These four have been flying under the radar for too long
Pay attention to me!
There’s a meme of a guy who looks kind of like Hugh Jackman screaming this in a bowling alley. Maybe I should know who it actually is, but I don’t. I’m old. Anyway, you’ll see it pop up from time to time on social media, usually to admonish someone who’s stirring the pot for likes and engagement. It’s not meant to be a flattering thing, but I say these players should be screaming it for real.
Instead, they’re letting their play do the talking, and it’s not working. They’re all still rostered in less than 70 percent of CBS Sports leagues. So rather than put the onus on them, I’m going to speak on their behalf.
Pay attention to them!
They’re of course not the only ones who could stand to be rostered more. Noelvi Marte and Agustin Ramirez recently entered the Reds‘ and Marlins‘ lineups, respectively, and have put up monster numbers right away. Jordan Beck and Andy Pages, while having some prospect pedigree, gave us no reason to care about them prior to this weekend, when both had huge performances. These are recent risers who are grabbing all the headlines right now, and if you’d like to read more about them, you can in Chris Towers’ waiver wire article, among other places.
The four players below, meanwhile, have been on the periphery for a while now, but for whatever reason, they’re just not getting over the hump. More needs to be said about them than you’re going to find elsewhere, so I’m taking it upon myself to say it.
After going 6 for 12 with three home runs this weekend, Polanco is up to a .377 batting average and .739 slugging percentage, both of which are unsustainable. But they’re not simply a product of good luck. His .355 xBA is 100th percentile, and his .629 slugging percentage is 96th percentile. The dude has earned his numbers to this point and has been mashing from the get-go, going 3 for 3 with a home run on opening day.
So why the lack of interest? Some soreness in his side has prevented him from batting right-handed for the past few weeks, keeping him out of the lineup against lefties, but given how widely rostered other strong-side platoon bats like Ben Rice and Michael Busch are, that’s not an adequate explanation. At least in Polanco’s case, it’s only temporary. He’s supposed to be back to hitting righty any day now.
No, I think the disinterest is more due to people believing Polanco is as bad as he showed last year — or, really, the last three years, during which he slashed .232/.325/.399. Indeed, those are bad numbers, and normally, a three-year trend would count for more than a five-week trend. But some extenuating circumstances should make Fantasy Baseballers more open-minded in Polanco’s case.
Do you remember what was blamed for his miserable 2024? That’s right: a knee injury, specifically to his patellar tendon, which he addressed via surgery in the offseason. You might say that while that’s somewhat relevant, it doesn’t explain his lackluster production in 2022 and 2023, and to that, I say … it might! Articles in the Minnesota Star Tribune first make reference to the injury in 2022, the first of that ugly three-year trend, and those references continue into 2023 and 2024, which would suggest that the offseason surgery was a long time coming for Polanco.
Do you know what he did in 2021, the last year when that left knee was at 100 percent? He hit .269 with 33 homers and an .826 OPS. What about two years before that, omitting the pandemic-shortened 2020 season? He hit .295 with 22 homers and an .841 OPS. Meanwhile, his strikeout rate was consistently between 15 and 20 percent prior to 2022 but escalated during the three years when he was fighting the bum knee, first to 21.3 percent, then to 25.7 percent, then to 29.3 percent just last year. What is it now? Try 12.9 percent.
He’s feeling better, clearly, and while his current pace is unsustainable, I’m willing to speculate that Polanco’s 2019 and 2021 production is back within reach. Particularly now that he’s dual eligible, qualifying at both second and third base, more people should be taking advantage.
While he hasn’t been tilting the box scores for as long as Polanco has, it’s been almost two weeks now since the Reds activated Hays from an early-season IL stint for a calf strain, and all he’s done during that time is mash, most recently going 6 for 13 with two homers and two doubles over the weekend. There was also enthusiasm for him this spring, during which he hit .310 with three homers, two triples, and three doubles in just 42 at-bats, but clearly, that enthusiasm hasn’t carried over to Fantasy.
