Week 15 Waiver Wire - We Have A Good One.

Welcome back folks. And yes, I'm even welcoming those who kind of don't like me. There's been a lot of annoyance as of late towards my atittude and approach to players. Unfortunately, I can't make my brain work differently and I can't change my tone. I'll always be confident in my choices and I will always take the plunge into grabbing these random players at my own risk. I encourage debate as long as you don't insult me.

And with that, let me say - Heliot Ramos is not experiencing the type of regression some are claiming, and certainly not for the reasons they give (but he is cooling). I've had about a dozen people come out of the woodwork for his first slump to take this opportunity to bash me, even as his OPS continues to hover around .900. I expect Heliot to finish with an .850 or higher OPS; of course I don't expect Judge-esque numbers. They're yelling regression and BABIP. They're telling me I don't know what I'm talking about. This is silly. Those who are yelling regression aren't exactly telling me what he's regressing to. Because they can't. When arguing against the ridiculous performance he's had this season, they claim the sample size is too small and we shouldn't read into it. Then, they yell regression is happening as he hits his first slump, which can only be a logical argument....if you're looking at sample sizes. But there is no credible sample size for a 24 year old top pick, as previously mentioned. We aren't going to use a sample size of less than 100 MLB at-bats to prove any kind of point, good or bad, because it makes no sense. And this brings me to a point - my expectance of a Heliot Ramo breakout never had anything to do with sample sizes. It has to do with his absolutely beautiful swing and blast %.

When examining Heliot Ramos' swing in a way I find to be one of the most accurate measure of effortless power, Heliot sits directly on top of Gunnar Henderson, Juan Soto, and Yordan Alvarez. Other names in the area are extremely strong players, or under-performing players like O'Neil Cruz amd Julio, who are owned across all leagues and have essentially slumped for nearly half a season. The same promise you believe these two have, Heliot has. His bat speed and blast percentages are remarkable. He doesn't K because he's bad, he Ks because he has an elite power profile, like many of the guys in this neighborhood. such as Pete Alonso, who is right next to him up there.

We can also see above that Heliot has an extremely short swing while having extremely potent blast/contact, putting him closest to the swing of Bobby Witt Jr. This is where the effortless-looking, poke the ball 400 foot power comes from. I've been told I don't look under the hood, and that I only look at statcast red bars. First, that makes no sense. Peripherals are the under-hood aspects of the players. Secondly, I look at statcast bars on top of film on top of bat tracking data. The fact that Heliot Ramos has a statcast that looks like this is only the icing on the cake for Heliot, who we have a million other reasons to like:

Yes, it's absolutely beautiful, even after his recent slump. If this statcast was attached to even Julio Rodriguez, I'm sure we'd be feeling a lot better about him. But aside from the bars, look at his spray chart. He's hit 5 HRs to dead center this season. with 2 oppo and 3 pulled. This is ridiculosuly impressive power on display, as he's hitting more HRs over 400 feet than under. When he makes contact, the ball flies with authority. With the weather heating up, Heliot is only going to go on more heaters, no pun intended. I'm not dropping Heliot under any circumstance. I will ride him to the end of the season, innuendo intended. With LaMonte Wade nearing activation, expect more RBIs than ever. And please, for fuck's sake, stop bringing up Batted Balls In PLAY. A 430 foot nuke is not in PLAY. We're not here for batting average, we're here for the power. Don't make me roll my eyes at you. And if I can't get through to you, here's a friendly explanation from Claude AI:

Spencer Horwitz, 1B, 2B, TOR

I'm really glad I happened to catch the Jays game yesterday, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed this guy, who was called up on June 9th and has been a revelation for Toronto. Horwitz was mashing to the tune of a .335 BA and .970 OPS at AAA before he got the call, and he hasn't missed a single beat. In fact, the beat is slapping harder and this man has all of the best moves on the dance floor. As we see below, his statcast is unbelievably sexy. He's absolutely destroying the sweet-spot and barrel perecentiles, despite a low Hard-Hit%. This is the anti-Morel. He has his swing under control and knows exactly how much he needs to put on it to maximize efficiency. He's not hitting the ball hard for the sake of hitting the ball hard, he's taking pitches he likes and barrelling them when the opportunity presents itself. This fantastic eye at the plate is only more validated by his ridiculous whiff and K% percentiles. This right here is a professional hitter. You'll also see below that he has a fantastic Squared Up Swing to Balls Hit Into Play ratio. His ability to square up on the ball and maintain a high sweet-spot% is impressive. And the best part? He mashes RHP to the tune of a .357 BA and a 1.1oo OPS. And in the minors? A .344 BA and .1039 OPS against RHP. Most pitchers in the MLB are RHP. You know the drill. Horwitz is a must-add.

