Last season, 43 different MLB players reached the 30-homer threshold, and 102 players hit at least 20 home runs. In this long-ball era of baseball, locating sources of extra pop in the late rounds of fantasy drafts is not necessarily that difficult. There are simply more guys hitting home runs than putting up solid batting averages or stealing bases.
So, which players should be targeted for a homer boost later in drafts? A track record of power is a great place to start. From there, pay attention to home park, metrics, and potential plate appearances. Each of the sluggers below is routinely being selected quite late based upon current ADP trends around the industry. Do not sleep on them.
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Appallingly high strikeout rates (career 36.5%) that result in terrible batting averages are what keep many a fantasy manager from investing in Sano. That has not stopped him from pacing 43 homers per 162 games over the past three years. The 28-year-old smacked a career-high 34 home runs in 2019 and an even 30 across a career-high 532 plate appearances last season.
It is worth noting that, while still not good, Sano did record the lowest strikeout rate of his career last year at 34.4%. That was down from an incredibly ugly 43.9% in 2020. In addition, he posted a hard-hit rate above 55% for the third straight season.
Set to make north of $9 million this year, Sano is pretty well locked into the middle of the Twins’ everyday lineup. He is also looking at a team option for 2023 that could be worth up to $17 million. That should serve as extra motivation.
Santander reached 20 home runs in 93 games for the Orioles in 2019. Since then, he has displayed consistent power when healthy. That is the key – “when healthy” – for the 27-year-old switch-hitter.
Over 240 games the last three seasons, Santander has posted a .222 ISO while averaging 33 home runs per 162 games. He popped 18 deep drives in a career-high 438 plate appearances around some nagging injuries in 2021. The majority of those homers came in perhaps the best offensive stretch of his career to date.
In 46 games this past August and September, Santander slugged .515 with a dozen home runs, 24 RBI, and 29 runs across 182 plate appearances. The Orioles shut him down for the final week of the season, as the team was not in contention and Santander had reportedly been playing through a mild knee sprain.
The club avoided arbitration with Santander this year, coming to terms with him on a $3.15 million deal just a few days before the lockout was instituted. When Opening Day 2022 does eventually come, expect Santander to be somewhere in the heart of the Orioles lineup.
The Blue Jays did not deal Tellez to Milwaukee in early July last year due to a lack of ability with the bat. The hulking masher belted 21 round-trippers as a rookie in 2019. He followed that up with an .886 OPS and eight home runs in 35 games during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.
In 2021, Tellez found himself as part of a team that had no regular role for him. That changed upon the move to the NL. The Brewers desperately needed more thump in their batting order. Aside from a three-week DL stint in September, Tellez helped provide it.
Tellez produced a nice .814 OPS with seven homers over 56 games after the trade. He added to that with a pair of shots in the Brewers’ four-game NLDS loss to Atlanta in October. All that led to an arbitration-avoiding agreement of nearly $2 million between the two sides in November.
Now likely set up for the most at-bats of his career to this point, Tellez could turn out to be one of the breakout players of the year. He sports a career .215 ISO with a pace of 26 home runs per 162 games. Despite career bests in flyball rate (38.2%), hard-hit rate (48.1%), and average exit velocity (92.2), Tellez saw a 10-point drop off in his HR/FB rate, from 22.4% (2018-20) to 12.4% in 2021. Do not expect that to continue. He has the makeup of a 35-homer, 100 RBI bat.
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