February 4, 2021

David Fletcher is everyone's favorite old-school, contact hitter. In last year's shortened season, we saw him hit a career-best .319 with an .801 OPS. Fletcher doesn't worry about putting the ball in the air or even making solid contact. He puts the ball in play and lets volume be his friend. He was in the 98th percentile in K-rate and 100th percentile in whiff rate. Through three career seasons, Fletcher's 31.5% line-drive percentage is 5.8 points better than average. There are no secrets here. Unfortunately, this type of performance simply doesn't translate to useful fantasy production. Fletcher's absolute peak - which probably looks like 2020 stretched out over a full campaign - makes him a one-category fantasy asset and nothing else. His ceiling is incredibly low because he possesses no power and little to no speed production. A bad luck BABIP season makes him unusable. For his career, Fletcher has barreled up three total pitches. His hard-hit percentage was in the bottom one percent this past season. His baserunning runs above average have been in the negative each of the past two seasons. Instead of feeling like a safe place to turn in the back of drafts, he should be treated like a one-category commodity, a la Jon Berti or Manuel Margot. That has value, especially for lineups lacking expected batting average, but it places Fletcher's 202 ADP on the pricey end.--Todd Salem