As we look at risers and fallers in points leagues, the focus should not just be on how players are performing, but what their role is.
Are your hitters suddenly leading off or batting lower in the order than expected? Have they gotten an off-day, and is it because the manager put them in a platoon? Or did they get subbed out at the end of a game for defensive reasons?
As for pitchers, did they get pulled after just 70-80 pitches, or were they allowed to work deep into the game? And could anyone on the IL or in the minors threaten their rotation spot?
As volume is everything in points leagues, these are the questions you want to answer beyond just whether a player gets hot. So, given their role and their performance, who should you buy in on, and who should you leave alone?
Risers
Once a must-roster prospect who was blasting homers out of minor league stadiums, CES fell on hard times in Cincinnati and went to Baltimore for the dreaded cash considerations. But a funny thing happened on the way to irrelevancy—he started putting up elite numbers again. In 238 AAA at-bats with the Norfolk Tides, he smacked 17 homers with a .273/.555/.863 slash line.
Now up with the O’s, CES now has a near-identical slash in the Majors as he did in Norfolk: .272/.563/.854. While he’s typically a free-swinger with an elevated K-rate, he’s been able to keep the strikeouts under 25%—still not great, but tolerable. It would also help if he walked more than 5% of the time.
But what has me intrigued here is not just the improved discipline, or the 19.4% Barrel rate, or the .573 xSLG. Since trading Taylor Ward, Baltimore is giving Encarnacion-Strand a real shot at holding down the third-base job, and has been hitting him in the 4/5/6 range over the past week. He’s also started the last six games, and since he hits lefties extremely well so he shouldn’t be a platoon candidate. While there’s potential for regression, I’m hopeful that CES has developed enough to be an asset to your team, and should be a solid power bat the rest of the way.
You might not know it given how he’s been on and off the IL with oblique injuries, but Torres is putting together a solid season. I’m not talking about the number of homers he’s hit or bases he’s stolen, those stats matter way less in points leagues. What we do care about is his season-long 14.5% Walk rate and his under-20% K-rate. We also care that he has an OBP around 38%,is playing every day, and batting near the top of the Tigers’ order.
Torres is a far different player than he was with the Yankees, where his game better suited the Categories format. But now as a seasoned vet, with just a 68 mph bat speed and exit velocities in the bottom tenth percentile, he’s finding new ways to succeed. And from a points perspective, that’s just fine—while it would be nice if he hit 38 homers again, or just 25, we’ll take the 99th-percentile Chase rate and 96th-percentile walks all day long. Hopefully he stays on the field the rest of the year.
Ortiz wasn’t what you’d call a top prospect. He signed with the Rangers as an undrafted free agent in 2021 (for just $20k) and then started grinding his way up the minor league ladder. But he slugged .565 in AAA Round Rock last year and the Rangers made him the centerpiece in a deal that brought Mackenzie Gore to Texas. And now, after hitting 18 homers in 85 games witht he Nationals farm system, he’s up with the big club.
Ortiz has just 40 at-bats with Washington, but his metrics are sublime. He’s barreling the ball 20% of the time, has an insane 76.3 mph bat speed, and his Hard-Hit rate is 50%. All of this goes with a pretty decent Whiff rate of around 21%, which means that while he swings the bat extremely hard, he does so with control.
Ortiz is not an OBP guy (at least not yet) with a piddling Walk rate of just 2.5%. But he got a free pass 12% of the time in AAA so expect this to rise significantly once the adrenaline of being in MLB dies down. He’s already worth an add in deeper leagues, but I’m watching him closely to see if he’s something more.
Bolte, who is owned in just 3.4% of ESPN leagues, got the call to the Majors after leading the Pacific Coast League in several offensive categories, including batting average and home runs (he was hitting .348 with 12 dingers after 37 games). A solid power/speed combination—90.9 mph Average Exit Velo, 30.6 ft/s sprint—buoys his floor, though like CES there’s some swing-and-miss in his game.
But he’s improving quickly, and has now locked down an everyday job. He’s also batted first or second in each of his last four games. And since the All-Star Break, he’s hitting .278 with three homers and as many steals.
While he’s not great at taking walks, Bolte is top 10 in the league at getting hit by a pitch, and that’s with missing a quarter of the season. All of this translates into a 34% OBP, which is respectable. If he can keep this up, he should further entrench himself as the leadoff guy for the Athletics and see tons of volume the rest of the way.
Usually, pitchers fare better in spacious confines of San Francisco’s Oracle Park, but Mahle appears to prefer his new home in Atlanta. In his two starts since he was moved, Mahle has looked like a revitalized version of himself, cutting down the Hits/9 by almost 50% and significantly lowering his ERA and WHIP. He’s also upped his strikeout rate to more than a K per inning, which is even more impressive when you factor in the improved efficiency.
Mahle’s a ten-year veteran, and we’re talking about a small sample size, so don’t expect a complete turnaround. But it’s obvious that Mahle likes to be on a contender and is eager to show his new team what he’s got. The Braves’ front office has also noted that his pitch mix could use some tweaking, especially against right-handed batters. So he’s using the cutter a bit less and his splitter (his best pitch) a bit more, which appears to be making a difference.
So while I’d hardly call him an ace, Mahle’s best version of himself is pretty decent, given he had a 2.18 ERA last season over 16 starts. I’m buying low here to see if Atlanta’s really unlocked his full potential.
| Team | W-L | ERA | WHIP | K/9 | H/9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 3-9 | 5.13 | 1.39 | 8.5 | 9.0 |
| Atlanta | 1-1 | 1.45 | 0.86 | 9.2 | 6.3 |
