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 Watch
Let’s take a look at whose stock is rising and falling in fantasy baseball leagues.
Stock Up
Duran was left for dead within fantasy circles, and admittedly, I was among them. I just saw too many struggles with his approach — especially toward fastballs — to feel comfortable with advocating for him this season.
So far, so good for Duran.
He’s been aided by a .448 BABIP, sure, but the quality of contact metrics are legit. He’s upped his Barrel rate and HardHit% while lowering his K% and upping his BB%.
His stock is up, and I’m buying high.
Stock Down
I just don’t know what to make of Manoah. I’ve been trying to figure it out, and I just can’t. We all expected some regression in 2023, but we didn’t expect him to be Yusei Berrios V 2022.
But that’s what we’ve gotten, as Manoah has statistically been one of the worst pitchers in baseball. Do I think he is? No, but I do think that anyone expecting him to be more of the pitcher we’ve seen in 2021 or 2022 is going to be disappointed.
The career path I pictured for him coming out of West Virginia University was one of a workhorse arm, kind of like Lance Lynn.
I still think that’s doable, and whatever it is that is causing the mass correction — maybe the pitch clock or maybe learning how to pitch with less-than-overpowering stuff — will subside some.
For now, though, he’s a bench in any league.
Stock Up
Two weeks ago, we had people asking us about Arenado and had him in the stock-down section.
Boy, how some things change quickly.
Arenado is slashing .315/.367/.704 with a 182 wRC+, six home runs, 28 runs+RBIs and a .437 wOBA during the month of May. He’s been one of the hottest hitters in baseball, and his season numbers look a lot better than they did heading into the month.
Stock Down
Are we going to talk about how disappointing Kirk has been, or nah? The plate discipline is elite, of course, but he’s slashing just .217/.354/.304 and has two home runs and just 20 combined runs+RBIs so far this year.
The batting average is the biggest surprise, as his ability to make quality contact was one of the biggest green flags in his profile. But so far this year, you’re seeing someone who just doesn’t strike out and is good at drawing walks. But the lack of quality contact and inability to Barrel up the ball at a consistent rate with Danny Jansen in the fold makes Kirk easier to move on from in one-catcher leagues.
Stock Up
You know a reliever is impressive if I decided to write about him. Hell, for it to be a non-traditional closer, it’s really impressive.
But that’s what Cano has been this year, and no one at all saw it coming.
Cano, who now has three saves for the Baltimore Orioles, has yet to allow a run — earned or unearned — in 20 2/3 innings pitched.
In those 20 2/3 innings, he’s struck out 23 batters, giving him an absurd 35.9 K% on the season.
Felix Bautista hasn’t exactly been a lock-down closer this year, and we could see the Orioles continue to give Cano more save opportunities moving forward if that continues.
My favorite tidbit with Cano is that he’s thrown 139 sinkers and 76 changeups, and he’s allowed exactly three hits off of them combined. And all of them are off of the sinker.
It’s such a feel-good story for the 29-year-old.
Stock Down
I was kind of out on Gimenez to start the season, and it was because his high draft price was a little too rich for my liking given his success came last year with having pretty poor quality of contact output.
It’s catching up with him this year, as his HartHit% is 20.4 and his average exit velocity is 83.5. Both are in the worst 1% of the league.
With that, he hasn’t been able to outperform the metrics, and his numbers across the board have taken a hit.
Would I go after him? Not really, unless the cost was the equivalent of him being on the waiver wire. It just feels like 2022 was the year that everything went exactly right for him. He is the Miles Mikolas of hitters.
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Michael Waterloo is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Michael, check out his archive and follow him @MichaelWaterloo.
