Is It Legit?: Seiya Suzuki, Davis Schneider, Cristopher Sánchez

Suzuki’s doing just about everything you could want him to do. He’s hitting the ball harder and in the air more often. He’s been willing to use all fields and go the other way. He’s punching out much less often than he was before.

If you’re looking for a worrying sign, you could pick on his BABIP. It’s gone from .318 to .359 during this recent stretch, and that’s likely an unsustainable number even with his improved batted-ball numbers. He’s a really good player, but he’s not a top-five hitter in baseball like he has been recently. When that BABIP inevitably comes down, the temperature on his hot streak will come down with it, but he’s still a worthwhile fantasy asset.

Verdict: Legit. We’re seeing improvements nearly across the board for the 29-year-old right fielder, and I trust it’ll continue the rest of the way. If he’s still sitting on your waiver wire, scoop him up because he’s been producing phenomenally well for about six weeks now. He’s one I’ll be watching entering 2024 as well to see if he can continue to build on the success he’s had during his third year in the big leagues.

Davis Schneider, 2B, Toronto Blue Jays

Schneider – an unheralded 24-year-old prospect picked in the 28th round of the 2017 draft – has wasted absolutely no time roughing up big-league pitching. Since he debuted for the Blue Jays on August 4th, he has the fourth-highest wRC+ (193) among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.

Through his first 123 plate appearances, Schneider has eight home runs, 20 RBI, 21 runs, and is slashing a remarkable .297/.423/.653.

You have to lower the pitch threshold down to 300 since Schneider hasn’t accumulated a lot of playing time yet, but when you do, PLV literally rates him as the best hitter in baseball.

Did you read the rest of those names in the group? That’s quite the company to keep!

It’s impressive to see anyone put up such incredible numbers immediately upon making their MLB debut, but especially so when it’s a player who rose through the minor leagues without much fanfare.

Although he put up solid numbers time and time again, Schneider never really garnered much attention in the prospect space. FanGraphs didn’t even rank him among the Blue Jays’ top 41 prospects when their list came out back in March. Schneider has consistently played so well, in fact, that he didn’t last long with any minor league affiliate. He hit well enough that he never made more than 210 plate appearances during a minor league stop, save for his Triple-A stint early this season, where he slashed .275/.416/.553 with 21 home runs and 64 RBI in 392 plate appearances.

Schneider has quickly gone from MLB longshot to starting every day at second base and hitting in the middle of one of baseball’s most fearsome lineups.

He’s been impressive in nearly every way you can measure it, but his batted ball profile in particular sticks out. He has a 17.2% barrel rate which puts him in the 98th percentile of batters. Both his line drive (26.6%) and flyball (51.6%) rates are at least in the 93rd percentile, and have allowed him to generate amazing power production. Interestingly, despite the high barrel rate, he’s lacking in hard contact rate (8th percentile) and his top-level power leaves some to be desired – his 108.8 mph max EV is just 20th percentile. He is doing a great job maximizing his power though, as his 90.5 mph flyball exit velocity is 83rd percentile.

As you may imagine, all those numbers make Schneider a Statcast darling. His Baseball Savant player profile features a whole lot of dark red numbers, but they are greyed out since he doesn’t qualify for the batting title. This is a great reminder that as impressive as Schneider has been, we’re dealing with a tiny sample size – less than a fifth of the whole season.

Along with all the great numbers, there are a few red flags in Schneider’s profile. His .393 BABIP won’t hold out in the long run. In all his minor league action, he only had a BABIP over .330 twice. Schneider’s strikeout rate is also troubling as you may have noticed that ugly dark blue in the PLV chart above. He’s punching out at a 30.1% clip so far. That puts him in the danger zone where even good hitters reach a breaking point if they’re going to strike out at that kind of rate but to be fair, his 15.4% walk rate does help soften that blow a bit.

Schneider’s cooled off a bit recently. He’s gone five straight games without a hit, and his September numbers have fallen considerably from his August levels. He’s slashing .185/.333/.444 this month which still comes out to a 117 wRC+, but the sub-Mendoza line batting average is eye-catching in a bad way.

