[hitter_list list_id=”21712″ include_stats=”1″ season=”2018″]
Welcome back to Hitter List. Every Wednesday during the regular season, I’ll rank the current value of the top 150 hitters for the remainder of the year. Use these rankings to help get a sense of both a player’s expected performance and his trade value in your fantasy leagues moving forward. They’re constructed with 12-teamer, H2H, 5×5 leagues in mind; adjust as needed for your specific setup. Position eligibility does factor in to a degree.
As a reminder: There’s still well over half the year of baseball left to be played, and these are rest of season rankings. We’re interested in the long view ’round these parts. That said, adjustments to the List are more aggressive as we move deeper into the year. With that should come the acknowledgment that small shifts in a specific player’s ranking are often as much a consequence of other players’ more drastic movements as anything else. This is especially true when injuries occur. Put another way, please do not @ me if a guy moved up like two spots even if he’s failed to get a hit in the last couple games. I do, however, welcome more substantive grievances in the comments.
On to the highlights!
- Injury roundup: A fairly quiet week for injuries, at least among hitters…until Tuesday night, when Miguel Cabrera ruptured his bicep, rendering him out for the year. It obviously removes him from the List, and it’s another sad chapter in his injury-ravaged decline. He had shown some life still in the bat when healthy, but ultimately suited up for only 38 games this season. We’ve had a couple of vets linger on the disabled list, such as Yoenis Cespedes, but we also welcomed back both Adam Eaton and Daniel Murphy this week. Of course, as I wrote last week, I’m pretty concerned about the latter’s recovery from microfracture surgery.
- New to or back on the List this week: Max Muncy, Jurickson Profar, Miguel Andujar, and
- Dustin Fowler. Can’t ignore what these guys are doing. Andujar in particular feels one I should have been getting yelled at about before last week. Love Fowler’s xStats, pop and speed combo, and his new role as leadoff man in Oakland. With regard to Muncy, I think Jeff Sullivan put it about as well as anyone could. Statcast buys the performance, and actually suggests he’s been better than even his .416 wOBA would have you believe. Of the new additions, I’m probably least excited about Profar since most of his value is tied to run production, but good on him for finding his way into the middle of lineup after looking like he’d never taste success at the highest level.
- Honorable Mentions: Jonathan Villar (roster crunch, lack of run production), and Joc Pederson (playing time concerns, hot streak clearly just that).
- The largest drop of the week (besides Miggy, that is…dangit) goes to Ender Inciarte, to make up for my being incredible slow on the uptake. He’s quit stealing bases and just looks terrible at the plate these days. His cold snap neatly coincides with my slide into irrelevance in the PitcherList staff league, which may or may not have me feeling vindictive…but the numbers don’t lie, and they’re ugly.
