This article is part of our MLB Barometer series.
I am the worst passenger to have in your car. (Adult division.)
For every 100 places I go, I drive myself -- or the group I am with -- to 99 of them.
In those few instances when I'm not behind the wheel, I'm often useless to everybody else in the car.
I will punch the address of the destination in to Waze, but zone out while it runs in the background as I check my lineups or scan Twitter for any news I might have missed from the past few hours.
Sometimes I'm like an old man on a park bench and I just nod off to sleep.
Useless.
This weekend was no exception. En route to a belated Mother's Day brunch with my wife's family, I was hacking away on my phone after Tout Wars FAAB ran Sunday morning, looking to find a significant upgrade to a gaping hole on my roster at second base.
In an effort to only be useless while in transit, and to be engaged and polite at brunch, I posted a quick note to the league message board:
Looking to move a pitcher for a second baseman.
I did this knowing that later in the day I would have a chance to more closely examine the rosters of the other teams in the league, but hoping that the ongoing search for pitching in most leagues would bring a few viable offers my way with slightly less effort.
It didn't lead to a deal
I am the worst passenger to have in your car. (Adult division.)
For every 100 places I go, I drive myself -- or the group I am with -- to 99 of them.
In those few instances when I'm not behind the wheel, I'm often useless to everybody else in the car.
I will punch the address of the destination in to Waze, but zone out while it runs in the background as I check my lineups or scan Twitter for any news I might have missed from the past few hours.
Sometimes I'm like an old man on a park bench and I just nod off to sleep.
Useless.
This weekend was no exception. En route to a belated Mother's Day brunch with my wife's family, I was hacking away on my phone after Tout Wars FAAB ran Sunday morning, looking to find a significant upgrade to a gaping hole on my roster at second base.
In an effort to only be useless while in transit, and to be engaged and polite at brunch, I posted a quick note to the league message board:
Looking to move a pitcher for a second baseman.
I did this knowing that later in the day I would have a chance to more closely examine the rosters of the other teams in the league, but hoping that the ongoing search for pitching in most leagues would bring a few viable offers my way with slightly less effort.
It didn't lead to a deal for this week, but it did lead to an interesting player to write about this week.
It's possible that Cesar Hernandez is the best player we never talk about.
When the Phillies signed Scott Kingery to a pre-debut long-term deal, my belief was that Hernandez would be among the players, along with Maikel Franco, most likely to lose playing time this season.
Entering play Wednesday, Hernandez leads the Phillies in plate appearances (206), thanks to leading off every game he's started in 2018.
Even on his own team, Hernandez gets overshadowed:
As production goes, Hernandez has been Rhys Hoskins with a better batting average and three times as many steals.
As cost goes, Hernandez was regularly available 150-200 picks later in drafts than Hoskins.
The adjustments may have started in 2017, as Corey Seidman of NBC Sports Philadelphia wrote last April.
The impact of those results can be seen in a few underlying numbers within Hernandez's first 46 games.
Hitting the ball harder, at an ideal launch angle more frequently is a big step forward from a skills standpoint.
With early-season skills growth, we're usually left with two types of questions to answer:
What changed for this player? (i.e. How/why did this happen?)
What's next for this player? (i.e. Will/can this continue to happen?)
The current 162-game pace of production from Hernandez puts him on track for more than 20 homers, 30 steals and 120 runs, and his earn value in standard 5x5 rotisserie leagues is already among the top-40 hitters (he's been a top-20 hitter in leagues that replace AVG with OBP).
Of course, maintaining that pace is a long shot, but Hernandez's xStats to this point support the increased power output, which appear fluky at a glance thanks to a career-high 14.3% HR/FB%.
Eduardo Escobar had a similar power surge in his age-28 season in 2017 -- he did it by hitting the ball in the air more frequently. Chris Taylor did something similar, after a lifetime in baseball of being told to hit the ball on the ground in order to use his speed.
Like Taylor, Hernandez offers stolen-base upside thanks to above average speed. In fact, Hernandez ranks second on the Statcast Sprint Speed Leaderboard among second basemen for the fourth consecutive season -- which has enabled him to record 15 or more steals every year since 2015.
Adding power to the equation, Hernandez might be on a path similar to that of Elvis Andrus a year ago, albeit with a slightly different mix of runs scored versus RBI.
