Oak's Corner: Frustrating Season for Bautista Owners

The Week That Was

• I wrote about Curtis Granderson after a hot June but figure he deserves another look after being dealt to the Dodgers last week. He immediately slotted into the top half of the Dodgers offense, and a spot in a crowded outfield opened up with the demotion of Joc Pederson. Granderson has hit the ground running (really fast!) after the trade, hitting three homers, including a grand slam in his first six games in Dodger Blue. A glance at Granderson's overall line on the season shows a poor .226 batting average but a solid .825 OPS.

  However, Granderson has just been a completely different hitter since the start of June. In his last 66 games, spanning 183 at bats, Granderson is hitting .246, but with 17 homers, 40 runs, 38 RBI and a monster .967 OPS, which is good for 20th in all of baseball during that stretch. The turnaround is remarkable considering Granderson was hitting .210 with a .641 OPS in the first two months, and it looked like the 36-year-old might be finished. The Dodgers have plenty of depth to sit him against lefties, and I really like the value of Granderson down the stretch, as he's swinging it well and now sits in the middle of a great lineup. I'm a buyer on Granderson in trade leagues, but it might not be necessary, as he's still available in a lot of 12-team leagues, as shown by only 43.1 percent ownership in NFBC 12-team leagues.

• After a breakout 2016, Eugenio Suarez of Cincinnati is quietly besting that season in 2017. He had 21 homers in 159 games last year, but a recent hot streak has now put him at 24 homers through only 125 games this season. Since the All Star Break, Suarez has been on fire, hitting .303 with 12 homers and 26 RBI in only 39 games. During that stretch his has a 1.060 OPS and has boosted his season average to .269. The most promising aspect of Suarez's profile comes from his dramatic improvement in taking walks. After an 8.1 percent walk rate in 2016 (and even that was a big jump for 2015), that number has spiked to 13.8 percent in 2017. In addition, he also has dropped his strikeout rate two percent to 22.6 percent.

  As part of his 2016 breakout, Suarez took a big step up in his hard hit rate and has impressively held all those games with an identical 34.9 percent rate this season. He has taken full advantage of playing in Great American Ball Park this year with 20 of his 24 homers at home to go with a 1.047 OPS. His extreme splits are not ideal if you're playing him full-time in your lineup, but if you're able to take him out for road series and maximize those home stats, his value has spiked even more. Suarez has a very good chance at an under-the-radar 30 home run season, and it will be interesting to see how his draft price changes after this season. His ADP this year was 273, even after his 2016 breakout, and he could be severely undervalued yet again next year.

• If you're looking for the sucker who liked Toronto's Jose Bautista at his ADP (110) and has waited for him to come out of his season-long slumber and get hot…well, ugh, here I am. I loved Bautista's 41 percent hard hit rate in 2016 and saw that as a sign that the power was still more than fine and that his average would bounce back too from his .234 mark in 2016. That was all good in theory, but Bautista has become a significantly worse hitter in 2017 and only has a 32.8 percent hard hit rate, his lowest since 2009 when he hit 13 homers. While the hard contact has dropped more than eight percent, his 21 percent soft contact from 2016 has stuck around to make for an ugly combo.

  To add to the misery of his profile, he's striking out more with a K Rate at 24 percent, easily the highest of any season of his MLB career. It all adds to a really poor .211 batting average with only 20 homers and 54 RBI. He does have 76 runs scored, which boosts his value a bit, and he has also tossed in six stolen bases, but at pick No. 110, he has been a significant negative. Even more frustrating, fantasy owners haven't been able to split him at all by playing him at home as he has a .188 average at the Rogers Centre with only nine homers. In a 15-team league, the counting stats from hitting at the top of the order make him a hold, but maybe someone whom you'd play based on opposing pitching matchups, but I have zero issue with dropping him a 12-teamer, especially if batting average is an issue for your team. I don't like much in his profile right now, and he's going to have to tumble pretty darn far in drafts next year for me to consider saying his name at the draft table.

• After a 7 ER game on July 2 against the Indians, Justin Verlander was staring at a 4.96 ERA as he started his second half. Well, the former Cy Young award winner has absolutely flipped a switch and regained his ace status. Over his last nine starts, Verlander has a 2.36 ERA with a WHIP under 1.00 and also has seemed to regain his strikeout pitch. He has 67 strikeouts over those 61 innings, and August is the first month so far that Verlander has had a K/9 over 10.00, a number that he averaged in 2016. As of very recently, he has started to tame the walk issues that have bugged him all season with a walk rate of only 1.24 BB/9 in August. After a half-season of struggling to find his old ways, Verlander finally is peaking right now, just in time for the fantasy home stretch. He tends to get into a groove and go on runs like this, and after wanting no part of him early in the year, I think he's a prime guy to target as your DFS pitcher right now, and I'm riding it until he gives me a reason not to.

