RotoBallers, as always, we’re constantly trying to come up with new features that will help you dominate your fantasy leagues. Recently, we’ve built a tool that identifies the biggest trends in contact rate over the last seven days. The tool can be found here. Keep in mind, any statistic being viewed in such a small sample size will never be incredibly predictive on a granular level. But if any stat can be looked at over seven days, it's contact rate which stabilizes very quickly. What this tool provides is a quick indicator of players who might be on the rise, coming out of slumps, seeing the ball better, etc. If we know who is seeing and hitting the ball better as of late, even if it’s just a seven-day period, then we at least have a start in figuring out whether you should be buying or selling on that particular player.

This particular article will focus on three contact rate risers and fallers for Week 25, and make an attempt to determine how you should treat them for your lineups. Due to the nature of the often-refreshed contact rate tool, you may sometimes see players listed in this article who are no longer in the top % of risers/fallers (but was within the last few hours). This article will be posted on Wednesdays; if you have any questions or comments feel free to send me an email ([email protected]), tweet (@Andrew_Bua), or reach out on Reddit (/u/CitiStrikeouts).

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Contact Rate Risers

Salvador Perez (C, KC): 79% Season Contact Rate, 94% L7 Contact Rate (+15%)

The woes of the catcher position have been well-documented just about anywhere you could read anything about baseball this season. Sal Perez is one of the nice exceptions who gives you steady, above-average production from the weak spot. As of late, he’s been making ridiculously good contact. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look like he’ll be providing late-season heroics for fantasy owners.

Perez may be making more contact recently, but he’s gone cold while doing it. His slash line during this time tells fantasy owners everything they need to know: an identical .143/.143/.143. During this span, his line drive rate is only 10.5%, down from his season-long figure of 19.1%. He’s also making significantly less hard contact, as his 33.3% rate for the year is only 21.1% during the last week. The peripherals back it up – Perez isn’t catching fire anytime soon.

Danny Valencia (1B/3B/OF, OAK): 73% Season Contact Rate, 85% L7 Contact Rate (+12%)

Danny Valencia is in the midst of an extremely solid season, putting up career-numbers in several key categories. He’s never been an exceptional contact hitter, but as of late he’s seen those numbers jump. Does that indicate a hot streak is on the way?

Valencia is certainly making his case to be in your lineup in the fantasy playoffs and/or down the stretch of your season. He’s slashing .296/.394/.444 to go along with one homer, ten runs scored, and four RBI over the past week. The averages aren’t far off from his season numbers, but as he makes more contact we should see those rise even further. The differences seem to lie in what he’s doing when he does make contact: he’s putting the ball in the air a lot more (45.8% over the last seven days vs. 32.1% for the year) and on the ground a lot less (25% over the last seven days vs. 43.8% for the year). Valencia could be a sneaky way to ensure yourself a fantasy title as we near season’s end.

Travis Shaw (1B/3B, BOS): 78% Season Contact Rate, 86% L7 Contact Rate (+8%)

Travis Shaw has had his struggles in his first full Major League season, but all things considered he’s been a high strikeout player that’s been solid overall. By making more contact recently, he’s obviously struck out a lot less. Is that going to translate to results for Shaw?

Not exactly, at least, not yet. Shaw has only put up a .655 OPS over the last week, .101 points lower than his .756 figure for the season. He’s also not making hard contact nearly as much as prior to his contact rate increase: his rate currently sits at 20% over the last seven days vs. his 34.4% mark for the year. His line drive rate as of late is actually up 10.1%, however, so there is hope that the results will start to come soon. The results aren’t necessarily going to come tomorrow, but keep watch as it seems like those line drives could start turning into more hits soon.

Contact Rate Fallers

Denard Span (OF, SF): 88% Season Contact Rate, 71% L7 Contact Rate (-17%)

Denard Span may not be having a great season slash line-wise, but from a counting stats perspective he’s been putting up the best numbers of his career (including his first career season with double digit homers). He’s seen a downtick in contact rate as of late – does that mean fantasy owners shouldn’t count on more of those stats being accumulated the last few weeks of the year?

Despite a decrease in contact, his batting average (.261) and on-base percentage (.326) are actually higher or close to his marks for the season over the last week (.250 batting average, .375 OBP). It’s his slugging percentage that has taken a hit as of late (.250 vs. .372). This is odd because his line drive rate is actually way up (31.3% over the last week vs. 21.8% for the season). As such, while Span may be showing a bit of struggle, not all is bad here. It’s very possible he snaps out very quickly – an extended cold streak isn’t in the works. Don’t start him, but hold onto him incase he picks things up when you need it most.

Stephen Piscotty (OF, STL): 76% Season Contact Rate, 62% L7 Contact Rate (-14%)

In his first full season at the big league level, Stephen Piscotty couldn’t be contributing much more than he actually has. With a .272/.343/.459 slash line to go along with 21 homers, 80 runs scored, 81 RBI and seven stolen bases, he’s been a solid contributor across the board. With a decrease in contact rate the last week though, is he hitting a wall during fantasy’s most crucial time?

It certainly looks that way. Over the last week, Piscotty has limped his way to a .125/.222/.125 slash line with only one run scored. Given his 18.8% hard hit ball rate over the last week, it’s not hard to see why the results aren’t coming for him even when he does make contact. He’s also not using all parts of the field as much as he usually does, his 50% pull rate the last week is a decent uptick from his 43.3% rate for the season. Piscotty has the talent to turn it around anyday, but clearly right now things aren’t clicking for him.

Bryce Harper (OF, WAS): 79% Season Contact Rate, 66% L7 Contact Rate (-13%)

Talk about your first round pick absolutely failing in the clutch. Bryce Harper has seem his contact rate take a bit hit over the last week, falling 13 points. Is his pure talent enough to continue producing at a high level even while he makes less contact?

The 2015 National League MVP is good – but apparently not good enough to overcome a lack of contact. Over the last seven days, he’s hitting a putrid .059 to go along with a .333 on-base percentage and .059 slugging percentage. He also hasn’t hit any homers over this span. His peripherals are still pretty good: his 40% hard hit ball rate is actually higher than his 33.7% figure for the season, and he’s hitting nearly double the amount of line drives are usual (30% vs. 16.3%). His .100 BABIP as of late certainly has a lot to do with his struggles. The results aren’t there, but the underlying stats show this slump shouldn’t last long.

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