Fantasy Baseball Today - 10 Struggling Hitters! Will They Bounce Back? (5/26 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

Gunnar Henderson dealt with that intercostal strain but hasn't been himself yet (4:04). ... Will Jose Altuve and Marcus Semien get back on track (10:13)? ... Michael Harris is off to a slow start again (19:49). ... What's going on with Brenton Doyle (24:40)? ... Is age catching up to Christian Walker (28:30)? ... Will Yainer Diaz bounce back (32:33)? ... What's going on with Bryan Reynolds (38:46)? ... Where is the power with Mark Vientos (42:51)? ... Junior Caminero has been struggling in May (47:08)? ... Did we get duped by Tyler Soderstrom (54:18)? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow FBT on TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CBSScottWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@Roto_Frank⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join our Facebook group at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. All right, it's about that time. Let's take a closer look at 10 struggling hitters.

Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. On Memorial Day, May 26th, I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris Towers. Hope everybody is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend. Not your usual weekend recap. We're recording this a few days in advance, but we will be live again on Monday night to recap everything from Friday on. So there's going to be a whole bunch of stuff to talk about, I am sure. Chris, this kind of marks an interesting time in the baseball calendar where things start to get real, right? We're two months in, decent sample size here. We have an idea who the contenders and pretenders, and pretenders are. I think it's also a good time to make established judgment calls on specific

players. And so that will be the focus of today's podcast. What do you think of that assessment? Two months in, obviously, like, the more data we get, the better it is. But I don't know, I think we have enough now to maybe make a couple judgment calls. What do you think? Yeah. I'm still, I think, going to be less willing than, perhaps most of our listeners want to draw sweeping conclusions about some of these players. But yeah, it's a useful milestone. You know, we're, I don't know, 200 played appearances in for most everyday players. So it's not a small sample size we're dealing with here.

It's just not, you know, a huge enough sample size to change your opinion about everyone dramatically. And I think that's the right approach. Like, you do want to have a process and you want to stick to that. I just, I wonder if, you know, with some players getting older and maybe some things we see under the hood, that, you know, maybe we should start to alter our judgment of a couple of players here. And so that will, again, be the focus. We'll take a look at 10 hitters drafted inside the top 100. And I'm focusing on hitters because I realize a lot of our normal daily recast. We focus a lot on pitching.

So really do want to talk about some of these struggling hitters. And let's start with Gunner Henderson, who was a late first round pick entering the season, currently averaging just 2.6 fantasy points per game. Last year, 3.7. So he's gone from an elite player to, you know, kind of an average player so far. As of recording this, again, it's like Thursday afternoon. 257, 7 home runs, 4 steals, 762 OPS. That's like a 28 homer 16 steel pace.

Again, it's okay. It's just not what we were expecting. he started the season on the IL with that intercostal strain, and I figured he would get off to a slow start, but this has been going on for quite some time now, Chris. So where are you at on Gunner Henderson? And where is he on the bounce back o meter? Let's do that.

One to 10. How likely is he to bounce back and get back on track? Eight on that one. I feel pretty good about it, but I do wonder if maybe the first half of last season might have kind of gotten expectations a little too high for Gunner Henderson because you remember early on last season he looked like I mean he was challenging Aaron Judge for the the MLB home run lead around the All-Star break if I'm remembering correctly and then

you look at the last calendar year so last 365 days so to the end of May of last year he's hitting 279 with 355 OBP 489 slug 28 homers 18 stolen bases that's not far from what you said his pace is right now it's mostly the batting average is a little lower it's what 22 points lower he's in 257 um I I think maybe he's more of a 30 20 guy and maybe not a batting average standout and so Is that still a first round pick? Yeah, probably, especially if and presumably when the Orioles lineup figures it out. Yeah, I think Gunner Henderson is probably a fringe first rounder.

It's just, you know, we may have thought of him as like a legit top five player. And maybe that's unfair. But what he's doing so far this season one, like you said, he was recovering from that intercostal strain. his sample size is slightly smaller than some of these other guys. And also he's doing a lot of things really well still. His strikeout rate is elevated. That's the biggest concern. But he's hitting the ball really hard.

