RADIO
Nicklaus Gaut profiles San Diego Padre Dinelson Lamet as a waiver wire pickup or add target for Week 22 of the 2019 fantasy baseball season as the flamethrower is back from Tommy John surgery and up to his old strikeout tricks.
BALLER MOVE: Add in All Leagues
OWNED IN: 35% of leagues
ANALYSIS: If players on the waiver wire continue to perform well, their ownership naturally rises and eventually reaching a point of inflection, wherein a player transitions from a streamer to a keeper. It's the savvy fantasy player that pounces before that point, saving themselves the heartbreak of going to the wire to grab a reliable stream of the past, only to find him gone, never to return. Now with eight starts under his belt since returning from Tommy John surgery, San Diego Padre pitcher Dinelson Lamet could reach that inflection point of no reclaim soon, as any time he takes the bump, Lamet is a threat to strike out a dozen, posting a 12.1 K/9 so far in 2019.
Lamet's strikeout artistry isn't new news, possibly just forgotten news, because he did much of the same thing in 2017, running a 28.7% K-rate over 114 innings pitched. This year he's been even nastier, increasing to a 31.3% K-rate over his first 41 innings. Most importantly, Lamet's premium velocity seems to be completely back, as his average max-speed since returning from surgery has averaged 98-99 MPH, which is exactly where it was sitting in 2017.
In Week 22, Lamet and the Padres go on the road to face the Giants in a divisional matchup, with San Francisco's numbers versus right-handed pitching being in the middle of the pack since the beginning of August, with a 95 wRC+ and a .746 OPS. But Oracle Park is also one of baseball's best pitcher parks versus lefthanders, against whom Lamet owns a much worse split, serving up a 50-point bump in wOBA and a 70-point increase in SLG. Grab him now for your championship run before Lamet puts up the performance that lands him on someone else's roster for good.
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