Samulski Sunday Tribune - Week of May 8th
All the info on last weeks' leaders to help with this week's waivers
We’re into our second week with a paywall portion of the Samulski Sunday Tribune, and I hope you’re still finding the free stuff and paid stuff useful.
This is the time of year where you can really start to make crucial decisions for your team has certain hot starts have started to fade and stats have started to stabilize which give us a good indication of whose production is for real or who is about to “break out.”
We often get too reactionary to the first few weeks of the season and think that’s when we can win our league with a big pick-up or trade. However, I think May is perhaps the most important month. Some managers in your league will have already started to get frustrated. Others will have wasted tons of waiver dollars on hot early pick-ups and some will have given up on under-performing players too early. If you can wade through the BS and see which stats are real (K%, hard-hit rate, and swing metrics have all begun to stablize), you can see which players we should be more into. Take advantage of buy low windows or over-looked veterans on waivers.
Regardless, this is the month you should really be grinding, in my opinion. Set yourself up with a team that heats up with the summer weather.
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 1st)
Hard Hit%
Masataka Yoshida, BOS - 14 hard-hit baseballs (66.7%)
Bo Bichette, TOR - 14 hard-hit baseballs (73.7%)
Salvador Perez, KC - 13 hard-hit baseballs (86.7%)
Brett Baty, NYM - 12 hard-hit baseballs (66.7%)
Sean Murphy, ATL - 12 hard-hit baseballs (63.2%)
Freddie Freeman, LAD - 12 hard-hit baseballs (70.6%)
Ozzie Albies, ATL - 12 hard-hit baseballs (44.4%)
Vladimir Guerrero Jr, MJ Melendez, Maikel Garcia, Carlos Correa, George Springer, Matt Chapman all with 11 hard-hit baseballs
I’m buying what Maikel Garcia is selling. He had a 19.6% strikeout rate in Triple-A with a 14.3% walk rate, so the .242 batting average always felt unlucky. He’s come up and gone 7-for-19 this week with 11 hard-hit baseballs. He’s not going to sustain a 55% hard-hit rate because that’s not who he is, but he makes a lot of contact and stole 39 bases in the minor leagues last year. He already has two SBs in just one week in the big leagues. The Royals are going to play him at 3B and OF with Kyle Isbel out and he already has SS eligibility in many leagues, so you could be looking at a speed asset that’s SS/3B/OF eligible. Sign me up.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Home Runs
Marcel Ozuna, ATL - 4 home runs
Christian Walker, ARI - 3 home runs
Salvador Perez, KC - 3 home runs
Javier Baez, DET - 3 home runs
Anthony Santander, BAL - 3 home runs
Sean Murphy, ATL - 3 home runs
Lane Thomas, WAS - 3 home runs
So Javier Baez may be coming around. When I went to his Statcast page and looked at the rolling breakdowns (which are an under-utilized tool), I can see that his xwOBA, xSLG, xBA all start to increase drastically around April 22nd. If you look at his season splits, from April 22nd on, in 11 games, he’s hitting .329/.432/.641 with 3 HR, 7 RBI, and 9 runs. He also has just a 15.9% strikeout rate over that time. He also has just a 17.2% strikeout rate all season as he’s cut down on his O-Swing% and making more contact in the zone than he ever has. I’m not sure he’s getting back to 18 SBs, but maybe he can hit .260-.270 with 20 HR and 10 SBs, which isn’t such a bad line for a MIF.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
RBI
Sean Murphy, ATL - 12 RBI
Masataka Yoshida, BOS - 8 RBI
Anthony Santander, BAL - 8 RBI
Mookie Betts, LAD - 7 RBI
Elias Diaz, COL - 7 RBI
Daulton Varsho, TOR - 7 RBI
Eric Haase, DET - 7 RBI
Rafael Devers, BOS - 7 RBI
Marcell Ozuna, ATL - 7 RBI
Cedric Mullins, BAL - 7 RBI
Ronald Acuna Jr., ATL - 7 RBI
Remember when Sean Murphy was in a platoon and Masataka Yoshida was over-matched by MLB pitching? Yeah, maybe we need to stop reacting so aggressively to two weeks. Yoshida in particular was on a real heater this week, hitting .476 with two home runs, 8 RBI, and 7 runs scored. He’s hitting in the middle of a strong Red Sox lineup, and looks every bit like a legit MLB hitter and the favorite to win AL Rookie of the Year (get those bets in!). Perhaps after he crushed the World Baseball Classic and then hurt his hamstring, people shouldn’t have written him off so quickly in his MLB debut.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Stolen Bases
Esteury Ruiz, OAK - 5 SBs
Raimel Tapia, BOS - 4 SBs
Anthony Volpe, NYY - 3 SBs
Enmanuel Valdez, BOS - 3 SBs
Cody Bellinger, CHC - 3 SBs
Whit Merrifield, TOR - 3 SBs
Ji-Hwan Bae, PIT - 3 Bs
Perhaps we wrote Whit Merrifield off too soon? Yes, he’s no longer a high-round draft pick, and arguably never should have been; however, he’s hitting .286 with seven SBs while hitting anywhere from 5-7 in a good lineup. He had a pretty cold week with the bat, hitting just .174, but the week before he was 7-for-20 with 4 runs and 2 RBI. Again, we’re not talking about elite stats here, but I think too many people see his name and just gloss over it, when he can be an AVG/SB asset and have some good R/RBI weeks mixed in as well.
