Samulski Sunday Tribune - June 12th

Last week's leaders to help make this week's moves

I just got back from a beach week with the family, which is always an enjoyable time, but is also now an incredibly tiring time with an 11-month old. Turns out, if you won’t let a kid swallow a seashell, they get very upset with you.

As a result, we’re going to have another short intro here and just dive into the analysis, which I hope you continue to find useful. I’ve been teasing out pieces of this on Twitter during the week, and I really think the stuff behind the paywall is also worth your time (we discussed Bobby Miller, Nolan Jones, James Paxton and Bryan Woo in detail in recent weeks before their debuts).

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new structure so that I can make this the best product it can be. As always, my goal is to give you as much actionable fantasy insight as I can so that you can make decisions for your team that you feel will help you be competitive in your leagues.

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Hitting Leaders (Week of June 6th)

Hard Hit Baseballs

1. Kyle Tucker, HOU - 13 hard-hit baseballs (61.9%)

2. Nolan Arenado, STL - 13 hard-hit baseballs (72.2%)

3. Gleyber Torres, NYY - 12 hard-hit baseballs (80%)

4. Mookie Betts, LAD - 12 hard-hit baseballs (60%)

5. Rafael Devers, BOS - 12 hard-hit baseballs (60%)

6. Ronald Acuna Jr, ATL - 12 hard-hit baseballs (63.2%)

7. Seven players with 11 hard-hit baseballs including Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Austin Riley, Jordan Walker, Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette, and Matt McLain.

It hasn’t been a great first season in Philadelphia for Trea Turner. Some of that can certainly be attributed to it being his first year with a new team on a big contract. I know we hear that narrative a lot, but that’s because it’s real. Eno Sarris covered this for The Athletic, and he mentioned that multiple studies have found that free agents that stay with their teams do better than free agents that switch teams. He also discussed that players who switch teams swing more often and chase at pitches outside the zone more often with their new team before settling in. We have seen that from Turner this year and both his O-Swing% and SwStr% are career highs. In fact, his SwStr% is 3% above his previous worst season, which is a lot. However, a look at his rolling K% on Statcast shows a steady drop since May 23rd. In the early days of June, he’s also hitting .278 with two home runs. He’s clearly not the Trea Turner we’ve come to expect and it may take a few months for him to adjust to his new park and team and city and home and all of that. However, he’s still hitting the ball as hard as he usually does and the park should eventually benefit him, so I think he’ll come around, but the bigger issue is that Philadelphia is not running that much as a team, and its entirely possible Turner ends the season with under 30 steals, which would be a disappointment given the new environment.

*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*

Home Runs

1. Jose Ramirez, CLE - 4 home runs

2. Francisco Alvarez, NYM - 4 home runs

3. Corbin Carroll, ARI - 3 home runs

4. Gary Sanchez, SD - 3 home runs

5. Isaac Paredes, TB - 3 home runs

6. Nolan Arenado, STL - 3 home runs

7. Shohei Ohtani, LAA - 3 home runs

I think we can learn some good fantasy lessons from the Francisco Alvarez situation. While some people in NFBC formats spent over $200 on him when he was eligible to be claimed, many more won him for small bids. Even Jeff Zimmerman for FanGraphs wrote in his waiver column: ”He’s Util-only in most formats and will only catch two to three games. He’s basically a bench clogger until he get catcher qualification.” So because he was UTIL-only, many people didn’t spend lots of money. Well, over his last 15 games he’s hitting .278 with seven home runs, 14 RBI and nine runs scored. He has already started 35 games behind the plate for the Mets and is arguably one of the best offensive catchers in baseball.

The lesson here is to bet on skills over roles and position eligiblity. Basically every minor league pitcher that gets calle dup goes for $250-plus but a hitter like Alvarez doesn’t because we aren’t sure he’ll get enough at-bats. That’s why people dropped Jake Burger and now Eloy Jimenez is hurt again. I get the idea that we want to make sure we’re spending FAAB on a player who is going to play, but if a player is clearly talented or (like Burger) has already produced in the majors, we need to stop over-looking them because they are not a sure thing. Bet on the talent.

*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*

RBI

1. Jose Ramirez, CLE - 8 RBI

2. Freddie Freeman, LAD - 8 RBI

3. Gary Sanchez, SD - 8 RBI

4. Corbin Carroll, ARI - 7 RBI

5. Jace Peterson, OAK - 7 RBI

6. Bryan De La Cruz, MIA - 7 RBI

7. Josh Naylor, CLE - 7 RBI

8. Tyler Stephenson, CIN - 7 RBI

9. Isaac Paredes, TB - 7 RBI

Gary Sanchez is back from the dead. Well, not the dead but the minor leagues and whatever he was doing when he was out of baseball. He landed in a pretty good spot with Austin Nola and Luis Campusano simply not MLB-caliber starting catchers right now. Sanchez has five home runs in his first 14 games with the padres and is hitting .267; however, he also has a 30.6% strikeout rate. Yet, that’s really the only glaring issue so far. His O-swing% is slightly under career norms. His SwStr% is WAY DOWN, and his zone contact is the highest it’s ever been. He’s pulling the ball a ton (64.5%) which is helping him get to his power, and there’s no reason for San Diego to not just keeping running him out there to see if this is for real. I think the power certainly is, but Sanchez hasn’t hit above .205 since 2019, so even if there are gains in his plate discipline, you might be looking at a .220 hitter. Just keep that in mind with your bids.

