The metric too look for if you need steals

With just one month remaining in the fantasy baseball season, category management should be one of your main priorities.

If you need power, you should be loading up with home run hitters with strong RBI totals. If you need strikeouts, it’s time to take those middle relievers out of your lineup and start streaming in more starting pitching. And if you need speed, you better start looking at teams who are running and try to land a few guys who are currently contributing.

Stolen bases once again are at a premium, so you need to be careful where you look to find help. The Nationals look great with 43 steals since the All-Star break, but the bulk of that work is coming from Trea Turner, Victor Robles, Juan Soto and Adam Eaton — all of whom are most definitely owned in your league.

You could try to see if you can squeeze a few steals out of fringe guys like Howie Kendrick or Gerardo Parra, but are you really maximizing your potential? Probably not.

Though the Marlins have just 13 stolen bases in the second half, seven of them have come from outfielder Jon Berti, hardly a household name even in fantasy circles. The Fish have nothing to lose here in the final month of the 2019 season, and letting Berti run wild on the bases is likely something we will see over the final 30 days. He has three steals over his past seven games heading into Friday, and his .350 on-base percentage is encouraging when looking for players with opportunity.

In Arizona, though the rest of the fantasy community is staring at Jarrod Dyson and Ketel Marte, a pivot to Tim Locastro just might be the cure for what ails your team. The Diamondbacks have logged 24 stolen bases in the second half, with an 83 percent success rate, and they are vying for a wild card spot. Locastro has just as many stolen bases in the second half as Marte does and is sporting a very robust .371 OBP.

As you continue to look through your league’s free agent list, be sure to narrow your search to the most recent weeks. The second half is a good place to start, and from there you should examine the entire team’s stolen base total and success rate. If they’re pushing a success rate of 70 percent or better, they likely will keep running. If you dive into their roster, there are sure to be a number of names available to you. Kevin Newman, Keston Hiura, Tommy Edman and Roman Quinn — the names aren’t lit up on a marquee, but they’ll certainly boost your speed totals over the final month.

Howard Bender is the VP of operations and head of content at Fantasy Alarm.com. Follow him on Twitter @rotobuzzguy and catch him on the award-winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 4-6 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy sports advice, MLB lineups and DFS weather updates.

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