Friday the 13th.

Just the date alone conjures up images of black cats and broken mirrors – so if you’re prone to bad luck, make sure to think carefully about any pitchers you may be streaming today!

If you’re still reading a pickups column in the middle of September though, chances are that you have been on the receiving end of some beneficial bounces throughout the year – but just to be safe, let’s grab our lucky rabbits’ feet, horseshoes and four-leaf clovers as we dive into one of the season’s final Friday Pickups.

Trey Sweeney – SS – DET – 2% Yahoo, 5% CBS

The player archetype of “talented but unproductive prospect gets traded to Dodgers, suddenly excels” is now almost old-hat, so it’s noteworthy when the reverse happens – a Dodgers prospect who toiled in relative obscurity getting traded elsewhere and seeing his value jump – but that’s the path we seem to be on with Sweeney right now, so let’s take a look at what’s happening under the hood.

This chart from Baseball Savant may look a little different than what you’re used to – specifically, a little more greyed out – and that’s because Sweeney hasn’t had enough at-bats to qualify. But even taking the small sample sizes into account, the results are intriguing.

Sweeney has never been known as a major power threat in the minors, topping out at 16 home runs in a single season and never posting an ISO above .200 after being promoted to High-A. Even after posting a 13-homer/16-steal line through 96 games at Triple-A Oklahoma City, Sweeney held only a mediocre .172 ISO and his wRC+ was 12 points below league-average, which evidently prompted the Dodgers to feel comfortable in trading him to Detroit at the deadline as a piece in the Jack Flaherty deal.

Immediately after the trade, Sweeney started looking like an entirely new player, recording a .381/.447/.667 slashline with a .286 ISO over his first 11 games as a Tiger. With nothing but the future to play for the rest of the season in Detroit, Sweeney was then promoted to the bigs, taking over the starting shortstop role after Javier Baez underwent season-ending surgery on his hip.

While his current MLB batting line of .242/.288/.468 (.756 OPS) doesn’t particularly stand out, the chart above points to his Statcast metrics being in line with some positive regression to come. When factoring xwOBA, xSLG, Barrel% and AvgEV, Sweeney’s quality of contact is in the upper tier of MLB batters and it hasn’t come at the expense of a major increase in strikeouts, with his current 21.2% rate sitting 4-5 points lower than what he did at Triple-A. His 4.5 BB% is a flashing red light for pitchers though, who I imagine are champing at the bit to test the youngster’s patience at the plate.

Still, with a strong backing of hard-hit metrics and unfortunate luck on others such as BABIP (.250), the arrow is pointing up on the newest Tigers shortstop.

League size recommendation: 14-team leagues

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