Daniel Schneemann, 2B, OF, CLE

Cleveland's super-utility guy is shaping up to be more than that, and is seeing more and more playing time. He's been featured on two other blog pieces already, and he did nothing this week to sour me on him. He had two 0-fers, but I like to find silver linings - on a day he went 0/3 he still managed to get an RBI and a SB. This man has an elite ability to draw walks, and in a stacked Guardians' lineup, this means production whether he hits the ball or not. He's also one game from having 3B eligibility and one game from having SS eligibility. This means he'll soon have 2B, OF, 3B, and SS.

Nick Gonzales, 2B, SS, PIT Nick The Stick is currently being dropped across leagues after an extremely rough week at the plate. Unfortunately, guys like this aren't afforded slumps because they came off the waiver. The former #1 2B prospect in all of baseball still has a .279 BA on top of a .276 xBA and a .450 SLG on top of a .464 xSLG. Still great numbers on top of great peripherals. His sweet-spot % continues to sit at the 90th percentile on top of elite barrel and hard-hit rates. It's also wild just how fast he is with that 93rd percentile sprint speed. Just such an elite combo of speed and sweet-spot...I won't drop you Nick.

I want to go a bit deeper though, and look at his swing data starting at June 17th, when his miserable slump began.

And as I expected, Nick Gonzales has had near league average squared-up/swing by blast/contact numbers despite having terrible production at the plate. When you see that kind of production, you'd probably expect much worse under-the-hood numbers. You can see him to the left of Ozzie Albies, and on top of Anthony Santander, who have both had fantastic runs at the plate as of late. This data matches what I've seen when watching Nick play - lots of hard hit balls right at outfielders, some amazing outfield defense, and near HR misses at the warning track. He had an unbelievably unlucky week, and expect more of his flyballs to get out of the park as the weather creeps into the upper 80s and low 90s. If he was dropped in your league due to this slump, then congratulations, you get to pick him up right before what I believe will be positive regression to my head-canon of what his ceiling is based on peripherals. Please note this is not based on sample size, but of intuition and analysis.

Austin Martin, 2B, SS, OF, MIN

Shout out to Kinkycontrol for the heads up on this guy, as he went entirely under my radar. And let me say - there's no power here. If you seek power, look elsewhere. Now, do you want a guy who loves to swipe bags? Do you love a guy who has elite vision at the plate and a top-tier sweet-spot %? Do you want a guy who hits RHP while also playing three different positions? Then look no further than Minnesota's recent call-up. I haven't featured too many guys with this kind of profile. 6 SB in 98 ABs comes out to a 15 in 250 AB pace, and I think any owner would be happy with that production. And if we look at the recent game log, we see runs in each of his last 5 games. Let's just hope Minnesota gives him more playing time, as that's quite literally the only concern here.

Below, you can see that Austin Martin has been the king of squaring up the ball for the Twins over the last week. Impressive.

Patrick Bailey, C, SF Patty Sweet-Spot <3

Just quality. Bryan De La Cruz, OF, MIA

I was really on the fence about including Bryan, if only because he's 52% owned. I try to stick to guys that are unknown and under 20% owned, with the lower the better when it comes to this type of blog, but I really liked what I saw and if he happens to be available in your league, then this could be useful. He's been swinging a potent bat since June 9th, but do keep in mind he is a lefty specialist. I'm not exactly super keen on him for that reason, but you already know I'm obssessed with guys who mash RHP.

Dominic Canzone, OF, SEA I've been waiting on this since the very first hitters piece I put out all the way back in April, and really since last year when I watched him be the best hitter in AAA. It's here.. Canzone is mashing RHP in the way I expected him to, to the tune of a .260 BA and .840 OPS. Those numbers are solid, but I also expect these numbers to rise, as he's basically gotten his spring training out of the way after suffering an injury at the beginning of the season and the weather is nice and hot. He has the type of bat speed and blast/contact you love to see in the summer, and thus the ability to hit a HR on any given swing. I added Horwitz and Martin this week at the expense of Jordan Hicks and Jose Soriano (unfortunate abdomen infection), but if I couldn't grab Hortwitz, I was definitely going with Canzone. My OF is stacked and I needed a 1B while Bohm plays 3B for me - I'm still waiting on Jung and Noelvi.

