Fantasy Baseball Trade Advice: Buy High & Sell Low (Week 8)

Fantasy baseball is a beautiful game that blends skill with luck seamlessly. It’s a long season and holding onto a player too long or getting rid of a player too soon can haunt you all summer. I still have nightmares of trading Marcus Semien for AJ Pollock in the first week of the 2019 season. In an attempt to not repeat past mistakes, here is my latest fantasy baseball trade advice article, focusing on players to buy high and sell low.

Fantasy Baseball Trade Advice

Buy High: Teoscar Hernandez (OF – LAD)

Teoscar Hernandez is enjoying a nice start to his Los Angeles Dodger career, slashing .252/.316/.497 batting in the heart of a great lineup. He’s compiled 27 runs scored, 11 home runs, 33 RBI and three stolen bases in 42 games. His quality-of-contact metrics are outstanding as is the norm for Hernandez. This year he’s in the 81st percentile in xSLG, 87th in average exit velocity, 91st in barrel rate and 95th in hard-hit rate. He had a down year in his only season in Seattle last year and even admitted he struggled to see the ball at T-Mobile Park where the Mariners play. His OPS was 187 points higher on the road than at home. Now, he is on the Dodgers, batting fourth, fifth or sixth with all the run-producing opportunities one could dream of. His current pace, pro-rated over 150 games, would look like this: 96 runs scored, 39 home runs, 117 RBI and 10 steals.

Buy High: Chris Sale (SP – ATL)

I’m hesitant to suggest buying high on Chris Sale. The problem with Sale has never been his talent or production but rather his ability to stay healthy. However, it seems every pitcher carries that injury risk, and Sale is dominating right now. He is 5-1 with a 2.95 ERA, 0.98 WHIP and 52 strikeouts in 42.2 innings pitched. He ranks seventh in K-BB rate and is in the top 10% in hard-hit rate and average exit velocity. This is his first year pitching for one of the best offenses in the league, giving him great win potential. Sale will likely miss some time — he hasn’t reached 150 innings since 2018. While healthy, he should be elite.

Sell Low: Gabriel Moreno (C – ARI)

Gabriel Moreno has started 2024 sluggish, slashing .242/.330/.323 with 10 runs scored, 15 RBI and zero homers or steals. He ranks ninth-best in walk-to-strikeout ratio among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances, but his batted ball profile is a real concern. He is in the lower third of the league in xwOBA, xwOBAcon, xSLG and barrel rate. Moreno has a career 55.1% groundball rate that has barely improved this year even though his launch angle has jumped significantly. His batting average should improve since that has been his most bankable skill so far at the MLB level. However, with the emerging options at the catcher position, it’s time to move on from Moreno.

Sell Low: Triston McKenzie (SP – CLE)

Triston McKenzie is 2-3 with a 3.54 ERA, 1.38 WHIP and 35 strikeouts in 40.2 innings pitched. His FIP (4.81) and SIERA (5.12) are more than a full run higher than his ERA, suggesting regression could be coming. McKenzie’s strikeout rate has steadily decreased every season he’s been a pro, bottoming out at 19.9% this year. His four-seam fastball has performed poorly — the average velocity, whiff rate and chase rate are all career lows. When he was his best, his fastball had a 10.7% swinging strike rate and his walk rate was under 6%. Both numbers are more than twice as bad this year, coming in at 5.1% and 13.6%, respectively. Not to mention, other than his breakout in 2022, he’s never pitched more than 120 innings in an MLB season.