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Welcome back RotoBallers from the All-Star break! We're back at it for some fantasy baseball trade targets and avoids for Week 15 of the MLB season. Making the right trades can be crucial to championship success in fantasy baseball, almost as much as the draft, if not more. While most trades can have a significant impact on your fantasy team, it’s the deals where you acquire undervalued players and then see their production improve that can really tip the scales in your favor where the standings are concerned.
The same can certainly be said about trading away players at the right time when they have the most fantasy trade value. Those deals could happen in the second week of April or the last week of August, but they’re impactful all the same.
Here are some undervalued candidates to pursue in trades and some overvalued ones who you should consider dealing for if they presently occupy a spot on your roster.
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Undervalued Players To Trade For
Corey Kluber, Tampa Bay Rays
Corey Kluber owns a solid 3.73 ERA this season in 94 innings for the Rays. He’s made 18 starts and has struck out 82 batters while walking only 15. His walk rate for the season is just 3.9% percent. Yet, he’s probably better than those numbers would indicate.
There’s the walk rate, which is the definition of pristine. It’s in the 97th percentile league-wide and is the sixth-best amongst full-time starters. So right off the bat, Kluber is probably helping you with your weekly WHIP number.
He’s probably helping you in the win department too. The veteran has six wins in 18 starts this season and should continue to log victories on a 51-41 Rays team aiming to return to the postseason.
The real reason Kluber is so undervalued isn’t either of those potential plusses. It’s the run-prevention metrics. The starter’s FIP of 3.42 is nearly a third of a run less than his actual ERA and is the 22nd-lowest among qualified starters. It’s also lower than the respective FIPs of Yu Darvish, Logan Gilbert, Nestor Cortes, and Pablo Lopez.
It’s also possible both of those metrics are a bit misleading. On May 10 in a road start in Southern California, the right-hander was tagged for 11 hits, eight earned runs, and a pair of home runs in three innings against the Angels.
It was one of just four starts all season in which the 36-year-old failed to reach the five-inning mark. In fact, he’s thrown six innings 10 of the 18 times he’s taken the mound this year.
At any rate, the start was an outlier for Kluber and very much uncharacteristic of his success this season. Case in point, he had a 2.36 ERA and a 3.00 FIP in 26.2 innings before the start. Since that poor outing against the Angels, he’s pitched to a 3.36 ERA and a 3.27 FIP in 64.1 innings.
Kyle Schwarber, Philadelphia Phillies
Amongst the league leaders in home runs, only Aaron Judge has hit more than Schwarber this year. The former Cubs slugger has 29 homers in 391 plate appearances this season in his first campaign with the Phillies. However, he’s nowhere near the top of the league leaderboard in batting average after hitting a career-high .266 last season. Schwarber is batting just .208 with a .317 on-base percentage this season.
The good news is that he’s still drawing walks at the same rate. Schwarber’s walk rate (13.3%) is on pace to finish right in line with his walk rates in 2021 (13.6%) and 2020 (13.4%). Still, it’s the batting average that could be improved upon for fantasy purposes, and there’s every reason to believe it will be throughout the second half.
Despite a 30.7% strikeout rate and a 29.6% whiff rate, Schwarber has been making plenty of loud contact with a 21.7% barrel rate and a 52.5% hard-hit rate entering the All-Star break.
Furthermore, if the season ended today, his .382 xwOBA would be the second-best xwOBA mark of Schwarber’s career, and his .521 xwOBAcon would be a personal best in the majors. Throw in his .218 BABIP, the fourth-lowest BABIP among all qualified hitters, and there’s some obvious positive regression coming in the second half for Schwarber.
Despite unideal whiff rate and strikeout rate numbers, the veteran is sporting a 21.5% chase rate, which is certainly a positive. It’s also in the 87th percentile league-wide and points to the veteran making contact with the right pitches more often and not waiving at offerings out of the zone.
As an added bonus, he’s already tied a career-best with four stolen bases. Now’s the time to make a trade for him.
