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Sunday Funday Stat Leaderboard: Mountcastle rebounding, Kim running wild

NBC Sports
·10 min read
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Welcome to the Sunday Funday Stat Leaderboard. If you were following my work ahead of my transition to NBC Sports then you might know this as the Samulski Sunday Tribune. It's a new name, but if the same column with just a few sections removed since it's now FULLY FREE.

If you're new to this column, the goal is to present you with the top performers in a few key stats for this week of action. I then try to give some context to some of the names on that list, so we can begin to see just how real this hot week of production was. This way we can together decide if these are players we should be bidding on, bidding BIG on, or maybe trying to trade away or trade for.

I also have a sections of minor league leaders over the last 30 days, so we can see if there are any under-the-radar names that might be worth stashing. So far this season, those leaderboards put us onto Matt McLain , Trey Cabbage , Tanner Bibee , Bryan Woo , Nolan Jones , Maikel Garcia , and many more weeks (sometimes months) ahead of their call-up. That can be valuable insight in redraft leagues.

With that said, let's dive into the leaders from this week. Happy Sunday!

Hitting Leaders (Week of July 31st)

Hard Hit Baseballs

  1. Ryan Mountcastle , BAL - 15 hard-hit baseballs (71.4%)

  2. Jarren Duran, BOS - 12 hard-hit baseballs (70.6%)

  3. Bryce Harper , PHI - 12 hard-hit baseballs (63.2%)

  4. William Contreras , MIL - 11 hard-hit baseballs (52.4%)

  5. Rafael Devers , BOS - 11 hard-hit baseballs (91.7%)

  6. Masataka Yoshida , BOS - 11 hard-hit baseballs (55%)

  7. Jorge Soler , MIA - 11 hard-hit baseballs (55%)

  8. Mookie Betts , LAD - 10 hard-hit baseballs (58.8%)

  9. Juan Soto , SD - 10 hard-hit baseballs (58.8%)

  10. Gunnar Henderson , BAL - 10 hard-hit baseballs (47.6%)

When I started at NBC Sports in July, I wrote an article on second half bounceback candidates and Ryan Mountcastle found his way onto the list despite my never being a huge fan of his for fantasy purposes. I mentioned that "Mountcastle jumps off the page when you look at his expected statistics. His .531 xSLG and .353 xwOBA are drastically better than his actual production and puts him among the league-leaders when it comes to under-performing his expected stats... we also know he’s making tremendous quality of contact with a 15.2% barrel ate and 10.7% barrels per plate appearance."

However, it all came with the caveat that we didn't know how Mountcastle would return from his battles with vertigo. In his first weeks back, he was strictly in a weak-side platoon and I got dragged by people for writing about Mountcastle. Turns out, he may have just needed time to get his proverbial sea legs. In 18 second half games, Mountcastle is hitting .421/.470/.649with two home runs, 12 runs, and nine RBI. More importantly, he's hitting fifth or second and starting against right-handed pitchers again too. I think it's time to buy back in.

Jarren Duran has also taken advantage of full-time reps. Now that Enrique Hernandez is with the Dodgers, there is no real competition for Duran in CF with the Red Sox. (Well, until Ceddanne Rafaela enters the picture next year because he's absolutely crushing Triple-A). Duran has cut his swinging strike rate by two percent and is looking like a legitimate lead-off man.

Home Runs

  1. Dansby Swanson , CHC - 5 home runs

  2. Juan Soto , SD- 4 home runs

  3. Cal Raleigh , SEA - 4 home runs

  4. 12 hitters with three home runs, including Ryan McMahon , Tyler O’Neill , Jake Bauers, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Ryan Jeffers , and Gunnar Henderson.

We thought that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. may lose playing time with the acquisition of Tommy Pham , but Gurriel started every game this week for Arizona, hitting .364 with the three home runs, five runs scored, and four RBI. So far, it appears that Jake McCarthy and Alek Thomas will cycle in and out of the lineup with Corbin Carroll sliding to CF when Thomas goes to the bench. Obviously, things can change, but Gurriel remains a regular in the middle of the lineup, which means he'll retain value in most fantasy leagues.

Jake Bauers is also likely to retain fantasy value for a while. He's been hitting leadoff for the Yankees and playing 1B, which should continue for a few more weeks as Anthony Rizzo deals with concussions symptoms that have somehow been going on since May but the Yankees only identified now. It's possible that's the reason that Rizzo was struggling so much, but what we do known is that Bauers' re-made swing has produced at the MLB level as well, and he seems like a solid bet in 15+ team leagues as the leadoff hitter for a Yankees lineup that now has Aaron Judge back.

Stolen Bases

  1. Cody Bellinger , CHC - 4 SBs

  2. Jose Altuve , HOU - 4 SBs

  3. Dairon Blanco , KC - 4 SBs

  4. Ha-Seong Kim , SD - 3 SBs

  5. Bobby Witt Jr., KC - 3 SBs

  6. Kyle Tucker , HOU - 3 SBs

  7. Samad Taylor , KC - 3 SBs

  8. Maikel Garcia , KC - 3 SBs

  9. T.J. Friedl, CIN - 3 SBs

  10. Corbin Carroll , ARI - 3 SBs

Not enough people are talking about how good Ha-Seong Kim has been. On the season, he's hitting .287/.382/.458 with 15 home runs, 60 runs scored, and 24 steals. He's done that despite hitting .209 in his first 26 games of the season. He's been hitting lead-off for the Padres for a while now and is just 27-years-old. He needs to be taken seriously not only as a great redraft option but a potentially strong keeper option as well in leagues where you can only keep a handful of players.

