There are years when it feels like hitters are growing on trees in mixed leagues. There is ripe fruit to be picked every time you’re hungry for some offensive upgrades, you just basically trade with the waiver wire in the never-ending quest to upgrade your roster.
Well, 2024 isn’t one of those years. But I’m going to do the best I can to help you by highlighting some hot hitters over the past month according to Statcast/Baseball Savant split stats — hitters who are more marginally rostered in Yahoo leagues.
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Homers are down 13% from 2023. Runs are down 6%. RBIs are down 7%. Batting average is down 3%. Steals are virtually unchanged, but having a surplus of steals is about the most useless advantage one can have in roto — a topic for another day.
Basically, we have to adjust our expectations. If you approached your league in a way where you focused on building a quality pitching staff, figuring you’d find hitting easily if you need it, well, you’re probably struggling. Even in head-to-head leagues with small starting lineups and the same nine-man staffs, leagues that basically play like nine-team hitting leagues and 13-team pitching leagues (because nearly all teams have a pitcher as their one bench player), there is just not a lot of bounty to be had on waivers. It’s still actually easier to find a starting pitcher.
Let’s start with Carlos Santana (1B). He’s only 14% rostered despite being super productive in the period of May 18 to June 17. He’s hitting .295 with a .513 slugging and striking out less than 10% of the time. Maybe the market is savvy enough to know his expected stats are in line with his 2024 forecast (.254/.399). No one is more inclined to fade actual stats because of expected ones than me. But at least Santana is largely free.
Next up is Jose Siri (OF), who is 17% rostered. I get he’s gross in head-to-head because his K% is over 30%, but he’s a great source of untapped power potential and also provides steals. His expected slugging the past month is 13th among all hitters (207 batters qualified). He’s going to hit .240, but remember .240 is now what the league hits. So it’s the new .260.
Zach Neto (SS) is just 22% rostered. I don’t get it. He’s hitting just .239 in the period but his xBA is .258. His xSLG is a very robust .516, but that’s all because his actual batting average is underachieving. In other words, his actual and expected ISO are about the same. He just hit his 10th homer. Even his K% is under 20%. Grab him.
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Brandon Lowe (2B) is hurt a lot and coming off an injury recently. He’s hit though. He’s 24% rostered and is an expected .236/.459. That’s about a 27-homer hitter for a full season, extrapolating the ISO, and Lowe has pushed 40 bombs in the past.
The next two hitters are much less likely to be available but are still non-rostered in most Yahoo leagues.
Matt Vierling (OF) is rostered in 40% of leagues. He’s .247/.505 in actual AVG/SLG and .272/.492 in expected. No matter how you slice it, Vierling should be way more widely rostered. And he’s also below 20% Ks.
Andrew Vaughn (1B) is 42% rostered. One of the best hitters in the history of college baseball, especially as a freshman, he’s mostly been a disappointment since being drafted third overall in 2019. He’s had his moments and maybe he’s just having another one of late. He’s .272/.500 for real and .249/.522 in expected stats. He’s a little below average in K% at 21.4%. I’ll take the real or expected stats on most of my teams and maybe you can get the best of both worlds. Maybe Vaughn hits .275 and homers at about a 30-HR pace for the balance of the year.
Let’s look at hitters who are 25th percentile or worse in hitting in the period despite being almost universally rostered. This is not to say that these hitters should be dropped, but if your team is struggling, they’re probably a big reason why.
I’ll start with Elly De La Cruz. I’m activating the hive, I know. But his real and expected averages are very bad and his K% is over 30%. He’s an overrated power hitter. De La Cruz’s expected ISO for the period is under .200, yet he has a rep of a .300 ISO guy because of the distance he’s capable of generating when he barrels a fly ball. This happens very infrequently, however.
Anthony Volpe, Cody Bellinger, Josh Naylor and Michael Harris are all really hurting their teams. The data says that Harris has actually been much better if you look at expected stats — .277 average and a .400 slugging. The lack of power is a real issue. That kind of slugging is decidedly Punch and Judy. But unlike all the other laggards mentioned here, of late, he at least should be helping you in batting average.
(Top photo of Zach Neto: Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports)
