Joey Lucchesi (SP - NYM) - Lucchesi looked great in his return to the majors, shutting down a very heavily RH Giant lineup to pick up his first MLB win in 2 seasons. The 29 year old allowed 4 hits and 2 walks over 7 shutout innings, fanning 9, most of which came on a curveball that we really haven't seen much of before. The velo looked intact, and the control was in the "decent" category that we had come to expect from Lucchesi. So, should we be excited? A guy comes back after two years looking mostly the same but with a brand new breaking pitch that looked effective at times but also resulted in 2 of the 4 hits he allowed....it'll take the league some time to get some tape on him again. The Braves will provide a much sterner test next time out, but after that he has 3 straight road starts against DET, CIN, and WAS. Not exactly Murderer's Row there. I'm in favor of a speculative pickup immediately, but I would likely leave him on my bench for next week's outing unless I had no other choice. Assuming that isn't a complete disaster, I'm probably rolling with him after that and assimilating data as I go.
Jarren Duran (OF - BOS) - Duran came up on Monday, and after a 2-4 on Friday he has hit in all 5 games that he's played, tallying 4 2B and a SB over 21 PAs. Maybe the 26 year old is finally ready to fulfill the power/speed potential that we've seen glimpses of in the minors for the past couple of seasons. I don't think his contact ability is as bad as it seemed in his initial exposure to MLB....I think it's more average-minus with the potential to be more than that. His in-zone contact was always quite good, it was just ball/strike recognition that hampered him. That improved some last year, and it looks like it might be improving some more this season. The power is probably more average than anything more than that, but when paired with his excellent speed it gives you a pretty nice ceiling. I think the Sox will be happy for Duran to run with the CF job and allow Kiki to remain in the IF with Tapia and Refsnyder occupying the 4th and 5th OF spots. I like a speculative pickup here for the ceiling that Duran provides.
Christian Bethancourt (C - TB) - Bethancourt singled and homered (his 4th) on Friday to extend his hitting streak to 6 games. The 31 year old is in his 16th professional season (including a 1-year stint in the KBO and a 0 AB year in 2020), and despite some obvious improvement over the past 5 years he has still yet to reach 900 MLB PAs. That means, to me, there may actually be some development despite his age. He'll never be known as a contact hitter (this year's swinging strike% of 13.3 coming into Friday would be his 2nd best EVER at any level), but it's clear that he developed some power back about 6 years ago and I'm surprised, with his defensive chops, that nobody decided to give him more ABs behind the plate. It's always difficult to analyze players with such sporadic playing time, but Bethancourt has been on at least a 20 HR per 150 G clip for many years now, so the power is no surprise, and he has a bit of speed to boot. I think he's an obvious option in 2-catcher formats, as he seems to be earning a slight lead in the job share with Francisco Mejia, whose stats appear as if he goes up to the plate blindfolded (career chase rate of 49%). Bethancourt is the better defender as well, so I'm hopeful that he'll see 300-400 PAs this season, an amount of playing time that should easily see him in the top-20 C and likely in the top-15. I think he should be owned in all formats outside of single-catcher mixed leagues right now.
Jonah Heim (C - TEX) - Heim homered for the 4th time in 8 games, adding a walk in the 5-4 loss to Oakland. This is what we call progress: Heim is in his 4th MLB season. His exit velos have moved from 86 to 87.1 to 89.3 to 90.7. His GB rate has gone from 42.9 to 40 to 39.1 to 31.4. Consequently, the ISOs have progressed from 0 to .162 to .172 to .291. Sure, the pull% and swinging strike rates have continued to increase as well, but only the pull% gives me a bit of pause in terms of capping the AVG ceiling a bit. I think Heim is a very good hitter that continues to make progress at age 28. He's the #2 catcher here in the early going, and while that isn't likely to last, the odds of him finishing the year as a top-12 at the position are pretty darn good.
Connor Joe (1B/OF - PIT) - Joe was 3-3 with a double and a walk on Friday, and he's now hitting 377/459/679 through 61 PAs for the Pirates. There is a ton of good fortune here for the 30 year old, as the Statcast expected data suggests a .272 AVG and .459 SLG would be more appropriate, but even that performance would be valuable from an OF here in 2023. Joe is an excellent contact hitter (swinging strike rate has dropped in each of his MLB seasons, down to 6.9% so far this year), and his chase rate has dropped all the way down to 17.1% as well. He has managed that while increasing his in-zone swing% a couple of percent, which is something we love to see from a relatively inexperienced hitter (755 career MLB PAs). The exit velocity has been great as well although the GB rate is quite high...I don't expect to see a lot of over the fence power here, but a solid AVG and perhaps something in the 15 HR range would be reasonable to expect. In the current OF landscape (and with a bonus of 1B eligibility), that is valuable enough to roster in most formats.
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