Time to check in with the Fantasy Baseball Stock Watch and see which MLB players are rising and falling in value!

The latest MLB news has been a hotbed of action for fantasy baseball owners. New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced that Gerrit Cole will finally make his season debut this Wednesday (6/19) while also telling us the team will be calling up catcher/infield prospect Ben Rice to replace the injured Anthony Rizzo. 

 

 

 

And speaking of MLB injuries, the Los Angeles Dodgers just got hit hard with news of Yoshinobu Yamamoto suffering from a rotator cuff issue while also having to place Mookie Betts on the 10-day IL with a fractured hand. He’ll be out roughly 6-to-8 weeks.

Returning superstars are great. Potential fantasy baseball waiver wire additions are great. Losing a couple of superstars, on the other hand, is less than ideal. Whether you’re looking to hit waivers or start putting out some fantasy baseball trade offers, you always need to know who is rising and falling in value, so let’s get to it.

Time for some ‘3 Up, 3 Down’.

 

 

Fantasy Baseball Stock Watch: Risers

Jackson Merrill, OF San Diego Padres

Merrill received a lot of buzz early on as he broke camp with the big-league club right out of spring training and hit .280 with three doubles, one home run, 12 RBI, four stolen bases and a .336 OBP through the first month of the season. But like any shiny, new toy, the luster wears off and people stop paying attention despite the fact that he maintained a .279 average throughout May. 

But now here in June, people are talking again. One of the biggest improvements Merrill has made in recent weeks is his power stroke. He’s still hitting well enough to maintain a .278 average on the year, but over the last two weeks, Merrill has four doubles and four home runs to give him a .281 ISO for the month of June. 

That has, in turn, produced a .564 slugging-percentage, a .862 OPS and a .368 wOBA. The raw power numbers are fantastic, but to see him produce like this without seeing some sudden spike in strikeouts or dip in batting average makes it even better. And if he still has shortstop eligibility in your league? Oh, baby!

Ceddanne Rafaela, SS/OF Boston Red Sox

We were also looking at Rafaela’s teammate David Hamilton here, so keep him on your radar/watch list. But with him suffering some sort of oblique issue, we’ll turn our attention to the guy who should pick up more starts at shortstop should Hamilton land on the injured list. 

This is a guy who started the year ice cold with a .186 average but has now batted .351 for the month of June and looks like a must-play in fantasy lineups. Rafaela is currently riding a six-game hit streak with five multi-hit performances, two doubles, one home run, three RBI, six runs scored and a stolen base. Despite the current run, we can’t expect him to maintain such lofty numbers as his strikeout rate is still too high. 

We’re talking about a 27.3-percent rate after striking out more than 31-percent of the time over his last 15 games. Still, it's always about striking while the iron is hot, so use him now while you can and maybe consider him a sell-high for now, especially if Hamilton stays off the injured list.

Hunter Brown, SP Houston Astros

After an absolutely atrocious first month of the season in which he posted a 9.78 ERA with a 2.22 WHIP, Brown has turned his entire season around. In fact, he’s actually been doing it since the beginning of May and no one but his current fantasy owners know anything about it. 

Brown was dropped by everyone who invested in him on draft day, but after posting a 3.42 ERA over 26.1 innings in May, Brown has given us a 1.42 ERA over 19 innings already in June. If you are one of those who took Brown off your radar following the hideous first month, put him back on immediately; it might even be too late. Along with the ERA and WHIP improvements we’ve seen, Brown’s strikeout rate has climbed each month while he’s issuing fewer walks and giving up fewer home runs. 

He is coming off back-to-back scoreless outings (13 innings in total) and has now delivered five straight quality starts and struck out at least seven over his last four. With upcoming starts against the White Sox and Rockies (at home in Houston), Brown is definitely a strong trade target.

 

 

 

Fantasy Baseball Stock Watch: Fallers

Josh Lowe, OF Tampa Bay Rays

This one hurts a little because I had very high hopes for Lowe coming into the season. He put together a spectacular year last season, slashing .292/.335/.500 with 20 home runs and 32 stolen bases and we were looking for that power/speed combo to develop further. Unfortunately, injuries derailed things early and watching Lowe try to rebound has not been fun. 

Since returning from a 10-game absence due to an oblique issue, Lowe has just two hits in his last 24 at bats (.083) with three walks and 12 strikeouts, dropping his season-long average to a .189 mark. His OBP is just as horrendous and to make matters even more frustrating to his fantasy owners, he’s been sitting a lot more against lefthanded pitching. 

We already knew manager Kevin Cash favors playing the matchups, so with Lowe producing at this level, it’s going to be tough for him to pull himself out of it. I would look at him as a possible buy-low candidate given the injuries he’s dealt with, but not until after the All-Star break when he can potentially go home and clear his head.

Rhys Hoskins, 1B Milwaukee Brewers

Just when you thought you were getting a 30-homer bat at a discount on Draft Day, Hoskins has turned around and taken a dump on your fantasy plans. He’s got 10 home runs on the year so far, but they come with a crippling .218 average and, over the last two weeks, a 31.1-percent strikeout rate. 

Based on his career history, we were expecting a K-rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 to 25-percent, but all of this has come with a huge drop in both batting average, OBP and ISO. We tend to see this a lot with veterans who get shipped out by the only team they’ve ever known, but you would have thought going to Milwaukee would have been a nice landing spot. 

Instead, he’s batting .224 at home with a 30-percent strikeout rate and most of his power and production coming on the road. He’s got some tough matchups coming up, but there is a four-game series at Coors Field which might be nice. Can we just sit him until then?

Jesus Luzardo, SP Miami Marlins

Is there a more Jekyll & Hyde pitcher than Luzardo right now? We know there is tremendous talent overall, but the rollercoaster ride we’ve had to endure this season has been tough to take. Early in the year, he was getting obliterated, but we gave him a pass as his blowups came against the Yankees and Braves. 

But he opened June getting pummeled by the Rays for nine runs over just 4.1 innings and has now allowed 16 earned runs over his last 21 innings (four starts). Even worse is the 1.57 WHIP with a 12:8 K:BB in that span. Now, we are hearing that Luzardo is, and maybe has been, dealing with a back issue, so his upcoming schedule might be a little up in the air.

Tentatively, he is slated to get a home start against a strikeout-prone Mariners club and then he heads to Philadelphia. The Marlins are evaluating him as you are reading this, so he may not even get this start against Seattle. And I certainly don’t want to use him against the Phillies, who own a .336 wOBA against lefthanded pitching.