MLB

Fantasy Baseball Mailbag: Monday 6/13/16

Jim Sannes  —  @JimSannes Jun 13th, 2016
Julio Teheran has been pitching better on the road this season. Is it time to start buying him in season-long fantasy baseball?

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Now, enough of that. Let's dig into today's mailbag and see what's popping in the world of fantasy baseball.

If I'm the one giving up Corey Kluber, Evan Gattis (also known as El Oso Blanco), and Billy Hamilton, I think that's a trade I'd be willing to make. However, my main target in doing so wouldn't necessarily be Jake Arrieta; rather, Julio Teheran is a guy we should be buying right now.

Outside of his still-present struggles against left-handed batteers, Teheran has always had another weakness in his game, and that was pitching outside of Atlanta. His ERA on the road last year was 5.40 compared to 2.89 at home, and it was a 1.57-run differential the year before. It seems as if he has corrected that ill this year in a way that is sustainable moving forward.

Teheran's road ERA this year is 2.55, actually better than his 3.18 mark at home. It'd be a bit early to put much stock in those numbers, but he backs it up by holding a 23.8% strikeout rate on the road and 22.8% at home. Additionally, Teheran's walk rate on the road has fallen to 5.0% this year, making him look like he's actually turning into a pretty decent road hurler. Although he's still going to have some issues when facing lefty-heavy lineups, it does at least seem as if Teheran is making improvements that we should be accounting for in our evaluations.

This isn't an attempt to toss shade at Arrieta, who is clearly tremendous. Opponents make hard contact against him only 22.4% of the time, and his strikeout rate is respectable at 26.5%. It's just that the collective population appears to be valuing him properly right now, and that may not necessarily be the case with Teheran.

All of this could change based on what your team's needs are. If you're thin at catcher, then Gattis isn't a guy I'd be looking to move. His 34.5% hard-hit rate this year is one of the better marks among all catchers, and his 39.7% fly-ball rate is going to give him serious dinger potential. That's a valuable asset given the nature of the position, and his moonlighting at designated hitter allows him to stay in the lineup with more regularity than others. If you can make this deal without him, it would make sense to do so as I'd rather be buying him than selling at the moment.

In that same vein, Kluber isn't necessarily a guy to sell at the moment, either. His 3.36 SIERA is higher than his 2.98 mark last year, but it also indicates that his 3.65 ERA will be due to come down soon. People may be down on Kluber thanks to a relatively slow start, and his peripherals are still decent despite some decline. He's another guy you could potentially buy; it just happens to be in this scenario that I'd prefer the other side of the deal.

With all of this in mind, it might be worthwhile to see if you can craft a deal in which you acquire Teheran without giving up Kluber or Gattis. It's possible that the other party is only willing to do this in order to bulk up at catcher, in which case that may not be possible, but Teheran is the one guy on the other side of that trade I'd really be looking to buy. If you can't, then I'd still make the deal because picking up Arrieta would be great, but teaming Teheran with Kluber and Gattis could make for some fun down the stretch.

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