Josh Bell (1B/OF, PIT) - Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues

OWNED IN: 37% of Yahoo! Leagues  

ANALYSIS: Josh Bell began the season with a troubling profile as he was striking out frequently, which greatly hindered his batting average. While he showed some power, it wasn’t enough to make him fantasy relevant at first base.

However, since June began, Bell has cut down his strikeout rate and increased his hard contact rate greatly. For example, after hard contact rates of just 27.8% and 29.3% in April and May respectively, Bell has upped those rates to 38.4% and 40.4% over the past two months. It is of little surprise that those have been the best months of his short major league career, which has helped vault him into fantasy relevance.

Bell currently sits as the 24^th first baseman on the ESPN Player Rater for the season but is sixth over the past 30 days. While that is likely the upper limit of his fantasy potential, Bell is now consistently producing counting stats. In addition, he likely has positive regression coming in batting average as he is hitting just .248 despite a 19.1% strikeout rate and not being a heavy flyball hitter. That means fantasy owners can expect solid four category production moving forward, making him a viable corner infield play in deeper mixed leagues.