Finding Undervalued Players Who Can Provide Quality HR and SB Production

Underrated sleepers who can add home run and stolen bases to your fantasy team.

Stolen base production is great. Just like with saves, every fantasy manager would love to have stolen bases a plenty on their roster.

But just like with saves, stolen bases are a bit tricky to find.

Well, not tricky to find exactly, but more so tricky to find a player who can provide above-average production in stolen bases while also providing meaningful contributions in other categories.

As impactful as someone like Brice Turang (50 stolen bases, seven home runs and a .254 average in 619 plate appearances) was last season from a stolen base standpoint, he also didn’t provide above-average fantasy production in any other category, save perhaps runs scored (Turang had 72).

Generally, players who tick both boxes in terms of above average stolen base numbers and meaningful contributions in other categories tend to be selected near the very top of draft boards.

Think Shohei Ohtani, Bobby Witt Jr., Elly De La Cruz. Corbin Carroll.

It’s why fantasy managers who miss out on some of those players tend to go for someone like Turang or Andres Gimenez later in drafts. And while that’s certainly one way to go about it, amassing a roster teaming with players who can each provide moderate stolen base production might be the best way to construct a roster sans an Ohtani, Witt Jr., De La Cruz or Carroll.

Even with one or multiple of those four players, adding players with the ability to add double-digit stolen base production can be key (and the difference, potentially between winning a league and not).

So with that in mind, I thought I’d try and identify some of those players. Some are later round selections. Some might be more a player who you draft in the middle rounds this spring. Still, putting together a roster with as much stolen base potential as possible without compromising production elsewhere can pay significant dividends.

No players with 30 stolen bases or more were considered as most either have high ADPs either as an early draft pick (like Ohtani, Witt Jr., De La Cruz and Carroll) or else might have slightly elevated (at least comparatively speaking) ADPs primarily due to their stolen base ability (i.e. Turang, Gimenez or Bryson Stott).

Furthermore, this article is all about finding stolen base threats who can give you quality production in that category while also bringing power production, and thus the ability to provide quality contributions in other categories as well. Because for as valuable as players like Turang and Jose Caballero were last season, their fantasy ceiling was diminished due to their reasonably one-dimensional scoring output – at least in regard to stolen bases and other categories.

Only players with an xwOBAcon of at least .395, a minimum of 15 stolen bases and 300 or more plate appearances last year were considered.

(For context for the rest of this article, Gimenez and Turang finished tied for the eight-lowest xwOBAcon among all qualified batters at .322 last season. We’re expanding the plate appearance parameters slightly, but it’s worth noting that only 50 qualified batters had a xwOBAcon of .395 or higher last season. Among those who didn’t include Adolis Garcia, Jackson Chourio, Freddie Freeman, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Wyatt Langford and Christopher Morel.)

We’ll be looking at five players total here. Here’s the first one:

Matt Chapman

2024 Plate Appearances: 647

2024 Stolen Bases: 15

2024 xwOBAcon: .414

2025 ADP*: 127.52

My 2025 Ranking**: 101

*All ADP Data via NFBC.

** 2025 Redraft Rankings as of writing on 3/11/2025

Matt Chapman? That Matt Chapman?

Yep, San Francisco Giants third baseman Matt Chapman quietly (or maybe not so quietly) had the best fantasy season of his career, hitting .247 with a .328 on-base percentage, 27 home runs (his most since 2019) and 15 stolen bases. He also added 98 RBI and a .216 ISO (both also were his best marks in those categories since 2019) despite playing in the pitcher-friendly Oracle Park half the time.

Matt Chapman’s 2024 Splits:

• Road: 126 wRC+, .250 ISO, 28.6 K%, .819 OPS, 18 home runs

• Home: 115 wRC+, .181 ISO, 20.2 K%, .761 OPS, eight home runs

(((It certainly didn’t hurt, at least from a surface-level production standpoint that the 31-year-old finished in the 85^th percentile or higher in barrel rate (12.6%, 86^th percentile), hard-hit rate (48.3%, 88^th percentile) and average bat speed (76.6%, 97^th percentile). His xwOBA (.341, 78^th percentile) and chase rate (24.2%, 78^th percentile) weren’t too far off from qualifying for that, all things considered.)))

The biggest improvement, however, was the stolen bases. The 31-year-old established a new career high with 15, which really shouldn’t be too surprising of an outlay considering the veteran has generally always posted quality numbers in terms of Statcast’s sprint speed metric:

Matt Chapman Sprint Speed Percentile Rankings By Season, Via Statcast:

• 2024: 28.7, 84^th

• 2023: 28.5, 80^th

• 2022: 28.4, 78^th

• 2021: 28.1, 77^th

• 2020: 27.4, 65^th

• 2019: 28.1, 75^th

• 2018: 28.3, 82^nd

• 2017: 28.7, 88^th

Realistically, he’s one of baseball’s most underrated fantasy hitters.

Including Chapman, only 18 qualified hitters cleared the 85^th percentile in both hard-hit rate and barrel rate.

Of that group, only eight (including Chapman) cleared the 85^th percentile in hard-hit rate and barrel rate while even reaching double digits in stolen bases.

Of those eight, only three batters had a higher stolen base tally than Matt Chapman:

Shohei Ohtani, Francisco Lindor and Bobby Witt Jr.