94.6 mile per hour average exit velocity, 56.9% hard hit rate. Those are elite, elite marks. Those are top 15 marks in the entire game. So that's why I'm still very, confident that Gunner Henderson will be an impact player, even if I'm not, you know, necessarily certain he's going to be like that top five player we were hoping he could be. There are a few other things just under the hood that I don't love right now. Again, it is a smaller

sample for him, but the ground ball rate is up this year, around 51%. Don't love that, obviously, for the power output. The average XE velocity is great, as you mentioned, but the barrel rate is down, and that's likely because of the launch angle. And I noticed struggle. massively against left-handed pitching, and the defensive range is way down. So when I see that, we don't usually focus too much on defense. Is he completely healthy?

I mean, that's the first thing that comes to mind for me. Like, you know, I don't know. That feels like health could kind of factor into whether or not you're getting to balls that you normally would. So I just, I don't know, the defense and being that bad against lefties, like, I don't know,

kind of stood out to me a little bit more for gunner. And the sprint speeds down a little bit, 88th percentile to 80th percentile. It's not a huge dip. It's not super alarming. But it does kind of fit in with that idea that maybe he's 93% healthy as opposed to 100%, which, you know, that happens throughout the course of the year. And I think the one thing that I would say about Gunner Henderson is he clearly hasn't had a moment where he's been totally locked in yet. that being said, he's also hitting

290 with an 861 OPS in May. So I think you hope that the highest high points of his seasons will be higher than that. But that's pretty good. I mean, if we got that, if we got that the rest of the way,

I think we'd all be thrilled with it. Yeah. And so, you know, that's 82 plate appearances. It mostly was a bad April. The production against lefties concerning, 150,

around a 30% batting average. He needs to be better than that against lefties, but I think he will be. And I think you can mostly chalk this one up to a slow start. Yeah. And I do think there's a bit of a snowball effect for, look, some of these other players that we're

going to talk about, it's almost a completely team-wide, you know, just being down, right? Like the Astros, we're going to talk about a bunch of their hitters. But a lot of the Orioles guys have been down. We'll talk about Brian Reynolds. Obviously, the pirates don't have a lot of talent, but... Who on the Orioles

is exceeding expectations right now. Cedric Mullins, maybe? I mean, he certainly was for a while, but I'm not even sure that's true anymore. He's got a, okay, yeah, he's got a 351, whoa, but that's still very good. Ryan O'Hern is probably exceeding expectations. Ramone Luriano.

And they've been without Jordan Westbury, which doesn't help us. And then Jackson Holiday depends where your expectations were, I suppose. But, yeah, this is definitely one where the, the dropping tide is dropping the boats. I don't know what the opposite of that metaphor would be. But yeah, I still, look, I don't think the Orioles are making the playoffs. I don't think any of us pick the Orioles to make the playoffs coming into the season.

But I don't think this is one of the worst teams in baseball. The pitching's pretty bad. I would still bet on this being a top 10 offense the rest of the way. All right. Let's move over to Jose Altuve, who had an ADP of 46.2 entering this season. He is currently the 177th overall player in Roto, averaging just 2.1 fantasy points per game. 35 years old, you know, it kind of raises some alarms there, hitting just 238, four home runs, four steals, a 629 OPS.

Plate discipline looks pretty similar to last year, but quality of contact stuff looks kind of bad. Expected stats have kind of plummeted as well. You know, being older, maybe changing positions has had kind of a psychological effect as well. Chris, where are you at on Al Tuvei, the bounce back o meter, one to ten? I still feel okay about this one, but I did do a pretty significant drop in my rankings for Jose Altuve this week. I just finished that up as we're talking. And he's still, you know, top three at second base, I believe. but I moved him down a decent amount in the overall rankings just because it's gone on long enough that I can't just totally write off the idea that this is just a breaking point for Jose Al-Tube because the last couple of seasons he has put up pretty bad underlying metrics but has been able to overcome that thanks to one, a ton of contact, which he's still making an above-average amount of contact, but two.

it really optimized swing to take advantage of that short porch and left field. And that's what has really gone away from Jose Al-Tube this season. His ground ball rate is up to 54%. That's the highest of his career by far. And his pulled air rate is down to 18.7%. That is more than an eight-point drop from last season. It's the lowest since 2020. And he's hitting a ton of infield fly balls,

which was also what we saw in 2021. So what we're seeing now is not just more ground balls, but also a lot more meaningless, valueless fly balls. Those weak fly balls, infield pop-ups, you know, whatever you want to call them. That all looks pretty bad. He has a long enough track record that I don't want to just write it off and say this is who he is forever, but 35 years old. It might be.

