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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.
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Undervalued Players To Trade For
Eugenio Suarez, 3B, Seattle Mariners
Eugenio Suarez is batting just .229 this season. This much is true. However, the slugging third baseman looks primed for a strong finish to the season just in time for the stretch run and fantasy playoffs.
Entering play Wednesday, the infielder had also added a .320 on-base percentage, a .311 wOBA, 16 home runs, and a pair of stolen bases in 482 plate appearances to go along with the .229 average.
And while he’s also striking out 29% of the time, the veteran has also added a 13.2% barrel rate, a .341 xwOBA, and a 45% hard-hit rate in the process, making all sorts of quality contact when he does put the ball in play.
The gap between the wOBA and the xwOBA alone makes it well worth lining up a trade for Suarez if your fantasy roster has a need at third base. Pair that with all of the infielder’s RBI chances this season and you have a definite player to pursue in trades. Or rather, whatever the trade equivalent of a “must add” free agent off the waiver wire is.
As of Wednesday morning, Suarez had logged 72 RBI. That’s the 12th-most in the league. The same as Marcus Semien and Juan Soto and more than Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ronald Acuna Jr., and Austin Riley. Also Randy Arozarena, Jose Ramirez, Christian Yelich, and Suarez’s Seattle teammate Julio Rodriguez. In fact, Suarez has logged the most plate appearances with runners in scoring position this season in the league with 154, five more than the next batter.
What’s more, he’s also heating up at the right time. Since July 6, the slugger is batting .248 with a .339 on-base percentage, seven home runs, a stolen base, a .238 ISO, and a 15.6% barrel rate.
With a season-long batting average still on the low side of things, now’s the ideal time for fantasy managers to trade for Suarez. Make a deal for him now and watch the RBI continue to pile up between now and the end of the season.
Overvalued Players To Trade Away
Carlos Hernandez, RP, Kansas City Royals
Hernandez has been a quality relief option for the Kansas City Royals this season, pitching to a 4.20 ERA and a 3.32 FIP in 55.2 innings. He’s added a pitcher win, a save and 11 holds in the process.
Kansas City’s second-best reliever in terms of fWAR this season after the since-traded Aroldis Chapman, Hernandez looks poised to step into the closer’s role now that both Chapman and Scott Barlow have been dealt and the trade has passed.
And while saves can oftentimes be in short supply in most leagues, it’s fair to question just how many save opportunities Hernandez will be the beneficiary of in Kansas City from now through the end of the season.
Even despite a seven-game win streak that ended last weekend, the Royals are still just 37-79 with a -161 run differential that is the third-worst in the league. Furthermore, Kansas City will play 17 of their next 28 games against teams with a record north of .500.
It’s not the most ideal fantasy situation to be sure, but it presents a bit of a golden opportunity trade-wise for fantasy managers, particularly in roto scoring formats.
Given the Royals’ inability to consistently string together saves – they have a league-low 17 saves as of the start of play on Wednesday – it’s entirely possible that Hernandez will finish the year with fewer saves from here on out than some relievers in closing timeshares, or setup options who are only candidates for ancillary saves. Both those types of pitchers tend to readily be available on the waiver wire in most leagues.
Now’s the time to capitalize on Carlos Hernandez’s potential ninth-inning role and trade him for reinforcements elsewhere on your roster while picking up a reliever in one of those aforementioned situations to replace the Royals right-hander.
Geraldo Perdomo, SS, 2B, 3B, Arizona Diamondbacks
Perdomo was featured in this column back on May 4 due to a .391 batting average propped but in part by high contact rates ad a similarly high BABIP (it was .479 at the time in 75 plate appearances).
The good news now, at least for fantasy managers looking to trade away Perdomo – hint, you should if he's on your team currently – is that he’s still logging a respectable batting average (.267) and on-base percentage (.369) with a much larger sample size (361 plate appearances).
The infielder is also still making a bunch of contact, though none of it is particularly quality contact. The 23-year-old ranks in the 97th percentile in both chase rate (17.5%) and whiff rate (14.4%) and is sporting a 15.9% strikeout rate, which sits in the 87th percentile.
Yet he’s also in the first percentile league-wide in hard-hit rate, xSLG, and barrel rate, as well as the sixth percentile in xwOBA and the fourth percentile in xBA.
Geraldo Perdomo In 2023:
- 20.3% Hard-Hit Rate
- .283 xSLG
- .281 xwOBA
- .210 xBA
Now’s an opportune time to trade the infielder, especially if one of your league mates thinks the statistical regression is over. Because, spoilers, it might not be. Not with a .056 gap between his actual wOBA and xwOBA and so little in the way of quality contact. Only Esteury Ruiz, Steven Kwan, and Tony Kemp have a lower hard-hit rate among qualified batters so far. Elsewhere, only Myles Straw (with two) has fewer total barrels than Perdomo’s three.
Essentially, the Diamondbacks infielder’s batting average has plummeted significantly after a scorching start earlier in the year, and it’s likely to drop even further before the season is through.
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