There are two midsummer traditions in my household: the MLB All-Star game and a beach trip with my in-laws. Seemingly every year, I stream the game from a two bedroom cabin with AC and outlets and nothing else.
The beach is great. The time and expectations with the in-laws, well, you can probably guess right?
This week, we’ll look at the All-Star selections and their prognosis for the rest of the season. Good prognosis get the “beach” designations. A poor one gets, well, I won’t say it, but you probably know.
1B Starter Freddie Freeman: The future hall of famer is good and will continue to be, but there are some questions. First, he’s old. Second, the K rate is up five percent, and the walk rate is down three. He’s sitting at ten HR, and our projections have him finishing with a total of 19.
Freeman overall is rated only 100, a far cry from the 19 ADP you paid for him.
Verdict: In Law. Hot start, but never draft guys over 35.
Reserve 3B Jazz Chisholm:
He’s been good, just plain good. The player rater had him 126 overall, though, and of course, there’s a lengthy injury history. I honestly can’t figure out why you would place him here over Junior Caminero, a budding star in his own right.
I would expect Jazz to continue at around a .250 AVG, 26 HR at the end, 21 steals. Valuable, yes, and OBP leagues will love his walk rate increase. I’m finding out I’ll always be the low man on Jazz.
Verdict: In Law, but with some beach time built in. Personal taste guy
Eugenio Suarez, 3B reserve:
If you take away the Seattle years, we have a 40 HR with league average batting average on our hands. He’s not going to be a help in batting average; the 27% K rate suppresses that. He’s just been raking now for a calendar year.
My only qualm is him on an expiring contract and the deadline coming up. Moving to less favorable conditions could hurt, like his Seattle years.
Verdict: Beach. Sit back and watch his waves of power crash in, and pray he ends up in a good spot if he’s dealt.
Matt Olson, 1B reserve:
Matty O is a second half beast. In each of his past three seasons, production has spiked at the midway point. I would put some Bitcoin on Olson outproducing Pete Alonso from this point forward.
He’s been no slouch so far either, with 17 dingers and a .267/.368/.489 slash line. Go to his last 28 games, and it gets to a juicy .344/.426/.538. See? That’s stats proving a point!
Matt Olson is the top 1B to own in baseball from here forward.
Verdict: Beach day where the in-laws unexpectedly cancel and then say they’re moving out of the state. So good.
Bonus In Law
My bae, Bryce Harper, is having a rough season. Without going into the stats, which you’ve seen before, he came back from a wrist injury. Yahoo writers, before they were all laid off for AI articles, which we don’t have here, told me that wrist injuries tend to linger. Seems to be doing that. Bummer for my second round pick everywhere (Including TGFBI, where I’m still in second in my league but 43 overall)
Bonus Beach Day:
Chances are, you, like me, have not noticed just the level of goodness Michael Busch has been playing at. FanGraphs has him with a 166 WRC+, or 66% above league average. The slash line is pristine: .297/.384/.566. Why did he slip through the All-Star Cracks?
.191 against lefties. To put this in perspective, prorating just his batting average with a normalized workload reduces it to .277. Very good, actually. It used to be lower. He’s improving!
I’m moving forward with confidence that Busch starts almost every game from here out. Run him out there, he’s a top 5 1B.
That’s it for this week, may your beach days be breezy, partly cloudy, and good waves. May your in-law visits be short!
