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Making the right trades can be crucial to championship success in fantasy baseball, almost as much as the draft, if not more. While most trades can have a significant impact on your fantasy team, it’s the deals where you acquire undervalued players and then see their production improve that can really tip the scales in your favor where the standings are concerned.
The same can certainly be said about trading away players at the right time when they have the most fantasy trade value. Those deals could happen in the second week of April or the last week of August, but they’re impactful all the same.
Here are some undervalued candidates to pursue in trades and some overvalued ones who you should consider dealing for if they presently occupy a spot on your roster.
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Undervalued Players To Trade For
Michael Harris II, Atlanta Braves
Purely based on surface-level metrics, Michael Harris II has been all sorts of very good this season, batting .298 and a .344 on-base percentage in 326 plate appearances for Atlanta. He’s also one of just five players in the league – Trea Turner, Andres Gimenez, Aaron Judge, and Luis Robert are the other four – who are hitting at least .295 with both double-digit stolen bases and home runs. To be exact, the 21-year-old has 13 home runs and 16 stolen bases.
The outfielder has already made a significant impact this season, but he’s also doing all this in a slightly smaller sample size. Harris made his Major League debut on May 28. Purely looking at things since then, he’s been one of the best players in the sport, both from a real-life standpoint and a fantasy standpoint.
Since May 28, only seven position players have a better fWAR than Harris’ 3.6 metric. That might not be as fantasy relevant, but the rest of the outfielder’s metrics certainly are. Here are the outfielder’s numbers again, compared to the blind resumes of four other prominent, impact fantasy players.
Harris: 317 PA, .298 average, .344 on-base percentage, 13 home runs, 16 stolen bases
Hitter A: 373 PA, .313 average, .348 on-base percentage, 14 home runs, 11 stolen bases
Hitter B: 306 PA, .272 average, .330 on-base percentage, 18 home runs, nine stolen bases
Hitter C: 380 PA, .298 average, .345 on-base percentage, 11 home runs, 10 stolen bases
Hitter D: 352 PA, .278 average, .335 on-base percentage, 15 home runs, 10 stolen bases
Hitter A is Turner. Hitter B is Turner’s teammate in Los Angeles, Mookie Betts while Hitter C is Harris’ teammate in Atlanta, Dansby Swanson. Hitter D? That would be Cleveland stalwart Jose Ramirez.
And there’s plenty to believe that the 21-year-old’s start is sustainable too. He’s not walking a ton and has some unideal swing-and-miss metrics, but when he’s making contact, it’s been rather excellent. He sits in the 75th percentile or better in hard-hit rate (44.4%), barrel rate (11.1%), and xwOBA (.343).
Jorge Mateo, Baltimore Orioles
Mateo has received consistent playing time for a full season in the majors for the first time this season, and while he’s hitting .229 with a .277 on-base percentage, he’s turned a quality fantasy season with 28 stolen bases and 12 home runs in 430 plate appearances. The crucial bit here is the home runs.
Mateo has turned in monster stolen base seasons in the minors before, stealing 24 or more bases in six different minor league campaigns, including an 82-steal season in 2015 between Single-A and Advanced-A. The steals aren’t anything new.
But the home runs have been a significant positive for the 27-year-old, whose previous career high for home runs in a single season, majors or minors, is 19. And it’s possible he may have had more if he were playing in a different ballpark. Only five of Mateo’s 12 homers have come at home.
Elsewhere, his expected home run metric for Camden Yards is at 10, while it’s over 13 – and as high as 17 – in half of the league’s ballparks. And while Mateo is only sporting a 33.3% hard-hit rate on the season, he’s been making more hard contact more often as of late. Since July 10, Mateo is sporting a 41.4% hard-hit rate, to go along with a 7.2% barrel rate and – perhaps most crucially for fantasy purposes – a .294 average, a .331 on-base percentage, six home runs, and seven stolen bases in 151 plate appearances.
In fact, he’s one of just six qualified hitters during that span with a batting average north of .290 and at least six homers and six steals. And while he’s routinely hitting near the bottom of the Baltimore lineup, his stolen bases should help him continue to get in run-scoring opportunities for both the O’s and for fantasy managers.
