The 2024 regular season is 75% over. While some of your league mates may be faltering, now is the time to stay focused and take advantage of that. Here are some players who’ve been hot that you can acquire via waivers or trade before your league trade deadline.
Bowden Francis, SP, Toronto Blue Jays
Francis is 28 years old and was the Blue Jays’ 17th-ranked prospect. Prior to this year, he had only 37 career innings. In his first 44.1 innings in 2024, primarily as a reliever, he had a 5.68 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 18.5% strikeout rate, and 7.7% walk rate. He switched to starting on July 29th and something clicked in his second start on August 7th.
Source: FanGraphs
His strikeout rate spiked and his walk rate dropped. Since that date, he has 34.1 innings pitched, a 1.05 ERA, 0.41 WHIP, 33.1% strikeout rate, and 3.4% walk rate.
Starting at that time, his curveball usage dropped about 10%, largely in favor of his splitter. His curveball isn’t terrible, but along with his slider, it is his worst pitch. It has a 31st percentile CSW% and 62nd percentile ICR. It’s also allowed a .416 wOBA and a .376 xwOBA. PLV doesn’t love its characteristics either.
Unlike most splitters, Francis’ is not a whiff pitch. It has just an 11.0% swinging-strike rate (10th percentile), and 5th percentile CSW%. However, it’s been great at inducing poor contact. It has an 81st percentile ground-ball rate, 97th percentile ICR, and has yet to allow a fly ball. Throwing the splitter more is great for his overall numbers, but it certainly does not explain his increased K%.
Bowden’s best pitch is likely his four-seamer. With 17.0″ induced vertical break (IVB) and 82nd percentile extension, it has 73rd percentile PLV. However, it gets the heart of the plate far too often, with a 98th percentile middle-middle-location (mmLoc) rate. It’s not good enough to live there. and it has just a 50% swinging-strike rate.
Verdict: Not Legit. Bowden has done a good job tweaking his usage to limit hard contact. However, the numbers behind these pitches do not explain why his strikeout rate has suddenly increased so dramatically. I expect it to drop back down to the low-to-mid 20s. I think he’ll be a decent enough pitcher by limiting hard contact, but nothing like the last five starts.
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF, Chicago Cubs
It feels like I’ve been hearing about Crow-Armstrong for years, but he is still just 22 years old. He was drafted by the Mets with the 19th overall pick in 2020 and traded to the Cubs in 2021. FanGraphs had him ranked as the 20th overall prospect. There was no doubt he would be a great defensive CF, with 99th-percentile sprint speed, 96th-percentile arm strength, and a 70/80 field grade. The question was his bat. FanGraphs gave him a 30/40 hit, 35/50 game power, and 50/55 raw power. That’s a fringe MLB hitter. He posted strong numbers as an underage for each level of the minor leagues, with ISOs in the low-mid 200s, higher than one would expect given his power grades.
He made his MLB debut last year but had only 19 plate appearances, so we’ll ignore those numbers. His overall numbers for this year aren’t great: a .237/.287/.390 triple slash in 316 plate appearances. He also has seven home runs, 26 stolen bases, a 21.8% strikeout rate, a 5.4% walk rate, and an 87 wRC+. However, in 103 plate appearances since August 1, he has a .330/.386/.560 slash and a 158 wRC+. That’s 22nd in baseball during that period. His ISO is also a strong .231 over that period.
Source: FanGraphs
Shortly before this hot stretch, he had begun making harder contact, while also increasing his fly-ball rate and decreasing his ground-ball rate. That will usually lead to a higher ISO, and it did for Crow-Armstrong. His StatCast metrics don’t paint as rosy of a picture though.
Not much to like about that.
Verdict: Not Legit. While he is certainly making better contact, his peripherals do not align with his outcomes in the last month. Due to his speed, that will frequently be the case for him, but not to this extent.
You should only expect stolen bases and a decent average from him going forward.
Featured image by Doug Carlin (@bdougals on Twitter)
PCA is hitting the ball hard consistently, after tweaking his stance and approach. I don’t buy this guy’s analysis for a second.
You certainly might be right. He’s so good defensively he’ll continue to get ABs so this might allow him to develop into a better hitter than the FanGraphs scouts thought. This might be happening right now. Also, MLB Pipeline thought better of his hitting ability than FanGraphs.
I appreciate your comment. This late in the season it enters the writer’s mind “How many people are going to read this?”
Have a nice day.
PCA had his struggles at every level on the way up, made the adjustments needed and ultimately excelled at each minor league stop. The big leagues is a bit different, these guys pick apart every aspect of their game and game plan off the analytics a whole lot more than they’re doing in the minors so it’s understandable that it is taking a little longer to come together. But he’s just a kid still, as he matures and continues getting the daily at bats this kid is gonna be a nightmare for every pitcher he faces. *DISCLAIMER* This is just my opinion, it’s fine if you don’t agree, just remember to eat that crow when he puts together a full season of what we’ve seen the last 2 months or so. Thanks for the good read.