Drew Stubbs:
Stubbs stayed red hot knocking out his 22nd HR of the season on Thursday night and driving in 4. He’s now up to .253-89-22-77-28 line that has him now ranked inside the Top 75 overall players in fantasy. It’s hard to believe Stubbs previous career high in HR’s was just 12 but the power has blossomed at age 25. With a 30+% K Rate there will be significant volatility and risk associated with Stubbs next season, but good on-base skills coupled with a terrific home park and lineup and an intriguing power-speed combination certainly makes him worthy of a Top 100 pick. The question will be how high his stock rises. My guess is it will rise to a point that owners are ignoring risk altogether and he’ll be a player owners hope to draft and get equal value out of.
Brett Myers:
After a string of 14/15 in quality starts, Myers appears to have run out of gas at the end of the season. He was touched up by the Pirates last week and was hammered for 8 ER’s and 14 base-runners in 5 2/3 innnings against the Reds. Myers was pitching beyond his career high in innings in his first year transitioning back to a SP, so it’s certainly understandable to see the late fade. Looking ahead to next season it will be interesting to see if Myers can maintain the improved command and extra GB’s he’s generated this year. Much of the renaissance in Myers performance has come at the increased usgae of his Slider which has gone from a below average pitch to an elite pitch in one year. I’m skeptical he can maintain this level of performance but I was also extremely skeptical of a similar transition a few years ago with Ryan Dempster and that turned out to be very wrong.
Madison Bumgarner:
Bumgarner continued to avert ERA disaster as he allowed just 1 ER despite giving up 8 base-runners in 5 innings of work. Earlier in the season he avoided the ER’s by fortunate batted ball distribution, but of late he’s been able to do it through an increased K Rate. He struck out another 7 on Thursday and has now posted a 9.0 K/9 in 32 September innings. Bumgarner posted an 8.0 K/9 at the minor league level so it’s not completely unreasonable to see a strech like this, but you have to wonder if it’s somewhat matchups driven as he’s faced: ARZ, SD, MIL, CHC, ARZ in those September starts. Three of the 5 opponents rank in the Top 8 in MLB in K’s. The strong 2nd half K Rate coupled with strong overall peripherals will likely make Bumgarner a hot “sleeper” candidate next season. Pitching in the matchups friendly NL West I can see #3 fantasy SP potential, but we’ll have to wait and see how high his stock ascends to determine if that’s a value.
Pablo Sandoval:
Sandoval has regained some of his playing time over the last week as Bruce Bochy has looked to the hot bat. He’s provided a nice lift hitting compiling hits in 8 of his last 10 games and knocking out his 13th HR of the season on Thursday. It’s obviously been a disappointing year for Sandoval owners but what can we expect going forward? A quick look at the peripherals shows all of the Sandoval’s decreased value this year is from a combination of decreased power and decreased batting average. His BABIP has fallen off 60 points as his LD Rate has dropped 2%. This is an inequitable drop-off as we’d expect something more like a 25 point drop with a 2% fall in LD Rate, but Sandoval’s BABIP (.350 last year) had further to fall simply due to normal regression. The lower LD’s and lower overall power indicates a player that has stopped squaring the ball up and a look at his swing rates show why. Sandoval’s outside zone swing rate has increased to 44% this season and his outside contact has increased to 77%. More contact on pitches out of the zone makes it harder to drive the ball. Looking ahead I expect some bounce back as Sandoval power rates were closer to .190-.200 ISOs in the minors. Some of that power will recover, but I’m not sure we’ll see the high .350 BABIP’s again. Something like .285 with a 17-22 HR pace seems a lot more likely for next season than the .330-25 he posted in 2009.
Mark Reynolds:
I’m not really sure why Mark Reynolds hasn’t been shut down yet this season but he continues to play through a quad injury and continues his assault on fantasy teams. He went 0-3 on Thursday and is now 4-60 in September with 28 K’s. It was around this time last year that I noted Reynolds career value was probably at a peak and just one year later it appears to be at a trough. Reynolds power has returned to pre-2009 levels with a .234 ISO that is much more representative of his career and he’s even raised his BB Rate to a stellar 13.9%, but the strikeouts… oh the strikeouts. Reynolds is now whiffing in 41% of his AB’s and while his contact rate has remained similar (a paltry 62%), the overall K Rate has risen. Perhaps this rebounds next season, but the real issue is a .255 BABIP that is anchored by a 13% LD Rate. With Reynolds hitting far more FB’s this season and the power returning to his career levels, the batting average has plummeted. My guess is the BABIP gets back to somewhere in the middle of his .322 career average and the .255 BABIP this season, but that will result in just a .220-.245 batting average. The 30 HR potential will be there, but a drain on the batting average and a reduced SB rate makes Reynolds a 2 category player. He’ll remain a high risk/high reward option.
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