Fantasy Baseball Trade Targets For Week 7
As we head into Week 7, finding clear values on the trade market is becoming harder. Players are starting to perform more in line with their expected stats, and buy-low candidates that I mentioned in previous weeks such as Lars Nootbaar, Randy Arozarena, and Christopher Morel are showing signs of breaking out. Even though there are fewer expected stat outliers than before, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of great trade targets. Here are five players who you should be looking to trade for or trade away based on their current performance compared to their previous track records.
Buy-Low Candidates
Xander Bogaerts, 2B/SS, Padres
Xander Bogaerts has been one of the season’s biggest disappointments, slashing just .211/.264/.301 with three home runs and two stolen bases through the first month and a half. His expected stats are better (.257 xBA, .353 xSLG), but those are still bad numbers for his standards. Nothing in his underlying metrics looks overly encouraging, but they also aren’t far off from what he did last season. He is striking out at a 20.2% clip, 4% more than in 2023, and has a hard-hit of only 26.2%, although his hard-hit rate last year was also low at 34.6%. His quality of contact metrics were poor overall last season when he still managed to bat .285 with 19 home runs and 19 stolen bases, so I’m not overly concerned about those same bad metrics this year. His xBA right now is actually better than it was last year, and he has a 34.9% sweet spot rate which has increased from 28.3%. It certainly seems like Bogaerts’ best years are behind him, but I think he is still just about the same player as he was a year ago. I’m chalking this up to a cold streak, and maybe his home run on Sunday is the start of him turning things around. I still value him as a top-10 second baseman and shortstop, and you should be able to get him for very cheap right now.
Logan Webb, SP, Giants
Logan Webb is another player who doesn’t look all that much different from last season but is getting vastly different results. He has a decent 3.38 ERA but an unsightly 1.39 WHIP this season while striking out 42 over 53.1 innings. His ground ball rate of 59.2% puts him in the top 5% of the league, but he has a poor average exit velocity of 90.6 mph and a strikeout rate of only 18.6%. However, these numbers are almost the same as what he put up in 2023. It’s just the type of pitcher he is and is exactly what we expected out of him on draft day. He won’t be a good source of strikeouts and will give up hard contact at times, but he will limit the damage with his elite groundball rate and reliably pitch deep into games. His primary pitch, his changeup, has gotten hit hard this year (.346 xBA compared to .236 last year), but stretches like that can happen for pitchers that pitch to contact. Overall, Webb has been excellent this year in 6 of his 9 starts, with rough outings coming against the Dodgers, Phillies, and the Red Sox all on the road. He still will get half his starts in his pitcher-friendly home ballpark, and his stats are being skewed right now by a few pretty tough road matchups. I have full confidence in Webb as a top-15 starting pitcher for the rest of the season, and he is even more valuable in points leagues or leagues that reward quality starts. I would take him over Shota Imanaga, although you should be able to acquire him for less than that.
Jake Burger, 1B/3B, Marlins
Jake Burger had a very good first week of the season, before cooling off and missing time with an oblique injury. He’s now hitting just .183 on the season with three home runs in 22 games. He has a better xBA of .230, and his whiff rate of 26.8% and strikeout rate of 22.6% actually represent career bests for the slugger. He also still has a hard-hit rate of 46.7% and an elite average bat speed of 75.3 mph, so there are no concerns that he lost any power. He showed considerable improvements in batting average after getting traded to the Marlins last season, and he seemed to be carrying that over early this season. I think it’s only a matter of time before he gets hot again and still view him as a top-15 third baseman with the upside for more. He shouldn’t cost you much on the trade market and is a no-brainer to acquire if your team is lacking power.
Sell-High Candidates
James Paxton, SP, Dodgers
I’m not sure how he’s doing it, but James Paxton has maintained a 2.58 ERA while having an expected ERA of 5.97 and walking more batters (24) than he’s struck out (22) over 38.1 innings. Add in his extensive injury history, and this might be the most clear example of a sell-high player that has ever existed. He has a 5-0 record with 3 quality starts and honestly looks like a solid pitcher for fantasy if you take a very brief look at his surface-level stats. However, it’s not sustainable for a pitcher who is walking more batters than over 90% of the league and striking out fewer batters than over 90% of the league. He also has a 41.7% hard-hit rate, 36.5% ground ball rate, and 9.6% barrel rate, which confirms that there isn’t a single thing to like about Paxton as a pitcher right now. The only positive thing is he will have a better chance at wins with the Dodgers lineup supporting him, but he is worth trading for any pitcher with even a little bit of value. He falls outside of my top-100 starting pitchers and it’s not particularly close, so he shouldn’t even be rostered in any league that is shallower than 15 teams.
Brent Rooker, OF, Athletics
Brent Rooker has been one of the best hitters in the entire league, slashing .292/.380/.632 with 10 home runs, 20 runs, 27 runs batted in, and 2 stolen bases through his first 30 games. His .611 xSLG, .410 xwOBA, and 17.2% barrel rate all rank in the 95th percentile or higher, with his only downside being a high 32.5% strikeout rate. The power is real, but that was already evident from last season when he hit 30 home runs with a 15.6% barrel rate and 49.5% hard-hit rate that both ranked within the top 10 percent of the league. If he’s hitting the ball just as hard as last year and is striking out just as often as last year, did anything change? I do think he can be a fantasy-relevant outfielder, but I have a hard time believing that this is anything more than a hot streak. I believe in his ability to reach 30 home runs again, but his counting stats will lag behind as part of the weak Oakland lineup, and his extremely high strikeout rate will make him unusable at times when he cools off. He is certainly valuable in 15-team, five-outfielder leagues, but he will most likely end up back on the waiver wire at some point in anything shallower than that. Now would be the best time to trade him if you can, or just ride out whatever is left of this current hot streak.