I guess, if you want stolen bases, you need to pick up Royals since they have FOUR PLAYERS on this top ten list. Taylor and Blanco are only playing three games a week, but they are running whenever they get a chance. Which, honestly, makes sense for a poor offense and is something we should see more from bad teams who need to manufacture runs.

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Pitching Leaders (Week of July 31st)

SwStr% (Starting Pitchers)

  1. Spencer Strider , ATL - 27.3% SwStr%

  2. Charlie Morton , ATL- 22.3% SwStr%

  3. Jack Flaherty , BAL - 20.7% SwStr%

  4. Nestor Cortes , NYY - 20.3% SwStr%

  5. Max Scherzer , TEX 19.0% SwStr%

  6. Ross Stripling , SF - 18.9% SwStr%

  7. Tyler Glasnow , TB - 17.0% SwStr%

  8. Brandon Pfaadt , ARI- 16.7% SwStr%

  9. Jesus Luzardo , MIA - 16.7% SwStr%

  10. Framber Valdez , HOU - 16.1% SwStr%

Jack Flaherty looked good in his first start for Baltimore, but I think we need to take a deep breath with it. He threw 2 mph harder on his four-seam, which is great, but there's also no way the Orioles made a tweak in three days that led to that kind of velo jump. It's far more likely that he was gassed up in his first start with his new team. That would also explain, as Lance Brozdowski alluded to on Twitter, why it seemed like Flaherty had a massive jump in his cutter usage and pulled back on his slider. Being gassed up likely led Flaherty to let the slider rip more, which made his mid-84 mph slider come in around 86 mph and get classified as a cutter. Flaherty's cutter on the season is 88.4 mph, so he would have had to have made the decision to take two mph off of the cutter in just three days' time in order for that to be what he threw this week. All of which is to say, the trade could be great for Flaherty, but we don't want to overreact to one start and believe these are all intentional changes.

We also don't want to overreact to one start by Brandon Pfaadt . I know I'm killing the vibe here, but I still have major concerns about Pfaadt. Lately, he has been dialing back the usage of his four-seam, which he continued on Wednesday, opting to lead this is sweeper. That, in and of itself, is great news because Pfaadt has a legit sweeper that has a 16% SwStr% and 1.14 dERA on the season. But there are where my issues begin: that's his only good pitch. Every single other pitch in his arsenal has a dERA over 6.90, except for a curve that he throws just 5% of the time. I know we love the sweeper, but Pfaadt still relies a lot on a change-up and four-seam that give up tons of hard contact - 12.3% barrel rates on both. Until he optimizes his arsenal, I just can't get on board with a pitcher who is actively trying to hide his fastball.

Saves

  1. Andres Munoz , SEA - 3 saves

  2. Jhoan Duran , MIN - 3 saves

  3. Will Smith , TEX - 3 saves

  4. Ryan Pressly , HOU - 2 saves

  5. Seranthony Dominguez , PHI - 2 saves

  6. Craig Kimbrel , PHI - 2 saves

  7. Clay Holmes , NYY - 2 saves

  8. Erik Swanson, TOR - 2 saves

  9. Kyle Finnegan , WAS - 2 saves

  10. Camilo Doval , SF - 2 saves

I guess we have our answer for who will get the primary saves share in Seattle, and it's not much of a surprise. I think Justin Topa and Matt Brash will get save chances here and there when Munoz is asked to pitch the 8th against the opponent's best hitters, but Munoz is the guy in Seattle now and has a chance to be elite.

Erik Swanson also appears to be the guy in Toronto while Jordan Romano is sidelined. Of course, he was just inches away from giving up a game-ending two-run home run in Saturday's game against Boston, which might have drastically changed his outlook as a closer. Still, he's the guy for another week or so, which makes him valuable for those chasing saves.

MINOR LEAGUE HITTER LEADERBOARD (Last 30 Days)

  1. Luken Baker - 1B, STL- 1.297 OPS (7 HR, 25 RBI, 36.8% hard-hit rate for the season)

  2. Masyn Winn - SS, STL - 1.260 OPS (8 HR, 24 RBI, 2 SB, 25.2% hard-hit rate for the season)

  3. Davis Schneider - 2B, TOR - 1.174 OPS (6 HR, 20 RBI, 1 SB, 33.8% hard-hit rate for the season)

  4. Ceddanne Rafaela - OF, BOS - 1.152 OPS (7 HR, 22 RBI, 2 SB, 30.3% hard-hit rate for the season)

  5. David Dahl - OF, LAD - 1.219 OPS (4 HR, 19 RBI, 3 SB, 35.6% hard-hit rate for the season)

It would make sense for Luken Baker and Masyn Winn to both get a shot with the Cardinals near the end of August since the team is out of it. They will want to ensure Winn keeps his rookie eligibility for next season, but he seems like the starting SS for the Cardinals in 2024 and has been crushing Triple-A since late May.

Davis Schneider was also featured in this column months ago, but he recently got promoted to Toronto. He seems to have taken over the starting 2B job for now with Whit Merrifield moving to LF and both Cavan Biggio and Santiago Espinal on the bench. I'm not sure how long that lasts for, but Schneider has an intriguing contact profile that could produce solid numbers in a good lineup.

Rafaela and Dahl both seem unlikely to appear in MLB games in 2023, but Rafaela is really putting him on the map for Boston for 2024. It seems likely that Alex Verdugo or Adam Duvall is on their way out of town for Rafaela to join Masataka Yoshida and Jarren Duran in the outfield. Rafaela has 17 home runs and 33 steals across two levels this year and needs to be on all radars. Dahl would be another fun reclamation project for the Dodgers who are somehow starting Jason Heyward and David Peralta in the outfield in a season where they are trying to contend.
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