Why? It’s an uninspiring track record, to be sure, and now that Hays is in the eighth year of his career, that track record would seem to speak for itself. But if you know his history, you’ll know that Hays was a highly regarded prospect for the Orioles at one point in time, putting up formidable numbers in his minor-league career. You’ll also know that in his first full major-league season, 2021, he hit 22 home runs, which remains his career high. What happened the following year? The Orioles moved the entire length of the left field fence back 30 feet, effectively neutering all of their right-handed power bats but perhaps none more than Hays, whose power came more from wearing out that side of the field than from pure exit velocities.
He did what he could in his 2 1/2 remaining years in that suppressive environment, which wasn’t much. His trade to Philadelphia midway through last season was supposed to liberate him, and because it didn’t, I presume that the last of the Hays truthers wrote him off completely. It was only in the offseason, though, that we found out his stint with the Phillies was marred by a kidney infection, an ailment so pervasive that he says it messed with his brain and personality.
“I would go to the cage and take 10 swings and I would be like, ‘I need to lay down. I’m so tired. I’m out of breath. My legs are just shaking,'” Hays told The Athletic in November.
Now with the kidney infection behind him, Hays is in an even more favorable environment than Philadelphia and one that’s on the opposite end of the spectrum from what he left in Baltimore. The Reds play in the league’s most homer-friendly park, and with the way he’s started out there, I’d be on him at least breaking his previous high of 22 home runs.
A quick look at Verlander’s full-season numbers will tell you he’s not the neatest fit for this article, but after a weekend full of eye-popping performances, I didn’t want his more subtle one to go unnoticed, particularly since the starting pitcher situation on the waiver wire is rather bleak at the moment.
No doubt, his first four starts were bad, skewing his stat line and purging him from most Fantasy Baseball rosters, but his last two starts have been much better — and in a particularly encouraging way. His fastball is playing up again. It was responsible for eight of his 13 whiffs Friday against the Rangers and nine of his 12 whiffs April 20 against the Angels. It’s up 1 mph from a year ago and still has an impressive 19 inches of induced vertical break. And if it continues, he may be able to tack one more solid season onto his Hall of Fame career.
Perhaps the most telling stat is his 12.9 percent swinging-strike rate. It was below 10 percent each of the previous two seasons and hasn’t been as high as 13 percent since 2019, which was the last year of prime Justin Verlander when he was striking out 300 batters. He’s not doing that again — don’t get me wrong — but at this point, I feel confident saying that last year’s 5.48 ERA and 1.38 WHIP won’t be his new normal either.
You may want to act soon, too. His best start yet may be coming up this week, with the Rockies in town.
Sure, in those deeper 5×5 leagues where saves are scarce, Vest was a hot ticket off the waiver wire this weekend, but most leagues aren’t like that. One way to tell is that he’s still only 19 percent rostered on the CBS Sports platform, which is less than hollow pursuits like Chris Martin, Jordan Romano, and Justin Slaten.
What will it take to convince you he’s the Tigers closer? Each of his last four appearances has been to close out a game in the ninth, including three times for a save. Do you know how many saves Tommy Kahnle, heretofore considered the Tigers closer, has gotten during that time? Zero, zip, nada. And it’s not because he hasn’t been available. Twice during that time, he’s worked the eighth inning, directly ahead of Vest. The only time he worked the ninth was in the second game of a doubleheader Saturday, after Vest closed out the first game … for a save.
Manager A.J. Hinch is notoriously tight-lipped about bullpen roles and liable to change them on a whim, so from that perspective, it’s reasonable to speculate that this recent fascination with Vest is just a blip and he’ll eventually go back to Kahnle, who himself has a 0.87 ERA and 0.58 WHIP. But I don’t think so. I think Hinch saw how Vest was blowing away hitters with a harder, straighter slider that boasts a 62 percent whiff rate (up from 30 percent on last year’s slider) and decided it makes him a better fit for the closer role. Indeed, Vest’s 17.5 percent swinging-strike rate is like one you’d see from an elite closer. It had consistently been 10.5 percent prior to this year.
If the new slider is legit, then it’s a game-changer for Vest and could make him an impact reliever for Fantasy. At this point, I wouldn’t just take him over Martin, Romano, and Slaten but also Luke Weaver, Cade Smith, and David Bednar.