Overvalued Players To Trade Away
Merrill Kelly, Arizona Diamondbacks
Through 19 starts, the veteran has thrown 110.1 innings, pitching to a 3.26 ERA and a 3.33 FIP. His strikeouts per nine innings rate is currently 7.26 and he’s surrendering 2.94 walks per nine frames. However, his placement on the overvalued list has nothing to do with those numbers and more to do with his nine pitcher wins.
Heading into the All-Star break, Arizona was 40-52 with a 21-game gap between them and the division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers. The Diamondbacks also had just 23 pitcher wins from the rotation before All-Star game festivities.
Only seven teams had fewer wins from their rotation. Arizona has certainly seen some improvements in the rotation with Kelly, Zac Gallen, and Zach Davies enjoying strong seasons, but it seems unlikely that Kelly will continue to win games at the rate he has as long as he’s in an Arizona uniform.
Just 10 starters have more wins than the 33-year-old, and while his fantasy value could change with a trade to a contender, Arizona did just sign the starter to a two-year extension in April. Furthermore, the Diamondbacks have opted not to trade some controllable players in the past, keeping the likes of Ketel Marte and David Peralta around as potential building blocks.
If that’s the case with Kelly and he isn’t traded by the team, he’s someone you might want to trade if he’s on your fantasy roster. Capitalize on the fantasy trade value that pitcher wins bring.
Scott Barlow, Kansas City Royals
There aren’t too many sellers at this point among Major League teams, but the Royals are certainly one of them. Kansas City has already dealt Carlos Santana this summer and could, speculatively speaking, also deal Andrew Benintendi, Brad Keller, Zack Greinke, Michael A. Taylor, Barlow, Taylor Clarke, and Amir Garrett.
Of the group, Barlow is perhaps the most fantasy relevant with 16 saves, a 2.06 ERA, and a 3.62 FIP in 43.2 innings this season. As with Kelly, Barlow’s placement here in the “Overvalued” section has little to do with most of his numbers.
The 29-year-old’s slider and curveball-fronted pitch arsenal has helped him limit hard contact. Batters have managed just a 29.8% hard-hit rate against Barlow this season, which is in the 94th percentile league-wide.
However, the 29-year-old isn’t just about inducing weak contact, he’s missing plenty of bats too, with a chase rate in the 98th percentile and a curveball that’s sporting a 43.4% whiff rate.
No, Barlow’s placement here is more to do with the fact that if he’s traded, there aren’t many closer-needy teams. The argument could be made for Philadelphia, Boston, or Tampa Bay needing ninth-inning options, but those teams could also just stay the course with internal options like Seranthony Dominguez, Tanner Houck, or (in Tampa Bay’s case) a committee approach.
The reality is that if Barlow is traded, he’s likely looking at a setup role on a contender. That might not impact his value too much in saves+holds leagues depending on the team in that hypothetical scenario, but it might tank his value in more standard-scoring leagues.
If he’s on your fantasy roster, now might be the time to trade him to a saves-needy team in your league and then pick up a saves stash candidate off the waiver wire like Barlow’s Kansas City teammate Josh Staumont.
Jorge Lopez, Baltimore Orioles
It’s a somewhat similar story for Lopez, who owns a minuscule 1.62 ERA in 44.1 innings to go along with a 2.98 FIP, 51 strikeouts, and 15 walks. He’s also logged 17 saves. Where the story differs, however, is that Baltimore isn’t a definite seller in the same way Kansas City is.
The Orioles entered the break 46-46, and while their playoff odds sit at just 1.5% per FanGraphs, they might want to build for next season.
There are a couple of ways to look at it. The first is that they could keep controllable players like Lopez in advance of a more concentrated playoff push next year.
The second is that Baltimore might want to capitalize on the trade value of a reliever like Lopez and move him for reinforcements elsewhere to pair with Cedric Mullins, Austin Hays, Adley Rutschman, and company during the 2023 season and beyond.
It’s a tricky situation for fantasy managers who have Lopez on their rosters, but if it ends up being more of the second option, the closer’s fantasy value obviously wouldn’t be the same on a new club given the aforementioned lack of closer-needy teams.
It might not be a bad idea to try trading Lopez now in a 2-for-2 deal now where you upgrade at another position while still getting back a potentially steady source of saves like Paul Sewald, Ryan Helsley, or Camilo Doval.
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