This is my last slate of Sorare MLB recommendations before the All-Star break. Having a few days off is a good time to think about your Sorare lineup and make some decisions about where to go from here, right? Maybe you're feeling good about things and will just keep on rolling with what you're going with. If so, you do you. Although, if that was the case, you probably wouldn't be reading this, right? Plus, it's not like the Cubs or the red-hot Blue Jays or my beloved Tigers are just going to sit around and not consider what they could do to improve their lineups. So, to that end, here are my upgrades, holds, and downgrades to take you into the break.
The number in parentheses represents each player's last limited card sale price as of 7/9.
Upgrades
Kyle Stowers, MIA ($5.32): Stowers didn't just merely start the season hot and fade away, a brief blip of a fun story. He has a 1.069 OPS over the last three weeks, a time dotted with games featuring double-digit Sorare points. The thing that stands out for Stowers is that he's racked up 38 barrels. This is a number in line with the likes of Vladimir Guerrero, Kyle Schwarber and Brent Rooker. That's good company for a guy who has come out of relatively nowhere.
Nathan Eovaldi, TEX ($4.10): Injury is the only thing standing in the way of Eovaldi being a Cy Young candidate. In his last nine starts, excluding the two that bookended his triceps injury, Eovaldi has had over 20.0 Sorare points. It's not just that he has a 1.62 ERA. Eovaldi has a 0.85 WHIP, the lowest of any starting pitcher. I know WHIP isn't the most substantive stat, but it's good enough that if you lead MLB in it, it's quite impressive.
Nick Gonzales, PIT ($2.54): The Pirates don't have a very good offense. Okay, they have a bad offense. Gonzales is a 26-year-old second baseman who hasn't played over 100 games in an MLB season yet. Sure, he has a .903 OPS over the last three weeks, and this week he had 13.0 Sorare points in a game against the Royals. He's making very loud contact over that stretch, too, managing a 51.7 percent hard hit rate in that sample. Pretty impressive for a second baseman.
Holds
Cam Smith, HOU ($14.20): The Astros had Smith, a top prospect acquired from the Cubs in the Kyle Tucker trade, start his age-22 season with the big-league club, and he's had a regular role. He has a .348 OBP and 16 doubles, and recently he had a stretch of three games in a row with double-digit Sorare points (albeit with two of them coming in Coors Field). I'm just here to keep you from getting too enthused about a promising player, though. One, his .434 slugging percentage, while not bad, is far from remarkable. Two, he has a .388 BABIP. That is quite high. Some hitters do prove capable of routinely having high BABIPs, but it's too early to assume Smith is one of them.
Carlos Rodon, NYY ($5.57): It's not just that Rodon was rocked by Mets in his last start, yielding only 5.5 Sorare points. This has been Rodon's best season as a Yankee. His strikeouts and groundballs are up, while his line drives are down. The issue, and the reason for pause, is once again BABIP. This is the flipside of Smith, though. Rodon has a .228 BABIP, which is the lowest in MLB. Obviously, that is going to rise, and when that happens, Rodon's numbers are likely to get a bit worse.
Alec Bohm, PHI ($5.06): In each of the last two seasons, Bohm has had 97 RBI. In each of those seasons he had at least 15 homers, and last season he had 44 doubles as well. This season, the third baseman has a .282 average, which is business as usual for him. That being said, he has eight homers and 12 doubles through 89 games. What's the deal? Bohm's groundball rate is up to 50.2 percent. Half of his hits have been on the ground, and Bohm is no speed demon. Hitting homers on the ground is next to impossible, and hitting doubles can be tricky as well. Thus, Bohm may be hitting for average, but he's not hitting for power.
Downgrades
Jeffrey Springs, ATH ($4.17): When he was with the Rays, and when he was healthy, Springs was a good pitcher. His 3.92 ERA with the Athletics seems…okay. However, it's paired with a 4.78 FIP and 4.77 xFIP. His strikeout rate is down to 7.05 per nine innings, and a possible culprit is clear. With a fastball that averages 90.5 miles per hour, Springs is one of the slowest-throwing qualified starters in MLB. No wonder his line-drive rate is 22.0 percent.
Luis Arraez, SDP ($4.10): The thing with Arraez is that his skill set and what generates Sorare points don't necessarily go hand in hand. His ability to avoid strikeouts is remarkable. He's finished with a batting average under .300 just once in his career, though he's threatening to make it twice this season. However, recently Arraez had a game with four hits. They were all singles, no runs were scored, and he notched 7.0 Sorare points. That's all well and good, but it isn't exciting. Plus, Arraez is quite slow. His 20.9 feet/second sprint speed is bottom 10 in MLB, in line with the likes of Nolan Arenado and Vladimir Guerrero.
Bryan Reynolds, PIT ($2.33): Turning 30 is no death knell for MLB players, but Reynolds' age-30 season has been a disaster. He has a .290 OBP and a .372 slugging percentage. With 10 homers and three stolen bases, he's not likely to get to 20 of the former and 10 of the latter for the third season in a row. His strikeouts more than triple his walks, he's grounded into 11 doubles plays, and over the last three weeks he has a .699 OPS. Thirty, flirty and thriving Reynolds is not. Well, maybe he's flirty, I couldn't tell you, but he's definitely not thriving.
