It’s Thursday. You know what that means.
Each and every Thursday during the fantasy baseball season, we’ll be doing a stock report, looking at the players who are improving their value on a week-to-week basis.
If there are players you want me to dive into, feel free to tag me on Twitter @MichaelWaterloo.
Now, without any further ado, let’s get to it.
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Fantasy Baseball Stock Report & Player Outlook: Week 4 (2023)
Stock Up:
I’ll admit that I not only get excited for each Cobb start, but I also get very, very nervous. It’s mainly due to touting him as often as I have, becoming the Cobb guy in fantasy.
He’s been serviceable – if not good – so far this season, but I’ve been hoping for a few more Ks.
We finally got that version of Cobb Wednesday afternoon, as he struck out eight Marlins over five innings – his most strikeouts since August 2022.
Cobb had his splitter working as it had a sharp bite to it. Getting through the order a third time is going to be the big thing for Cobb this year, but his stock – especially when pitchers are dropping like flies – is up.
Stock Down:
I don’t want to wave the white flag — we saw what happened when I did that with Chris Sale last week — but if you watch Scherzer, you have to be concerned. The velocity was down in his last start, and on Wednesday, he was laboring and struggling with his command against the Dodgers.
It’s hard to panic or abort ship on any elite or perceived elite starter right now, but Scherzer managers have to be concerned every fifth day, as it seems like he’s slowly slipping away.
Stock Up:
“Yandy hits the ball so hard. Imagine if he could just stop hitting it on the ground.” Imagine no more, my friends, as the Diaz breakout seems to be upon us. He’s hitting the ball as hard as ever, yes, but he’s increased his Launch Angle to 14.3 degrees, which nearly doubles his career-high.
With that, he has six home runs, and he’s well on his way to surpassing his career-high mark of 14. Buy the stock while you can.
Stock Down:
I have zero Singer shares this season, but I understood why some people who are a lot smarter than me were in on him this season. I just saw more of a medium-floor pitcher who didn’t do much well enough with the other players around his ADP.
Singer is allowing a ton of hard contact this season, as he’s allowed 47 balls hit off of him at 95-plus mph. That’s the most in the league by far, and that’s one fewer than Andres Munoz allowed all of last season.
Stock Up:
Pittsburgh Pirates
Yeah, it’s the Colorado Rockies, but the Pirates have just been … good. Do I think they’ll be good all season? No, but they are a competent team and a year away from making some real noise.
Andrew McCutchen is having a resurgence in his old stomping grounds of Pittsburgh, and Jack Suwinski is continuing his 2022 performance by hitting the piss out of the ball.
The rotation has been surprisingly good, too – most notably Johan Oviedo. If you haven’t yet, read this piece by Mikey Ajeto on Oviedo at Baseball Prospectus.
I’m in on Pirates players for fantasy, even if I’m not all of the way in on the Pirates in real life.
Stock Down:
The second-worst valued pitch in baseball right now belongs to Manoah. It’s his slider, and there are big concerns with the third-year workhorse for the Blue Jays. Many people were off on Manoah entering this season, given the lack of swing-and-miss stuff, and the strikeout rate is really, really low for Manoah this year.
Could it have something to do with the pitch clock? Is he this year’s Jose Berrios? Is it just us overreacting? It’s potentially all of the above, but natural regression should have been expected from Manoah, as he’s always profiled more as a Lance Lynn-type arm for me, which is still good for fantasy.
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Michael Waterloo is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Michael, check out his archive and follow him @MichaelWaterloo.