Fantasy baseball trade value rankings: Buy low on Austin Riley, sell high on Nolan Jones

Every week in this space, in addition to updating our rest-of-the-way rankings for the top 200 players in fantasy baseball, I always try to highlight two players to buy low and two players to sell high. And loath as I am to toot my own horn, well, if you haven’t been paying attention, you’ve missed out on some bargains. Take last week, for example: The two buys we chose were St. Louis Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras and Tampa Bay Rays righty Tyler Glasnow, and all they’ve done since is put up a 1.029 OPS and strike out 12 in five dominant innings, respectively.

This is a crucial time on the fantasy calendar, when draft capital and sentiment need to be put to the side and it’s time to figure out who can get your team to the promised land, so let’s get to this week’s rankings. As usual, not only will we rank the top 200 players for fantasy baseball (5x5 roto), but we also break down who’s rising, who’s falling and who we recommend targeting on the trade market. Whose hot start is fool’s gold? Who’s about to turn the corner? Read on for this week’s list, and for an explanation of why Nolan Jones and Yusei Kikuchi might belong on your trading block.

Buy

• After busting out with 38 homers and a .273 average in 2022 – numbers supported by strong metrics like a 50.8% hard-hit rate, 15.7% barrel rate, .255 ISO, and .378 xwOBA — Austin Riley has been a minor disappointment for fantasy managers in 2023. Entering play Tuesday, he was hitting .269 with 14 dingers, which, for a guy whose fantasy value is pretty much entirely derived from his ability to hit for power and average (in a very good lineup) isn’t quite what you’d hope. Better things could be coming soon, though: the slugger has turned things around of late, batting .288 with a .339 on-base percentage, an 11.7% barrel rate, and a 49.2% hard-hit rate in 174 plate appearances since May 14 — including a homer in last night’s barrage against Joe Ryan and the Minnesota Twins. Here’s his wOBA over his last 50 plate appearances:

Based on that trend, his buy-low window could close fast.

• We who spend our time scouring for trade targets should really thank Pablo Lopez, as the Twins righty has made it abundantly clear that a breakout is coming while still doing enough to keep his stock relatively low. Just look at his last three starts: Lopez has struck out a whopping 28 batters in 17.2 innings, but some bad BABIP and sequencing luck has resulted in 10 earned runs on just 17 hits — none of which have been homers. Among pitchers with 150 balls in play, Lopez ranks seventh in xERA and eighth in xwOBA, and his 86th-percentile K rate and 73rd-percentile expected slugging also point to an elite pitcher. Soon enough his batted-ball luck is going to turn, and the Ks will come with strong ratios — making him a potential top-20 arm moving forward.

Sell

• We saw Riley’s last 50 plate appearances trending up like a rocket ship. Well, here’s the same stat for Colorado Rockies breakout rookie Nolan Jones:

Still in the red, but not what you want. Jones is two for his last 17, and that could be the beginning of a prolonged slide — the former top prospect is striking out a whopping 31.5% of the time, and despite all his physical gifts, it’s very hard to make that work, even in Coors Field. Jones has flashed in the past only to fizzle out underneath an avalanche of Ks, and if you’ve been an owner who’s benefitted from snagging him off the waiver wire, I’d recommend cutting bait now while you can flip him for something of real value.

• Kikuchi has been cruising lately, allowing just one run on four hits with 14 strikeouts over 13 innings across his last two starts. From context, you can probably guess that I don’t think his breakout year is going to continue much longer, so let’s dig into why.

The most glaring sign is a 5.42 FIP along with a 4.59 expected ERA, but the reality is that despite a lower BB/9 rate, opposing batters are simply making too much loud contact against Kikuchi. Overall, the lefty ranks in the 38th percentile or lower in terms of expected average (.252, 38th percentile), xwOBA (.343, 25th percentile), hard-hit rate (44.4%, 21st percentile), barrel rate (11.2%, 15th percentile) and expected slugging (.492, 12th percentile). Eventually, that’s going to catch up with him, and the reality is that we just don’t have any evidence of Kikuchi pitching this well over an extended period of time. (The right-hander has also been decidedly worse on the road, something that could cap his upside moving forward this season especially in tougher matchups.)

Fantasy baseball trade value rankings: Week 14