Verdict: Legit, for this season at least. If you’re rostering Schneider, I wouldn’t get too scared about his production the rest of the way. He’s still putting up solid numbers this month despite slipping a bit, and if you’re in an OBP league he’s got even more cushion before he reaches a point where he’s no longer helping your team. I’d happily ride out this hot streak the next two weeks and not think twice about it. If you’re already making plans for 2024 though, I don’t know if I trust this profile to hold up over the course of a whole season. Prospect writers know what they’re doing and don’t generally miss on a player producing this well this quickly. He’d be fun to draft at the right time, but my way-too-early assumption is that his draft stock far exceeds what kind of return you’ll get from him next year.

Cristopher Sánchez, SP, Philadelphia Phillies

If you had told me before the season that a soft-tossing sinker-first lefty from the Phillies was going to be a sneaky fantasy asset in the season’s second half, I would’ve bet every penny I had that player was named Ranger Suárez. Of course, simply based on the header for this section you know it’s not.

Cristopher Sánchez has been a revelation for fantasy managers who’ve taken a shot on the 26-year-old lefty. He made a spot start back in April but officially cracked the Phillies’ rotation in mid-June, and the results since have been unexpectedly strong. In those 15 starts, he has a 3.25 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, and 78 strikeouts (a 23.6% rate). He’s only 2-4 over that stretch, so if you’ve been desperate for wins he hasn’t provided there, but with those stats on a team looking playoff-bound, you’d expect a handful more victories.

Although the arsenal doesn’t really jump off the page, Sánchez is surprisingly a CSW% rock star. His 31.9% rate is the 8th highest among starters with at least 75 innings pitched, despite the fact that he generally doesn’t have swing-and-miss kind of stuff.

Sánchez has just three pitches in his arsenal — a sinker (47% usage), changeup (32%), and slider (22%). The sinker is his bread-and-butter pitch, especially when he’s facing lefties. He doesn’t get many swinging strikes with the offering, but he sneaks it into the zone for strikes all the time. The pitch has an 88th-percentile zone rate and a 90th-percentile called strike rate, and that’s the real value of the pitch for Sánchez. He can toss it for strikes when he needs to. Although the batted ball results are just about average, PLV loves this pitch. Its 5.13 PLV puts it in the 89th percentile of all sinkers.

The whiffs that Sánchez lacks with his sinker, he gets with his changeup. It has a 40.2% whiff rate and a 29.8% CSW%, plus the best batted-ball results of any of his three offerings. Hitters have put up just a .161 AVG, .286 SLG, and .215 wOBA against the changeup, and those results are right in line with Statcast’s X-stats, so there isn’t much luck baked into the strong off-speed pitch.

A slider makes up the remainder of Sánchez’s repertoire, and although PLV doesn’t like the pitch much, Eno Sarris’ Stuff+ model sure does. It has a 122+ Stuff+ which is the 29th-best among all pitchers with at least 80 innings this year. Sánchez’s slider has a 29.8% CSW% which is 87th percentile.

Both Sánchez’s BABIP and LOB% come in better than the league average, so it’s fair to assume that some of his strong results may be rooted in those two statistics. His .271 BABIP is 82nd percentile and his 74.3% LOB% is 61st percentile. On the flip side, his 24.6% HR/FB% is incredibly unlucky sitting in the 4th percentile of pitchers.

Verdict: Legit as a streamer. I’ve been utilizing Sánchez as a streamer in a handful of leagues recently, and I’d advise you to do it too when he has a good matchup. His schedule the rest of the way is a bit up in the air depending on if the Phillies go five- or six-man rotation. If it’s five-man, he’s looking at @ATL, NYM, @NYM to wrap the season up, and I’d absolutely throw him in those Mets starts. If the Phillies go six-man, he’d get @ATL and PIT, and that start against the Pirates would be worth your time too. Looking ahead to 2024, Sánchez has probably earned a starting rotation job depending on what moves the Phillies make this winter. If he has an Opening Day role as a starter, Sánchez is worth a late-round flier depending on how his early season schedule shapes up.

Featured image by Doug Carlin (@Bdougals on Twitter)