As Kenny Rogers once sang “never county your money, when you're sittin' at the table…” The 2021 season has given us plenty of reasons to never get too far ahead of ourselves in terms of where we stand in our leagues and MLB teams can relate.

How much more bad news can the Mets get?  It looked like they were finally healthy with Carrasco, Conforto, and Davis likely all rejoining the team this week. Then we got the bad news: deGrom on the IL again for forearm tightness, and Francisco Lindor out with a grade two oblique strain with no timeline for return. Pretty brutal for a team with only a two-game lead in their division.

Mets fans are pretty used to this, but it's a good reminder: baseball teams are just like Fantasy Baseball teams. They get beat up, and they have to make decisions. Do we trade?  Do we bring up prospects?  Do we go into sell mode and build for the future? Now, in fantasy, this depends on the type of league you are in. Is it keeper or dynasty league? Redraft? If you are in a keeper league and you feel yourself falling out of contention, do you make a trade to get value on a keeper for next season? Now is the time to start thinking both short-and-long-term.

Now, I'm sure Mets fans agree, the Mets are still 100% in contention, and they need to be in WIN NOW mode because they CAN win now. And for most of you in your redraft, you can win now too. The Braves just lost Acuna for the season. What did they do? They went out and traded for Joc Pederson. They are not waiving the white flag, and neither should you.   

So, did you just lose Francisco Lindor or Ronald Acuña Jr.?  Here are some players to target.

First off, what I said about JD Davis last week still applies, so check that out, as does what I said Jarren Duran in this article on June 29th. But, I've also found a few more players flying under the radar that are worth an add.

AJ Pollock has been hitting a monster .378 during July with seven home runs. What's more? It looks legit. His expected slugging is in the top 14% of the league, and his expected batting average is in the top 17%. His hard-hit rate is the highest of his career, as are his average exit velocity, max exit velocity, and barrel rate. Now, I have always loved AJ Pollock as a player. I drafted him in late rounds on a few of my fantasy teams, but the knock on him is that he is injury-prone and doesn't play every day. Well, right now, you can't hold being "injury prone" against anyone, and you have to take that power when you see it. As for playing time, I'm not too concerned. With Lux and Seager still out, Pollock and his hot bat should have plenty of opportunities. He plays in a potent offense, and he's available in more than 40% of Yahoo leagues.

David Fletcher isn't a power play, but did you realize Fletcher has been batting .390 since the beginning of June? For July he's batting .466, and that's a whole heck of a lot better than Franky Lindor. He won't get you the power numbers, of course, but he bats lead off, and he's scored the same amount of runs as Justin Turner and one more than Joey Gallo. There's value here and he's available in 25% of CBS leagues.

Other Middle Infield Options

Jed Lowrie has hit .342 with six home runs and 15 RBI over the past month. He's more than 70% available in Yahoo leagues.   

Jace Peterson is one of my favorite DFS plays and he has become much more than a daily streamer. Over the past month, Jace is batting .329 with 13 RBI and five stolen bases, and last week he went yard vs. the ace mentioned above, Jacob deGrom. He is a Swiss-army knife that you can play anywhere on the diamond, and he's available in 65% of Yahoo leagues.

And finally, he's no Jacob deGrom, but Jon Gray has had a fantastic season. Yes, the same Jon Gray that pitches at Coors, has pitched to a 3.68 ERA on the season and has a home ERA of 3.14. He's surrendered only .97 home runs per nine innings this year, and Statcast says his expected ERA is even lower at 3.57. Trade rumors are flying, and it's likely we see Jon Gray somewhere other than Colorado by next week, which would, no doubt, be a park upgrade. He's available in more than 60% of Yahoo leagues.

Whether you are in win now or win later mode, you still have time to make impactful moves. Don't let the Dog Days of Summer slow you down!