals – 2% Rostered
St Louis has 3 catcher eligible players in the lineup most days (insanity), but Pages is the one that actually works behind the dish. The 26-year-old hasn’t done much this season, slashing just .227/.276/.367 with 9 homers over 311 plate appearances. However, he has been a monster this month, slashing .438/.514/.813 with three long balls and 10 RBI in just 37 plate appearances!
Pages is currently riding an 8-game hitting streak, with multiple hits in four of those contests. I could wind my way around his stats, but that would be a waste of time. Pages has a completely nonsensical .611 BABIP on the month. He chases and whiffs just as much as Paul Dejong does and strikes out in over 26% of his at-bats. His underlying metrics and process charts suggest absolutely none of his recent streak is sustainable.
It’s been a nice couple of weeks, but Pages is still likely to be the least valuable of any of the Cards’ many catcher options. This is not the answer to your fantasy catcher problem.
Colby Thomas, Outfield, The Athletics – 8% Rostered
Thomas was the A’s third round selection back in 2022, and has put up solid minor league numbers, with an .880 OPS, 67 homers and 47 stolen bases over three minor league seasons (340 games, 1350 at bats). He debuted at the very end of June this season and struggled in his first month, slashing .143/.217/.238 through July.
However, he has burst out in August, slashing .345/.364/.690 with 3 homers and a couple steals in just 33 plate appearances. Buyers should beware, though, that line comes with a .412 BABIP and a 2:11 BB: K ratio. That K rate has been a major issue for Thomas, as he sports absolutely brutal chase and whiff rates of nearly 40% and a strikeout rate of nearly 44%. The cautionary tale of Kyren Paris comes to mind as he is the only other player I’ve covered this year with such low contact rates, and I’ve written about Michal Toglia at least twice…
As you may suspect, Thomas’s process chart does not support any sort of breakout.
So I don’t think we can count on Colby to keep hitting like he has this month. He falls more into the “keep an eye on him for 2026” area, like Moore. Although Moore is showing off a nice eye, and we hope the power and speed come along, Thomas is showing some nice speed and pop, but needs to develop his approach. I like what he’s doing lately, and I recognize the talent, but he won’t last in the Majors with a 44% strikeout rate.
That’s it for week 21. Thank you for reading, and good luck out there, deep leaguers!
