Back-Door Sliders: Buy Low Trade Targets
Luis Castillo- SP- Cincinnati Reds
I think I’ve included Castillo in every buy-low article I’ve written this year. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. Maybe I just cannot accept being so wrong. I even swore him off once or twice. But I still believe in Castillo. Full disclosure, he’s not a guy you can just point to advanced stats and show he’s been better than you’d think and his defense let him down. I mean, that is somewhat true. I remind everyone of the infield double he gave up in Denver. You read that right. A weakly hit groundball that didn’t leave the infield ended up being an RBI double. That’s not the full story though. He has truly been really, really bad. He has earned this hole he’s in.
But there are brighter days ahead! Like I Said, I won’t list off a full dossier of stats, but I will point to one thing. Castillo is a very streaky pitcher. He’s prone to long cold streaks. Here are his numbers over the last three full seasons for his worst two month stretch:
2021: 8.63 ERA 1.78 WHIP
2019: 5.08 ERA 1.18 WHIP
2018: 5.50 ERA 1.44 WHIP
You’ll notice this season’s numbers are not good. But let’s be direct. An ERA over 5 is pretty awful as well. He threw darts against the Cardinals in his last start. As the summer heats up, so will Castillo and the opportunity to buy low should still be there. The prices I’m seeing are insane. Syndergaard, Chris Sale. People are actually trading Luis Castillo for guys rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. At risk of sounding arrogant, that is just stupid. In trades that are not foolish, but have very attractive price points, I’m seeing him go for Anthony Desclafani, Tommy Pham, Zack Plesac, Aaron Civale, Kyle Hendricks, Eric Hosmer. I would jump at each and every one of those if available.
Half the hitters on the New York Mets
I figured I would hit them all in one shot to avoid this being a New York Mets article.
More specifically, Francisco Lindor, James McCann and Jeff McNeil. Lindor and McCann have started off about as terribly as possible, while McNeil has been the deadly threat of starting off slow AND getting hurt.
To avoid this one being too long, I will hit one fact on each:
Lindor’s homerun to flyball rate is 7.1 percent. His career average is 14.1 percent, but his hard contact and his overall flyball rate are about the same, which tells me that 7.1 percent rate is a fluke. If Lindor had eight homers instead of four right now, would people be trading him for Gleyber Torres, Joey Wendle, Trevor Rogers or a package of Jed Lowrie and Yandy Diaz?
McCann is a catcher who can hit around MLB average levels. That alone makes him a top 10 option at the position in fantasy baseball. If he continues hitting like he has the last two weeks for the rest of the way, he will produce a 33–22–61–0-.239 line the rest of the season. He won’t bat third the rest of the way. That’s due to all the injuries. But he’s going in deals for Logan Gilbert, Ian Kennedy, Dom Smith (who you’ll notice is not in this list) and Patrick Corbin.
McNeil’s batted ball profile is practically identical to his year over year marks. He’s even making slightly more contact than normal and that additional contact seems to be mostly hard contact. The only major outlier is his BABIP, which is about 90 points below his normal mark. His batting average is about 70 points below his career mark. What do you think happens when that BABIP normalizes? Now, McNeill is currently injured, but he is ahead of schedule in his recovery and tracking for a return at the end of the month. I have seen him traded for guys like Yermin Mercedes and Liam Hendriks. Owners seem less inclined to sell low on him than other players on this list, but I say go for it.
You’ll notice that I didn’t include Dom Smith or Michael Conforto in a section dedicated to the Mets. For what it’s worth, I would normally advocate buying Conforto despite the slow start. He was starting to turn it around in the weeks leading up to the injury. But, his hamstring injury seems to be worse than originally thought. I don’t like buying low on injured players (despite advocating for McNeill above). I think Smith is just a bust. I think last season was a fluke and is a clear outlier to his career norms and his skill set. If you really want him, wait for his owner to drop him, or offer them the worst player on your team for him. Otherwise, I’m avoiding him.