• How about the season of Corey Knebel? The guy who didn't even start the season closing for the Brewers now has 27 saves and it's still August. His strikeout rate in 2016 was 10.47 K/9, a solid number, but it has gone through the roof this year at 15.08 K/9. He has an elite 1.36 ERA over 59.2 innings, but the 92.6 percent strand rate has helped that more than a bit. The one black eye on Knebel's season – and something he is going to need to work on to become an elite closer year in and year out – is his walk rate. His walk rate is at 4.98 BB/9, and despite only allowing 35 hits so far this year, the walks have pushed his WHIP up to 1.14.

  His fly ball rate has increased to 44.9 percent, and while his hard hit rate isn't terrible, it's also not elite at 32.7 percent. I would have expected a few more homers with that combo, but he has managed to concede only three homers so far. His stuff has clearly been elite, just check out the 13.2 percent swinging strike rate – a huge jump from last year, but in order to enter the top tier of closers next year, he's going to have to cut the walks fairly significantly. I love the strikeouts, but I think those eye-popping Ks plus the sparkling ERA are going to move his ADP to a spot in 2018 at which I'm unwilling to go due to a fear of the walks.
  

• Andrew Heaney: Heaney was the ninth overall pick by the Marlins in the 2012 draft and was traded to the Dodgers and then flipped to Angels on the same day in December 2014. He was the No. 1 pitching prospect in the Angels organization heading into 2015, and he delivered a solid season, tossing 105.2 innings with a 3.49 ERA, although his strikeouts were mediocre at best at 6.64 K/9. Heaney was locked into the Angels rotation coming into 2016 but was injured after one start and missed the rest of the season after undergoing Tommy John Surgery. Coming off the surgery this year, Heaney pitched well in three Triple-A starts but has struggled with homers in his first two outings with the Angels. He allowed four homers to the Orioles and three homers to the Rangers, both in five-inning stints.

  On the plus side, Heaney's command coming off Tommy John has been good with zero walks in 10 innings while striking out nine. He gets two starts this week, one against my scuffling A's and then a tougher matchup, facing the Rangers again, this time in Arlington. If he can limit the homers, I like what I have seen so far with the K:BB ratio, and he's a pedigree guy who could turn out to be a decent pickup down the stretch. I'll bid on Heaney where I need pitching and think he'll pitch well against the A's and hopefully can survive against Texas. He's also someone I'd add and hope not to drop after a week.

• Andrew Cashner: The Ranger's Cashner is a tough guy for me to figure out, as he has posted a strong 3.44 ERA over 125.2 innings so far in 2017 but without much statistical support behind it. Cashner has only struck out 4.51 batters per nine, and his walks haven't been especially great either at 3.51 BB/9. His FIP reflects all of that, standing at 4.58 at the moment. His BABIP has helped him a bit at .274 as has the strand rate at 76.4 percent, and while the ERA has been good, the 1.34 WHIP isn't helping anyone. To be fair, I have to note that Cashner's ability to limit hard contact has definitely helped him with a hard hit rate under 30 percent on the year. He has been especially impressive lately, posting a 2.81 ERA in 51.1 innings over his last eight starts, although those stats do come with only 27 strikeouts.

  Cashner gets two starts this week, one home against the Angels next weekend, which is manageable, but the first start is at the Astros. With his recent run of success and the two-start week, Cashner likely will be on a lot of bid lists this week, especially in deeper leagues. It might hurt me, but I'm going to pass again on Cashner. I feel like a couple of big blowups are coming and I just can't live with myself missing the good starts and then jumping in for the bad ones. Maybe he'll just beat me this year, but I have to stick to my guns on this one, and I recommend everyone pass on this particular two-step.

• Archie Bradley: At this point of the year, it's all about category management, and if you find yourself needing ratios and have rough pitching matchups in a certain leagues, consider adding Bradley and tossing him instead of a fringe starter. Bradley has been nasty all year long with a 1.29 ERA and a strikeout rate that sits just under 10.00 K/9. He has been especially strong lately, allowing no runs in his last 11 appearances. The D'Backs use him in high leverage spots so you never know when he could roll into a vulture win. The D'Backs seem committed to Fernando Rodney, so you're unlikely to get any saves from Bradley, but in the right situation needing ratios, I like Bradley (or whatever elite setup man you may prefer) as an add, and you can decide on his usage on a week-to-week basis depending on other matchups.
  

