May 23, 2017

Jim Turvey recommends second basemen (2B) and shortstops (SS) who can be valuable waiver wire targets or adds to help fantasy owners for Week 8 of the 2017 MLB season.

Welcome to week 8 of the fantasy baseball season. We’re continuing our mission to find you the best and brightest players with second base and shortstop eligibility. As is always the case, we will say hello to three new names, while this week we bid adieu to three players all by way of the Cut Bait section (there were no graduates this week).

As noted last week, the own percentage of players are beginning to settle in, so this list may begin to have a bit less turnover, allowing us to go back and focus on a few of the names we wrote about in-depth earlier this season. This week we’ll still focus primarily on the three new names with updates on the returning eight.

Friendly reminder, we are using Yahoo ownership percentages and position eligibility. On to the middle of the infield!

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Week 8 Middle Infield (MI) Waiver Wire Targets

Chris Taylor (LAD, 2B/3B/SS): 36% owned

Taylor got the FanGraphs treatment this week, so expect him to start finding his way onto more and more fantasy players’ radars in the upcoming week. Taylor had a heck of a past week FanGraphs aside, as he collected nine hits in 20 at bats, two of which were home runs. He’s having a heck of a season as a whole, with a .333/.446/.583 triple slash to go along with five home runs. He has always had a nice walk rate, so he should maintain the nice OBP, but the average is being boosted by a .411 BABIP and the power is being boosted by a 31.3 percent HR/FB rate. The average is the more likely to stick around, as the projection systems like him to stick around the .330 BABIP range, but fall off considerably in terms of the power numbers. Still, Taylor should get consistent at bats for the foreseeable future due to injuries to Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe. If he is able to post somewhere around a .280/.360/.420 slash line he should have some nice value as a three-position middle-infielder.

Jose Reyes (NYM, 3B/SS): 20% owned

The Mets showed patience with Reyes, and it is beginning to pay off. On April 22, Reyes was slashing a mind-blowingly bad .095/.186/.127 with just two extra-base hits in his first 18 games. Since then, Reyes is slashing a far more respectable .289/.355/.482 with eight extra-base hits (three home runs) and four steals. When Reyes was struggling, he was hitting the ball extremely soft (29.0 percent soft contact rate; 15.9 percent hard contact rate). So far in the month of May, Reyes has seen his soft contact rate drop to 22.4 percent and his hard hit contact rate fly up to 34.5 percent. That 34.5 percent hard hit rate would rank behind only Tim Beckham, Corey Seager and Carlos Correa among shortstops this season, a real nice tier to be in. Reyes was scratched from Sunday’s start because of a tight left rib cage, but he has said he’ll be back in the lineup Tuesday while the benching was just a precautionary move.

Adam Frazier (Pit, 2B/OF): 10% owned

Frazier is proving to be a pesky hitter once again, hitting over .350 with nearly as many walks (7) as strikeouts (11) in 2017. Frazier isn’t going to bring any pop to your team, but he’s one of those always-overlooked BA guys. He is carrying a .326 average over 251 plate appearances at the big league level now, and his minor league batting averages were always strong. One thing to note, don’t expect a whole lot more steals. Frazier did record his first steal of 2017 as part of his 14-hit, 12-RuBIn past week, but he has been caught stealing four times already this season and should be seeing the red light a lot more frequently. Frazier is more likely a ride-while-hot player than a long-term commodity, but those ride-while-hot types can be the difference makers sometimes, plus you don’t have to feel bad when it’s time to cut them. 

Keep Adding

Devon Travis (Tor, 2B): 36% owned

Another slow starter who is currently on fire, Travis went 13-for-24 last week with three runs, eight RBI, plus a homer and a steal a piece. He’s been squeezing all of his positive regression into the past few weeks and is as hot a bat as you’ll find at the middle infield spot right now. This is what you were hoping for when you took him as a sleeper pick before 2017.

Didi Gregorius (NYY, SS): 34% owned

Gregorius has really been hot since returning from the DL, collecting hits left and right to the tune of a .333/.365/.444 slash line. He has two homers and a steal, and while his walk rate (5.4 percent) still isn’t great, it’s better than last year, and he doesn’t strike out much. Expect a good average with some solid RuBIn potential.

Tim Beckham (TB, 1B/2B/SS): 38% owned

Beckham is hitting the cover the off the ball, with his plate discipline being the only thing keeping him from truly breaking out. Even still, he’s an above-average bat with plenty of positional flexibility in a lineup that is quietly one of the most productive in baseball.

Neil Walker (NYM, 2B): 36% owned

Walker had a relatively quiet last week, collecting just four hits and four RBI. He’s still a nice option at second base even in a weirdly crowded Mets’ infield. He’s got a nice plate discipline profile and a nice batted ball profile, with both his fly ball rate and walk rate just about career-high levels.

Jed Lowrie (Oak, 2B): 7% owned

This is your president of the JLFC (Jed Lowrie Fan Club) speaking. He hit two more homers last week and is now slashing .278/.348/.451 for the season. But yeah, Eric Sogard and his 29 plate appearances should totally be owned in a higher percentage of leagues…

Kolten Wong (StL, 2B): 7% owned

Wong hit .500 last week, but he was limited in his total at bats due to an elbow tweak on Saturday that kept him out of the lineup on Sunday as well. That’s the only reason he drops here, but the injury doesn’t seem serious as of now.

Joe Panik (SF, 2B): 13% owned

Panik had a quiet week before a big night Monday when he had three hits - one of which was a long ball - and scored three times. Steady as she goes with Panik.

Last Chance

Christian Arroyo (SF, 3B/SS): 7% owned

Arroyo only had five hits last week, but he made the most of them, with seven RBI and a steal in that stretch. I’m still giving him one last chance because of the impressive Triple-A numbers, but he needs to turn it around soon.

Cut Bait

Ryan Schimpf (SD, 2B): 21% owned

I’m taking Schimpf off this list only because if you haven’t added him by this point, you clearly aren’t going to care about another update on a week where he hit a homer but also hit below .200. You know what you’re getting here, so either pick him up or don’t.

Taylor Motter (Sea, SS/OF): 8% owned

Motter has really fallen off since his fast start, and after a 5-for-26 week with just one run and zero RBI, he’s officially bumped off the list. He’s still hitting the ball hard, but it’s not translating to hits anymore and his .223 BA and .293 OBP just won’t cut it in most leagues.

T.J. Rivera (NYM, 1B/2B/3B): 4% owned

Rivera had his one week on the list, but the Mets triple-positional eligible youngster is off the list after a 1-for-15 week in which he lost at bats as the week went along.  

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