Samulski Sunday Tribune - May 15th

All the info on last week's leaders for this week's FAAB

Since today is Mother’s Day and it’s the first Mother’s Day my wife has had since my son was born, we’re going to keep this intro brief. Most of the blurbs below were written on Saturday night before some of the games finished, but all the stats have been updated on Sunday morning. I hope you enjoy the content below and the day, whether you’re with your family or just watching baseball.

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 May 8th)

Hard Hit Baseballs

1. Brent Rooker, OAK - 16 hard-hit baseballs (88.9%)

2. Yandy Diaz, TB - 14 hard-hit baseballs (66.7%)

3. Amed Rosario, CLE - 12 hard-hit baseballs (75%)

4. Josh Jung, TEX - 12 hard-hit baseballs (63.2%)

5. Juan Soto, SD - 12 hard-hit baseballs (70.6%)

6. Ezequiel Duran, TEX - 11 hard-hit baseballs (68.8%)

7. Anthony Volpe, NYY - 11 hard-hit baseballs (61.1%)

8. Wander Franco, TB - 11 hard-hit baseballs (50%)

9. J.D. Davis, SF - 11 hard-hit baseballs (55%)

I want to talk about the value of “buying high” and Brent Rooker might be the perfect person to use as an example. Despite the fact that Rooker could have a slow two weeks coming up and somebody will tweet about him being an obvious regression candidate, the truth is that Rooker has made clear changes to his profile that are “sticky” after 140 plate appearances. He’s being more aggressive in the zone and less aggressive out of the zone. He’s also making less contact overall likely because his launch angle and flyball rate are the highest they’ve ever been at the MLB level, which tells me that he’s trying to get to his power more regularly. He will likely strike out and that batting average will come down, but he’s being more selective and swinging more at pitches he can do damage on. He’s always had tremendous power and has a career 22.6% HR/FB rate and multiple SEASONS in the minors of more than 30% HR/FB rate, so this power is not a fluke. I have no idea why rest of season projections have him hitting 15 HRs when he’s hit 11 in 34 games, but I think the only thing that drops off for him is the average.

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

Home Runs

1. Josh Lowe, TB - 3 home runs

2. Jake Fraley, CIN - 3 home runs

3. Jordan Diaz, OAK - 3 home runs

4. Luis Robert, CWS - 3 home runs

5. 30+ hitters with two home runs, so, no, I will not list them all

Jordan Diaz drove many fantasy managers crazy last week. Oakland sat him for six straight games, and it seemed like he wasn’t in their plans at all. Then he started on Monday at Yankee Stadium and hit three home runs in one game. People scrambled to pick him back up again and he went 2-for-14 the rest of the week with no runs or RBI. That’s why it’s important to not just look at weekly totals but look at HOW a player got those totals. It will help us avoid buying in on a player who just had one good game. Sometimes you’re going to miss the big explosion but that doesn’t mean you need to grab a player and hope for it again if nothing in the numbers tells you it’s likely to occur.

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

RBI

1. Dominic Fletcher, ARI - 11 RBI

2. Jake Fraley, CIN - 10 RBI

3. Josh Lowe, TB - 9 RBI

4. Gleyber Torres, NYY - 7 RBI

5. Christian Yelich, MIL - 7 RBI

6. Nick Pratto, KC - 7 RBI

I guess we should probably talk about Dominic Fletcher. The 25-year-old was hitting .323 in Triple-A with three home runs and one stolen base in 22 games. He had a 26.9% hard-hit rate and has never had more than 15 home runs in a season. However, he also rarely strikes out and consistently rus high batting averages due to his plus contact skills. Fangraphs gives him just a 50 for raw power and a 40 for game power plus just a 50 grade for speed. He’s never stolen double-digit bases in a season, so you might be looking at a good batting average hitter who will hit at the bottom of the Arizona lineup and hit 10+ home runs with 3-4 steals on the season. That’s not a lot to get excited about despite his hot start.

Remember, we don’t want to overpay for past production if there isn’t a sign that we will get similar future production.

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

Stolen Bases

1. Wander Franco, TB - 4 SBs

2. Bobby Witt Jr., KC - 4 SBs

3. Whit Merrifield, TOR - 4 SBs

4. Corey Julks, HOU - 3 SBs

5. Tyrone Taylor, MIL - 3 SBs

6. Jazz Chisholm Jr., MIA - 3 SBs

7. Marcus Semien, TEX - 3 SBs

Sometimes fantasy value comes because of the efforts of another player. That’s the case with Corey Julks who seems to be back in the mix with Michael Brantley having a setback with his shoulder during a rehab assignment. Julks has started four of the last five games in LF for Houston and is hitting .273 on the season with five stolen bases. He doesn’t walk and his strikeout rate and SwStr% are a bit high for somebody without big-time power, so I think we need to be careful here, but he’s actually been cutting his strikeout rate over the last 50 plate appearances, so maybe he makes enough contact to be an OK batting average asset with chip-in steals. That can be valuable in deeper leagues.

