When players spend the first couple of months of the season falling well short of our expectations, fantasy players are often guilty of just refusing to consider those guys at all for the rest of the season. While it’s understandable to want to refuse to roster any player who really hurt you early, that kind of emotional dismissal might cause us to miss out on good rebounds in the second half that we can get some value from. The three players I’ll discuss today all started slowly for various reasons, and I saw lots of social media buzz about dropping these guys and never looking back. But we might want to take a second look to see if there is still value to be had.
One of the players below is a noted veteran who, despite his years of consistent production, seemed old and broken during the season’s first half. We drafted the player expecting a steady baseline of stats, but we weren’t getting it for the longest time. Two of the guys I’m going to talk about today were, at least to some level, preseason draft darlings. So if we liked them, we had to suck it up and pick them despite the helium. If you didn’t pick them, you ended up missing some damage to your stats, so well done there. But despite all three players’ less-than-ideal starts, you might find them helpful for the stretch run.
I discussed each of the players below in my preseason middle infield ranks article, and admittedly, I expressed some level of buy-in for each guy. So I’ll fess up and put my original ranking of them in parentheses next to their names.
As usual, I determine position eligibility based on NFBC standards, and all stats referenced are as of the end of play on Tuesday, 8/12.
Xander Bogaerts, 2B/SS, SD (my preseason rank: 18) – CBS 96%, ESPN 76.6%, Yahoo 87%
From late March through May, Xander Bogaerts looked cooked: Through 221 PAs, he was sporting a .241 AVG with an OPS of .661, 3 HR, 23 R, 21 RBI, and 11 SB. Other than the obvious help he was giving with his legs, he was killing you in HR and at least not really helping you in R, RBI, and ratio stats. This was a problem for me because, in my initial middle infield rankings, I was fairly high on him and his ho-hum, vanilla stats:
Despite any onset of decline, his plate discipline metrics are still overall solid. His CSW% isn’t awesome, but to be fair, he’s always had a bad CSW%. Despite that, his K% is good at around 17%. I’d love for his BB% to go up, and his steady decline in that area over the years does concern me. But every year he isn’t injured, he gives 15-20 HR and a respectable number of bags. His AVG is perennially a help and still was last year, even in a down season in which he clearly struggled with injury. I’ll take his pretty solid expectation of 18 HR / 12 SB with a .270 AVG and between 70-80 R & RBI. That kind of player is a benefit at a 150+ pick.
Which means, I had quite a bit of Bogaerts on my various rosters – I was certainly feeling the pain of his slow start. If you found yourself rage-dropping him, I get it. But it may be time to revisit his numbers if you play in an 8- or 10-team league where you might find Bogaerts still available on the wire.
He hasn’t exactly turned into the Xander of old, but his numbers are certainly moving in the right direction: Despite the slow start, in June he bounced back with a .290 AVG and .785 OPS, in July followed up with a .295 AVG and .783 OPS, and so far in August has a .279 AVG and an .839 OPS. He’s added 7 HR in that stretch, so not exactly much help in power, but his hit metrics suggest that he’s doing most of his work with GB% (which means higher BABIP) and LD% (which means outright good hitting). Almost 65% of his balls in play are on the ground or on a line, so his chances of continuing to increase his AVG are fairly good. His .279 xBA compared with his .268 overall AVG gives a little more support to those chances. And while he doesn’t exactly hit the ball hard, he’s hitting it harder than he has since the 2022 season. With an 11.3° LA, it’s not like he’ll be a HR monster, but he could reasonably get up to around 15 for the season. And he’s certainly doing the job on the base paths, with another 8 SB since June.
Despite any frustration we may have felt with him this year, he’s put together a double-double with 54 R and still has 41 games remaining in the season. A final line of 15 HR, 70 R, and 30 SB aren’t out of the question, and he has a reasonable shot at hitting around .280 the rest of the way if he keeps hitting the ball like he has been recently. While that may not be overwhelming help, if you need some bumps in specific categories, he might be an option. He is still rostered at a healthy clip in the most common leagues, so this is a shallow league play, but I’d at least be checking the wire to see.
Luis Rengifo, 2B/3B, LAA (my preseason rank: 21) – CBS 21%, ESPN 5.6%, Yahoo 17%
OK, don’t misunderstand me – I’m not exactly saying Luis Rengifo is a must add, but if you play in a 12- or 15-team league, he’s at least worth a close look.
Rengifo came into the season with projection systems widely agreeing that his end of year numbers would be in the neighborhood of 10-15 HR / 10-20 SB, which is a player who can help in deeper leagues. Add on to that projection my preseason expectation closer to 30 SB, which was based on Ron Washington giving Rengifo the green light on the base paths last season (24 SB). Those kinds of stats could be helpful even in 10-team leagues.
