Monday's recommended pickups are a pair of American League outfielders -- or, at least, one of them soon should qualify there:
Willie Calhoun, DH, Texas Rangers: A bat-first player with a checkered injury history, Calhoun might strike you too risky to trust in ESPN standard leagues. Based upon his recent usage and performance, however, he's a player well worth adding and starting everywhere, enjoying his production for as long as it lasts. Calhoun has started 15 of the Rangers' past 17 games, alternating between the leadoff and No. 7 lineup spots with Isiah Kiner-Falefa depending upon whether a left- or right-handed starter is the opponent, and batted .333/.403/.517 in them. Calhoun also has career-bests-thus-far 91.1 mph average exit velocity and 44.4% hard-hit rates, while not sacrificing a bit of the contact that has long been a big part of his game.
Calhoun might be available in as many leagues as he is -- currently 86.0% -- in part because he began the season on the injured list, but also because he's DH-only, in a season that had a lot of higher-tier talent locked into that position. But that's softening: He has made five appearances -- half of what's needed to qualify in ESPN leagues -- in the outfield thus far, four of which were starts since April 30, and the DH position has already seen Jorge Soler, Zack Collins and Jed Lowrie capture field positions since the year started, with J.D. Martinez also five games from outfield eligibility. There might therefore be more of a demand on Calhoun in the coming days.
Trevor Larnach, OF, Minnesota Twins: The Twins don't seem to have any shortage of outfield prospects, and with Byron Buxton landing on the injured list due to a hip strain that will probably cost him several weeks, joining fellow prospect Alex Kirilloff there, there's a starting spot there for the taking for the newly recalled Larnach. At the time of Kirilloff's end-of-spring demotion, I had feared that Larnach might actually beat Kirilloff back to the majors, considering Larnach's greater penchant for power and walks. This is the kind of player who, with a quick adjustment, might deliver 25-plus homers with a 10% walk rate right away, and in a lineup with the talent it has -- yes, the Twins' lineup is a lot better than its year-to-date numbers -- that would lock him into every-week, shallow-mixed fantasy relevance.
In addition, here is a pair of players I'd try to trade for today:
Kyle Tucker, OF, Houston Astros: He had a big Sunday -- 2-for-3 with a triple, a home run and four RBIs -- which might make it more difficult to pry him loose, but the .171-hitting, one-extra-base-hit, 13-game stretch that preceded it might've frustrated his fantasy managers enough that they take that effort as an opportunity to cash in his chip. Jump at the chance if you can, because Tucker has been one of the least-fortunate players on balls in play thus far, and I sense that some of his struggles in April might've been the product of his constant shuffling around the lineup due to the COVID-19 issues that surrounded the team. Now that the Astros are back to full strength, Tucker looks like he's about to get into a groove and recapture his preseason top-50-overall form.
While Tucker has batted just .188 with a .393 slugging percentage thus far, Statcast says that he deserved much better. His expected batting average is .281, with his 93 point gap in that direction the largest among players with at least 100 plate appearances, and his expected slugging percentage is .540, nearly 150 points above his actual .393 number. All of Tucker's underlying metrics suggest he's performing at a similar rate to his very good 2020, outside of his sprint speed, which has plummeted. There's a chance that he's more of a 15-steal candidate than something more, but there's little doubt that he's capable of a .270 batting average and 25 home runs the rest of the way.
Chris Paddack, SP, San Diego Padres: I've waffled a bit on him thus far, having initially placed him in my preseason "Tristan's Twenty," then moved away from him following his forgettable April as he shied from his curveball. Re-evaluating him following his Sunday return from the injured list, however, Paddack still looks like the top-20-capable fantasy starter I anticipated in March. In that outing, which granted was only 53 pitches long, he had eight swinging strikes and 10 called strikes, and he showed much better command of his four-seam fastball, which averaged a season-best 95.2 mph. Fastball command was largely Paddack's problem in his disappointing 2020, but he had it on Sunday, with the pitch responsible for three of his four total strikeouts and seven of the eight swinging strikes.
What's more, Paddack relied on his curveball 7.5% of the time, an encouraging sign as it'd add another layer to his game. But here's the added wrinkle: Due to the sluggish April performances and his near-two-week absence, he now finds himself on pace for a mere 121 innings, meaning workload management is no longer as dire a concern as it might've been at the start of the year. The Padres will surely look to manage Paddack's innings, but he should be plenty capable of approaching or exceeding 160 frames for the year, which means he could be a near-full-timer from this point forward.