Risers
Jesus Aguilar, 1B, MIL -- Aguilar swatted four homers during the Brewers' three-game series against the Twins over the weekend, and chipped in another multi-hit effort in the series finale against Arizona on Wednesday afternoon, raising his season line to .324/.383/.577 (.960 OPS) through 42 games. With Ryan Braun and Eric Thames on the DL, Aguilar is taken full advantage of regular playing time, locking down a regular place in the heart of the batting order in Milwaukee. Impressively, he's trimmed his strikeout rate from 30.2% to 22.7% with the increase in playing time, as opposing pitchers are struggling to find regular holes against him in the strike zone. It's becoming easier to see a path for Aguilar to stick in the lineup on a daily basis even after Braun and Thames return, given the ongoing struggles of Domingo Santana, whose season OPS is down more than 175 points from 2017 through Wednesday's game. Aguilar should be rostered in nearly all formats.
Johan Camargo, 3B/SS, ATL -- Most projection systems expect Camargo to post a sub-.700 OPS, and his speed on the basepaths checks in at the same level as Yan Gomes and Matt Carpenter. With the Braves' release of Jose Bautista over the weekend, Camargo is the new everyday third baseman in Atlanta, though he'll need to play at a high level in order to fend off prospect Austin Riley, who is currently hitting .286/.339/.464 (.803 OPS) through his first 14 games at Triple-A Gwinnett. The appeal of Camargo is a shift toward a higher flyball rate over the past year-plus, which has led him to a slight increase in power between Triple-A and the big leagues (13 homers between the two levels in 515 combined plate appearances). For now, the interest is limited to mixed leagues with 15-plus teams and NL-only formats.
Tony Kemp, OF, HOU -- Jake Marisnick was optioned to Triple-A last week and Derek Fisher was placed on the disabled list Sunday, opening up an opportunity for Kemp to secure playing time as part of the Astros' outfield mix. In parts of three seasons at Triple-A Fresno, Kemp has put together a strong .312/.373/.425 line in the Pacific Coast League, drawing walks 8.1% of the time and striking out at a 9.6% clip. Now 26, the former fifth-round pick (2013) has nothing left to prove in the minors. For now, he's buried in the No. 9 spot in the Houston lineup, and his paths to a more prominent spot are limited thanks to the quality of the lineup around him, but Kemp's speed could make him an immediate fantasy asset even in 12-team mixed leagues, perhaps as a temporary solution for Dee Gordon owners scrambling to maintain their position in the stolen-base category with Gordon's placement on the disabled list Tuesday due to a fractured toe.
Ross Stripling, SP, LAD -- Stripling has increased the use of his slider since the start of 2017, and the result has been an increase in strikeout rate. It's worth noting that he's split time between the bullpen and the rotation as a spot starter for the Dodgers -- six of his 63 appearances since the start of last season have come as a starter -- so it will be worth monitoring his velocity in the coming weeks to see if he falls off. The return of Rich Hill's super blister opens the door for Stripling to spend the next month as a starter, and the other health issues that have impacted the members of the Dodgers' rotation could keep that door open even longer if Stripling continues to pitch well. He should be a useful fill-in, even in smaller mixed leagues, with an upcoming stretch that includes home starts against the Padres and Phillies, and a road series at Coors Field that he'll avoid next weekend.
Jordan Lyles, SP, SD -- Lyles took a perfect game into the eighth inning against the Rockies on May 15, which may have led those in deeper leagues to take a closer look at the 27-year-old right-hander as he tries to secure a regular rotation spot with his third big-league organization. Prior to the Astros' massive rebuilding effort, Lyles was the organization's top prospect, albeit in one of the league's weakest farm systems, and he was rushed to the big leagues as a 20-year-old for a team that lost 106 games in his rookie season. Spending his age 20-22 seasons with the rebuilding Astros was a rough start to his big-league career, but things managed to get worse when he was acquired by the Rockies along with Brandon Barnes in a trade for Dexter Fowler before the 2013 campaign.
In Colorado, Lyles' approach was focused on keeping the ball down in the strike zone in order to generate outs on the ground, as he threw a lot of two-seam fastballs and generally struggled to avoid contact. As Craig Edwards pointed out in a recent piece at FanGraphs, Lyles altered the grip on his fastball and found a hard-breaking curveball as part of his adjustments after being picked up by the Padres in the second half of 2017.
