Welcome back deep leaguers. It’s Week 22 and I am really sputtering on introduction ideas. There was a little noise about potential divisional realignment making the rounds last week. Having lived through expansion teams, interleague play, and the expansion of the DH, it doesn’t even seem like a dramatic change. Personally I love the idea of that northeastern division with Philadelphia, Boston and both New York teams. And I’d love to see my Buccos in a division with both Ohio teams and Baltimore to create the AFC North 2.0. If we can’t have payroll parity across the league, maybe we can have it within the divisions.
Fallers
Pavin Smith, First Base and Outfield, Arizona Diamondbacks – 3% Rostered
It’s been an odd and mostly disappointing season for Pavin Smith. He had a mini-breakout at the end of 2024, when he slashed .290/.384/.677 with six homers and 19 RBI in just 73 plate appearances through September and October. He was a real difference maker in fantasy playoff matchups.
His batting line and ratios are still solid this year as he’s batting .248 with a .776 OPS, but he’s contributed just eight homers and 28 runs driven in over 282 plate appearances. You would expect a player hitting as well as Smith has, on a team with as much talent as the Diamondbacks to have gaudier counting stats. He has hit just .220 with runners in scoring position, but that RBI number still feels unlucky.
Smith just returned from an IL stint and immediately slotted back into the middle of the lineup. However, he has gone just 1-11 in four starts (he generally sits vs lefties). But still I find myself looking at his huge production over the last month of 2024 and I see him batting fifth with Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte in front of him and his 14.5% walk rate and it almost makes me ignore his 32% strikeout rate (bottom 1% of the entire league). Almost.
So the Pavin Smith breakout of late ’24 didn’t continue into ’25, and his elevated strikeout rate is the key issue. But the quality of MLB pitching will be diluted after rosters expand in September. If Smith starts to get hot, I’m jumping on board.
Colby Thomas, Outfield, The Athletics – 3% Rostered
That’s right, our featured player from last week is back already. The Athletics top hitting prospect (before the acquisition of Leo De Vries) appears here as a faller just one week after gracing the DLRF cover. Is it because that ghastly 44% K rate led to a five game hitless streak? No, in fact, Thomas is batting .417 with three dingers and an OPS over 1.200 for the past couple weeks. He went 2-2 just last night, but the 61-72 Athletics, currently last in the AL West, have seen fit to let their 24-year-old outfield prospect languish on the bench for their last 8 games.
We know he’s had a big K problem over his first month or so in the Majors, but he’s also carrying a 50% hard hit rate, a 90 MPH average exit velocity and nearly a 12% barrel rate. As I mentioned above, the A’s are last in their division heading into September. What are we doing here?
I don’t understand the value behind a losing team calling up a highly rated prospect just to sit him on the bench every night, and Thomas obviously can’t help your team while he isn’t playing. But this is a situation that can change over night. Thomas is still an intriguing player right now, even with his strikeouts. If the A’s wake up and get him in the lineup daily, he could be helpful this year.
Royce Lewis, Third Base, Minnesota Twins – 46% Rostered
It’s almost hard to believe that Royce Lewis has been healthy for nearly two consecutive months. He was really good in July too, slashing .293/.322/.476 with three homers and a 4:9 walk to strikeout ratio over 87 plate appearances. He’s actually matched that power with three more homers in August, but the bottom has fallen out of his batting average, as he’s hit just .190/.261/.367 with an 8:24 walk to strikeout ratio.
I’m gonna pull up both his full process chart and his contact chart below.
So we can clearly see his contact ability slipping over the last month, which matches his surface production, but it’s just getting down to league average, not anywhere that we’d be particularly concerned. Also, Lewis’ power output has been largely unaffected, as he has more RBI and just as many homers (3) in August as he did in July.
It’s also worth noting that Lewis did benefit from some “lucky” BABIP rates during his hot June (.417) and strong July (.296) and has had some bad luck with a .226 BABIP in August. He’s also carrying the exact same exit velocity and hard hit rate this season as he did back in his breakout 2023 campaign, although his barrel rate is down a bit. His sprint speed has also dropped, but he wasn’t a big base stealer and it’s better for his knees and our hearts and if he’s a little more cautious out there.
This looks like more of a mini slump than anything to actually worry about. If someone in your league panic dropped Royce, go get to scooping, and if you have him, don’t worry too much about the down month.
