We’re more than a quarter of the way through the Fantasy Baseball season, so it’s a good time to restart the Shuffle Up series. We’ll start with the players who have outside eligibility on Yahoo.
What you see below is how I would organize the outfielders if I were entering a new draft today. Use it to evaluate your team, consider pickups and returns, evaluate commercial offers – it’s up to you.
My salaries are not scientific in nature, intended primarily to show how I rank players and, more specifically, where the talent pools lie. Your list will look different, of course. That’s why we have a game. Players with the same number are considered pairs.
I evaluated the injured players separately at the bottom. I’m not a doctor, and the level of optimism regarding injuries is highly variable from fantasy coach to fantasy coach.
More positional shuffles will come in the coming weeks.
Dig deeper.
The big tickets
Tucker has long been a star, but maybe he’s ready to challenge for an MVP. His walk rate has increased and he’s walking more than he’s striking out – that’s the sign of an elite hitter. He is a perfect 9 for 9 in steals. He’s just swinging out of the zone 19.2% of the time; the MLB average is 31.3%. With all due respect to the monstrous Yordan Álvarez, Tucker has become the baddest man on Houston’s roster. And to think that former manager Dusty Baker loved beating Tucker sixth in Houston’s order.
Ozuna remains comically underrated, someone who has been destroying MLB pitching for over a year. To check your last 365 days of statistics: .302/.373/.605, with 46 homers, 126 RBI and 96 runs scored. He is the only Atlanta batter who significantly exceeds his projection, although Travis d’Arnaud has been a surprise behind the plate. Meanwhile, Matt Olson and Ronald Acuña have OPS+ numbers just above 100 (which is league average), and Michael Harris is 14% below league average. Eventually the weather will warm up and so will Atlanta’s lineup, but Ozuna is already steaming hot.
What’s a little scary about Acuña’s beginning is that he had a little bad luck but not absurdly. His expected batting average is a modest .268 (15 points unlucky), and his expected slugging is .420, a far cry from Acuña (61 points higher than his current number). His discipline stats remain solid, but he’s swinging and missing more than ever. Temporary drop? He has the spring knee problem was transferred? Maybe it’s time for an eye exam? I know it’s not a satisfying conclusion, but with players carrying such an explosive resume, you usually just hope for the best. He is still capable of being the best player in baseball at any given time.
Some of Rodriguez’s trends are moving in the wrong direction – lines up, goes down, traction rate decreases significantly. And as you’d expect, he’s also swinging and missing more often. Imagine how ugly things would be if it weren’t for that .382 BABIP? Still, Rodriguez is on pace with last year and there are too many upsides to strongly consider a sales decline. If you want to get out of the Rodriguez trade, you’ll probably want to see some sort of binge first so that market confidence recovers and you can make a reasonable return. Of course, his home stadium is unlikely to help him, not to mention the normal lineup around him.
Legitimate building blocks
Yelich is probably out of MVP discussions for good, but he remains one of the smartest players in the league and survives despite high-impact common metrics and slightly above-average sprint speed. I’m here to see your boring senior days. The Brewers offer surprising lineup buoyancy, ranking third in runs per game.
Adell and Profar are two post-hype sleepers who are difficult to classify; Adell earned a slightly higher ticket because he is six years younger and more likely to race aggressively. To be fair to Profar, we will always wonder what his career would have been like if injuries left him alone and if some of his teams stopped forcing him to play in so many different positions. The Padres moved him to left field, and perhaps that allowed Profar to relax and settle into this surprising offensive season. Profar’s batted ball data does not fully validate your stats on the back of the card, but an expected average of .307 and an expected slugging of .446 would suit just about anyone. And with 25 hits against 28 strikeouts, he basically dominated the strike zone.
Despite his modest frame, Morel became a legitimate hitter, partly because of your happy approach – he’s hitting left 53.4% of the time. He is also improving with pitch recognition, notably improving his chase rate and his contact rate.
Talk to them, talk to them
The good news about Carroll: He still makes plenty of contact, walks at a respectable pace and is interested in running. But your most affected metrics are a mess, and even if his current average is unlucky, according to the component statistics, his winning average is only 0.238 (his expected slugging also doesn’t increase much, only to 0.343). It’s fair to speculate that his shoulder isn’t right.
I’m glad the Twins aren’t dropping Castro from the lineup because right now I think he’s more reliable (and probably better) than the injury-prone Byron Buxton. Castro ranks four in Yahoo Fantasy and will likely finish the year with 12-15 home runs and 20-25 steals. He hits all over the lineup, but at least he’s become an everyday staple in that lineup. He is welcome on all my lists.
I would love to rank Carpenter higher, but he rarely plays lefties and it seems like the Tigers face multiple lefties every week. Detroit’s offense is also a bit below league average right now. If you’re in a league that lets you take advantage of Carpenter’s game – the work against right-handed pitching – notice that he slashes .287/.341/.528 at the advantage of the squad.
Some plausible advantages
If I knew the Cubs were going to play Tauchman all year, I would push him to double digits. He is an OBP machine and can score 90 runs if left alone. It’s also nothing in the category’s juice columns.
Young’s willingness to run like crazy has earned him double digits so far, but playing time could be risky as the Nationals start to get healthy. The .270 average is good, although it’s a non-slugging .270 (no home runs, career .333 batting).
Meyers played well enough that we can’t assume Chas McCormick will get his job back when he’s ready to play again. Meyers has a .290/.355/.530 slash slash and is completely validated by your Savant page.
Bargain box
Complimentary ratings for injured players – not up for debate
I’m generally less optimistic about injury recovery than the market. Sometimes I’m justified, sometimes the market wins. Of course, baseball is a lot more fun when the best players stay healthy.
If and when Trout is healthy again, I hope the Angels do him a favor – trade him to a contender. Give him a chance to be relevant in October for the first time (he’s played in all three career playoff games). Trout said before the year that he didn’t want a trade now, but couldn’t predict the future. This could be a good way of saying “see what’s possible, guys”. It’s amazing that the Angels never had a winning record during the Age of Trout/Ohtani.
