Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Buying hot streaks for Mike Leake, Joc Pederson?

Are recent surges from Mike Leake and Joc Pederson for real? Heath Cummings looks at that and other waiver wire adds.

More Fantasy Baseball: Prospect Report: Reyes' injury fallout | What to expect from rookie SPs ROS | These hitters aren't just on hot streaks | Ranking the top DL stashes   

It's a long season. A really long season. If you stay healthy and stay on a major league roster, the season is long enough that odds are you'll have a hot streak where you look like you've reached a new plane. Sometimes it's real, but often it's just one of many peaks and valleys along the way. 

That can be frustrating for a Fantasy owner, especially one who is active on the waiver wire. If you chase every hot streak, it's probably not going to end well. If you ignore every hot streak you're going to miss out on some really good players. With that in mind, today we're going to look at some of the hottest players in baseball,and see what we expect moving forward.

Over his last four starts Mike Leake has been an extremely productive Fantasy asset. He's thrown 29.2 innings and given up just six earned runs. He has more wins than walks allowed. Sure, he's still not striking anyone out, but he's been productive otherwise. In fact, it's been a pretty productive season outside of a few of terrible starts. And we've seen this from Leake before. 

In four of the past five years Leake has posted an ERA below four, despite having one of the lowest strikeout rates in baseball. He's done it with elite control, and often a dose of good fortune. We talked in the preseason about how he was overlooked, especially in points leagues, and his ownership suggests that's still true.

The point here is that I don't think Leake has reached any new level. To me, he's still somewhere in between what Lance Lynn used to be and what Lynn is now. I'm going to start Leake in good parks against most offenses and against bad offenses in most parks. I'd like to keep him on my roster because I think that means you're starting him more often than not, but he's also not someone I'd call must-own. Next week he has two starts against the Angels and Red Sox at home. In a daily league these are the types of matchups I'd avoid, but in a two-start week, I'll start him in a points league.

The difference between Leake and Joc Pederson is Pederson is still young enough we can dream about his upside. And boy, has he been dreamy lately. Pederson has five home runs in his last five games and he's only struck out once in that stretch. For the year his OPS is up to .857, and his strikeout rate is at a career-low 14.4 percent. Those certainly sound like breakout numbers.

The key to a true Pederson breakout would be if the Dodgers let him try to hit lefties again, and then whether he could actually do it. For his career, Pederson has hit .182 against lefties with a 30.8 percent strikeout rate. In 2018 the Dodgers have given him just 21 plate appearances against them and he's hitting .158. The only bright side is the strikeout rate is just 9.5 percent. 

Until Pederson is playing every day he remains close to un-ownable in a three outfielder league. But more than 25 percent of our leagues are five-outfielder leagues, and he should be owned in all of those.

On Thursday Jeimer Candelario picked up two more hits, including a double, and now has a .958 OPS over the last 14 days. Despite missing time due to injury, he's the No. 15 third baseman in Fantasy, and he's easily inside the top-12 on a per game basis. Candelario was a weird player coming into the year because I liked his profile as a hitter in points, but the deeper format is Roto and I wasn't sure he'd make a big impact in either. His surprising power numbers (nine home runs) have made that look foolish.

The thing about Candelario is that everything he's done so far looks pretty sustainable. Sure, his BABIP might be a little high, but he's also seen his strikeout percentage go up despite a really good eight percent swinging strike rate. I expect Candelario to be a borderline No. 1 third baseman for the rest of the season. You're starting him anywhere you start a corner infielder, and maybe even at third base in a 12-team league.

When Jhoulys Chacin moved from the Padres to the Brewers I really thought we'd be done talking about him. After all, he was only good in San Diego last year. Then, when he made is first start in San Diego as the road team and only lasted 3 1/3 innings I was convinced.

But he's back.

In his last five starts, Chacin has a 2.45 ERA, which has lowered his season ERA to 3.39. As you can see above, that's caused his ownership to rise to almost 50 percent. But I'm here to tell you it's not going to last. Chacin has a 17 percent strikeout rate and a 10 percent walk rate. He's allowing a 40 percent hard contact rate. This is almost entirely smoke and mirrors. His xFIP is 4.84 and his SIERA is 4.95. His ownership is at least 25 points too high.

Yeah, we're going to talk about Matt Boyd again. How could we not? Boyd held the Boston Red Sox — in Fenway no less — to two runs over 6 1/3 innings. He's given up two or fewer runs in four of his last five starts. He has a 3.20 ERA in June. And I still can't figure out how he's doing it. 

Boyd's 19 percent strikeout rate and 9.2 percent walk rate are just slightly better than Chacin's. His 34 percent hard contact rate is fine, but not anything special, and probably canceled out by his minuscule 30.3 percent ground ball rate. His 3.97 FIP is above average but the xFIP (5.03) and SIERA (4.82) are still terrible. This is exactly the type of pitcher that I generally tell you not to believe in. But I've done that so many times already this year. 

Boyd's next start comes against a Twins team that has the sixth-highest strikeout rate against lefties this year. They're also below average in wOBA and wRC+. I can't bring myself to say you should trust Boyd next week, but I understand why you're considering it.