Happy Almost All-Star Break to my fellow Razzballers. The baseball season is long, and as we approach the unofficial halfway point, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who check in and read our articles here at Razzball. Many of our writers are like me and are doing this cause we love the game and love fantasy baseball, and it means a bunch to a great deal of us that so many Razzballeroos read our weekly premonitions.
Enough with the sappy stuff (But honestly, thank you), let’s turn our attention to a possible second half SAGNOF target, Tyler Freeman. He’s been smacking the ball around and leading off most days for the Rockies since late May. He hit .373 in June and is off to another solid start here in July, raking at .455. Overall, he is hitting .338 for the season, and while that isn’t sustainable with his current .360 BABIP, he should continue to hit for a solid average and get on base based on his current K/BB rates. The strikeout percentage is at 8.1% which is below his walk percentage, which sits at 9.9%.
As far as base running goe,s Freeman has above average, but not elite sprint speed at 28.2 Feet/second. He has twelve steals on the year (Nine of those since June 1st) and has been successful on 80% of his attempts. He has those twelve steals in just 161 plate appearances. While he did pop up on the injury report on Sunday, he said it wasn’t a concern. Freeman, if healthy, should continue to find himself atop the lineup, and with the Rockies struggling to generate runs via the long ball, he should continue to get the green light a whole bunch when he gets on board.
If you need a little help in the Batting Average/OBP categories, along with stolen base,s it’s worth giving Freeman a look, especially in deeper leagues.
Here’s the current Stolen Base Leader Board through Sunday, July 6th
The Speed Dials
We went 1 for 4 last week, now 7 for 34 on the season. Picked up our 6th Home Run also.
Remember, these are specific stolen base streaming targets for specific days where the player is owned in less than 50% of ESPN leagues. All stats represent both the 2024 and 2025 seasons combined.
Reds vs Marlins – Tuesday, July 8th
TJ Friedl – I’m surprised he hasn’t been on one of these yet, but maybe his roster percentage was higher before than the 46.8% it currently sits at. Here’s the weird thing about Friedl…. he’s slow. He has a 26.8 FT/sec sprint speed, but has still converted 80% of his attempts. He’ll face Eury Perez and the Marlins. Perez is currently allowing a lot of traffic, leading to his .182 SB/IP. Out of 66 qualified catchers for just 2025 throwing the three-headed monster of Agustin Ramirez, Liam Hicks and Nick Fortes rank 64th, 61st and 60th respectfully so the Marlins can certainly be run on.
Angels vs Rangers – Wednesday, July 9th
Zach Neto – Neto got our Speed Dial connection last week and now has 15 stolen bases on the year. His sprint speed is slightly above average at 28.1 Ft/Sec. He’ll face Kumar Rocker and his .177 SB/IP. Kyle Higashioka is the second worst catcher in MLB according to throwing metrics, while Jonah Heim lands in the top third.
Mariners vs Yankees – Thursday, July 10th
Cole Young – Taking a shot here on a kid who hasn’t got a Major League stolen base to his name. He’s struggled getting on with major league pitching, so that’s part of his issue. He did swipe 23 bases in the minors last year and 44 in 2023. This season, he only had 4 before his call-up, but he’s got the history to make it happen. Marcus Stroman will oppose. He has a .149 SB/IP ratio and 83.9% success rate against. Austin Wells and J.C. Escarra both find themselves in the bottom third of the throwing rankings behind the dish for the Yankees.
Blue Jays vs Athletics – Friday July 11th
Myles Straw – Really going deep here also. Straw has been playing against lefties and draws one in Jacob Lopez here. He is at 88.9% success and still has a top MLB sprint speed at 29.2 Ft/sec. Lopez allows .180 SB/IP and hasn’t had a base runner thrown out against him yet. Shea Langeliers ranks in the bottom third of catcher throwing metrics for the Athletics.
That’s all, folks. Any other questions, hit me up here on or on Twitter @TheGreatKnoche
