The Kraken of 06010 fame, Jason Heyward, has erupted. Heyward has gone 12-for-24 this past week with an eye popping 1.478 OPS. He has homered in three consecutive games, going 1-for-3 with a dinger and 3 RBI last night. Heyward has had some unfair comparisons thrown his way early in his career, even picking up the outrageously unfair “J-Hey Kid” nickname in his rookie season. He is a man child, looking well past his age, kind of like Greg Oden or LeBron James, so let’s not forget that he is still just 25 years old. Heyward hit 27 homers in 2012 with a .814 OPS but has since posted disappointingly low totals. With 9 homers on the year, he is now on pace for about 21. I could see him doing a bit better than that. I’m going to predict that his year-end OPS sits right around .800. I’m buying.
Speaking of hot bats, Mookie Betts has the highest OPS in baseball over the past two weeks (1.462), right ahead of a couple of clowns like Miguel Cabrera, Bryce Harper, and Paul Goldschmidt. Over this period, he is second only to Miggy in OBP and first in SLG. Clearly, he’s on fire. I don’t anticipate him pulling a Joc Pederson on us and rattling off a barrage of home runs, as that really isn’t his game. His .789 OPS on the season looks about right, after having been pretty low through April and May.
If we were only looking at SLG, Luis Valbuena would be my squeeze. His .456 SLG on the year is 54th in the majors, two ahead of the aforementioned Mookie. Unfortunately in OPS formats, we’ve got to deal with his abysmal .269 OBP which weighs down his value. I love the power though. Did you know Valbuena has the same number of homers (19) as Pederson, Nelson Cruz, Goldschmidt, and Nolan Arenado? Good company! Even better for hot schmotato purposes, the homers have been coming in bunches, with 7 over the past two weeks. Over that period, Valbuena has an excellent 1.044 OPS (.333 OBP + .711 SLG). I actually think that he may be a bit more than a hot schmotato, in that Chris Carter sort of way. If you can stomach that OBP, I’d own Valbuena, available in 65 percent of ESPN leagues and eligible at two thin positions at 3B and 2B.
I want to throw out one name to consider for deeper AL-only formats and that is Domingo Santana. Santana was called up by the suddenly awesome Houston Astros. Since his call up, Santana has a 1.074 OPS, having gone 5-for-17 with 2 home runs, 6 RBI, and a stolen base for good measure. No one will confuse Santana for Carlos Correa or Kris Bryant, but he is an interesting rookie just the same. He came up for a cup of coffee in 2014, but this should be his first extended look in the big leagues. He was raking in Fresno (AAA), to the tune of a 1.028 OPS with 11 homers. This guy has always had power (and plenty of strikeouts). He reminds me a bit of a right-handed Jon Singleton (who coincidentally was also drafted by the Phillies and was Santana’s teammate in Fresno this season). I’d keep an eye on Santana, as he could rack up power numbers in a hurry and should be available in your league.