With the altered pitch mix, Lyles is getting more swinging strikes than ever (10.9% in 2018), which has helped him to his highest strikeout rate as a big-league pitcher (8.6 K/9, 24.0% K%). In leagues where I missed out on Lyles over the weekend, I have regrets, even with a line against the Pirates on Sunday that included some damage in his final frame. Lyles has the tools to be a Top-50 starting pitcher the rest of the way.
Fallers
Robinson Cano, 2B, SEA -- Half of Cano's age-35 season will be lost due to a suspension following a positive test for Furosemide, a diuretic used as a masking agent of performance-enhancing substances. Cano's positive test occurred a few months back, and he eventually dropped his appeal, presumably when it became apparent that he was going to lose his case anyway. Prior to the suspension and the fractured finger he suffered after getting hit by a pitch, Cano was slugging .441 through 39 games in 2018 -- his lowest slugging percentage since 2008. As teams in keeper and dynasty leagues commit to building to the future in the weeks ahead, Cano will likely be among the pieces made available by contending clubs making their all-in push. A 20-homer second baseman with a good average, and an easy 150-plus combined RBI and runs still has plenty of value, and there is little reason to think his playing time outlook for 2019 will change much as he's entering the sixth year of a 10-year deal he signed with the Mariners in December of 2016.
Marwin Gonzalez, 1B, HOU -- The draft-day appeal of Gonzalez was simple. He was a good hitter with position eligibility all over the place, getting chances (four or five each week) to start in a very good lineup. Entering play Wednesday, Gonzalez was hitting .225/.304/.338 through 44 games, carrying a career-high 24.3% strikeout rate. Wednesday marked his 43rd start of the season through the Astros' first 50 contests, and putting him on a pace to make 130 starts in 2018 if he doesn't begin to lose playing time due to his two-month slump to open the year. The bulk of Gonzalez's playing time has come at first base and in left field, but with Yulieski Gurriel healthy, the recent trend has been more time in the outfield. Tony Kemp, Derek Fisher and eventually Kyle Tucker will all be pushing him for playing time going forward, which will soon reduce his opportunities to prove that his 2017 breakout wasn't a fluke.
Dexter Fowler, OF, STL -- Tyler O'Neill has made his case to be among the risers this week, but I want to focus on one of his obstructions to regular playing time. Fowler is in Year 2 of an $82.5 million deal with the Cardinals, which makes it very difficult for the front office to give up on him as his slow start in April has drugged into the second half of May (.155/.274/.284). The biggest difference with Fowler has been a sharp decline in his ability to handle fastballs. Last season, he slugged .521 against fastballs with an average exit velocity of 89.0 mph. This season, he's slugging .355 against them with an 86.1 average exit velocity. Moreover, he's whiffing at an alarming (and elevated) rate against breaking pitches, with an astonishing 54.0% whiff rate (last season, he had a 33.3% whiff rate against breaking pitches). The cause for the drop is unclear -- perhaps it's a hidden injury -- but O'Neill is forcing the issue with regard to playing time with homers in three consecutive games Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Lance Lynn, SP, MIN -- Lynn looked like a free-agent bargain when the Twins inked him to a one-year deal as a late signing March 10. Instead, he's pitched at a level that puts his rotation spot in question once Ervin Santana returns from the DL in June. During the Twins' telecast Monday night, the home announcers referred to mechanical adjustments that Lynn was attempting to make between starts, which preceded his second quality start of the season in nine trips to the mound when he fired 6.2 scoreless innings against the Tigers.
Lynn has struggled with walks in a big way (6.1 BB/9), and has been very hittable despite an uptick in velocity with his fastball. His four-seamer, sinker and cutter have all been hit much harder than they were a year ago, which may require him to use his curveball and changeup more frequently going forward, unless his corrected mechanical issue had something to do with tipping pitches (he only had seven swinging strikes on 100 pitches in Tuesday's start).
This is what a true buy-low starting pitching pitcher looks like, but brace yourself for a bounceback that includes a low-mid 4.00s ERA and a lumpy WHIP (~1.30) going forward even if he's able to get the walks in check in the coming weeks.
Chris Stratton, SP, SF -- Stratton continues to flash occasional stretches of effectiveness marred by inconsistent skills. He's still striking out less than 20 percent of the batters he's faced, while walking more than 10 percent of the batters he's faced. The underlying numbers show a pitcher who is getting hitters to chase pitches outside the zone less often, and one who has been more susceptible to contact on his pitches inside the zone. Ignore the reverse home-road splits, as Stratton might be limited to streaming use in soft landing spots at home in AT&T park in most mixed formats going forward.
