Leaderboard of the Week: Under-Rostered Hitters

The leaderboard this week contains performing but under-rostered hitters. To find the players, I found the hitters with at least 80 plate appearances and a sub-50 percent rostership rate in the NFBC RotoWire Online Championship. With those two caveats, I ranked the hitters by their OPS over the last 30 days. OPS is the best mainstream stat that correlates most strongly with fantasy production.

Here are the top-25. 

Tristan Peters: While Peters doesn't have much power (two homers, 25 percent hard hit rate), he provides a great batting average (.303) and a few steals (four). He has been leveling up as the season has gone on by striking out less and hitting for more power, making him a solid bench bat. 

Kyle Manzardo: Manzardo will provide power (27 home runs last year, seven this year), but is usually on the strong side of a platoon. He started the season off horribly with a .512 OPS in April and has recently taken off (1.157 OPS in June). I wonder if he was hurt at the start of the season, but he is on fire now.

Maybe he'll get to start against lefties since he has a .355/.429/.484 slash line against them this year. 

Joc Pederson: Pederson's biggest issue keeping down his value is that fantasy managers don't see him as a good enough bat to clog up their utility spot. Only four utility-only batters have a rostership rate over 21 percent: Kyle Schwarber, Shohei Ohtani, Christian Yelich and Bryce Eldridge. 

On top of that, he only plays against right-handed pitchers. Power-deprived teams will eventually add him for the home runs. 

Coby Mayo: Since May 11, Mayo has six home runs (.304 ISO) in 77 plate appearances. Before May 11, his Bat Speed averaged 75 mph. Since then, it has averaged 76.2 mph. His barrel rate is up from six percent to 18 percent. 

Mayo's biggest issue, besides the cholesterol, is that he crushes lefties (1.109 OPS, six homers), but can't hit righties (.445 OPS, three homers). Blaze Alexander is stealing some starts since he's solid against righties (.760 OPS). 

Jacob Young: Young added some power this offseason with his bat speed up 1.2 mph and his  average exit velocity up 1.6 mph. In 1,006 plate appearances before this season, he has five home runs. He already has eight homers in 223 plate appearances this year. 

Most fantasy managers drafted him for his steals (61 stolen bases over the previous two seasons). This year, he has five steals so far, but he could be a solid 15/15 to 20/20 guy. Some team in every league needs him.

J.P. Crawford: Crawford was showing signs (10 homers in 233 plate appearances) of a return to his 2023 power outburst but ended up on the injured list Monday (hand). In 2023, he hit 19 home runs with a career-high 88.3 mph average exit velocity. He tied that power mark this year. Also, his nie percent barrel rate is almost double that of any other season. 

While he might not be rosterable when on the IL, as long as his injury doesn't sap too much power, he should be added once healthy. 

Brandon Valenzuela: The big question surrounding Valenzuela will be whether he stays in the majors when Alejandro Kirk comes off the IL, which should happen any day now. Reading between the lines, I see him getting demoted. That's too bad, since Valenzuela has been a solid catching option with seven homers and a .252 average in 141 plate appearances. 

Rhys Hoskins: Only five starts in the last 10 games for Hoskins. Unrosterable due to the lack of playing time. 

Michael Massey: I've never been a fan of Massey, but he seems to have unleashed another level of power. His bat speed is up from 70.1 mph to 72.1 mph, thereby doubling his barrel rate and tripling his ISO from .069 to .199.  

So far, he has six homers in 150 plate appearances, for a full-season pace of 25 homers.

Yohendrick Pinango: While Pinango is taking advantage of a .375 BABIP to hit .312/.348/.468, his playing time has already been sparse (six starts in the last 10 games). It could go down even more once Addison Barger comes off the IL. 

If Pinango stays in the majors, expect a batting-average-driven profile with mid-teens home run power.

Nathaniel Lowe: Strong-side platoon bat who already has nine home runs, taking advantage of a small home park, where he's hit eight of those homers. His value is 100 percent tied to his playing time. If there are six or more righties on the Reds schedule, he's a must-stream. 

Andrew Benintendi: He struggled to get his footing in April with a 35 percent strikeout rate. Since the start of May, he has lowered his strikeout rate to 21 percent. Like so many of the guys I examined, all his value is tied to who is the next game's opposing pitcher is since he's on the strong side of a platoon. 

Kyle Karros: I liked the talent and playing time for Karros coming into the season, but he struggled with a .602 OPS in April. In June, it's a .981 OPS. Most of the improvement comes from dropping his strikeout rate from 26.1 percent to 16.5 percent since May 10.  

While he didn't start the year with much power, his bat speed is up 1.0 mph. He's worth streaming when the Rockies are home.