RADIO
Welcome to Week 9 of The Watch List. Each week we’ll be updating this list full of players who you may be monitoring, but aren't quite sure whether to pull the trigger on. We’ll look at several players in-depth and keep tabs on players “graduating” into the waiver wire pickups category, as well as players demoted off the list entirely. All ownership levels are taken from Yahoo fantasy leagues.
With the season beginning to stabilize a bit, there are simply fewer players graduating and being demoted each week. With that in mind, we’ll no longer have a set number of eight players highlighted each week, but rather somewhere in the five to eight range. However many players graduate/are demoted will be replaced and the new players will be highlighted.
Once again, if there are any names who you’d like to see highlighted next week, or even just added to the list as a whole, feel free to at me on Twitter (@FantasyBaseTurv). Let’s get this show on the road.
Editor's Note: Our friends at Fantrax have even more fantasy baseball advice columns and videos to help improve your teams. Be sure to also check them out!
Players to Watch in 10-team Leagues
Logan Morrison (TB, 1B): 29% owned
LoMo had another three-homer week, bringing his season total up to 14, just two homers off the league lead. He’s a quiet, but legitimate, power source just doing his thing in Tampa Bay. His walk rate is also a career high, leading to a nice .351 on-base percentage for those in OBP leagues.
Domingo Santana (Mil, OF): 27% owned
Two homers and eight RBI super-charged another week in which Santana raised up in the season-to-date rankings. The two homers were his first two of May, but he managed to maintain value throughout the month with five multi-hit games and RuBIns aplenty.
Max Kepler (Min, OF): 28% owned
Kepler had a strong past week, hitting a pair of home runs and stealing a base, and as he heats up, he’s beginning to look like the player who jumped on our radar as a rookie last season. Kepler now has five homers, three steals, 44 RuBIns, and a .255/.344/.439 slash line. The OBP is especially intriguing, as he has improved on his already strong walk rate from last season, sporting a walk rate of 11.1 percent in 2017. As some smart writers have pointed out lately, Kepler has vastly improved his swing rate on pitches out of the zone, so there’s legitimate reason to trust this improvement. He’s also striking out less and hitting the ball harder (35.5 percent hard hit ball rate), so there’s a ton to like with the young German right now.
Dan Straily (Mia, SP): 28% owned
Straily wasn’t his sharpest in his lone start last week, giving up three runs and going only five and a third innings, but he still got the win and six strikeouts. The WHIP (1.07) and ERA (3.83) still look solid, and the strikeout rate (9.00 K/9) is vastly improved from seasons past.
Tommy Joseph (Phi, 1B): 22% owned
Another solid power source for those somehow lacking in home runs this season, Joseph is up to eight homers on the season, six of which have come this month. With six multi-hit games this month, he’s showing he can contribute in more ways than one right now.
Zack Wheeler (NYM, SP): 37% owned
It was good news/bad news for Wheeler who locked in another quality start (6 IP, 3 ER, 5 K) against the Pirates, but is currently day-to-day with a blister that forced him out of Saturday’s game potentially one inning early.
Players to Watch in 12-team Leagues
Trevor Rosenthal (StL, RP): 36% owned
Rosenthal: 2.45 ERA, 1.32 FIP, 1.63 xFIP
Seung-Hwan Oh: 3.00 ERA, 4.30 FIP, 5.17 xFIP
That’s why Rosenthal has to stay on the radar still despite Oh having only one outing in the past five weeks in which he gave up an earned run.
Jed Lowrie (Oak, 2B): 17% owned
Vindication! Folks are starting to add Lowrie, finally. There are plenty of wrong calls from this author for the 2017 fantasy season (cough, Craig Kimbrel, heavy cough), but Lowrie feasting is one I’ve been banging the drum on all season. His ownership nearly tripled in the past week thanks to a 10-hit week that brought his season slash line to .300/.371/.483. All aboard, folks!
JC Ramirez (LAA, SP/RP): 30% owned
Two efficient starts in the past week, as Ramirez went 13 and two-thirds combined innings, taking the win in both, while striking out just eight. Hard to complain about the 1.32 ERA and 1.10 WHIP in those two outings, however.
Bradley Zimmer (Cle, OF): 18% owned
Zimmer his .400 in his first full week with Cleveland, but the only issue has been getting full playing time. He had just 15 at bats in the week, and managed four RuBIns to go with his second MLB steal. If you’re in a league where you can afford to have a solid part-time player, Zimmer is an excellent option right now, with the potential for more down the line.
Brad Peacock (Hou, SP/RP): 29% owned
Peacock will be moved to the rotation after Charlie Morton’s quick DL move this weekend. Peacock has been dominating out of the Astros’ bullpen this season, so he’s worth checking out as a starter. Peacock has allowed just two runs and eight hits all season (20.2 innings), but it will be interesting to see if his walk rate (5.23 BB/9) translates to issues keeping his pitch count low enough to go deep into a game. One thing is for sure, you’ll get a handful of strikeouts with Peacock, as his 13.06 K/9 this season is absurd. Even if we regress that figure a bit for the move from bullpen to starter, he should tally 6-8 strikeouts minimum. Peacock made it just four and a third innings in his first spot start of 2017, but he managed to whiff eight Tigers, and the Twins should make for a decent strikeout total in his Monday start. Both starts are on the road this week.
Nate Karns (KC, SP): 18% owned
Karns is still on the 10-day DL with the possibility of missing only one start, and with the way he has been pitching in 2017 (10.13 K/9; 3.48 xFIP), he deserves to stay on your radar.
