Sleeper hitters for Week 20 (Aug. 3-9)
Ty France has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball over the past month-plus, batting .343 (34 for 99) with eight home runs in his past 27 games, so he's almost too obvious of a recommendation with the Padres having the most favorable hitter matchups. The trick is whether you can fit another first baseman in your lineup.
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A.J. Ewing has really settled in over his past 30 games, batting .287 (33 for 115) with five homers and seven steals, and probably shouldn't be available in as many leagues as he is. There's nothing special about the Mets' matchups this week, but since they're not exactly prohibitive, no need to overthink it.
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The waiver wire is looking pretty bleak, to be honest, which is why I'm going back to the Bryce Eldridge well even though he's been quiet in July and the Giants' matchups are middle of the road this week. His data set is still strong enough that I wouldn't want to shy away from him in favor of some scrub on the waiver wire.
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Once again, the recommendation here is less about the matchups than the hitter himself. Heriberto Hernandez is batting .261 (42 for 161) with 14 homers and a .916 OPS in 45 games since the start of June and might be the most under-rostered hitter in all of Fantasy.
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Bryson Stott has also been swinging a hot bat since the start of June, which is long enough that it may not be just a hot streak. Of course, he has only two home runs during that stretch to go along with a .292 (52 for 178) batting average and seven stolen bases, so the upside is pretty limited. You can trust him to maximize it with the Phillies' second-ranked hitter schedule, though.
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Jackson Holliday has been piling up multi-hit games recently for a .519 batting average in his past eight games, though only two of his 14 hits during that stretch have been for extra bases (both doubles). There isn't compelling evidence yet that he's broken through, but the matchups are favorable enough for him to sustain this hot streak, hopefully, featuring pitchers like Grayson Rodriguez, Ryan Johnson, Kumar Rocker and Cal Quantrill.
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Enough with the matchup plays. I'm back to pointing out hitters who are simply under-rostered during this sad week for waiver wire pickups. The Rockies have a home series and an away series, with middling matchups across the board, but Cole Carrigg has sustained a quality slash line during his brief stay in the bigs and is batting .361 (13 for 36) in his past 10 games.
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The Phillies have a slate full of mashable pitchers like Zack Littell, Jake Irvin, Miles Mikolas, Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber, so I need to identify someone other than Bryson Stott who could take advantage. Why not Alec Bohm, who has an OPS about 100 points better at home, which is where all seven of the Phillies' games are this week?
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How thin is my reasoning getting for these hitter recs? Heliot Ramos had a four-hit game Wednesday and has a ton of red on his Baseball Savant page. Sign me up!
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Ryan Waldschmidt actually has looked a lot better since returning from the minors, batting .333 (11 for 33) and hitting the ball 91.6 mph on average, but because he hasn't been playing quite every day, I can only rank him 10th here even with the Diamondbacks having the third-best hitter matchups. It helps that three of the seven pitchers on tap are lefties, against whom he has a .342 batting average and .864 OPS.
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