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Fantasy Baseball waiver options poised to finish strong

Fantasy Baseball waiver options poised to finish strong

In most standard Yahoo leagues, the trade deadline has come and gone. For fantasy owners, this eliminates one option for player acquisitions, making waiver wire pickups that much more important.

Week 20 of Three Up, Three Down highlights three players available in over half of leagues that are poised to finish the year strong. On the other end of the spectrum are three steady contributors who are likely to underwhelm down the stretch.

THREE UP

OF Alex Gordon, Kansas City Royals
Stats Aug. 15 – 21: 9-for-23, 5 HR, 10 R, 8 RBI, 5 BB, 4 K
Percent owned: 49 percent

After enduring a miserable first four months of the season — a stint that included a trip to the disabled list with a broken wrist — who would have thought that the Rally Mantis was the key for Gordon to snap out of his funk?

From Opening Day through July 31, the three-time All-Star who re-signed with Kansas City to a $72 million contract this offseason hit a pitiful .206/.313/.335 with only 17 extra base hits in 288 plate appearances. As the calendar turned to August, Gordon has suddenly become the hottest hitter in baseball.

Alex Gordon Powers Through August | PointAfter

Since the start of the month, Gordon has hit .294/.377/.603 with six home runs. He had his 11-game hitting streak snapped on Sunday, a streak that saw him post five multi-hit games. Gordon’s resurgence has correlated with the Royals’ return to the playoff race, as the team is 15-5 this month.

Given how abysmal Gordon was through the season’s first four months, his year-to-date numbers will always look subpar. But given the wrist injury, his track record and relative young age (he’s still just 32), it seems much more likely that this return to form is legitimate rather than a mere flash in the pan. Owners should pick him up while they still can and reap the rewards of his rejuvenation.

SP Dan Straily, Cincinnati Reds
Stats Aug. 15 – 21: 1 GS, 1-0 W-L, 6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 1 HR, 0 BB, 7 K
Percent owned: 46 percent

It’s been a long road back to relevancy for Straily, who, back in 2013, posted a 3.96 ERA in 152.1 innings for the Oakland A’s and finished fourth in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. Since then, he’s bounced around three different organizations (the Cubs, Astros and now the Reds), spending most of his time in the minor leagues.

Cincinnati, bereft of viable starting pitching options, has given Straily a chance to prove himself this year, and the move has paid off. Straily revamped his offseason routine with the hopes of improving his velocity. The results have been … well, unimpressive actually. His average fastball velocity is identical to what it was last year.

Still, Straily has managed to be a more effective pitcher. His walk rate is a career-low, and he’s throwing more first-pitch strikes than ever before. While his career strikeout-walk ratio has never been great, he’s made strides in that department recently. In his last seven starts, he’s gone 5-0 with 38 strikeouts and six walks in 44 innings. He’s had three consecutive starts without issuing a free pass, including his last outing against the Marlins in which he fanned seven over six innings.

Dan Straily Pitch Outcomes vs. MIA 8/18 | PointAfter

Straily threw only two pitches over 90 miles per hour, showing how effective he can be without an overpowering fastball. With his newfound control, he’s a great streaming option in mixed leagues.

C Mike Zunino, Seattle Mariners
Stats Aug. 15 – 21: 6-for-15, 2 HR ,4 XBH, 3 R, 6 RBI, 1 BB, 2 K
Percent owned: 7 percent

Any seasoned Mariners fan is guarded against any signs of hope — that’s what happens when your team has missed the playoffs for 14 straight seasons. So when one-time mega-prospect Zunino made his return to the big leagues on July 20 — this after a brief two-game stint with the club earlier in the month —fans weren’t exactly itching with excitement.

In 1,055 plate appearances from 2013 to 2015, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2012 draft hit a putrid .193/.252/.353, with 339 strikeouts (32.1 percent) and 54 walks (5.1 percent). With that large of a sample size, it’s easy to forget he’s only 25, with plenty of time to set his career on the right course. Though it’s still early, he might be doing just that in his latest opportunity.

Since July 20, Zunino has received the bulk of playing time behind the plate, and he’s quickly reminding people of why he was so highly regarded as a prospect. In 83 plate appearances, he’s hit .281/.405/.641 with six home runs and five doubles, cutting down his strikeout rate (22.9 percent) and upping his walk rate (10.8 percent).

