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Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Yandy Diaz is a fantasy baseball sleeper and undervalued draft target for the 2020 season. Dave Swan explains why Diaz could provide value at 3B this year.
The Tampa Bay Rays took a chance when they traded for Yandy Diaz last year. He is a Cuban-born player that broke into the MLB in 2017 with the Cleveland Indians. After two years of developing with partial playing time, he was traded to Tampa Bay in a three-way package deal. Diaz will break camp as the starting third baseman in his second year with the ballclub. He will have plenty to prove this upcoming season, and there is a tremendous amount of potential ready to be untapped.
Diaz is still somewhat of an unknown commodity at this stage in his career. While in Cleveland for two seasons he hit .312 with only 265 at-bats. At 28 years old, he has not been able to showcase his skills fully. Last year, he set a career-high in plate appearances at 347. He posted a .267/.340/.476 slash line with 14 HR, 53 R, and 38 RBI in a shortened 2019 season. He has the ability to get on base, which makes him intriguing for fantasy purposes. For his career, he has a 10.4% walk rate and a .350 OBP.
Last season, he missed playing time due to injuries. In June, he suffered a right hamstring injury that sent him to the 10-day IL. He returned only to suffer a hairline fracture in his ankle that cost the rest of the regular season. Eventually, he made it back on the field for one game in the playoffs before the Rays were eliminated. Is 2020 finally the year for Yandy Diaz to put it all together?
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Prepare For Lift-Off
Diaz's biggest flaw is hitting too many ground balls. There needs to be a continued improvement in the launch angle before he can break out. Over the past three seasons, Diaz has minimally increased the lift of his batted balls. A launch angle of 5.7 is still below league average, but he's heading in the right direction. Once he raises the launch angle even to league average, look out! He increased his fly-ball rate to 32.0% in 2019, which was an 8.7% improvement from 2018.
2017 Launch Angle - 0.0
2018 Launch Angle - 4.4
2019 Launch Angle - 5.7
Paint The Town Red
A look into Diaz's Statcast will brighten any drafter's day. He lights up the page with the 92nd percentile in exit velocity, 82nd percentile in hard-hit %, 84th percentile in xBA, 77th percentile in xwOBA, and 74th percentile in xSLG. Yandy had the 38th-best max exit velocity at 114.3 MPH. He set a career-high in barrels this season with 26 in only 250 batted ball events. His 7.5 barrels per plate appearance is better than Mike Moustakas and Max Muncy; both third basemen are getting drafted nearly 150 picks earlier. Sure, he doesn't have a spectacular sprint speed, but the rest of his metrics light up the screen.
2020 Outlook
When you dig deep, Yandy Diaz becomes a very appealing sleeper. He has already shown the ability to get on base and make hard contact with the bat. The last piece of the puzzle will be to elevate the ball into the Tropicana Stadium bleachers. His current ADP is 257, which makes him the 29th third baseman selected. This pick range means he is being drafted as a corner infielder or reserve player. He should make for a very profitable draft day selection. Rotoballer's projection is 22 HR, 75 R, 69 RBI, and .277 BA.
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