Fantasy Baseball: 5 Late-Round Hitters With Power Upside
1. Joc Pederson, Los Angeles Dodgers
NFBC ADP: 204.45 | Hard-Hit Rate: 38.7% | Fly-Ball Rate: 39.7%
Joc Pederson has hit at least 25 home runs in each of his first two seasons, and he doesn't turn 25 until April. He probably shouldn't be going this late.
Pederson had an injury-shortened campaign in 2016, but he still managed to produce across the board for fantasy owners. In addition to 25 home runs, he had 64 runs and 68 RBI in just 476 plate appearances, a number we should expect to go up this year. Pederson is pegged to play every day thanks to improvements against lefties, according to Andy McCullough of The Los Angeles Times, only enhancing the incentive to roll the dice.
The big drawback of Pederson is the limit his strikeout rate puts on his batting average. He finished 2016 with a .246 average, a major improvement from the year before, but still something that's going to hurt you in leagues in which that is a category. Thankfully, there were some positive signs for his plate discipline.
Here are Pederson's marks in 2016 compared to 2015. Swinging-strike rate is the percentage of pitches that result in a whiff, and contact rate is the percentage of swings on which the player makes contact.
| Season | Strikeout Rate | Swinging-Strike Rate | Contact Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 29.1% | 14.0% | 66.7% |
| 2016 | 27.3% | 10.3% | 75.0% |
It didn't translate into his being a born-again strikeout avoider, but Pederson did make serious strides in his bat-to-ball skills. If he can continue those in 2017, it would allow his batting average to inflate, making his appeal even greater.
Finally, we may not have seen all that Pederson has to offer in the stolen-base department.
He swiped a pedestrian six bags last year, but in the minors, he was far more active. Pederson had at least 26 steals each year from 2011 through 2014, a skill he hasn't yet fully flashed in the majors. He's already worth his draft cost based on what he did in 2016, but the hypothetical growth he could exhibit presents gobs of upside.