Mike Zunino Career Batting Walk and Strikeout Rates by Season | PointAfter

Zunino has chased pitches out of the zone less often, and the result has been more hard contact. Of his 20 hits on the season, 13 have gone for extra bases, including eight home runs. That pace is certainly unsustainable, but it offers a glimpse at Zunino’s talent level, which was never in question despite his struggles at the Major League level. Perhaps Zunino is a late bloomer finally reaching his potential. If that’s the case, he should be owned in way more than 7 percent of leagues.

THREE DOWN

C Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals
Stats Aug. 15 – 21: 3-for-19, 1 HR, 3 R, 3 RBI, 0 BB, 2 K
Percent owned: 93 percent

Perez has always been a player whose real-life value outweighs his fantasy value. His defensive prowess makes him one of the best catchers in the game, but his lack of on-base skills severely limits his offensive potential.

Despite his shortcomings, Perez still offered power at a position sorely lacking much upside. He hit 21 home runs last season and had 14 at the All-Star break this year. Since then, he’s hitting below the Mendoza line and has seen his power all but disappear.

Salvador Perez 2016 Batting Splits by Month | PointAfter

In 31 games since the break, Perez has walked twice in 119 plate appearances, posting a .191/.218/.330 slash line with only three home runs. With other widely available options like Zunino, Wellington Castillo and Cameron Rupp out there, it might be worth swapping Perez out for the last few weeks. He simply is making too many outs these days to be worthy of a spot in the starting lineup, and owners don’t have enough time to be patient.

SP Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals
Stats Aug. 15 – 21: 1 GS, 0-0 W-L, 6.0 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 HR, 2 BB, 5 K
Percent owned: 90 percent

After a 2015 season that was mostly lost to a ruptured Achilles tendon, it was reasonable to expect a diminished version of the Wainwright we’ve been accustomed to over the past decade or so. In 25 starts this year, it’s clear the soon-to-be 35-year-old’s best days are behind him.

Wainwright’s K/9 ratio is the lowest for a full season since 2008, and his BB/9 rate is his highest since 2009. In his last six starts, he’s posted a 6.82 ERA in 31.2 innings, with five home runs allowed and an opponents’ slash line of .336/.393/.570 — basically, in his last six starts, every opposing hitter turns into Kris Bryant when facing Wainwright.

Adam Wainwright Career ERA, K/9 and BB/9 | PointAfter

With over 1,700 innings under his belt, it’s fair to wonder whether Wainwright’s running out of steam down the stretch. He’s simply not a reliable option at this point and isn’t worth an everyday roster spot for fantasy owners.

SP/RP Aaron Sanchez, Toronto Blue Jays
Stats Aug. 15 – 21: 1 GS, 0-0 W-L, 4.0 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 1 HR, 1 BB, 5 K
Percent owned: 86 percent

Sanchez has been one of the brightest surprises this season. The 24-year-old is among the leaders in the AL Cy Young Award race and will be essential for the Blue Jays as the make a push for the AL East title. All of this makes the news that he was optioned to the minor leagues this week seem, at first glance, a little peculiar.

In actuality, the Blue Jays’ reasoning is pretty straightforward. Currently at 156.1 innings, Sanchez has never had this big of a workload in any professional season, and the team wants to limit his innings without having to shut him down for the postseason. He won’t actually make a minor league start, instead taking the time to rest himself for his eventual return to the big leagues.

Perhaps the move comes at the perfect time for Sanchez, who struggled in his last start against the Indians on Aug. 20, surrendering four runs in four innings. Despite the rough outing, Sanchez still ranks third in the AL among qualified starters in fielding independent pitching — an advanced metric that measures what a player’s ERA would look like given league average luck and results on balls in play.

2016 AL Pitching Leaders in FIP | PointAfter

Sanchez is one of the best young arms in the league, but given Toronto’s cautious approach, he might have more starts skipped going forward, or get pulled from games earlier than usual. Given that this type of workload is uncharted territory for him, it’s also possible he falls victim to fatigue and becomes less effective.

Neither of those scenarios is ideal, meaning owners who’ve enjoyed the benefits of his breakout season should brace themselves for a downturn in production moving forward.

Nick Selbe is a writer for PointAfter, a sports data aggregation and visualization website that's part of the Graphiq network. PointAfter is a platform for hitting charts, scatter plots and other data visualizations about MLB players, NBA teams and dozens of other topics.