*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*

Stolen Bases

1. Nolan Jones, COL - 4 SBs

2. Corey Julks, HOU - 4 SBs

3. Esteury Ruiz, OAK - 3 SBs

4. 22 hitters with two steals

Nolan Jones has to stay up, right? He was crushing Triple-A to the extent that I had him featured here in the minor league leaderboard for about a month straight. Now he comes up to the big leagues and has been tremendous in his first two weeks, hitting .348 with three home runs and four steals in 14 games. Yes, he’s striking out a bit more than we want to see, but that has more to do with passivity since he has just a 9.3% SwStr% and isn’t chasing out of the zone a lot. You’d assume with more at-bats he would get more comfortable and be a bit more aggressive. But he has all the maings of a double-digit HR and SB bat in a great park if Colorado just does the super obvious thing and keeps playing him.

*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*

Pitching Leaders (Week of June 6th)

SwStr% (Starting Pitchers)

1. Jon Gray, TEX - 24% SwStr%

2. Braxton Garrett, MIA - 22.7% SwStr%

3. James Paxton, BOS - 22.6% SwStr%

4. Garrett Whitlock, BOS - 20.5% SwStr%

5. Luis Castillo, SEA - 20% SwStr%

6. Patrick Sandoval, LAA - 19.6% SwStr%

7. Freddy Peralta, MIL - 19.4% SwStr%

8. Spencer Strider, ATL - 18.4% SwStr%

9. Max Scherzer, NYM - 17.5% SwStr%

10. Austin Nola, PHI - 17.5% SwStr%

A lot of the narrative around Braxton Garrett is that, if you removed the one start where he was hung out to dry and allowed 11 runs to the Braves, he’s been a pretty damn good pitcher. While that’s true, he’s also allowed four earned runs or more in three of his last seven starts, including this past start against the Royals. A few things do intrigue me about Garrett. For starters, his SwStr% is up to 14.3% from 12.8% last year. He has basically removed his four-seam fastball, and added in a cutter that misses way more bats even though it does give up some hard contact. The slider is still a really good pitch, so the slider/cutter combo is a good one for him. The issue is that his sinker and curve are inconsistent which means that sometimes he’s a three or four pitch pitcher and sometimes he’s a two-pitch guy. That’s why you see some of these poor starts. I think Garrett settles in as like a 3.9 to 4.1 ERA pitcher with a 24%+ strikeout rate in a good home park, which is still usable in most leagues.

*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*

Stuff+ (Starting Pitchers)

1. Tyler Glasnow, TB - 135 stuff+

2. Carlos Hernandez, KC - 126 Stuff+ (discussed later on)

3. Logan Gilbert, SEA - 125 Stuff+

4. Gerrit Cole, NYY - 124 Stuff+

5. Corbin Burnes, MIL - 120 Stuff+

6. Bobby Miller, LAD - 119 Stuff+

7. Edward Cabrera, MIA - 118 Stuff+

8. Andrew Heaney, TEX - 118 Stuff+

9. Kyle Bradish, BAL - 117 Stuff+

10. Zack Wheeler, PHI - 117 Stuff+

I’ve talked at length about "Shiny New Toy Syndrome” and how we’ve all been spending too much FAAB on rookie pitchers who have a low probability of ever meeting the value of what we pay for them. But then you see what Bobby Miller is doing, and you know that people will still continue to pay for these rookie arms and hope they snagged the right one. Through four starts, Miller has a 0.78 ERA with a 0.83 WHIP and 23 strikeouts in 23 innings. Three of those starts came against the Phillies, Yankees, and Braves. He has basically a five-pitch mix with all five pitches being used 9.9% of the time or greater. Both his slider and curve have 43% whiff rates, and the sinker is allowing tons of soft contact. This has all the makings of being legit and Miller could likely be the rookie SP we remember next year when we spend our money in FAAB. Just remember that we also spent money on Brandon Pfaadt, Gavin Stone, Mason Miller, Taj Bradley, Louie Varland, Matthew Liberatore, Dylan Dodd, and a host of other prospect arms who, for various reasons, haven’t returned the value we paid for.

Saves

1. Carlos Estevez, LAA - 3 saves

2. 10 pitchers with 2 saves, including Jason Adam, Jordan Romano, Camilo Doval, Raisel Iglesias, A.J. Minter, Kenley Jansen, Trevor May, Clay Holmes, Josh Hader, and Felix Bautista.

I know it feels gross to trust a closer on Oakland, but it might be time to look at Trevor May. Remember that before getting hurt with the Mets last season, May had four straight seasons of a 3.86 ERA or better with no lower than a 27% strikeout rate, so he’s been a solid reliever in the big leagues. He had a terrible start to the season, but he’s allowed just one earned run in his last 8.2 innings, striking out five batters and walking just one. The strikeouts haven’t been where they usually are for him, but he’s been going to the slider more, which is a solid pitch for him, and also mixing in a sweeper as well. The A’s won’t give him a ton of save chances, but it’s possible he can be a useful reliever even without them.

*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*

Behind the paywall you’ll find:

• Additional breakdowns on hitters and pitchers listed above

• Breakdowns on prospect call-ups

• Minor league leaderboards for possible stashes

• Top Waiver wire hitter pick-up

• Top Waiver wire pitcher pick-up