You know, I think we're starting to reach that point with Marcus Simeon where I don't know if he, I can't remember if we were going to talk about him later, but. Oh, we have Marcus Semyon on the list. And that maybe we just get into it now, but that's another one where unlike with Altuve, this is now eight straight months, basically, of Marcus Simeon being not just not who he was before, but a pretty legitimately bad player. He hasn't had an OPS over 800 since last July, and that was the only month of last season where he had an OPS over even 767, which was what it was last April. So this is a pretty extended cold stretch, if that's what we want to call it for Marcus

Simeon, to the point where, yeah, I do think we have to consider the possibility that he is just not that guy anymore. And I was willing to bet on Marcus Simeon bouncing back. And now it looks like that was a pretty bad bet because we're also seeing declines in plate discipline for him. That had always held pretty steady, but his chase rate is up. His whiff rate is up. So now it is starting to feel like more so with Simeon than Altuve even, we're starting to get to the end of things. I put a number on Jose Altuvae

1 to 10 his likelihood to bounce back I would probably put it right in the middle out of 5 just because of his track record and my respect for him as a hitter and being able to figure things out but Jose Al Tuve is kind of someone who has had to

have that trick right he's had to have that ESOC parade as trick to kind of meet his fantasy value and if he's not doing that then obviously it could kind of throw everything out of whack and that's what it looks like right now is just he's out of whack more ground balls, more infield fly balls.

He's just not squaring the ball up. The average eggs of velocity is down. And maybe that's a result of him just kind of getting older and, you know, he just can't do what he once did. So I think he could go either way here with Jose Altuve. I'll put that at a five. For Marcus Semyon, yeah, I mean, the fact that this has been happening for so long, I think I'll probably put it as like a three.

A three that he kind of gets back to maybe what we were expecting preseason 20 to 25 home runs, 15 steals, something like that. Yeah, I don't think it's very likely he gets back to that player. He's another one who's turning 35 in September. You mentioned the strikeout rate is up. The BABIP is down quite a bit here for Marcus Semyon as well. The one thing I'll point out with Simeon is his expected stats aren't that different from last year. but he has also been someone like Jose Al Tuvae who has had to outrun his expected stats

to be as good as he was for fantasy. And you know, you could write off 2024 maybe as an outlier because that was, you know, that was one of the only years where he didn't. But now you look at it. It's 22, 317 Wobah versus a 306 X Woba. 2023, 33X Wobah, 354. That's awesome. 2024, 313 X-Woba, 306 Woba.

2025, 310 X-Woba. It's 239 Woba. That is way too low. He's better than he has been. To be clear, I want to state that. As bad as Marcus Simeon has been so far, he's not a 180 hitter. But if he's only a 240 hitter with 18 to 20 homers, I just, I don't know if it's worth betting on that bounce back anymore.

Yeah. How likely are you to drop Marcus Semi in if you have him? I don't think I've moved him to a range of the rankings. Let me check where I'm outright dropping him. No, I haven't yet. But it's probably something I need to consider because... In any Roto League that has a middle infield spot, I don't think I could. But in a head-to-head lineup where it's only one second baseman, I think he can. probably could man i yeah i think ahead to head points like you can yeah i i i would struggle with it in a roto league i don't think i could do that just because i mean you look at the the second base position and like as bad as he's been there aren't a ton of guys i'm super excited about replacing him with um so that's what i'm struggling with there All right, let's take our first break before we do that.

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Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball. Memorial Day weekend. We are talking about 10 struggling hitters to this point in the season. And next up is Michael Harris, who had a preseason ADP of 47. He's currently 157th overall, averaging 2.2 fantasy points per game,

hitting just 224, 3 homers, seven steals, a 603 OPS. Plate discipline looks pretty normal here. Badded ball distribution. Which means bad. Yeah, yeah, it's not good. Like, it doesn't strike out very much, but he's also very aggressive

and he just doesn't walk very much either. Quality of contact is down. Expect the stats are down a little bit. I mean, he's just so streaky throughout his career, and he's young, and he's in his prime. And this is another lineup. Like, the Braves have kind of all underachieved at once. And at time of recording this,

we just learned that Ronald de Cunia is returning. So hopefully that can help bring a boost here. But where are you at on Michael Harris? What are the likelihood? What's the likelihood that he bounces back? One to 10. This one I'm going to be a lot more confident in because you're talking about,

won a 24 year old. I know it's been a little while since we, I feel like there is a, a sense with Michael Harris that I've seen people, I've seen people say that he basically hasn't been good since he was a rookie or he's only, he's a flash in the pan. And I think people have overdone the criticism of Michael Harris.

