Happy Wednesday, everyone, as we approach the 1/4 pole in Major League Baseball. We’ve highlighted a whole bunch of SAGNOF targets for everyone to start the season. Today, we’re going to look at some tandem targets for four teams, where if you manage your roster and waivers correctly by looking at pitching match-ups you can help bolster your stolen base totals.
First up is Rays platoon partners Jake Fraley and Jonny DeLuca. Fraley is in the lineup against right-handed starters, and DeLuca gets the nods against southpaws, although DeLuca has gotten a few extra starts against right handers. None of these combinations is going to light your world on fire, folks, but this is SAGNOF. Finding steals and maximizing them on the waiver wire. So what does a Fraley/Deluca combo get you? Well, Fraluca is worth about a .260 batting average so far with 21 runs scored, 19 RBIs 4 homers, and 7 Stolen Bases. That’s not a bad 3rd-4th OF in 12 teamers in my book.
Next, we have the exciting Royals combination of Kyle Isbel and Lane Thomas. Well, maybe exciting isn’t the correct terminology, but again, if this platoon combo was played out since the start of the season, you’d have a nice looking mid-tier OF on your roster that currently is outperforming Juan Soto. Also, not a complete platoon as Thomas has gotten some action vs right-handers thus far. Here’s your Isbomas Combination line: a .242 batting average, 20 runs scored, 4 Home Runs, 17 RBIs, and 8 stolen bases.
A quartet of Rockies have worked their way into a mostly platoon situation in Denver, and you can look at working to build them into your lineups. On the strong side of the platoon, you have Troy Johnston and Jake McCarthy, and on the weak side is Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle. Now, if we are looking at just stolen bases, you have to focus on McCarthy and one of the right-handed hitters, as Johnston hasn’t run much in the majors, even though he stole 72 bases in the minors from 2023-2025. I’ll take a combined number for this exercise from McCarthy and Doyle, as those are where the stolen bases are mostly coming from. This pretty looking combination we will call McDoyle has a combined line of a .242 batting average, 25 Runs, 3 Homers, 18 RBIs, and 15 Stolen Bases.
Finally, we have the light hitting and contact lacking Brewers combination of David Hamilton and Joey Ortiz. This is the truest SAGNOF only platoon of the ones we’re looking at here. Hamiltiz has combined for a .203 average, 29 runs, zero homers, 16 RBIs, and 11 stolen bases.
Here’s some extrapolations of what platooning these players on your roster could look like over the course of a full year.
Fraluca .260/80/15/75/28
Isbomas .242/80/16/68/32
McDoyle .242/100/12/64/60
Hamiltiz .203/116/0/64/44
Final Combination stat lines would be less than the above with pinch-hitting and the occasional start against the same sided pitcher playing a role in the number, so we will take 75% of this as a possible real life fantasy projection.
Fraluca .260/60/11/56/21
Isbomas .242/60/12/51/34
McDoyle .242/75/9/48/65
Hamiltiz .203/87/0/48/33
Will these platoons make it all year? Not likely some of these guys will even be on the roster in a month. Does this work for weekly leagues? Absolutely not. The point of the exercise with SAGNOF is that there are options out there when certain guys are in the lineup, especially in daily leagues. I’d run the McDoyle combo out there every day if I could make the roster space work.
Here’s this week’s Stolen Bases Leaderboard
The Speed Dials
0 for 6 to start the year, but we did get our second Home Run of the season. They are taking a hibernation this week as I look to retool how to do these projections with limited future confirmed starters still being posted this late in the season. I should have a new plan for next week.
In the meantime, just stream McDoyle if they’re available!
As always, if you’re looking for anything further out for next week, where we don’t have exact pitching match-ups, hit me up here or on Twitter @TheGreatKnoche
