RADIO
Major League Baseball will begin checking pitchers for foreign substances starting Monday. Forget that this has always been something for which umpires were supposed to be checking. The real crackdown now begins. Pitchers have already bailed on the sticky stuff, supposedly. Spin rates are down around the sport. Strikeout and walk rates are also down, leading to more contact and better batting.
Hitters being more successful is better for the sport as an entertainment property. It is more fun to watch more balls in play, regardless of other outcomes. It remains to be seen what those other outcomes might be thanks to this changing of the unwritten rules. Tyler Glasnow (elbow) already spoke of how he thinks not being able to use sticky substances caused his arm injury. We await what other consequences come from this new league landscape. At the very least, corner infielders will presumably not be as bad as they were in the first dozen weeks of the season.
For our purposes in this column, we are looking at Yahoo!'s rostered percentages, as well as its positional eligibility. We are searching for useful players rostered in fewer than 40 percent of Yahoo! leagues. With that being said, below are my first base and third base waiver wire pickups to consider for Week 13 - June 21 through June 27.
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Bobby Bradley, Cleveland Indians
26% Rostered
The last time Bradley was in the Majors was 2019. He only received 49 plate appearances, and the outcome was not pleasant. He had a 40.8 percent K-rate, a .182 expected batting average, and a .306 expected slugging. The sample size was incredibly small but not good regardless. He is back in the Majors in 2021. It is still a small sample, almost the exact same sample size he had in his first MLB tour. The difference is everything looks better.
That sky-high K-rate is now a respectable 25 percent. The xBA is up to .277 and his xSLG is up to a whopping .603 thanks to a 23.1 percent barrel rate. His better batting eye, mixed with more consistent quality contact has led to early positive results. He already showed high-end power in his first stint and continues to reach the top tier of exit velocity. With him now playing every day and suddenly getting at-bats in the three hole for Cleveland, Bradley is fantasy relevant for the first time in his adolescent career.
Jon Berti, Miami Marlins
10% Rostered
Jon Berti is starting to get on base. If Berti gets on base, Berti runs. If Berti runs, Berti scores. Up to this point in the season, none of that was happening. And yet, a warm June is turning things around. Berti already possesses two elite skills: a batting eye that has produced a walk rate ranking in the 89th percentile, and his speed, which is in the 99th percentile. Thanks to disappointing outcomes and some bad luck, that has only produced a .332 OBP and four steals thus far.
Despite the rough numbers, Berti finds himself in the lineup every day, and he has even moved into the top third of the lineup multiple times this past week. Those are good signs that go along with increased production. Zero steals and two times being caught in June are the lines that are taking longer to turn around. But they are also what managers would be most confident in Berti producing. In other words, if the bat is working, don't worry about the legs. They'll come around. Expect the steals to pick up, leading to two-category production (along with runs) the rest of the way.
Jake Bauers, Seattle Mariners
1% Rostered
Bauers wore out his welcome in Cleveland. With the guy above him on this list, the Indians didn't really feel the need to wait for him to turn it around. With Seattle, though, he has turned things around in a major way. The straight-up stats tell a pretty obvious tale of redemption (albeit in just 35 ABs).
More importantly, Bauers' season-long contact numbers are much better than the production he generated as an Indian. His K-rate is down to 23.3 percent; his hard-hit percentage is all the way up to 41 percent; he is hitting fewer ground-balls and more line drives than either of his previous two stints in the Majors. There may not be enough here to be an everyday regular at the highest level, but Seattle is giving him that chance. He has played every single game since being acquired near the end of last week.
The Repeats
Without trying to sound like a broken record, some guys are worth mentioning each and every week until they are rostered in more than 40 percent of leagues. Week 13 has a slew of them. Every one of these guys would be ineligible for this column next week if managers were on their toes.
Pavin Smith is only 38% rostered thanks to a slow June. The batting eye and quality of contact remain too good to ignore.
Joc Pederson is also 38% rostered, yet he will pass above 40% any day now. Pederson is 11th among all hitters in biggest xwOBA improvement over someone's last 50 ABs. He is flying high right now.
Ty France is one of the hottest hitters in the game right now as well. He won't remain 35% rostered for too much longer.
Did you give up on C.J. Cron? In his past five games, he has three home runs, five runs, eight RBI, and seven hits. At 35% rostered, there remains a chance to correct your error.
A slow week caused many to bail on the Miguel Andujar comeback story, but don't do so quite yet. At 30% rostered, he is still hitting the ball very hard and putting up a lot of contact. Instead, keep an eye on his 55.3 percent ground-ball rate and 5.2 launch angle. If he doesn't start getting more loft on the ball, his fantasy usefulness will be severely limited.
What more does Brandon Belt have to do? Only 28% of managers want this guy on their team, and I don't get it. His slightly slow return off the IL has exploded into massive production that included a streak of four straight multi-hit games.
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