Hitters To Keep An Eye On: Trey Cabbage

Added*: Ben Rice - Almost forgot to include the kid I stashed at NA. He's put together competitive ABs and doesn't even seem slightly overwhelmed at the plate, even against the gamut of LHP he faced. He came out of that with a .296 BA, and he's a righty specialist.

Trevor Larnach

Jesus Sanchez - I experienced this last year when I owned him. Think Brent Rooker on this one, but shorter lived. Hope he proves me wrong though, I love how hard he can hit the ball. Zack Gelof - This man almost saved my team last year. Rooting for him to find the sweet-spot.

Still add LaMonte Wade. Sorry he's getting off the IL later than I expected, but if you want him, stash him. He's good. And if he gets traded to say... the Yankees....oh boy. Pitchers Mitch Spence, SP, LV

Coming off his best start yet, Mitch Spence makes his 3rd appearance on the blog. He struck out 7 KC batters and only gave up 2 runs while walking 1. I went deeper into why I liked him weeks ago, so you can read that if you want that analysis.

Notably, his sinker usage is quickly rising, and for good reason - it has a a solid .297 xSLG against despite a less than desirable .259 BA against. It's a better set-up pitch for his curveball than anything else, which is his best put-away pitch. If he only gives up singles in the process of better put-away setups, than that's the more efficient route. Singles won't kill you, but failure to put guys away will. His cutter is more complementary of his slider, which he is now throwing a bit less, because he's trying to set up the curve. His slider is a strong off-balance pitch.

League average stuff+, ever so slightly above average Location+ and Pitching+. Good for a guy who just became a starter.

Michael Wacha, SP, KC

Wacha is surprisngly available in 70% of leagues despite his recent run of very strong starts. The reason for the success is pretty evident:

As you can see above, Wacha has changed his pitch mix. He's using his Changeup significantly more and his 4-seam fastball less. Which is exactly what you want to see when your changeup has run value of 7, and your fastball has a run value of -8. He's also using his sinker more in place of the 4-seam and slider (-1 run value), and it has a solid run value of 3. If this trend continues, Wacha's sinker useage will surpass his 4-seam fastball usage by the end of July. Not surprising a solid veteran like Wacha can figure this out.

Kyle Tyler, SP, MIA Now this is a rough, kind of out there prospective gem, but I really like his profile as an elite GB pitcher that limits barrels. Especially after last week, when we saw some flyball pitchers get absolutely decimated in the summer heat. I watched his entire first start, and he was extremely impressive until he hit trouble in the 4th inning when Raley hit a 2-run HR on a pitch way outside - it was actually an impressive swing. His pitch count was in the 60s when he was pulled, as the Skip-per wanted to make sure he left the game confident in his first ever MLB start. His cutter was the pitch that failed him, but we can see that in 2021 and 2022, the cutter was his highest run value pitch. It's also been his bread and butter at AAA, where he has a respectable 2.80 ERA. I don't think the cutter will fail him often.

Monitoring Cade povich and Schwellenbach, the Nebraska Bois. Povich: He's throwing his cutter less and his curveball more, exactly what I said he should do after the cutter got crushed in his first start, though it's interesting he's splitting the increased pitch usage between the curveball and sweeper! He's also just throwing that great fastball more.

Schwellenbach: Compared to Povich, Schwelly has made some some rather drastic changes. He's throwing his cutter significantly more and throwing his four-seam less. It makes sense, as his cutter has a run value of 1 while his 4-seam has a value of -4. It's looking likely that Schwellenbach's primary pitch will be his cutter, and his 4-seam will become a put-away pitch, as it has a 30.4 K % and 17.5% put-away %.

If you hate my crazy takes, that's fine. Just don't be mean about it, and then get mad when I get defensive. If you're outright claiming I know nothing about baseball, you're being disingenuous and unknowingly projecting. Sure, I can be wrong, and I have been (sorry to that Langford owner, for now)...but come on, I know a little about baseball, at the very least. And if you own Julio, trade him for McMahon! Good luck and let's hope our pitchers do better, because last week was a massacre for pitching. And if you have someone you want me to check out, because I have all of the time in the world, feel free to DM me!