Risers
Warming Bernabel, First Base and Third Base, Colorado Rockies – 12% Rostered
Though he’s mostly played first base, the trade of Ryan McMahon really helped open up a spot to get Bernabel’s bat in the lineup everyday. Bernable has been hot pretty much since his debut, slashing .286/.314/.500 with four homers and a 4:14 walk to strikeout ratio in just over 100 plate appearances. He’s been a contact oriented hitter in the minors too, as he was batting .301 with eeight homers in over 300 plate appearances in the hitter-friendly PCL this season.
His contact ability looks legitimate. Bernable has a pristine 17.7% whiff rate and an even more impressive 13.7% K rate for his young career. He is a little swing happy though, as evidenced by his 41.2% chase rate and paltry 4% walk rate. But check out the beauty that is his contact chart.
That ever-so-slightly sloping line way at the top is Bernabel. But contact ability alone isn’t much of a fantasy profile and Warming’s power metrics might leave you a little cold. His average exit velocity is under 86 MPH, he’s managed just a 3.6% barrel rate and a 34.5% hard hit rate. He does have well above-average sprint speed and swiped 54 bases over 475 minor league games, which suggests he could steal 15-20 bases over a full MLB season.
So far though, he looks a lot more like Luis Arraez type player than a Xavier Edwards type. He is just 23 years old and there is time for him to develop more power (Coors won’t hurt either) but for this year, Bernabel could definitely help stabilize your batting average if you need some corner infield help.
Bubba Chandler, Pitcher, Pittsburgh Pirates – 34% Rostered
I left the label as pitcher because I’m not entirely sure how Bubba will be deployed. The current top pitching prospect in baseball, Chandler made 24 appearances at AAA this season, and all of them were starts. He displayed tremendous strikeout potential with 121 Ks in 100 innings, but also showed some control issues with 53 walks over those same 100 innings. It is possible Chandler was just bored in the minors, as he carried a 1.48 WHIP this season, compared to a 1.02 mark last season.
But none of that mattered last Friday when Chandler made his MLB debut in relief following five shutout innings from Braxton Ashcraft (who looked great before a comebacker to the ankle ended his evening). Chandler proceeded to finish out the contest, allowing two hits and walking none while striking out three Rockies to record a four inning save. If you’ve been stashing Chandler all season, this might not have been exactly what you were expecting, but it was certainly fun to watch.
Chandler kept his big heater upstairs, threw his secondary offerings for strikes, notched a CSW of 30, and took care of business against one of the weakest lineups in the majors. He looked every bit the future Ace. But, like I said, I’m not sure how the Buccos plan to use Chandler. I was one of thousands of people wondering aloud and angrily about why he was debuting in a bulk role after pitching exclusively as a starter.
Chandler will certainly be on short leash since he’s just 15 innings away from matching his career high of 119 innings that he hit last season. He might not start and thus not be eligible for quality starts, and the Pirates (57-75) don’t score many runs so wins won’t be easy either. But he’s here, he was as good as advertised and JUST LET ME HAVE THIS!
Wenceel Perez, Outfield, Detroit Tigers – 4% Rostered
Perez posted an OPS over .950 and slugged six homers through 100 plate appearances in May and June, but slumped badly in July, slashing just .200/.247/.288 with a single homer over 85 plate appearances. He’s rebounded in a big way in August, slashing .319/.388/.565 with four homers and an 8:15 walk to strikeout ratio, his best BB:K ratio in any month this year. We can see the July dip on his process chart, but overall that’s a chart moving the right direction, and the big uptick in contact ability lately is especially encouraging.
Perez has posted an above average exit velocity at 90.3 MPH, a roughly average barrel rate at 9.7% and a below average hard hit rate just under 40%. He swings at a few too many pitches out the zone, with a chase rate over 30% but his whiff rate is manageable, just under 25% and his overall K rate sits under 20% on the year, which is nothing to be worry about. It’s refreshing to write about guys who strikeout in less than a third of their at bats. Perez has just average sprint speed, but has swiped seven bases in just 265 plate appearances which would put him close to 20 over a full season.
Wenceel differs from a lot of the players I end up covering in DLRF who tend to be really good at one thing (usually bat speed) with big caveats (usually K rate). Perez isn’t displaying a single elite tool (although his K rate is very good) but he’s displaying average to above average skills across the board and has been a benefit across the fantasy scoreboard. He’s flown under the radar, is still barely rostered, and could be a nice player both for the remainder of 2025 and beyond.
Thanks as always for reading and good luck out there Deep leaguers!
