Eric Sogard (2B/SS, TOR) - Week 14 Waiver Wire Pickups

Andrew Ericksen analyzes Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Eric Sogard as a waiver wire pickup or add target for Week 14 of the 2019 fantasy baseball season. Sogard is in the midst of a breakout campaign with power numbers we've never seen from him before.

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ANALYSIS: There haven't been many offensive highlights for the Toronto Blue Jays this year as the team only has two regular players hitting over .260 on the year. Yet one of those two players, second baseman Eric Sogard, has quietly been having a career year in his age 33 season. Sogard is slashing .310/.378/.512 with nine home runs and 34 runs across 54 games. Coming into the year, Sogard had 11 home runs in over 500 career games. His .890 OPS in 2019 is staggering compared to his career OPS of .654.

Can it continue? The underlying stats don't really suggest that we should be seeing this much of a power breakthrough from Sogard. His launch angle of 19.0 this year is a solid improvement on previous seasons, but he ranks amongst the bottom 10% of the league in exit velocity (85.3), hard-hit rate (20.3%) and barrel rate (1.7%). He's making a lot of contact, with a strikeout rate of just 13.7% and so far, that uptick in contact has translated to a big increase in power for him.

While it's unlikely Sogard's power surge will continue, he should still be a reliable source of batting average and runs scored from the top of the Blue Jays lineup. If you need middle infield help, and in particular batting average help in categories or rotisserie leagues, he's a worthy add for NL-only formats and in deep, 14+ team leagues. In more shallow leagues, he can remain on waivers.