Greg Holland has been absolutely golden for his ADP all season long, racking up 36 saves to lead the National League while providing solid ratios and strikeouts. The ratio part has slipped away recently. Holland has been really poor in August, allowing 12 earned runs in eight innings, as he has blown three saves and taken four losses so far this month. Holland had surrendered only seven earned runs total through the first four months of the season. The control has been a big issue for Holland this month with a walk rate over 7.00 per nine, but the control issue could have been anticipated a bit as he walked 12 batters in 20.2 innings between June and July. After blowing another save Wednesday night, I assumed manager Bud Black would give him a break from the role, but he went back to him on Thursday, and Holland was able to put together a clean inning for his 36th save, although he still appeared to not be fooling anyone, allowing a line drive and a deep fly ball to account for two of the three outs.

I watched his blown save Wednesday night, and it was very clear the Royals were making Holland get his pitches up in the zone, as they continuously laid off his breaking pitches down, which teams haven't done most of the year. He seemed to not trust in or be able to command his fastball, which allowed the Royals to look for breaking pitches up in the zone. The walk-off that Eric Hosmer hit was on a breaking pitch up, just one pitch after Holland hung one up in the zone that Hosmer watched for a called strike. Holland is a veteran, and I imagine he'll watch tape and hopefully figure it out, as the stuff still seems to be there. If Holland blows another one or two soon, a very real possibility, the question for fantasy leagues is who would take over?

The two obvious choices for that role seem to be either Jake McGee or Pat Neshek. McGee held the job for the Rockies for a little while last season, and while his overall numbers (3.45 ERA and 1.09 WHIP) are solid, his best work was early on in the year. Through the first two months of the season, McGee had an ERA under 2.00, but since June 1st, his ERA is 4.78, and he has allowed multiple runs in four separate outings. Neshek has been exceptional all year long, posting a 1.63 ERA to go with a beautiful 0.91 WHIP. His strikeout and walk numbers fully support the ratios, as he has career-high strikeout and walks rates, at 10.15 K/9 and 0.91 BB/9 respectively. Neshek has stumbled a little bit recently with seven earned runs in July and August combined, but the strikeout and walk numbers have remained excellent. If I have an available bench spot, I'm grabbing Neshek as a spec play in any league where I need saves, especially where I own Holland, as I think he is nowhere near being out of the woods despite the clean save Thursday.

Astros at Angels. I have to admit I didn't think there was any way that I'd be writing about the Angels playing in an important series in late August. After Mike Trout got hurt, the Angels looked dead but they hung in there. After July 9 to 13, they again looked to be dead. The Angels have turned around their season this month, posting a 14-8 record. With just over five weeks left in the season, the Angels find themselves two games over .500 and just a half game back of the second wild card. This weekend, they host the division-leading Astros, which should provide them an excellent measuring stick to see if they belong in the playoff mix.

The main source of the Angels' success has been the pitching staff, which has compiled a 3.49 ERA in August, good for sixth in MLB in that span. Their top starter of this run has actually been little-known Parker Bridwell, who has made four starts in August with a 3.13 ERA. Despite the obvious struggles of Bud Norris this month, the Angels have received great work from their other relievers, most importantly Cam Bedrosian, who has allowed zero runs this month, while punching out 12 batters over 9.2 innings. It looks like the Bedrosian we all expected has finally shown up, and he's a vital weapon for the Angels as they try and steal one of the wild card spots. The Angels will send Bridwell, Tyler Skaggs and Ricky Nolasco to the mound this weekend against the powerful Astros, which promises to be a tough test for their surging pitching staff.

The Astros are going through their first real slump of the season, as August looks like it will not only be the first losing month of the season for Houston, but amazingly, the first in which they aren't at least five games over .500. Their offense, which still leads MLB in runs by a huge margin (more than 50 runs) has sputtered a bit without Carlos Correa, ranking only 11th in runs since the All Star Break. While Jose Altuve continues to rake (.381 since the break), and Alex Bregman has finally gotten hot (1.034 OPS since the break), they're missing Correa, and both George Springer and Evan Gattis have spent time on the DL in the second half. Highly touted prospect Derek Fisher has struggled filling in for the injured outfielders, hitting only .227 in 23 second-half games, while striking out 24 times in only 75 at-bats. The slump (well, for them) is timed pretty well, as they still have a huge lead in the AL West, and, hopefully for them, they are just getting it out of their system, before starting to fire again on all cylinders before the playoffs start. The Red Sox have taken advantage of the Astros' poor month, pulling within four games in the race for the top seed in the American League. This is a much bigger series for the Angels, but the Astros want to get back on track and return to their winning ways as soon as possible, setting up a fun series in Anaheim this weekend.