Akil Baddoo (OF, DET) - Week 16 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in leagues of 12+ teams

ROSTERED IN: 33% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Ah, stolen bases. The unicorns of fantasy baseball. The last league leader with more than 50 in a season was Dee Gordon in 2017. Gordon and Jonathan Villar are the only guys to steal 60 bases in a season in the last decade. Stolen bases as a whole are down by almost 1000 across the major leagues in the last 20 years. They are becoming more and more scarce. That's what makes a guy like Baddoo valuable.

Baddoo started off his career with homers in his first two games this year and he had amassed four homers by April 13. He has two since (on May 31 and July 11). Most fantasy owners bailed on Baddoo after the hot start. His average plummeted to .263 by April 18 and fell as far as .222 by the end of the month.

Despite the lack of homers, Baddoo is back to fantasy relevance. He only stole one base in April, but he swiped four in May, five in June, and already has three in July. The question now is whether he can hit for a good enough average to warrant keeping him around for the steals.

Baddoo hit a respectable .256 in May, but his .348 average in June is what has us here at Rotoballer taking notice. Baddoo now is slashing .271/.351/.462 in the first half season of his major league career. We can live with that, but is it sustainable? Baddoo only hit .249 in four minor league seasons, but it is worth noting that he was just 17 years old when he joined the Gulf Coast Twins in 2016. Baddoo has been young at every level, which could have something to do with the middling average.

We do have enough Statcast data so far to form an opinion. Baddoo's 11.3% walk rate is in the 75th percentile of baseball. Why is this important? Because his sprint speed, one of the best indicators of stolen base potential, is in the 92nd percentile. That means Baddoo is one of the best baserunners in the league. The xBA is low at .226, mostly because he doesn't hit the ball hard. The .367 BABIP does seem a bit inflated as well. Even when that normalizes though, Baddoo should still be a guy that can hit around .250-.260. If he's swiping double-digit bags a month though, he's bordering on fantasy monster.

If you, like most fantasy managers, are behind in steals, go grab Baddoo. His average shouldn't drop too much and his stolen bases are trending upward, meaning that the Tigers are willing to let him run. Baddoo is a little more valuable in daily leagues since you can sit him against lefties (he is hitting just .122 against lefties on the season), but even in weekly leagues, he should start at least four games per week. In a season where 10 steals in a week will win you the category, often with ease, the couple of steals that Baddoo provides could provide a huge boost for your team.

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