Samulski Sunday Tribune - Week of July 3rd
As some of you may have heard, this week was my final week providing fantasy content at RotoBaller as I recently accepted a position at NBC Sports/Rotoworld.
It’s wild to me that I’ve actually begun to carve out a career in this space.
Almost four years ago, I was on summer break as a teacher and looking to make a little extra money, so I applied for a spot writing about fantasy football for RotoBaller. From that moment on, they welcomed me with open arms. They trusted me with multiple columns, allowed me to expand into video, and gave me the creative freedom to explore fantasy analysis in a way that intrigued me. It made me a better writer and, I hope, made me a better analyst.
Still, I never thought it would be a job for me.
When I left teaching after 11 years, I wasn’t sure what would come of it and spent months applying to lots of different creative jobs and jobs that required writing skills or editing skills. I figured I was a shoo-in to at least get interviews after 11 years spent as an English teacher.
Instead, I heard crickets.
The few people who did respond to me said that my resume didn’t have “transferable skills,” meaning that my 11 years as an English teacher didn’t seem to connect to their copywriting jobs or their content creator positions. It made no sense to me, and it just another clear example of how we diminish the work that teachers do in this country and don’t take the job seriously.
Yet, those rejections (and my wife’s amazing support) allowed me to keep plugging away with my sports writing and, eventually, helped me get to this opportunity.
I’m not sure what the future holds for me at NBC/Rotoworld, But I’m excited to explore the ways in which I can work with their tremendous team and their myriad resources to keep prodiving useful analysis in both video and written form.
I hope that the content I’ve been putting out has been useful to you more often than not, and I hope that the storytelling nature of the way I see analysis is engaging. Let’s see how far we can take it.
Happy Sunday.
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Hitting Leaders (Week of June 26th)
Hard Hit Baseballs
Eloy Jimenez, CWS - 15 hard-hit baseballs (71.4%)
Matt Olson, ATL - 13 hard-hit baseballs (76.5%)
Adolis Garcia, TEX - 12 hard-hit baseballs (63.2%)
J.D. Martinez, LAD - 12 hard-hit baseballs (66.7%)
Andrew Vaughn, CWS - 11 hard-hit baseballs (57.9%)
Mookie Betts, LAD - 11 hard-hit baseballs (68.8%)
Shoehi Ohtani, LAA - 11 hard-hit baseballs (91.7%)
Rafael Devers, BOS - 11 hard-hit baseballs (64.7%)
Paul Goldschmidt, STL - 11 hard-hit baseballs (84.6%)
Austin Riley, ATL - 11 hard-hit baseballs (61.1%)
Anthony Volpe, NYY - 11 hard-hit baseballs (61.1%)
While the stats may not jump out at you, this has been a solid season from Andrew Vaughn. He’s consistently hit the ball hard, has kept his strikeout rate below league average, and is starting to slowly tick the launch angle up, which has led to five home runs in the month of June. He still pulls the ball under 40% of the time, so he may not fully get to all of his power, but the added lift gives him the chance to end this season with 25 home runs, which is not something you’re made about when it comes with a .260 average and good counting stats. I think there is another level to the power as well if he starts looking to go pull-side a bit more.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Home Runs
Shohei Ohtani, LAA - 5 home runs
Ronald Acuna Jr., ATL - 5 home runs
Brandon Nimmo, NYM - 4 home runs
10 hitters with 3 home runs, including Carlos Santana, Luis Robert, Adolis Garcia, Ezequiel Duran, and Spencer Torkelson
Brandon Nimmo has seven home runs in June. He already has 12 on the season and his career-high is 17. I’m not sure enough people are talking about Nimmo’s power surge. He has a career-hgh 9.3% barrel rate and a career-high 46.6% hard-hit rate. He’s pulling the ball 4% more than last year and lifting slightly more, but this is not the profile or something selling out for power because those metrics are pretty close to his career norms. He is hitting the lowest groundball rate since 2019 but all of his plate discipline metrics are pretty similar to years past as well. We are seeing his launch angle trend up a bit in June, but remembe that he still had eight home runs prior to this month, so I think the power might be real. Since Nimmo doesn’t steal bases him being a 20+ home run hitter makes him way more valuable since he’s still a .280 with good run totals hitting atop that Mets lineup.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
RBI
Mookie Betts, LAD - 9 RBI
Kyle Tucker, HOU - 9 RBI
J.D. Martinez, LAD - 8 RBI
Matt Olson, ATL - 8 RBI
Nick Castellanos, PHI - 8 RBI
Ronald Acuna Jr., ATL - 7 RBI
Jack Suwinski, PIT - 7 RBI
Alec Bohm, PHI - 7 RBI
Ezequiel Tovar, COL - 7 RBI
J.D. Martinez has 19 home runs this year. Most projections have him finishing with anywhere from 31 to 34. That would be his most since 2019 and he’s outside of Fenway Park, which should have been a boon for him as a right-handed hitter. Interestingly, it seems like Martinez is selling out for power more this year. His Pull% is up to it’s highest point since 2019, his fly ball rate is up 5% from yesterday, and, as a result, he’s a rocking a career-high 30.1% strikeout rate. It’s also not trending in the right direction, up to 31.7% in June; however, he also hit seven home runs this month, so it’s clearly part of his plan of attack. While that may mean his average takes a hit (he hit .237 in June), the power does keep him valuable in fantasy leagues. But we may just need to shift our opinion of him to being a 30+ home run bat that will hit .250.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Stolen Bases
Jose Ramirez, CLE - 3 SBs
Trea Turner, PHI - 3 SBs
Esteury Ruiz, OAK - 3 SBs
Dairon Blanco, KC - 3 SBs
Luis Robert, CWS - 3 SBs
11 hitters with 2 SBs including Will Benson, TJ Fridel, Maikel Garcia, Jeimer Candelario, Drew Waters, and Travis Jankowski.