He was awesome in his second season. He had 293 with an 808 OPS. Last season, was lower, but everything else looked pretty normal. He dealt with some injuries. This is the first time that he's been bad. And you look at the underlying numbers, they more or less back up that he's been bad, not as bad as he has been. He's underperforming the expected numbers. But even if he was living up to his expected numbers, it would be a disappointing season for Michael Harris. But I, he's so young that I, this is one I do want to bet on figuring it out.

And this one, I'm more willing to just say, it's a bad start. And I will buy low on Michael Harris. So, you know, on that bounce backometer or whatever we want to call it, I'll give him an eight. I feel pretty confident that we're going to get a significantly better version of Michael Harris moving forward. And by that, I mean 285 batting average, 20 plus Homer pace, probably 20 plus steel pace. That's what I expect for Michael Harris. And I just wonder if maybe this should start to become almost the expectation, right? He's had slow starts before.

Like I said, I think with hitters that are so aggressive and they chase as much as Michael Harris does, like you're going to be prone to going through streaks like this. And if you look at his 2023, where I agree with you, he was very good. He hit almost 300, 808 OPS. He got off to a terrible start. Through May, he hit 174 with a 526 OPS. from June 1st on in 23, Michael Harris hit 325

with an 886 OPS. That's not guaranteed to happen, but that's just to show people what he's capable of. Like you said, I think that might be like Luis Robert and like Julio Rodriguez

and some of these other guys with really loud tools but really lousy approaches at the plate. It might, yeah, it might just be that there's an inherent volatility volatility to their profile

and their production that we need to account for and that's not to say that that you take their surface level numbers and you discount them because ultimately I think you will drive yourself crazy trying to do the

I know Michael Harris will get off to a bad start and then I can buy him low. That's not how you should approach it because it's potentially just as likely that one of these years he gets off to a crazy good start and then slumps in the second half. Yeah. It's not always going to be the same shape.

And so I think it's fine to view him as an inherently volatile player. And if you don't want to ride that ride, I think that's totally reasonable. But I'm significantly less concerned about Harris than everyone else we've talked about so far, while acknowledging that maybe like the first round upside. expectations were unrealistic. I will, I agree with your assertion of Gunner Henderson, you give him like an 8 on the bounce back o' meter, right? I think I'd give Michael Harris like a 7. I feel really good

about that. Getting back on track and he's a player, I would be buying Gunner Henderson, obviously if you can buy, I mean, I don't know that anyone's selling low on him. The other two second basemen, it'd be a little bit more hesitant to maybe buy low on those two. Let's talk about Brenton Doyle, who had an ADP of 73 entering the season. He's currently 188th overall, averaging 2.2 fantasy points per game. Dealt with some quadsornis earlier in the season also had a devastating personal loss off the field and something we don't really talk about and we often forget like,

these guys are human. Obviously something like that can affect anybody and, you know, I mean, if we were just working and going through something like, you know, it would affect us, but, you know, we're not professional baseball players, so you just, you can't notice it. Yeah, I think that's totally reasonable. And, you know, there were some questions about Brendan Doyle coming into the season. Obviously, had only done it one time. But the thing that we liked most last year, he lowered the strikeout rate.

The plate does one look good? Looks really good once again. All the batted ball stuff is there. He's underperforming his expected stats. The Rockies are another team. It's just all around. The vibes are terrible and they're a bad team. But this is what I actually feel pretty good about Brenton Doyle getting back on track.

