Fantasy Baseball: Lorenzo Cain and other 20/20 candidates

Players hitting 20 home runs with 20 stolen bases are fantasy baseball gods. Royals Lorenzo Cain is one player on pace to achieve that this season.

We all know that power is more widespread than speed in fantasy baseball. More than 100 players have hit at least 10 home runs this year, ranging from Yankees Aaron Judge with 24 to Tigers’ Alex Avila (among others) with 10. There are only 24 players with 10 stolen bases or more.

Stolen bases are more valuable this season than before but too many of the speedsters are single-category players. Three of the top-seven base stealers, Billy Hamilton (30 SB), Dee Gordon (27 SB) and Delino DeShields (16 SB) have combined for just two home runs this year.

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There are, of course, the studs. The elite players in the game who are perennial 20/20 candidates. Mike Trout, Jose Altuve, Paul Goldschmidt and Mookie Betts already have double-digit home runs and stolen bases this season, justifying their position as first-round pick draft picks.

Lorenzo Cain (OF-KC)
With 10 home runs and 14 stolen bases, Royals’ outfielder Lorenzo Cain is on pace for a career-year. The 31-year-old has a couple of 28 stolen base seasons to his name but has only hit a high of 16 home runs before.

Cain will be a free agent at the end of the season, so unless the Royals can secure their position as an AL Central contender, he will be traded in July. For teams looking for a center fielder Cain, is helping his cause.

The right-hander is hitting with more power than ever before. His .459 SLG is a career-high and he has never had a double-digit walk rate percentage until this season.

Keon Broxton (OF-MIL)
In leagues which do not penalize for strikeouts, Keon Broxton is a very valuable fantasy producer. The 27-year-old already has 11 home runs and 10 stolen bases this season, although he has been caught five times.

Broxton stole 41 bases last season across Triple-A and MLB, so the speed is legitimate. The home run pace is better than expected. He displays the unusual skill of no preference to where he hits, going opposite field, pulling, and hitting to center field equally.

Strikeouts are the right-hander’s big problem. He leads MLB with 98 strikeouts at a 40% strikeout rate. You don’t survive in the majors when four out of every 10 plate appearances ends with a strikeout.

Brian Dozier (2B-MIN)
Contrastingly the Twins’ second baseman has reduced his strikeout rate while increasing his walk rate to 11.4%. Although he is not repeating 2016’s historic production levels when he hit 42 home runs with 18 stolen bases and .546 SLG, the 30-year-old already has 12 home runs and 10 stolen bases this season.

A result of his greater patience at the plate is a drop in his desire to pull everything. He is only pulling 48% of the time, compared to 60% in 2015 and 56% in 2016. We wrote about Dozier in a previous article on the site.

Dozier has only reached 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases in a season once before, back in 2014, but it looks like 2017 will be the second occasion.

Two players that just missed the cut for this article were Yasiel Puig (13 home runs with nine stolen bases) and Wil Myers (14 home runs with nine stolen bases).

Next: Surprising fantasy value of Lonnie Chisenhall

In all forms of fantasy baseball, players that can steal 20 bases and hit 20 home runs will always be exceptionally valuable. There is no guarantee that Cain, Broxton or Dozier will maintain this level of production but they are halfway there and we still have more than half a season to go.

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