Overvalued Players To Trade Away
Steve Kwan, Cleveland Guardians
For hitters who don’t make much in the way of hard contact, their production can sometimes fluctuate based on their batting average on balls in play. Of course, those two stats aren’t always the entire story for a hitter, but often times hitters with low hard-hit rates and high BABIPs can have unsustainable production.
That was the case early in the season for Steve Kwan, who was one of baseball’s most productive contact hitters prior to May, batting .354 with nine walks compared to just six strikeouts in 61 plate appearances. However, Kwan also logged a .386 BABIP that month with just an 18.2% hard-hit rate and one barrel. With little in the way of hard contact and a high BABIP, the outfielder’s production predictably faltered.
In 85 May plate appearances, he hit just .173 with a .271 on-base percentage and a .176 BABIP. Since then, however, Kwan has been able to bounce back. He’s hit at least .309 in each of the three months since, though he’s also sporting a BABIP north of .345 in each of those months.
The 24-year-old has been excellent at making contact this year and not offering at pitches outside the zone. He ranks in the 97th percentile in chase rate, whiff rate, and strikeout rate. That contact certainly helps, but with just a 20.7% hard-hit rate this season – which ranks in the first percentile league-wide – it’s possible he could see another dip in production similar to May.
Starling Marte, New York Mets
The 33-year-old is batting .293 with a .347 on-base percentage, 15 home runs, and 18 stolen bases in 484 plate appearances this season, providing both the Mets and fantasy managers with some excellent home run and stolen base production.
Marte has a bit more of a track record than Kwan in the Majors, but there’s a possibility he too could see a dip in production down the stretch should his BABIP come back to earth. Of course, Marte is doing a bit more at the plate in terms of quality contact – his .335 xwOBA ranks in the 72nd percentile in the league – but he’s also registering only a 33.6% hard-hit rate and a .342 BABIP as of the beginning of play on Wednesday.
Where Marte differs from Kwan, in addition to the xwOBA, is that Marte has done this before. The veteran hit .310 with a .383 on-base percentage in 526 plate appearances with a .372 BABIP and his lifetime BABIP isn’t far off from his 2022 metric with a .344 number. With that in mind, the veteran’s production might not fall off a cliff like Kwan’s did, but it could dip a bit as it has in August.
Marte is batting .267 with a .342 on-base percentage, a .296 BABIP, four home runs, and six stolen bases in 117 plate appearances during the last calendar month. Even if his BABIP dips, the outfielder will likely stay productive, as we’ve seen in August, he just might not be as productive as he has this season.
Thairo Estrada, San Francisco Giants
Estrada is enjoying a quality fantasy season at the plate so far, hitting .260 with a .315 on-base percentage, 11 home runs, and 16 stolen bases in a career-high 423 plate appearances. And while he’s sporting a low hard-hit rate at 32.0%, his placement in the "Overvalued" portion of this column doesn’t have as much to do with his BABIP as it does with Kwan and Marte.
No, Estrada showing up here is more to do with the type of contact he’s making this season. After logging a 7.1% barrel rate, a .346 wOBA, a .313 xwOBA and a .347 xwOBAcon last season, Estrada has turned in just a 4.3% barrel rate, a .315 wOBA, a .302 xwOBA and a .325 xwOBAcon this season. He’s also one of 27 qualified hitters to have a barrel rate of 4.4% or lower.
And while the former Yankees prospect has continued to be productive despite that – he and Jurickson Profar are the only batters of those aforementioned 27 qualified hitters to reach double-digit home runs – the lack of quality contact isn’t ideal.
It also doesn’t help that the infielder is struggling at the plate as of late. He’s batting just .195 with a .283 on-base percentage in 47 plate appearances since August 16. And while his .253 wOBA during that span is significantly lower, his .276 BABIP during the stretch isn’t tremendously far off from his .287 metric this season.
He should continue to provide stolen bases and plenty of versatility for fantasy managers – the 26-year-old is eligible at three different positions in Yahoo leagues – but his overall production at the plate is certainly something to keep an eye on down the stretch.
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