How about you? Yeah, it, the vibes, good word, the vibes might just be so rotten in Colorado that everybody just stinks all season. That was Luis Robert last year, right? We saw it with the White Sox last year. Just nothing worked for anyone, basically. Like, did anyone on the White Sox have a successful 2024 season? Garrick Crochet, that was about it. I can see that, you know, that personal, that, that human side of the game being hard to account for.

and maybe that happens with Brenton Doyle. Obviously the off-field stuff with his family, that's incredibly difficult to come back from as well to work through. But from a baseball perspective, I will point out that from 2015 through 2024, 61 Rockies hitter seasons with at least 400 plate appearances, 48 of them saw those hitters outperform their expected Wobah, which is what you should expect,

because Stackass isn't trying to account for the effects of course field and the way it inflates offense. This season, seven Rockies have reached 100 plate appearances, and only three are outperforming their expected Wobah. You would expect five based on history. Brent Doyle's underperforming by 57 points, which would be, I believe, the second biggest underperformance in the Stackass era for a Rockies hitter. So this feels like a pretty clear by-dive. low that you know obviously we don't have a super long track record of success but breton doyle

remains one of the best outfielders in baseball remains a premium athlete he's hitting the ball harder than he did last season the quality of contact just about as good overall strikeout rate like you said right where it was last year actually a tick lower even so i think of everyone we've talked about obviously gunners henderson's a better player but of everyone we talked about i think Brent and Doyle living up to his ADP the rest of the way is maybe the one I'm the most confident in because all of the under the hood stuff looks more or less like it did last season in a place where you should expect him to at least live up to his expected stats if not surpass them as we have seen so many times in course field history. So if you put a number on that Chris or we're going to

say nine. Nine. All right. Nine. I'm Brent and Doyle. Let's go. Let's pick up the vibe. in Colorado. Let's get things going here. I mean, I'm not going that far. I think the vibes are going to remain rotten. Yeah, but if Brenton Doyle performs, then, you know, I don't know, maybe they'll win a couple of games. The vibes will be moderately better. Yes.

Let's get into the Astros where the vibes also, look, not as bad as the Rockies. No one's that bad. But, you know, the vibes haven't been so great either. Christian Walker, 80P of 78, entering the season. He's currently 209th overall 1.9 fantasy points per game. another aging player here, age 34 season, had the left oblique injury during spring training. You figured he would get off to a slow start.

But as I mentioned with Gunner Henderson, at some point, you got to get over to that, or at least you would hope so, and think that he would get back on track. But, you know, it's 199 batting average, five homers, 607 OPS. The ISO, each of the previous three years for Christian Walker, was up over 215.

This year it's down to 138, Chris. So a combination of strikeouts being up and the power being down has obviously led to this start. Where is Christian Walker on the bounce back o meter? So when I updated my rankings on Thursday, I did finally pull Vinnie Pasquantino out of my top 12. I had kind of stubbornly been keeping him in there. I didn't drop him to like 20. He's 14. So I still expect him in his past Guantino balance.

bounce back, but I'm not super confident in. I move Christian Walker down in the overall rankings, but not in the first base rankings. So he's still eight and really seven because Salvador Perez is above him in the overall rankings. I would still rather have Christian Walker than Cody Bellinger. I would still rather have him than Spencer Torkelson, Paul Goldschmidt, Reese Hoskins. Those are the next guys in my rankings. But I wish I felt more confident in it. He has such a long track record of success. You know, we're talking really like basically since 2019. He's been really consistently excellent outside of the 2021 season.

So I have a decent amount of faith. The biggest concern is one, the oblique injury and then two, the age. He might have just lost it. We saw this with Jose Abrae. And we, I think we kind of made that joke in the offseason a few times that this could be the new Jose Abrae. I didn't actually expect that to be the case. The Astros just can't help themselves with age.

first baseman just stop signing 34 year old first baseman that that's the the key um i do think the oblique is probably the biggest explanation here just that that is an injury that you can get over and it can still mess up your swing we saw it was sean murphy last year that that would be the the most prominent example but it could be a thing that last it could last all season yeah oh yeah for sure yeah and so like it could be the kind of thing where it's not even a go on the iL for two weeks It's just he's just a little bit off. He can't rotate quite as well. And that's the whole game.

Baseball is a rotational sport. And so if you can't do it, that is going to hamper you more than in any other sport. But I'm still willing to give Christian Walker the more benefit of the doubt than I am. Some of the other guys we've talked about, he's still hitting the ball in the air a lot. He's still hitting the ball to the pull side in the air. I think he'll be okay. But I'm not super confident. So, six?

Yeah, I'm a little bit lower. I think I would probably put him in the four or five range on the likelihood of bouncing back. And kind of like Altuvae, it feels like can go either way. He does have a very long track record. But the age, the injury here to this season, I have lowered him in the first base rankings down to 14. I have him behind Vinnie P. although, I mean, that's not really warranted. It's just that Vinny P's younger and, you know,

he makes more contact, so I like the profile a little bit more, but I have Goldschmidt ahead, I have Torkelson ahead, I have Soderstrom ahead, although Soderstrom has slowed down too. Sotom's been bad for like a month now. Yeah. A lot of people have asked, you know, about Reese Hoskins, and we've talked a lot about him. If you're in a shallower league, I'm not mad at it, Chris.

