This is “The Watchlist.”
“The Watchlist” is a weekly column designed to help you monitor and pick up players in the coming weeks. Whether they’re waiver wire or trade targets, these are the players you’ll want to add now before becoming the hot waiver commodity or trade target in a week or two.
Using underlying and advanced metrics, “The Watchlist” will help you get ahead of the competition in your league and reap the rewards later from your pickups.
The players could be anyone from a prospect in an ideal situation close to the Majors, a reliever in a saves+holds league, or even a starter doing well with misleading surface-level stats like ERA.
They might even be hitters with quality underlying stats. Or they could be none of those types of players and a different kind of player entirely. The point is that they’ll help you find success in your fantasy league while staying ahead of the curve of your league mates.
The payoff might not be immediate, but they should eventually provide significant value, more often than not.
These are some of those players for this week.
Last season, only eight team’s outfielders finished with a lower wRC+ than the Diamondbacks’ group in the outfield grass, so from a real-life fantasy standpoint, Thomas’ early-season arrival and emergence have been a significant plus for the organization.
The 22-year-old is hitting .283 with a .321 on-base percentage in his first 56 plate appearances in the Majors. Perhaps most crucially, he’s already collected three home runs and three barrels in those 56 plate appearances.
In their breakdown of the top 46 prospects in the Arizona system in January, FanGraphs’ Brendan Gawlowski and Eric Longenhagen ranked Thomas as the organization’s second-best prospect, right after Corbin Carroll, giving him a 55 FV grade. This, again, is promising for Arizona in real-life. It’s not so relevant for fantasy.
Thomas’ more fantasy-relevant current and future grades, per the same article, are as follows:
- Hit: 50/60
- Raw power: 50/55
- Game power: 40/55
- Run: 60/60
Already you can start to see the fantasy upside here with the power and speed. That Thomas has already started to tap into that power to a degree in the Majors is a positive. What’s more, he’s making plenty of contact; the outfielder has logged a 17.9% strikeout rate with Arizona, right in line with his strikeout rate earlier in the season at Triple-A (13.8%) and his respective strikeout rates at Double-A and Triple-A (19.8% and 20.5%) during the 2021 campaign. In short, he isn’t experiencing a significant uptick in swing and miss metrics as many rookies do. Especially against non-fastball offerings.
We’re still dealing with small, rather tiny sample sizes here, but it’s perhaps even more of a positive that Thomas isn’t getting beaten by sliders and curveballs so early in his career — all the while punishing four-seamers.
Alek Thomas Against Four Seamers, Sliders, and Curveballs:
- Four Seamers: 54 pitches seen, .222 average, .667 slugging percentage, .423 wOBA, .279 xBA, .816 xSLG, .490 xwOBA
- Sliders: 28 pitches seen, .714 average, 1.286 slugging percentage, .850 wOBA, .399 xBA, .485 xSLG, .383 xwOBA
- Curveballs: 24 pitches seen, .300 average, .600 slugging percentage, .380 wOBA, .314 xBA, .530 xSLG, .354 xwOBA
Thomas has already been playing regularly for Arizona, but with Daulton Varsho seeing more starts behind the plate, it could solidify the rookie’s role in the outfield alongside David Peralta and Pavin Smith. If that’s the case, there is all sorts of fantasy upside here. Especially once he starts stealing bases. Entering play on Thursday, only 27 players had a better Sprint Speed metric (or feet per second) per Statcast.
The fact that Anderson pitches for the Dodgers immediately makes him a useful streaming option due to the potential for pitcher wins. But it’s what Anderson is doing on the mound that makes him a useful fantasy addition, not just the potential wins that come from being a Dodgers starting pitcher.
One of just 11 pitchers, and just four full-time starters, to finish in the 85th percentile or better in both walk rate and hard-hit rate last season, Anderson has seen an uptick in his bat-missing metrics since joining the Dodgers.
Full-time starters who ranked in 85th percentile or better in BB% and hard-hit rate in 2021:
This year, Anderson ranks in the 93rd percentile in walk rate and the 94th in hard-hit rate. He’s actually the only qualified pitcher in the league to clear the 90th percentile in both statistical categories.
Elsewhere, his overall whiff rate has climbed to 28.3%, which is higher than it’s ever been. That’s helped him log 8.66 strikeouts per nine frames this season, which would be a career-high for Anderson in a full season if the playoffs started tomorrow.
Other than using his changeup more, he isn’t doing anything drastically different from a pitch usage standpoint. But that changeup has become something of an out pitch so far for the former Pirate. The offering, which is getting significantly more inches of drop this season (it’s up to 33.8 inches of drop, just -1.1 inches less than average, up from 28.2 inches of drop last season when it was -4.9 less than average), has the joint-best run value among all changeups in the league.
Partly as a result, the changeup is sporting a 46.2% whiff rate. Entering play on Thursday, only 12 changeups had a higher whiff rate.
