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. Here are a few fantasy baseball players trending up and others on the way down.
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Fantasy Baseball Stock Report (Week 6)
Here are a few fantasy baseball players trending up based on their recent performance.
Stock Up
Riley Greene and the Tigers have been surging as of late. The former fifth-overall pick has the 10th-highest ISO (.267) and 20th-highest wOBA (.395) over the last two weeks.
Since making his major league debut in 2022, Greene has both increased his walk rate from 8.5% to 17.3% and decreased his strikeout rate from 28% to 24.8%.
At just 23 years old, he’s someone I would be buying and holding in fantasy baseball.
Jack Flaherty has been the biggest surprise at the pitcher position this season. The 28-year-old is currently ranked second in K% (34%), fourth in BB% (3.4%) and first overall in xFIP (2.18). The xFIP is a big improvement on his career mark of 3.81. He’s been arguably the best pitcher in the league up to this point in the season.
He’s coming off a historic game against St. Louis where he became the fifth pitcher in MLB history to strike out 14 batters and allow zero runs in less than seven innings.
As far as his pitching profile goes, he’s been throwing slightly fewer fastballs (43.7%) but significantly more sliders (33.5%). Other than that his velocity has largely stayed the same.
The one thing Flaherty has had going for him this season is an incredibly soft schedule. He’s faced the White Sox, Athletics, Cardinals, Rays and Twins twice. All of these teams are in the bottom half in strikeout rate. Flaherty’s advanced numbers don’t lie, but I’m curious to see how he will fare with a few tough matchups under his belt.
CJ Abrams is one of the most underrated players in baseball right now. He doesn’t get much love because he plays for the Nationals, but his numbers so far this season may shock people.
He is ranked just behind Gunnar Henderson and just above Mike Trout in the ISO leaderboard at .324. He is also tied for eighth in the league with Kyle Tucker in wOBA (.420) and he ranks 10th in the league in wRC+ (171).
He’s only 23 years old and was traded to Washington as part of a package for Juan Soto not long ago. He’s someone you want to stash for the next several years.
Stock Down
On the flip side, here are a few players trending down that have been disappointing for fantasy baseball managers.
We all know “Playoff Randy” picks his game up in the postseason, but he’s been one of the coldest hitters so far this year. Among qualified hitters, Randy Arozarena has the third-worst wOBA (.213) and the fourth-worst wRC+ (39).
He does have an extremely low batting average on balls in plays (BABIP) of .173, so perhaps his poor performance has been the result of some bad luck. It’s still concerning to see a player who bats in the heart of the Rays lineup every day have a -0.6 WAR.
On the flip side of the coin, Michael Soroka has been arguably the worst qualified starter this season. His xFIP ranks dead last at 5.69 and his strikeout rate is remarkably low at just 10.6%. His walk rate is also the third-highest (12.6%) and his HR/9 is the sixth-highest (1.89).
There isn’t much to get excited about in Soroka’s profile. The only thing to look at when he toes the rubber is opposing hitters boosting their numbers.
That leads us to another shortstop, but one that has not been hot this season. Bo Bichette has typically hit for a high wOBA over his six-year career, but so far this season he is sporting just a .252 mark, significantly lower than his .348 career average.
The 26-year-old has been striking out just 14.8% of the time this season, a notable drop from his 20.5% average, but it hasn’t resulted in him getting on base at a higher rate.
The entirety of the Blue Jays offense has been underperforming at the moment. Perhaps some warmer May weather can heat some of these bats up.
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