Manuel Margot (OF, SD) - Week 21 Waiver Wire Pickups

Brady Grove profiles San Diego Padres outfielder Manuel Margot as a potential waiver wire pickup or add target for fantasy baseball leagues in Week 21 of the 2019 MLB campaign.

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues

OWNED IN: 17% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Manuel Margot has been slowly but steadily building up his body of work at the plate since a horrendous .478 OPS  month of May, and has put up season-high numbers during the month of August with four home runs, a stolen base, and a .261/.346/.587 slash in 46 AB. His strike zone acumen has been burgeoning ever since the start of June, as he has accumulated only 30 strikeouts as compared to 28 walks, and he has gotten to this point in the month with an 11.3% walk rate and a season-low 15.1% strikeout rate.

Margot's .326 ISO this month may seem a bit over-the-head when considering his solid but non-tremendous 38.5% hard contact rate, grounder-heavy 1.82 GB/FB ratio, and underwhelming exit velocity. Luckily, he has applied the majority of his hard contact on batted balls over the course of the season on to line drives (52.8%) and fliers (32.6%), and his greater appeal is still his physical talent and the opportunities it allows. With a blazing 28.9 feet per second in sprinting speed and an average launch angle of 14.9 degrees, his .235 BABIP for his time in August seems like some sort of sick joke even with his grounder proclivity in consideration. He's running the bases efficiently, keeping a keen eye on pitches, and making concrete (if not, a little inconsistent) contact, so Manuel appears good to Mar-got for the young and exciting Padres moving into the homestretch.