If you wanted to drop Christian Walker for Reese Hoskins, I can't really blame you. I wouldn't, but I get it. Yeah. All right, let's move on. to Jainer Diaz. We'll stick with the Astros here, and his ADP was 78.6.

He's currently 145th overall. He's averaging two fantasy points per game, hitting 224 with five home runs, a 611 OPS. We know he does not walk at all. The strikeout rate is up a tad. The line drive rate is way down this season. The fly ball rate is way up.

Maybe he's trying a little bit too hard to hit for power this season. He is underperforming his expected stats by a ton, and I will point out, at this same point last year, he was hitting 255 with three home runs and a 655 OPS. And then he went on a tear after that. So another guy who chases a lot, Chris, maybe like Michael Harris, he's going to be prone to streakiness.

Maybe he's a slow starter. Not a huge track record here, but I feel pretty good about him getting back on track. 10. Yiner Diaz, okay? Yeah, I do think, let me make, sure before I say it. I, okay, Cala Rale is the only one I've moved ahead of him.

So far, I haven't quite gotten Yvonne Herrera past him yet, but Diaz has moved down in the overall rankings. But his under his quality of contact metrics in May are phenomenal. He has a 308 expected batting average and a 552 expected slugging percentage in the month of May. So he was bad in April and deserved. to be bad. He had a bad approach and bad skills. May he's looked exactly like what you want him to. So I think he's going to play up to his expected Wobah. I think he's going to be an impact bat moving

forward. That being said, I thought he was overdrafted this spring. He was going like around the 60th pick in some of those NFBC drafts. He was the number two catcher in a lot of drafts. I thought that was too much. And in points leagues, he's always been closer to fringe, even when he's hot, because he does not walk at all. He is,

he doesn't have quite the playing time edge that some of the other catchers do. So I... It's been better recently with Yordon Alvarez out. With Yoran bench. But once Yoron's healthy, unless Christian Walker just keeps struggling, and then maybe they'll give him

more plate appearances at first base. But I do expect that to be, not a drag on his value, but not a plus the playing time. So in a points league, Diaz is pretty fringy. And if you dropped him for Yvonne Herrera, I think that's defensible. But I do expect Yiner Diaz to be a standout and batting average. I expect him to hit for a lot of power. I think he'll be, we're going to get to the end of the season.

He's going to be hitting 280. and he's going to have close to 20 homers, and we're going to have forgotten all about this, I think. Yeah, I'm with you. I'll put him at an 8 on the bounce back o meter for Yiner Diaz. I would be looking to buy low if that's at all possible in your league right now. If someone dropped him, I mean, people have been asking us all year if they can drop Yainer Diaz. So do not do that.

If someone else does it, then obviously go ahead and pounce on that opportunity. The catcher position this year, Chris, has just been so interesting because there's been so much underperformance up top. William Contreras, Adley Ruchman, Salvador Perez, Yiner Diaz, and then obviously you have Cal Raleigh who's been, you know, one of the best hitters in baseball, and he's, you know. Will Smith's been awesome. We haven't talked a lot about him. He's been really good. I actually moved him up. I moved him up to my, my, I've been much more aggressive like this past week, you know, at this point in the season. I moved Rally up to my number two catcher, Will Smith up to number four. So I've got William Contreras, Raleigh, Wilson,

and then Will Smith, and then Adle, Salvador Perez, Yiner Diaz, and actually have Yvonne Herrera at 9, so he's creeping up too. But it's like interesting. Herr's 8 for me. The back end of the catcher position has kind of been really fun and all these kind of like breakout, emerging talents. But, you know, the top of the position has been a lot of underperformance. So it has been an interesting year at catcher.

Let's take our final break. When we return, we've got a few other struggling hitters to talk about, and we'll do that right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today. here on Memorial Day weekend. Not your usual weekend recap, but we will have that later today. Maybe when you're listening to this on Monday night,

we'll recap four days worth of action, so there will be a lot to talk about. But let's continue on with struggling hitters to this point in the season. Next up is Brian Reynolds, who has an ADP of 86.2, and he is currently the 170th overall player, averaging two fantasy points per game.

