Overvalued, Undervalued Trade Targets - Buy/Sell for Fantasy Baseball (Week 19)

August 3, 2023

Trade candidates to buy or sell in fantasy baseball after Week 19 of the 2023 MLB season. Ben Rosener lists overvalued and undervalued players to target or trade away.

Making the right trades can be crucial to championship success in fantasy baseball. It's almost as important 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 witness their production improve that can really tip the scales in your favor in terms of the standings.

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 candidates who are currently undervalued and worth pursuing in trades, as well as some overvalued players who you should consider dealing if they currently occupy a spot on your roster.

Undervalued Players To Trade For

Francisco Lindor, SS, New York Mets

Potentially lost in the shuffle of all the New York Mets' trade deadline dealing is the fact that Francisco Lindor is having one of the best seasons of his career.

Yes, he’s hitting just .237 with a .236 on-base percentage on the season. Yes, he’s striking out at a career-high 21.2% clip.

But look a little deeper into the shortstop’s metrics this season and you’ll see a much different and much more promising picture.

First and foremost, the shortstop is making plenty of quality contact. His .356 xwOBA is the highest it’s been since 2018 and on track to be the third-best of his career if the season ended today. Perhaps more crucially, Lindor’s .407 xwOBAcon would tie a career-best (also in 2018) if the 2023 campaign concluded today. His current 45.9% hard-hit rate would, in fact, be the highest of his career.

And while his strikeout rate has gone up a bit, his whiff rate is identical to what it was last year, while his chase rate has actually dropped more than 4.0%.

• Francisco Lindor In 2022: 18.8 K%, 22.9% whiff rate, 29.9% chase rate
• Francisco Lindor In 2023: 21.2 K%, 22.9% whiff rate, 25.4% chase rate

The trade deadline departures of Mark Canha and Tommy Pham – who had a .390 xwOBA, an .820 OPS, and was a fixture near the top of the Mets lineup in recent weeks – certainly won’t help Lindor’s fantasy upside, but he’s due for some serious positive regression regardless.

The 29-year-old is hitting just the aforementioned .234, but he’s also sporting a .257 BABIP that is well below his career .291 metric in the category. What’s more, he currently ranks in the 75^th percentile or better league-wide in xwOBA, hard-hit rate, xSLG, and barrel rate.

Franciso Lindor In 2023:

• xwOBA: .356, 75^th percentile
• Hard-hit rate: 45.9%, 75^th percentile
• xSLG: .476, 82^nd percentile
• Barrel rate: 11.5%, 75^th percentile

And oh yeah, did I mention Lindor is sporting the highest barrel rate of his career by a decent margin so far?

The shortstop owns an 11.5% barrel rate at the moment, which has helped him connect on 21 home runs so far. His previous career high was 9.3%.

With positive regression seemingly on the horizon – not to mention 17 stolen bases already on the season – Lindor looks like a fantasy difference-maker for the stretch run.

Max Muncy, 2B, 3B, Los Angeles Dodgers

Like Lindor, Muncy has some positive regression coming, though probably not quite as much.

Muncy is batting .193 this season, with a .327 on-base percentage, 27 home runs, and a stolen base in 376 plate appearances for the Los Angeles Dodgers. His BABIP (.181) is actually lower than his batting average. It’s also lower than the BABIP of every other qualified hitter in the league.

The key difference here, at least compared to Lindor, is that the Dodgers infielder strikes out quite a bit.

The 32-year-old owns a 27.7% strikeout rate and ranks in the 17^th percentile in whiff rate with a 31.0% metric.

Still, when Muncy has connected with pitches, he’s been making elite contact, with a .375 xwOBA, an 18.2% barrel rate, a .468 xwOBAcon, and a 48.8% hard-hit rate.

With just a .226 xBA compared to his .193 average, Muncy isn’t likely to see a massive boost in batting average should the positive regression kick in, but even a .010 or .020 point bump in his batting average could have significant fantasy implications.

The infielder has been a fixture in the middle of one of the league’s best lineups all season. The Dodgers have scored the third-most runs in the sport, while Muncy has seen all but 14 of his 376 plate appearances batting third, fourth, or fifth for the National League West franchise. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Muncy has accrued plenty of plate appearances with runners in scoring position, 129 to be exact. Only 14 batters have more in the league.

As of Thursday, Muncy was also tied for the eighth-most RBI in the league with 70. With just a bit of positive regression, it’s not hard to imagine seeing his name shoot up those rankings even further.

Overvalued Players To Trade Away

Justin Verlander, SP, Houston Astros

Now back in Houston with the Astros via a trade deadline deal with the New York Mets, Justin Verlander is returning to a team where he had plenty of success last year.

The veteran compiled a 1.75 ERA and a 2.49 FIP in 175 innings of work, turning in 18 pitcher wins in the process. It was a strong bounce-back season for Verlander, who missed the 2021 campaign due to Tommy John surgery and certainly helped many a fantasy manager to postseason success.

So far this season, the right-hander hasn’t been quite as effective. He’s still been good, mind you, with a 3.15 ERA and a 3.81 FIP in 94.1 innings, but he hasn’t replicated the same level of effectiveness.

His strikeouts are down to 7.73 per nine innings, the lowest number he’s logged in that category since 2015. Elsewhere, the 40-year-old is allowing more than 2.90 walks per nine innings (2.96 to be exact) for only the fourth time in the last 15 years.

What's more, Verlander's Stuff+ number is down as well. Per FanGraphs, it was 118 last year in Houston. This year it's 106.

• Justin Verlander In 2022*: 118 Stuff+, 107 Location+, 109 Pitching+
• Justin Verlander In 2023*: 106 Stuff+, 104 Location+, 103 Pitching+

*All data via FanGraphs

All that being said, even if the right-hander exactly replicates his surface-level metrics from New York this season in Houston, he’s going to continue to be a quality fantasy option. Especially with the potential for an uptick in pitcher wins – Verlander had six in 16 starts for the Mets.

But, the key bit here is that if someone in your league thinks the starter will immediately revert back to his 2022 form with the Astros and is willing to part with the players necessary to acquire a fantasy ace, now might be the time to explore a deal.

More Fantasy Baseball Advice