Aaron Nola
Nola has been scuffling recently, with a 1–3 record and a 5.40 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP over his last five starts. Looking at Nola’s numbers though, this is most likely a run of some bad luck. Now, Nola’s velocity is down a hair and he’s allowing more balls to be hit in the air than usual. The differences are pretty minimal though. Looking at Nola’s numbers across the board, it’s pretty difficult to determine a root cause of these struggles. In other words, he’s pitching about the same as he always does, but getting different results. I am not worried about him at all. Also, not for nothing, I’m a Phillies fan and watch him pitch each turn. Even just the eye test says while maybe he’s a little off, it’s not the same as watching guys like Luis Castillo or Kyle Hendricks pitch through a funk.
I didn’t even intend to include Nola here until I noticed some of the trades he was being moved in. I’ve seen him being traded for Jon Gray straight-up. Let that sink in for a second. He’s being traded for Jose Abreu and Pete Alonso, neither of which are a huge discount, but a discount nonetheless. He also seems to be a popular move in two for one deals, which makes sense. If a struggling team has him, that owner may think they need to move on now, despite the fact he’s pitching pretty well. Quantity over quality is critical for teams at the bottom of the standings. Either way, these are the packages I see him moving for: Paul Golschmidt and Steven Matz; Jon Gray and Matt Chapman; Domingo German and Ian Anderson.
Charlie Morton
I’ve written about Morton before in this space. He’s back again. He has been pitching better of late, so this is probably the last opportunity to buy in on him at a discount. Moton’s start to the season was atrocious, so his overall stat line for the season looks alot worse than it really has been. Still sporting a 4.21 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP, you have to hope owners are taking his 3.18 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 28.1 innings with a grain of salt or haven’t noticed it at all. His 3.64 FIP for the season and his abnormally high 17.9 percent homerun to flyball rate tell me that he has run into some bad luck.
Morton still walks too many batters and he no longer has the benefit of the super pitcher-friendly confines of Tropicana Field and the analytics-fueled Tampa Bay defense behind him. So, I don’t expect him to put up 2019 numbers again. But, I think an overall stat line of 13–180–3.65–1.20 is still in play for him at the end of the year. That would place him in the wheelhouse of a top 25 pitcher.
Current trades involving Morton don’t have him valued as a top 25 pitcher however. I’m seeing him on the move straight up for guys like Wil Myers, Adbert Alzolay and Patrick Corbin. This is absolutely nuts to me and screams to me as a buying opportunity.
Eugenio Suarez
Suarez is a much riskier dance than the others. It’s not unheard of for extreme power hitters with subpar contact skills to suddenly fall off the face of the Earth and there remains the possibility that is Suarez right now. He just doesn’t look right at the plate. His timing looks off, he appears off balance, he never really looks like he’s set. All of these things have contributed to a poor start to 2021 for Suarez.
I can’t pretend to be a major league hitting coach, but his swing looks to be in need of an adjustment. His already high strikeout rate is even higher, up to 31.5 percent, he’s walking less at just 7.7 percent and he’s making career low contact in just 68.8 percent of his at-bats. He’s not chasing either, which can often be the root cause of those things. Pitchers are coming right at him, challenging him and there’s just nothing he can do to punish them for it. And people wonder why major league slumps can be so soul crushing.
I believe in the skill set with Suarez though. As I said before, his contact skill has always been subpar. Guys with that working against them are often prone to long slumps and always have the potential to have a bad season here and there. His .165 BABIP is fluky low compared to his .301 career norm however, so even if he is having a down season, I can’t imagine it stays that far down. I expect close a 100 point correction there.
While his hard contact is also down noticeably from his career norm, he still sits around the major league average and he’s hitting more flyballs than usual, despite his homerun to flyball rate being lower than his pique levels. In other words, we’re far enough into the season where his batting average may not recover, but I still see a path to 35 or more taters for him this season. He’s currently batting leadoff, but that’s a move to get him more at bats to work through the slump. It won’t hold the rest of the way, so I expect triple digit RBI’s, or close to it as well.
Let’s face it, you (hopefully) didn’t draft Suarez for anything other than HR and RBI anyway and I think he will deliver on those throughout the summer. I am seeing him move for players like Justin Turner, Kenley Jansen, Nathan Eovaldi, Luis Severino, Gio Urshela, Ian Kennedy and Ian Anderson. There are two closers in that list, neither of whom are elite, being traded for a top 50 overall hitter. That is mouth watering value.
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