Alex Gordon (OF, KC) - Week 25 Waiver Wire Pickups

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ANALYSIS: It may not exactly be a banner-year for the five-time Gold Glove award-winner, but Alex Gordon is finishing the last two months of the season on a strong note amidst a slew of slams and steals. He has accrued five homers and eight stolen bases in 149 AB since the start of August with consecutive OPS of .754 and .785. Throughout the year, his strikeout and walk rates have remained consistent and manageable, so there has only really been the question of the quality of contact with which Gordon was applying to batted-balls.

His pull rate this month has been terribly unhelpful at a measly 20%, and his soft contact rate has gotten a bit higher than usual at 17.5%. However even though he is only hitting fly balls at a 32.5% clip, his GB/FB ratio is 0.92 off of just 30% grounders and 37.5% line drives, and he has been applying hard contact at a terrific 47.5% rate. His exit velocity of 88.7 mph and average HR-distance of 400-feet seem to imply that he is hitting the ball at at least an above-average clip, and with his GB/FB tendencies combined with his stratospheric hard contact rate, it's easy to see how he can sustain a .333 September BABIP until the end of the regular season. With his quality of contact netting successful well-rounded offensive results and his proclivity for stolen-bases over the last two months, Alex Gordon has turned back the clock to make himself an asset of value over the season's home stretch.