And again, there’s the fact that he does, in fact, pitch for the Dodgers.
A 29-14 Dodgers team that will spend the rest of May playing the Diamondbacks and Pirates, both teams in the bottom half of the league in the league in runs scored. Anderson’s next start will come against Arizona on Sunday, a team he gave up just two earned runs and seven hits against in seven innings. The veteran also struck out seven in that outing. Both runs came on solo home runs.
That makes Anderson an intriguing streaming option this weekend, as he’s thrived as of late against lineups that have struggled to score runs like Arizona and Washington. If he can come away with similar success in Los Angeles’ early-June slate — the Dodgers play four straight series against the Mets, White Sox, Giants, and Angels — he’ll be someone you want in your lineup for the rest of the season. It is worth noting that Anderson has given up two runs or fewer in all but one of his starts this season. Those two runs he gave up to Arizona are the only runs he’s allowed in his last 15 innings. During those 15 innings, he’s also struck out 15 batters without walking any.
Emmanuel Clase is still obviously the closer in Cleveland, but Stephan might be the next in line after the 24-year-old if Clase struggles for an extended stretch or is injured.
Arguably Cleveland’s best reliever not named Clase, Stephan is in the midst of a breakout season thanks to an increased reliance on his split-finger offering. The pitch registered a notable 52.5% whiff rate last season but was predominantly used against just left-handed hitters.
Now, Stephan is throwing it with regularity against both lefties and righties. Its overall usage rate has climbed from 8.1% to 29.0% this season and has surpassed the slider as the right-hander’s second-most used pitch after his four-seamer.
Sporting a 42.6% whiff rate and a .174 xBA against it, the pitch has helped the 26-year-old cement himself in the late-inning mix. Crucially, he’s also the only Guardians reliever not named Clase to register a save. What’s more, he also paces all Cleveland relievers in fWAR. That might not be relevant from a fantasy scoring standpoint, but it (along with the save) further underscores the notion that he might be the next in line for save chances.
Elsewhere, Stephan ranks in the 94th percentile or better in barrel rate, xERA, xBA, xwOBA, and xSLG. He’s an elite real-life reliever (with a 2.55 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 17.2 innings), an elite option in deeper saves+holds leagues, and a potentially elite option in more standard-sized leagues should injury or ineffectiveness occur for Clase.
Kiermaier has, for the most part, always been a player who was much more valuable in real life than in fantasy thanks to his stellar glove work in center field. He’s hit above .260 three times in his career, and just once since the start of the 2016 season. That, plus a general low placement in the Rays’ lineup over the years, has left him with a lack of run-scoring and RBI opportunities despite four seasons with double-digit home runs and stolen bases.
The most runs Kiermaier has scored in a season was 62 in the 2015 campaign. His career-best for RBI was 55 during the 2019 season.
So far, the longtime Ray is batting .248 with a .292 on-base percentage, six home runs, and three stolen bases in 120 plate appearances this season. Those numbers may not be eye-popping, but recent developments, plus the depth and quality of the Rays’ lineup, suddenly have placed Kiermaier firmly on the fantasy radar. Or at least the pairing of those two things should.
Since May 15, the veteran is batting .452 in his last 32 plate appearances with three home runs, five multi-hit games, and a trio of three-hit games. That span also included eight runs scored, six RBI, and a stolen base. Just at face value, that kind of production is all and good in terms of whether or not you should keep an eye on Kiermaier for your fantasy roster, but it’s the quality of contact too in the last few weeks that’s notable.
Turning back the clock slightly more to May 10, Kiermaier has collected five barrels while registering a 42.3% hard-hit rate. Notably, the outfielder’s career-high for barrels for an entire season is 19, which he did during the 2019 season.
Turning the clock back forward to May 21, Kiermaier has made four starts in a row as Tampa Bay’s leadoff hitter. Obviously, it remains to be seen if that will continue; the Rays had eight different hitters log at least 11 plate appearances from the leadoff spot last season. But if the 31-year-old can stick in the leadoff spot for a significant amount of time (and continue to make this kind of quality contact), it would do wonders for his fantasy value with the likes of Wander Franco and Randy Arozarena hitting behind him.
And that’s all without mentioning the stolen base potential.
Kiermaier has the 19th-most stolen bases among qualified hitters since 2015, just one less than Trevor Story and three more than Mike Trout. He’s already stolen three this season and ranks in the 95th percentile league-wide in Statcast’s Sprint Speed metric. Stolen bases are obviously crucial in fantasy, but they’re even more relevant at the top of a quality Tampa Bay lineup as opposed to languishing near the bottom of it.
Keep an eye on Kiermaier. For fantasy managers in deep leagues, he might be worth a pickup now, or if you have a bench spot and feel like taking a flier on someone. But if this sort of contact continues, and continues at the top of the Rays’ lineup, he’ll be a quality fantasy contributor moving forward.
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