BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 375
CURRENT ADP: ~403 overall
ANALYSIS: Orioles hitting coach Don Long compared Iglesias to Hanser Alberto just before the start of the 2020 MLB season, suggesting that improved plate discipline rather than a swing change would help Iglesias be a more productive hitter. Four months later, Iglesias finished the 2020 season with a characteristically high 37.7% chase rate (38.4% career average) but a league-best .358 xBA and a career-high .956 OPS.
Featured Promo: Get any full-season MLB and DFS Premium Pass for 50% off. Exclusive access to our Team Sync platform, Premium articles, daily Matchup Rating projections, 15 lineup tools, DFS cheat sheets, Research Stations, Lineup Optimizers and much more! Sign Up Now!Instead of changing his plate approach, Iglesias posted career-best contact quality metrics across the board, including a 36.5% hard-hit rate, an 86.2 mph average exit velocity, and a .401 xwOBAcon. After never ranking higher than the fifth percentile in average hard-hit rate since Statcast began tracking the metric in 2015, Iglesias managed to crack the 36th percentile in 2020. Notably, Iglesias’ hard-hit gains were exclusively localized to fastballs, his max exit velocity was not a career-high, and he had a similar hot streak back in 2013. And although hard-hit rate tends to stabilize around 45 batted balls (Iglesias hit 83 fastballs and 43 non-fastballs in 2020), 2020 was still a fairly small sample size for Iglesias. That said, Iglesias never hit the ball so consistently hard since at least 2015, and there’s a real chance that his power increase will stick in 2021 as a result. The move to a loaded Angels lineup rather than the Orioles means fantasy managers should target Iglesias as a high-upside MI pick in drafts as a result.
More Fantasy Baseball Values and Sleepers
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 24
There are only two weeks left of fantasy baseball! It's going to be very sad when the season comes to an end, but the impending end of the season means that these are the most important, and therefore most fun weeks of the year – for those of you still competing, at least. I have […]
Are You For Real? Surprising MLB Pitcher Starts from Week 23
Welcome back to "Are You For Real?", a weekly column where we take starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legit or just smoke and mirrors. The NL Central is our center of attention this week, as we'll be looking at […]
MLB Pitcher Studs and Duds - Advanced Metrics Leaders for wOBA (Week 23)
Welcome back to fantasy baseball and RotoBaller’s Statcast Pitcher Studs and Duds article series! Each week, I select one advanced metric, choose two pitchers with strong values and two with poor values, and analyze what those values may mean for future performance. This week, I will focus on a stat that describes how pitchers have […]
Top Hitter Streamers and Starts for Fantasy Baseball - Week 23
Hey RotoBallers! It's Jon Anderson, back again for one of the final weeks of hitter streamers. We've found a bunch of exciting hitters for next week with some incredible hitting environments on tap! Your league is probably in the fantasy playoffs now or entering them next week, so some big, tough decisions are ahead. I […]
Are You For Real? Surprising MLB Pitcher Starts from Week 22
Welcome back to "Are You For Real?", a weekly column where we take starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legit or just smoke and mirrors. We're sticking to the east coast this week, with three arms in the eastern divisions […]
Download Our Free Draft App
Like what you see? You can download our free fantasy baseball mobile app for iPhone and Android which includes more draft sleepers at very position, 24x7 player news, notifications, injury alerts and daily articles... all free!
Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App
Like what you see? Download our updated fantasy baseball app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, sleepers, prospects & more. All free!Check out RotoBaller's entire fantasy baseball waiver wire pickups and sleepers list, updated daily!