It’s Thursday. You know what that means.
Each and every week 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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Stock Up
I really, really don’t want to fall for the Snell trap again. Outside of his Cy Young season, we’ve kind of seen who Snell is. He’s an inconsistent pitcher who has fantastic stretches and then other stretches where you want to rage quit him.
But the stretch Snell is on now seems different.
Yes, he’s pitching Wednesday, so he may have gotten shelled — or snelled, heh — by the time you read this.
But Snell has gone six straight starts allowing one earned run or less. And in those six starts, his low strikeout total is six, and he’s had at least 11 three times.
The first three matchups were against the Nationals, Marlins and Cubs, so whatever. But then the last three have been in Coors Field, against the Rays and versus the Giants.
I’m in on Snell and as scary as it is, he has my trust.
Stock Down
Why is no one talking about Stanton? Sure, it’s been an abbreviated season, playing only 31 games so far. But he has 123 plate appearances, and in those, he’s slashing .184/.244/.377. His walk rate is an abysmal 5.7 percent, and his groundball rate is at the highest mark of his career.
While his max exit velocity is still fantastic, his average mark is down to 93.5 and his Barrel% is down to 15% — the lowest of his career.
The entire Yankees team has struggled without Aaron Judge, and it’s kind of hard to justify starting Stanton at this point.
Stock Up
I was a little bit nervous after Abbott’s first few starts, as I wasn’t sure that he was going to miss enough bats or strike out enough hitters to take it to the next level.
I’m assuming he reads FantasyPros because he’s shown out his last two outings.
Over his first three starts, his high-water mark for strikeouts was six in as many outings. But in his last two starts — both going six innings — Abbott has struck out 10 and eight batters, respectively.
With that came added bat-missing ability, as Abbott had an 18.2SwStr% two starts ago and an 11.2SwStr% in his last outing at Baltimore.
Stock Down
The last time that Harper hit a home run, Elly De La Cruz was a couple of weeks away from making his big-league debut. In fact, since May 26, Shohei Ohtani has hit 11 home runs. Bryce Harper’s last home run came on May 25.
It’s been a pretty brutal stretch for Harper, who is hitting .241 in June with 21 a 79 wRC+.
He gets a pass, of course, as he came back so soon from Tommy John surgery. You have to think it’s a contributing factor to the limited power output so far.
Here’s hoping a big second half is in store for Harper.
Stock Up
With Arizona placing Merrill Kelly on the IL, watch for Pfaadt to make a return to the Arizona rotation.
It wasn’t a pretty first go-around for the rookie. However, he’s been on fire recently in the PCL, striking out 23 batters in his last 18.2 innings pitched (h/t to Brad Johnson for the vote).
Usually, post-hype sleeper or prospect fatigue kicks in the season after a disappointing year, but with Pfaadt, it seems too many are ready to write him off already.
He’s a young arm, and a top young arm, at that. Sign me up for the second chance.
Stock Down
Thairo Estrada (2B/SS/OF – SF)
I was anti-Estrada coming into the year, so this is just me trying to justify questioning him still. Yeah, the overall numbers seem fine, but the .280 average is being carried in large part to his .346 March and April. In May, he hit .247, and he’s hit .231 thus far in June.
He has a putrid 5.1 BB% this season, and his HardHit% is essentially what it is — 33 percent without much room for improvement.
I’m always going to fade someone with his profile, as it just is hard to imagine it being repeatable or sustainable over the long run.
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Michael Waterloo is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Michael, check out his archive and follow him @MichaelWaterloo.
