Fantasy Baseball 2017: Best of June

We are now 3 full months into baseball season. Let’s take a look back at June. I will look at the best hitters, power and speed wise, the best starters, from strikeout artists to ERA & WHIP leaders, and the best closers, with emphasis on saves. I will also talk about what stood out to me in this past month’s sample of stats. Here we go!

Trea Turner was the #1 overall hitter in June. Bittersweet news as Turner recently suffered a broken wrist and will likely be out for some time. Andrew McCutchen has come back to life in a huge way hitting .411 in the month of June. Very solid in the other categories for the veteran Pirates OF as well. Michael Taylor definitely stands out on this list. He had a great June contributing across the board. Unfortunately, the K rate for Taylor is still right in line with his career percentage. We will see if Taylor can keep up the production in spite of his strikeout rates in July.

The criteria for the top sluggers of April are 9+ HR or 25+ RBI. 14 players reach one of those marks in June. 6 hitter did both. Cody Bellinger led the way with 13 homers in June. Bellinger has went from dynasty league high upside prospect to top 40 fantasy stud in a matter of a couple of months. The sky’s the limit with the Dodgers All Star. Mike Zunino led all hitter in June with 31 RBI. The career .200 hitter had a .304 average over the past month. Nolan Arenando had 27 RBI in June despite just 3 home runs. I don’t expect this to continue but a very interesting month for the Rockies 3B.

This month saw 8 player with 7 or more stolen bases. Turner stole 9 more bases than the next closest player, Dee Gordon at 13 SB. Again, low power numbers for all the top speedsters. Elvis Andrus stands out having hit 3 HR and 18 RBI in June. Nothing crazy, but still very positive contribution from a player who is not normally giving fantasy owners any power production.

Corey Kluber takes the top spot on the pitching side. His 64 Ks, which led all pitchers, played a big part in his dominate June, but his 1.26 ERA and 0.67 WHIP make him the best. Right now he is on another level. Jason Vargas only had 23 Ks but earn a lot of his value with 6 wins in June. Wins are a very hard category to predict so another 6 win month from Vargas, or any SP for that matter, is going to be a rarity.

June saw a total of 9 pitchers reach 40 or more strikeouts. Jimmy Nelson, who also made the Top 10 SP of June, is among the pitchers to get 50 or more Ks in June. Nelson has been phenomenal this year and the strikeouts have been a huge reason why. I feel confident he can continue his solid pitching if the strikeouts remain high. Stephen Strasburg is not a new face to this group by any means, but he bears mentioning because of his high ERA. The landscape of baseball has changed dramatically so a 3.51 ERA (which is what he has on the season) can still make him an elite option.

21 pitchers make this list with an ERA at or under 2.00 OR a WHIP at or under 1.00 with minimum of 20 innings pitched. Only 4, Max Scherzer, Kluber, Sean Newcomb, and Chase Anderson, achieved both in June. Scherzer was the only SP to have an ERA under 1.00! An incredible month just adds to the incredible season the Nationals ace is having. Sean Newcomb made his MLB debut in June and quickly left his mark. He should be added in most formats and be used in practically any matchup for the time being. Both Nick Martinez and Austin Bibens-Dirkx make this group in June. The interesting stat about this pair of Rangers starters is their low strikeout totals. They combined for 21 Ks in June! Kluber had more than 3 times that number! Nonetheless, they qualify for this list mostly by not issuing a high number of walks.

We had 9 closer who had 7 saves or more in the month of June. Kenley Jansen and Corey Knebel led the way with 10 saves each. Jansen did so without allowing a run all month. This feat is match by Fernando Rodney of all people. Not only did Rodney not allow a run in June, he didn’t even allow a hit! Brandon Kitntzler had more saves (8) than Ks (7). Brandon Maurer matched his ERA (7.71) with his save total (7). I hope those saves were worth it for the Maurer owner.

That's it for the top performing players of June. See you next month! Feel free to let me know what you found most interesting in this research.

Thanks for the read!