Champ or Chump: Daniel Palka & Dylan Covey

Pop quiz: Name three position players on the Chicago White Sox not named Jose Abreu. If you're an active fantasy owner, you can probably answer the question...with more difficulty than you care to admit. The same is true of the team's starting rotation. While the team as a whole isn't great, they still have a few players who can help out a fantasy roster.

Outfielder Daniel Palka and pitcher Dylan Covey are White Sox players who may be able to help your fantasy squad(s). One of them offers elite upside, while the other is more of a volume play. They have a combined ownership rate of 24%, so they are widely available.

Are they right for your roster?

The Fantasy Jury is Out

Daniel Palka (OF/1B, CWS) - 2% Owned

If you read our daily Streaming Wars column, you often see Palka's name mentioned in the "Homers on the Wire" section. He's slashing .246/.287/.472 with six homers in 150 PAs this season, but his contact quality suggests that he could provide much more pop than he has so far.

Statcast loves Palka. His average airborne exit velocity is 98.8mph this season, ranking sixth in all of MLB (mininum 50 batted ball events). His 92.7mph average on ground balls ranks 8th. Finally, his 15.6% rate of Brls/BBE ranks 19th. Add in a favorable home park (105 HR factor in 2017 per FanGraphs) and a very high Pull% on fly balls (31.4%), and it's easy to see Palka slugging 20-25 more homers this season.

Palka flashed above average pop as a minor leaguer in 2016. Then Twins property, he slashed .270/.348/.547 with 21 long balls in 345 PAs for Double-A Chattanooga. Chattanooga is a hitter's park (1.223 ballpark factor for runs scored, 1.110 for HR from 2014-2016), but the performance was still impressive. He hit plenty of fly balls (39.3% FB%) with a lot of oomph (26.6% HR/FB) and a strong eye (11% BB%). He struck out way too often (29% K%), but he looked ready for a tougher challenge.

The Twins concurred, promoting him to Triple-A Rochester midseason. His slash line declined (.232/.296/.483) as his K% exploded (38.6%), but he still managed 13 HR in just 223 PAs. His FB% (44.4%) actually increased despite the more advanced competition, while his HR/FB (25%) largely held steady despite Rochester taking a bite out of power numbers (0.905 HR factor). He also worked a fair number of walks (8.1% BB%), suggesting that there was a bright side to that horrific K%.

Palka returned to Rockester for the 2017 season, slashing .274/.329/.431 with 11 homers in 362 PAs. He managed to get his K% down to 22.1% without significantly altering his BB% (7.5%), but his HR/FB declined to 11.6% in the process. It seems likely that somebody told him to ease up on his swing after his Triple-A debut, raising his batting average at the cost of his power potential. The new Palka wasn't terribly interesting, and the Twins waived him.

The White Sox claimed him prior to this year, assigning him to their Triple-A affiliate in Charlotte. Palka looked good there, slashing .286/.384/.476 with three homers in 73 PAs. His HR/FB (15.8%) partially rebounded, while his FB% increased relative to his previous season (45.2% vs. 38.2%). He also worked a ton of walks (13.7% BB%) at the cost of another K% spike (28.8%). Charlotte is an extreme hitter's park (1.230 runs scored, 1.660 HR), but the White Sox called him up regardless.

That minor league context helps us project Palka moving forward. He seems to have plus power when he's not overly concerned with his K%, and his MLB plate discipline metrics suggest that he isn't currently. There is nothing good about a 30.7% K% or the 15.6% SwStr% that supports it, but his 17.1% HR/FB looks believable compared to his MiLB seasons with similar strikeout totals. His 37.5% chase rate is also too high, but his minor league BB% numbers suggest that he can improve given time.

Palka's .322 big league BABIP is also supported by his numbers on the farm. Beginning with Chattanooga, Palka's BABIPs were .324, .324, .329, and .385. His 62.2% Pull% on grounders isn't too high, allowing him to beat the shift (.359 average) thus far in his young career. Palka lacks raw speed (26.5 ft./sec Statcast Sprint), but the contact quaity metrics above support his elevated BABIP. In fact, his .258 xBA is actually higher than his actual mark.

