Austin Hedges (C, SD) - Week 20 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues

OWNED IN: 31% of leagues

ANALYSIS: San Diego Padres catcher Austin Hedges looks like he is turning the corner after a 2017 season with a sub-par .660 OPS. Thanks to a slash line of .288/.345/.558 since the All-Star game, including four homers, he is now well on his way to the best season of his professional career in a Padres uniform. Hedges started the season with mediocre batted ball contact in April, producing more soft contact (31.1%) than hard contact (26.7%). Though when he returned to big league play in June, he was able to string together two months of 40% and 42% hard contact as well as soft contact of 10% and 18% through the end of July.

Though Austin Hedges still strikes out a ton at 29.5%, he has seen that number drop to 19% since the All-Star game and has been taking walks at improved frequency of 8.6% in the same period. Though this proclivity for frequent flyers is helpful for sending balls yard, it does explain his drastic OPS splits of .647 at home and .811 with five dingers on the road. He has been making solid contact on batted balls (only 14.3% soft hit ball rate) and has made significant improvements to his all-around offensive game lately that remind us that he was at one point one of the top 25 prospects in all of baseball.

He can be added in all formats and has potential to help with both power and speed.