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

Pitching Leaders (Week of May 8th)

SwStr% (Starting Pitchers)

1. Spencer Strider, ATL - 29.1% SwStr%

2. Cristian Javier, HOU - 21.1% SwStr%

3. Clayton Kershaw, LAD - 19.6% SwStr%

4. Lucas Giolito, CWS - 19.4% SwStr%

5. Tyler Wells, BAL - 18.8% SwStr%

6. Austin Gomber, COL - 18.2% SwStr%

7. Chris Bassitt, TOR - 17.5% SwStr%

8. Eury Perez, MIA - 17% SwStr%

9. Kyle Bradish, BAL - 16.9% SwStr%

10. Shane Bieber, CLE - 16.8% SwStr%

I don’t think Tyler Wells gets enough respect. He flashed as a reliever for Baltimore in 2021 and then nobody seemed to care when they transitioned him to a starter in 2022 because he didn’t post great strikeout rates, but he had made improvements as the year went on. This year, he has a 2.68 ERA and 0.72 WHIP across 47 innings. He has just an 11.4% SwStr%, which is slightly below average, but he has a true five-pitch arsenals (all used over 10% of the time) that keeps hitters off balance. The change-up is his best pitch with a 16.8% SwStr% and 1.63 dERA, but Wells has a deep enough arsenal to (generally) avoid blow-up starts while pitching in what’s now a pitcher’s park. He should be added in more leagues if you are OK knowing you won’t get tons of strikeouts.

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

Stuff+ (Starting Pitchers)

1. Spencer Strider, ATL - 139 Stuff+

2. Gerrit Cole, NYY - 132 Stuff+

3. Hunter Greene, CIN - 127 Stuff+

4. Graham Ashcraft, CIN - 126 Stuff+

5. Kevin Gausman, TOR - 124 Stuff+

6. Clayton Kershaw, LAD - 124 Stuff+

7. Shohei Ohtani, LAA - 123 Stuff+

8. Kyle Bradish, BAL - 121 Stuff+

9. Dylan Cease, CWS - 121 Stuff+

10. Yu Darvish, SD - 118 Stuff+

Kyle Bradish was on many breakout lists, including mine, but he has struggled out of the gate to a 4.56 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, and 12.2% K-BB% in his first 25.2 innings, but there is some hope gleaned from his recent starts. In his first few starts, Bradish was throwing his slider around 10-15% of the time, which makes no sense considering it has a .176 BAA and 23.4% SwStr%. He was, instead, relying on a four-seam that has a 5.6% SwStr% and 26.7% barrel rate allowed. 26.7%!!!! Why would you do that? Well, in his last two starts, Bradish has thrown his slider over 30% of the time in both outings. He gave up a combined three earned runs and eight hits in 11 innings while striking out 10. That’s better. More sliders please. If you see the slider rate continue to stay up then we could see a strong rest of the season from Bradish.

Saves

1. Will Smith, TEX - 3 saves

2. Felix Bautista, BAL - 3 saves

3. Alexis Diaz, CIN - 3 saves

4. Carlos Estevez, LAA - 2 saves

5. Evan Phillips, LAD - 2 saves

6. Giovanny Gallegos, STL - 2 saves

7. Ryan Pressly, HOU - 2 saves

8. Kendall Graveman, CWS - 2 saves

9. Wandy Peralta, NYY - 2 saves

Everybody wants to find a reason that Will Smith won’t hold onto the Rangers’ closer role, but it’s much easier to just accept that he has it. He continues to go slider-heavy, throwing it 45% of the time. That’s important since it has a 22.1% SwStr% and just a 0.71 dERA. His strikeout rate has climbed back up to 31.6% with a dominant 22.8% K-BB%. The .273 BABIP, 2.39 xERA and 3.29 SIERA suggest that this is not a fluke. He also has held righties to a .205 average and .308 SLG, so it’s not like he has any major splits to worry about either. With Texas proving to be a potent lineup, Smith looks like a great saves candidate the rest of the way.

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

Behind the paywall you’ll find:

• Additional breakdowns on hitters listed above

• Breakdowns on prospect call-ups

• Two-Start pitcher rankings

• Waiver wire hitter rankings

• Waiver wire pitching rankings