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Mike Barner looks at three fantasy baseball players who could provide value in batting average in the later rounds of 2024 drafts.
Finding players who hit for a high batting average isn’t always easy in fantasy baseball. It’s what makes Ronald Acuna Jr. and Freddie Freeman so valuable. Not only do they hit for power, but they both batted at least .331 last season.
In total, there were only nine qualifying batters who hit at least .300 last season. Working our way down even further, only 11 total players hit at least .290.
For those who have worked their way through the early part of their fantasy baseball drafts and find themselves lacking in the batting average department, don’t panic. Here are some potential late-round fliers who could help in the category.
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Steven Kwan, Cleveland Guardians
Kwan consistently hit for a high average while coming up through the minors. In 2021, he hit .342 across 51 games at Double-A. After being promoted to Triple-A, he batted .311 across 26 games. The Guardians then called him up to the majors in 2022 and he rewarded them by hitting .298 over 147 games.
One of the reasons why Kwan has been able to hit for a high average is that he has shown an excellent eye at the plate. During his 2022 rookie campaign, he had a 9.4 percent strikeout rate to go along with his 9.7 percent walk rate.
Kwan took a step backward last season, batting just .268 across 158 games. He showed similar patience at the plate, recording a 9.7 percent walk rate and a 10.4 percent strikeout rate. After recording a 91.7 percent contact rate in 2022, he posted a similar mark of 90.3 percent last season. Maybe the biggest difference was his BABIP dropping from .323 to .294.
Heading into this season, ATC has Kwan projected to bat .276. Steamer is projecting Kwan to hit .280. With a current ADP of 203 on Yahoo, Kwan is worth taking a chance on for those who need help with batting average. Another nice perk with drafting him is that he has combined for 40 stolen bases over the last two seasons.
Joey Meneses, Washington Nationals
After being selected in the 2011 MLB Draft, it took until 2022 for Meneses to make his debut in the majors. He generally did a good job of making contact in the minors, never finishing a Triple-A season with a strikeout rate of higher than 24.1 percent. After batting .286 over 96 games at Triple-A in 2022, he was summoned to play 56 games in the majors.
Meneses showed similar contact skills in the big leagues, batting .324 with a 21.7 percent strikeout rate when he was called up. That left him with a starting role in 2023 that saw him appear in 154 games. The results weren’t as encouraging, though, with him batting .275.
The good news with Meneses last season was that he still had a strikeout rate of just 19.8 percent. However, his hard-hit rate dropped from 47.1 percent to 41.7 percent. During the winter, Nationals manager Dave Martinez said Meneses battled a knee injury during the season.
With a full offseason to get healthy, Meneses is a bounce-back candidate in the batting average department. Even with his decline last season, his .275 average wasn’t a detriment for fantasy managers. If he can hit closer to .290, he could provide excellent value with his current ADP of 263 on Yahoo.
Jeff McNeil, New York Mets
The Mets entered last season with championship aspirations. By the time the trade deadline arrived, they had become sellers. They received disappointing production from several players, with McNeil being one of them.
McNeil had a breakout campaign in 2019 that saw him slug 23 home runs and bat .318. The power production proved to be an outlier for him, given that he has hit a total of 30 home runs over four seasons since. However, he hit .311 in 2020 and .326 over 148 games in 2022.
McNeil hit just .270 in 2023, marking only the second time in his six-season career that he hit less than .310 in a season. It wasn’t a contact issue, given his 10.0 percent strikeout rate. He also had just a 13.4 percent whiff rate.
The problem was the quality of McNeil’s contact. He only had a 1.3 percent barrel rate and a 27.4 percent hard-hit rate. His BABIP dropped all the way down to .288 after posting a .353 BABIP the season prior.
Asking McNeil to hit over .300 again with that kind of weak contact might be tough. However, the projection systems do like him to improve. ATC has projected McNeil to bat .280, while Steamer has him projected to hit .289. His current ADP on Yahoo is 268, so there isn’t much risk that comes with drafting him, but there is batting average upside.
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