Will Benson has been all over the Twitter timelines, so he’s worth mentioning here. In June, he’s hitting .350/.473/.600 and, most importantly, has cut his strikeout rate to 18.9% in the month, which is exactly the same as his walk rate. That kind of plate discipline growth is super important to see from him because he has the power and speed to be a real fantasy asset if he’s making good swing decisions. That’s why in June he also has three home runs and six steals. However, a few things present some caution. First, he has a .419 BABIP this month and we’ve seen other players, like Jorge Mateo, make drastic plate discipline improvements for 4-6 weeks and then just revert to their old ways, so you really want to keep an eye on that K%. The other concern is playing time. Right now, Benson sits versus lefties, but if the Reds decide to call up Christian Encarnacion-Strand, that lineup is going to get even more crowded.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Pitching Leaders (Week of June 26th)
SwStr% (Starting Pitchers)
Bryce Miller, SEA - 27.9% SwStr% (*got hurt in the 4th inning)
Tyler Glasnow, TB - 22.9% SwStr%
Spencer Strider, ATL - 22% SwStr%
Lance Lynn, CWS - 21.9% SwStr%
Blake Snell, SD - 19.6% SwStr%
Carlos Carraso, NYM - 19.4% SwStr%
Jesus Luzardo, MIA - 19.2% SwStr%
Graham Ashcraft, CIN - 19.1% SwStr%
Kevin Gausman, TOR - 18.9% SwStr%
Domingo German, NYY - 17.2% SwStr%
I think we need to talk about Domingo German. Not about his perfect game or his imperfect past but his fantasy value this season. German joins Phillip Humber as possibly the most unlikely perfect game pitcher in baseball since, even after that start, German has a 4.54 ERA supported by a 4.22 xFIP and 4.14 SIERA. He has a fine 16% K-BB%, but puts him 35th among qualified starters in baseball. German is basically the definition of an average pitcher. He has a 94 Stuff+ grade and all three of his pitches rank as close to average as you can get. Stuff+ sets 100 as the MLB average per pitch and German’s curve has exactly a 100 Stuff+ while all of his other pitches are below average, with his change having a 94 Stuff+, his fastball having an 89 Stuff+, and his sinker at 82. He gave up 15 runs in 5.1 innings across two starts before the perfect game, and I’m simply not chasing this. Maybe I’ll be wrong, but I don’t think you’re going to miss much aside from a good start here and there.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Stuff+ (Starting Pitchers)
Kyle Bradish, BAL - 135 Stuff+
Luis Medina, OAK - 131 Stuff+
Tyler Glasnow, TB - 131 Stuff+
Graham Ashcraft, CIN - 130 Stuff+ (*more on him behind paywall)
Keaton Winn, SF - 130 Stuff+ (*more on him behind paywall)
Corbin Burnes, MIL - 129 Stuff+
Kevin Gausman, TOR - 126 Stuff+
Bobby Miller, LAD - 123 Stuff+
Spencer Strider, ATL - 119 Stuff+
Justin Verlander, NYM - 118 Stuff+
OK, if Luis Medina is going to nearly lead the league in Stuff+ this week, I’m going to need to look at it. First of all, Medina has a 107 Stuff+ overall in his 39 innings. His sinker rates out as his best pitch with a 156 Stuff+, while his four-seam has a 112 Stuff+, and his slider has a 107 Stuff+. Interestingly, he throws his sinker just 5.5% of the time, relying on his four-seam and slider a combined 71% of the time, and then throwing his curve 14% of the time. The curve has a 97 Stuff+ and a .174 BAA, so it’s not a bad offering. With that out of the way, let’s see why this last outing was so good with Stuff+. Oh, he threw his sinker 24% of the time. He also limited his change-up, his worst pitch, to just 5%. In fact, that’s two straight starts of Medina using the sinker more and the change less. In those two starts, he’s allowed four earned runs in 10 innings while striking out eight and walking 12. So…after all of that we’re going to still hold off on Medina. However, I’m now keeping an eye on him because he has some pitches that Stuff+ likes and he’s tinkering with his pitch mix, so maybe he can hit on something that works.
Saves
Devin Williams MIL - 3 saves
Ryan Pressly, HOU - 2 saves
Hunter Harvey, WAS - 2 saves
A.J. Puk, MIA - 2 saves
Camilo Doval, SF - 2 saves
Paul Sewald, SEA - 2 saves
Hunter Harvey has been emerging as the guy in Washington for a while and it might actually be there. However, Kyle Finnegan did face the 3-4-5- hitters on Friday night, so this is still a situation to monitor if Finnegan can string together some strong outings and reward his manager for his faith against the heart of the order.
Behind the paywall you’ll find:
Additional breakdowns on hitters and pitchers listed above
Breakdowns on prospect call-ups
Minor league leaderboards for possible hitter and pitcher stashes
Top Waiver wire hitter pick-up
Top Waiver wire pitcher pick-up
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