Raimel Tapia started two games in RF this week while Alex Verdugo was sick. He stole two bases in one game and then also stole a base as a pinch runner earlier in the week. I wouldn’t chase this.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Pitching Leaders (Week of May 1st)
SwStr% (Starting Pitchers)
Freddy Peralta, MIL - 25.5% SwStr%
Jameson Taillon, CHC - 19% SwStr%
Shohei Ohtani, LAA - 17.5% SwStr%
Chris Sale, BOS - 17.3% SwStr%
Max Fried, ATL - 17.3% SwStr%
Juliuo Urias, LAD - 16.8% SwStr%
JP Sears, OAK - 16.5% SwStr%
Sean Manaea, SF - 16.5% SwStr%
Merrill Kelly, ARI - 16.3% SwStr%
Shane McClanahan, TB - 16.1% SwStr%
Freddy Peralta appears to be back to full health. The velocity on his fastball is up to 94.8 mph, which is actually the fastest he’s ever registered in an MLB season. While we can’t be sure that sticks all season, it’s a good sign that his arm is feeling good. He’s upped the slider usage to 2021 levels, and is getting lots of swings and misses. He’s also gone to the change-up more, which has been a solid pitch for him. Peralta actually has a true four-pitch mix where each pitch is currently under-perfoming his x-stats, meaning that based on the quality of contact he has allowed on each pitch, he should be getting better results. There remains a bit of a buying opportunity here since he has a 3.63 ERA, which is due, in part, to a career-high HR rate that I don’t believe will stick.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
Stuff+ (Starting Pitchers)
Shohei Ohtani, LAA - 142 Stuff+
Bryce Miller, SEA - 132 Stuff+
Hunter Greene, CIN - 131 Stuff+
Sandy Alcantara, MIA - 126 Stuff+
Clarke Schmidt, NYY - 126 Stuff+
Spencer Strider, ATL - 125 Stuff+
Justin Verlander, NYM - 125 Stuff+
Yonny Chirinos, TB - 123 Stuff+
Joe Ryan, MIN - 121 Stuff+
Mason Miller, OAK - 121 Stuff+
Bryce Miller really impressed me in his debut. As many people have pointed out on Twitter, that fastball is elite. Like, top 15-20 in MLB elite. He gets tremendous ride on it and averages 95.3 mph. Statcast will tell you that Miller also threw a cutter 20% of the time, but that’s really his gyro slider, which missed a lot of bats in Triple-A but was inconsistent in his debut. Miller also has a sweepy slider that he modeled off of the one teammate Matt Brash throws, and I just love that Miller has been so open about diving into the analytics of his pitch mix and working to build a full arsenal. He is also not content to get by on just velocity, and there’s a great quote from him in The Athletic where he says, “I’m putting everything together and becoming more of a pitcher on the mound instead of just a thrower like I was pretty much all through college.” YES, SIR.
Saves
Camilo Doval, SF - 4 saves
Jason Adam, TB - 3 saves
Alex Lange, DET - 3 saves
Paul Sewald, SEA - 2 saves
Kyle Finnegan, WAS - 2 saves
Alexis Diaz, CIN - 2 saves
Kenley Jansen, BOS - 2 saves
A.J. Minter, ATL - 2 saves
Emmanuel Clase, CLE - 2 saves
Pierce Johnson, COL - 2 saves
Jason Adam has taken the Tampa Bay closer role with Pete Fairbanks on the IL. Fairbanks claims he’ll miss the minimum amount of time, but he’s dealing with two separate hand/arm issues and doesn’t have a great track record of health, so who knows what to believe there. What we can believe is that Adam is good. He was good last year when he pitched to a 1.56 ERA in 63.1 innings, and he’s been good this year with a 1.35 ERA and improved 21.1% K-BB% in 13.1 innings. He has one of the best change-ups in baseball and pairs that with a solid 94 mph fastball, which makes him a strong fantasy reliever even if Fairbanks does come back because Adam could get chip-in saves with elite ratios on a great team.
*You’ll find more analysis on additional players later on for paying subscribers*
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