It’s Thursday. You know what that means.
Every week during the fantasy baseball season we do a stock report looking at players whose value is rising or declining. If there are specific players you want me to dive into, feel free to tag me on Twitter.
Now, without any further ado, let’s get to it.
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Stock Down
There are a couple of red flags here with Jordan Hicks. One is that his velocity is down. He averaged 93.8 miles per hour (MPH) on his sinker in his last start but his season average is 95.6 MPH. We know Hicks throws hard. Since 2020, Hicks has averaged exactly 100 MPH on his fastball, which ranks just behind Abner Uribe and Jhoan Duran. His fastball still averages 97.3 MPH.
Hicks has been a reliever in the past with both St. Louis and Toronto. In his three starts with San Fransisco this year he has thrown at least 79 pitches. Following the recent trend of elbow issues arising from pitchers throwing too hard, Hicks profiles as someone who could follow a similar fate. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019.
The second red flag is that Hicks’ ERA currently sits at an even 1.00 on the year but his xFIP is at 3.63, indicating there may be some regression in store for the 27-year-old.
I know the season is young but I thought Jeimer Candelario would look a little better than he has to start the year. Cincinnati has been striking out a lot, but Candelario’s 32.7% mark doesn’t inspire much confidence. The switch hitter also has just a .242 wOBA, .152 ISO and a 43 wRC+.
Those numbers won’t get the job done for the first-year Red, who routinely gets starts batting cleanup for Cincinnati. The 30-year-old Candelario brings relative experience to this incredibly young team but he hasn’t shown much promise this year.
Shea Langeliers may have caught the attention of fantasy managers on Tuesday with a three-homer night against Texas. However, rushing to add the Oakland catcher may not be wise, as this game inflated his season totals. It’s unlikely we see a repeat performance.
Relative to the rest of the Athletics’ numbers he has power. He was second to Brent Rooker last year in homers, but he also had just a .290 wOBA and his strikeout rate was closing in on 30%.
Langeliers also sports a .182 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) this season, meaning he’s been getting lucky and is due for some regression toward his career averages.
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