But his start to the season was awful. To be fair, I still believe Luis Rengifo wasn’t yet healthy at that point. Regardless, his numbers were BAD: a robust .213 AVG with a .518 OPS (yikes!), 1 HR, 14 R, 11 RBI, and only 1 SB in 190 PAs. Not great. Something wasn’t right, and Rengifo was widely cut from any roster possible.
If you cut Rengifo (as you should have), you may have missed that starting in June, he actually kind of looked like the guy we thought he might be this year based on his preseason draft buzz. In June, he scored 11 R and hit a much more Rengifo-like .262 while somehow putting together a .743 OPS (3 HR, 22 H, and 7 BB can add up, I suppose). July saw him hit .283. Which continues to go up, currently .333 to this point in August, raising his season AVG all the way to .251. His second half HH-rate is back up to career norms, which isn’t exactly slamming the ball but can support his AVG gains. His current xBA of .280 also says his AVG gains might be real. His 6 HR since the beginning of June don’t scream power hitter, but that full season pace of 15-20 HR is actually higher than the preseason projections. His 32 R since the beginning of June would put him on a season-long pace around 85-90 R. These numbers play.
If you are in a league deep enough to have been interested in Rengifo in the preseason, it stands to reason you might be interested in him now that he’s starting to look more like that guy we hoped for, maybe even better. With one exception: I could not have missed the SB prediction in a worse way. His season total of 4 SB is not great. So, erase any running expectations we might have had.
But a guy with an xBA of .280 and currently on a pace that, extrapolated over a full season, would end up around 15-20 HR and score 85-90 R has my interest. Based on his low roster percentages in the most popular leagues, however, I may be in the minority. Then again, in NFBC leagues where there are high stakes ($$) attached, his 12-team roster percentage is much higher at 73%, and 100% in 15-team leagues. That tells me that fantasy players in the world of CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo leagues may need to get on board. There is value here.
Masyn Winn, SS, STL (my preseason rank: 22) – CBS 58%, ESPN 34.3%, Yahoo 48%
In that same initial rankings piece, I explained that Masyn Winn’s rising draft price in the final days of Spring Training was a bit of a problem for me, but my expectations for his season weren’t:
One of the darlings of draft season, early on, Winn was being picked in the 160-170 range, but is now under 150. I’m a little less enthused at a RD 10 price as opposed to the early RD 12 price. But I do see the appeal.
In Winn’s full rookie season, he supplied a double-double while hitting a respectable .267. The 85 R were a real help at the point of the draft when he was going last year. Those numbers still have value at Winn’s early-season draft position, but to justify his new, more expensive cost, he’s going to need to progress this year. I think he can.
His plate discipline metrics suggest his AVG is repeatable and maybe gives him room for growth in that area. His CStr% of 18.9% is higher than I’d like to see. Maybe someone in St. Louis will tell him to take the bat off his shoulder more often. If so, more balls in play with his speed (28.8 ft/s in 2024, 29.2 in 2023) give him the chance to bring that AVG up. There’s definitely room for more speed in his game. His 1.4% SBA% has lots of room to grow, and in the spirit of “best shape of my life” season, he says he wants to steal 30-40 this year. YES! Be more aggressive, man! His HH% and Barrel% certainly won’t turn any heads, so 15-16 HR might be as much as we can really hope for. At the top of a not-terrible St. Louis lineup, though, another 600 PAs will give Winn plenty of opportunity to reach 80-90+ R. As long as you can absorb the lack of RBI and low ceiling on HR, Winn seems like a pick with solid floor and some ceiling in AVG, SB, and R. I’ve mostly been willing to click on his name so far.
Then, the season started, and Ollie Marmol decided to put Winn in the 9-hole, instead of the 1- or 2-hole as expected. Oops. That definitely had me worried. And, Winn wasn’t running despite his stated goal of 30 SB. Not great. It looked like Winn was going to be a disaster for those who bought in despite his late-draft season helium. And his season-long numbers definitely aren’t great for anyone who expected a 15 HR / 30 SB season.
But his numbers over the last month are a bit more interesting. In that time, he’s hitting close to .300 and has put together 10 of his season’s 42 RBI. His HH-data suggests that his 2 HR since the beginning of June are the result of significantly bad luck. These numbers aren’t going to make those who drafted him satisfied for the season, but if you’re looking for a boost over the last 6 weeks, he might be an option. I’m at least watching him closely right now.
I realize these guys all have warts, but we’ve reached the point late in the season when we should be looking for stat help anywhere we can find it. When in competition for a league title, we should be looking at every category where we might gain some ground on opponents as well as where we can secure any lead we might have. These guys, flaws and all, have ways to contribute. And every stat matters right now.
Until next week. – ADHamley
What? No Mookie? Poster Child for underperforming MI’s. Playing better of late, but for how long?