Scott Schebler (OF, CIN) - Week 25 Waiver Wire Pickups

Brady Grove profiles Reds outfielder Scott Schebler, who is capping off his fantastic 2018 campaign with a September hot-stretch that has highlighted his various offensive improvements throughout the year.

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ANALYSIS: Although 2018 has been a largely up-and-down season for Scott Schebler, he has hit an excellent stride since the beginning of September, as he has managed to hit three HR with a slash of .273/.373/.500 over 44 AB. He has still been striking out a lot this month at a rate of 29.4%, but he has helped to supplement his improved OBP for this month with a walk rate of 9.8%. Schebler has been producing grounders at a high frequency this season and this has also been the case for September. His grounder rate this month has been sky-high at 41.4% while he has only managaed 31% fly balls this month to contribute to his second-half GB/FB ratio of 1.31.

Despite those grounder-heavy tendencies, Schebler has produced a fantastic pull rate of 55.2% so far this month in addition to solid batted-ball contact of 37.9% hard contact and just 13.8% soft contact that has helped lead to a .227 ISO for the month of September. Scott Schebler's raw HR-power can be seen through his 90.4 mph exit velocity and 406-foot average HR-distance, both of which are nicely tailored to the hitter-friendly conditions presented by Great American Ball Park. Hey may not be an efficient base-stealer, but he takes a chance with enough frequency to be a threat to pick up a couple bags over the last couple weeks, and his power-hitting combined with his improved all-around offensive game makes him an excellent outfield option to close out the 2018 campaign.