Palka strikes out too often to be a batting average asset, but he shouldn't hurt you too badly in the category. The White Sox have taken to hitting him in the middle of their lineup, giving him as many R+RBI opportunities as the club can muster. He should be owned in more than two percent of leagues.

Verdict: Champ

 
Dylan Covey (SP, CWS) - 22% Owned

Covey has turned heads with a 2.29 ERA after a 7.71 debacle of a season last year, and his peripherals suggest that he is legitimately a better pitcher (3.30 xFIP this year, 5.54 last). However, expectations should be kept in check moving forward.

The 26-year old was taken in the Rule 5 draft in 2017, denying him the extensive minor league resume that would generally be expected of somebody this old. He pitched to a 2.33 ERA (3.58 xFIP) over 38 2/3 IP for Triple-A Charlotte before his callup this season, striking out 22.2% of the batters who faced him while walking 9.5%. The resulting K-BB% isn't great, but it's a lot better than it was in the majors last season (13.3% K%, 11% BB%). 38 2/3 IP isn't a great sample, but it's Covey's highest in the High Minors.

That leaves us with primarily his 35 1/3 IP of MLB pitching this season to work with. Compared to last year, he has virtually abandoned his 4-seamer (29% to 2.2%) in favor of his sinker (31.5% to 65.3%), gaining an extreme ground ball bent in the process (61% GB% this year). He also features a slider, change, and curve.

Covey's sinker is much harder than it was last year (94.4mph vs. 92.9mph), providing a possible explanation for his success. It doesn't offer much strikeout potential (6.1% SwStr%), but its 56.1% Zone% and 67.6% GB% make it a good pitch for a sinkerballer.

Unfortunately, the rest of Covey's arsenal doesn't offer K potential either. His slider is interesting in that is generates a reasonable number of whiffs (12.8% SwStr%) despite almost never getting chased outside of the zone (51.2% Zone%, 21.4% chase rate). His change is often chased (51.6% of the time), but batters manage to make enough contact anyway (68.8% O-Contact%) to limit its SwStr% to 12.5%. His curve is inferior to his other offerings by SwStr% (4.4%) and Zone% (51.1%), making it nothing more than a show-me pitch.

In fantasy, that makes Covey somebody who throws a bunch of innings as your last starter. He's been an ERA asset this far, but there's no way he maintains a 0% HR/FB calling Guaranteed Rate Field home. It might be different if he was a BABIP wizard, but his .333 BABIP suggests he isn't.

Covey lives and dies with ground balls, but he doesn't do anything to mitigate the damage they cause. Grounders against him have averaged 89.6mph this year, seventh highest among pitchers who have allowed at least 50 batted balls. For context, J.D. Martinez and Jose Abreu have averaged 89.6mph on their grounders this year. Those two are not known for their weak contact.

The spin on Covey's sinker is 2,027 RPM, a figure that is neither high nor low. A low spin rate is known to produce weakly hit ground balls, but Covey's isn't low enough to gain that theoretical advantage.

A pitcher's defense can mitigate the damage caused by contact, but the White Sox are roughly an average unit overall. Abreu (-5 DRS) and 2B Yoan Moncada (-3) are negatives defensively, but 3B Yolmer Sanchez (six) and SS Tim Anderson (one) largely make up for it. Covey himself is roughly an average glove (-1). Their outfielders have also been worth -1 Out Above Average this season according to Baseball Savant.

Without contact quality suppression or an elite defense, Covey will be prone to the occasional blow-up that you do not want anywhere near your fantasy team. That said, he'll usually be a fine source of innings that won't kill you. Wins might be tough to come by on a rebuilding club though, so choose his spots carefully. He's nowhere near as good as his ERA might suggest.

Verdict: Chump

More 2018 Player Outlooks