Jarrod Dyson (Sea, OF): 18% owned
In a waiver wire loaded with power, the fast man stands out. And Dyson is a fast man. He tacked on another steal last week, bringing him to 14, a total topped by only the incomparable Billy Hamilton. Dyson has the better OBP than Hamilton, and he’ll bump into a home run every now and then (two in 2017). I’m still a big fan.
Players to Watch in 14+ team Leagues
Jordan Montgomery (NYY, SP): 13% owned
Montgomery will have a two-start week upcoming which will provide a nice litmus test for just how trustworthy he is right now. At Baltimore and at Toronto are not easy matchups, but there are few easy matchups in the AL East, so if he’s going to be on rosters he needs to be able to have success in weeks like this.
Lucas Duda (NYM, 1B): 8% owned
It’s amazing (or should I say amazin’) to me that Duda is as lightly-owned as he is. Duda is kind of like an National League, powerful version of Jed Lowrie. When this dude is healthy, he needs to be on rosters. Duda already has seven homers in just 110 plate appearances this season, and he is slashing .267/.400/.589. Those latter two numbers are monstrous for just eight percent ownership, and in OBP leagues, there’s no reason this guy should be on the waiver wire. His walk rate in 2017 is higher than normal (17.9 percent), but he’s always been able to draw walks at a high rate (11.6 percent walk rate for his career). The power has also always been there, as evidenced by a career ISO over .200. The news only gets better, as he is hitting the ball harder in 2017 than he has in any full season, which is of course the catch. He may be back on the DL soon, but check him out while he’s healthy.
Ariel Miranda (Sea, SP): 13% owned
Pretty straight-forward week for Miranda. He won his lone start of the week by going five innings and allowing just two runs while striking out four. That type of start won’t move the needle much in seven days.
Mike Foltynewicz (Atl, SP): 17% owned
Foltynewicz looked like he had a perfect week ahead of him in last week's column but was a bit of a letdown, going a combined nine innings in his two starts and giving up six earned runs. The Giants got to him for five runs in the latter start, so luckily he had a five-strikeout win to fall back on from his first start of the week.
Joe Biagini (Tor, SP): 13% owned
Similar to Folty, Biagini had one good start and one bad start, enough to keep him on our radar for another week. The latter start was better for Biagini, a promising start in which he went six strong innings (two runs; 7:1 strikeout to walk ratio) in a tough-luck loss against the Rangers.
Players to Watch in AL or NL-Only Leagues
Tommy Pham (StL, OF): 5% owned
Pham was on the precipice of being cut from last week’s list, but he bounced back nicely collecting seven hits in 16 at bats with one long ball. Pham started four of six games, and made an appearance in a fifth, giving him a near-full-time role right now. The more he hits, the more he’ll play.
Colby Rasmus (TB, OF): 2% owned
“Colby Jack” lived up to his nickname with a pair of long balls in the past week, and he’s been a nice pickup for those deep-leaguers who grabbed him right when he came off the DL. Rasmus has hit a homer every 12.66 at bats this season, and he is slugging .571. His average (.257) isn’t going to kill you either, and he’s a real nice deep-league option.
Jorge Bonifacio (KC, OF): 3% owned
Bonifacio (who is indeed Emilio’s little brother) demanded our attention with a four-homer week. Bonifacio has to have the quietest seven home runs in baseball this season, as anyone outside of Kansas City who is onto this guy is really doing their homework. Bonifacio has been a borderline prospect in seasons past, but he is just 23 years old and has some solid minor league numbers. Bonifacio was hitting .314/.386/.608 before getting the call-up this season (albeit in just 13 games at Triple-A). Bonifacio’s strikeout and walk rates have been strong in the minors, and he has reasonable walks (9) and strikeouts (28) since reaching the majors. The HR/FB rate is comically over 30.0 percent right now, but he has more power than his brother did, and he has had a HR/FB rate over 10 percent the past two seasons. He’s also hitting it hard, over 35 percent even before Sunday’s homer. He’s far from a sure thing at this point, but he’s intriguing name to keep an eye on in deeper leagues.
Derek Norris (TB, C): 3% owned
Our third Rays’ hitter of the list, Norris had the most lackluster past week, hitting a homer of his own, but only collecting two total hits. Norris is still hitting the ball hard (35.7 percent hard hit ball rate) and hitting line drives (26.2 percent line drive rate) in May, but his future value may be cramped when Wilson Ramos comes off the DL.
Buck Farmer (Det, RP): 1% owned
Farmer was officially sent back to Triple-A on Sunday, but his 11-strikeout performance Saturday is enough to put him on our radar. Put Brian Johnson (9 IP, 0 ER, 8 K) of the Red Sox in this category as well, as the two rookies managed to star in their 2017 debuts (well, second start for Johnson), and they will be the next men up if (and likely when) their respective teams suffer an injury in the rotation. Farmer is especially intriguing, as his minor league strikeout rates are strong, and the Tigers rotation is filled with ticking time bombs. It wouldn’t surprise me if Farmer is back in the rotation by mid-to-late June and that time, maybe to stick.
Graduated - Ownership Too High
Justin Bour (Mia, 1B): 55% owned
Koda Glover (Was, RP): 54% owned
Demoted
Austin Hedges (SD, C): 26% owned
Cameron Rupp (Phi, C): 11% owned
Lonnie Chisenhall (Cle, OF): 4% owned