30 years old, I mean, one of the most consistent players year in and year out. Currently hitting 203 with six homers, three steals. 591 OPS, down 200 points exactly from where it was last year. Strikeout rate is up, line drives are down, ground balls are up, but he's hitting the ball hard, he's barreling it up. He's underperforming the expected stats a ton.

Chris, where is Brian Reynolds on the bounceback o meter? This mostly feels like a guy who just hasn't locked in yet. it doesn't seem like there's been like a huge diminishment in skills he's still hitting the ball hard the velocity the sprint speed looks right around where it usually is it doesn't look like there's a an obvious physical issue to explain another team with bad vibes though sure and i will point out we talk a lot at this time in the year of like is this a big enough sample size to draw conclusions from and yes or no. His last 100 games,

dating back to the start of August of last year, that's exactly 100 games as of Thursday at 705 p.m. I have no idea if the Pirates are playing Thursday. Whatever. He has a 656 OPS over his last 100 games. Now, that's a bigger sample size than what we have so far, but it is not a gigantic sample size. It is not a career-defining sample size.

sample size. Lots of guys have 100 game samples where they look like a much diminished version themselves and then pull out of it. And Brian Reynolds, I feel pretty confident that this is not even the worst 100 game stretch of his career because these things just happen sometimes. But it is dating back to the end of last season. So I can't entirely write it off, but you look at the underlying skill set. The batting average is down, mostly because the strikeout rate is up. up the quality of contact expected woe-on contact is actually better than it's ever been for him it's 449 right now his expected batting average 255 okay that's not great x slug is 486 that's the third highest of his career there's some weird stuff going on he has not hit a pop-up yet

he's also hitting more ground balls than ever and fewer line drives so there are probably some tweaks that Brian Reynolds can make. But I mostly believe he'll pull out of it. So I'm going to say a six on this one. Yeah, I'm going to say a seven. I think it's probably going to wind up being a down season overall. Just because I don't know that he can be so good the rest of the way that he can get the numbers back to where they should be, like at least comparing to, you know, 23 and 24.

But maybe it winds up being, you know, 250, low. 20s home runs, like six to eight steals, something like that. Probably not what you were expecting for Brian Reynolds, but even if he gets to those numbers by season end, that means from June 1st on he'll probably be pretty good here. And, you know, I guess, look, with the pirates

as bad as they are, like, is he a trade candidate? I hadn't really thought about it, but they made such a big, I think he is the biggest contract in franchise history. And they made such a big deal out of that. He signed through

2030 so yeah a hundred and seven million dollar eight year deal that he signed two years ago so kind of just feels like a pirate's lifer i would think so but it's not it look it's not impossible and honestly that wouldn't be a bad thing because that that's a tough place to hit pnc is not a great ballpark for hitters so i wouldn't hate that but i'd be surprised if they traded him let's slide over to mark vintos who entering the season had an adp of 88.8.8. He's currently 185th overall, averaging 2.2 fantasy points per game. Hitting just 232, five home runs, a 6.74 OPS, which is down like 160 points from last year. Which, oddly enough, the strikeouts are down, and that's what we were worried about most.

The quality of contact has also come down here. The barrel rate has been cut in half. His bat speed is down a lot. So that tells me, Chris, this is a conscious decision. Like, he's trying to make more contact. it has affected him. And I don't know if he's just having trouble getting back to the player he was last year where he's swinging

harder and just kind of swinging for the fences because that feels like the player Mark Vienzos was always supposed to be. And now he's kind of made some changes here. Frankly, I think he's just kind of all out of whack. So what's the bounce back meter? And would you actually be looking to buy on him?

Four? Part of that is confirmation bias. I had Viantos as a bust. I wasn't buying him this year. I think we all did, to be honest. And look, I haven't buried him in my rankings just because third base, another one where the high-end guys have been mostly awesome. The mid-range guys haven't broken out quite the way we hope they would.

And the next group hasn't quite stepped up yet. So, Vantos is still actually my number nine third baseman. But it's probably a 50-spot drop in my overall ranking. since draft season. So I do have Eustok Paredes ahead of him. I'd rather have him than Mark Viantos the rest of the way. I still have Eugenio Suarez ahead of him.

I'd rather have him than Viantos. But I'm not totally burying Mark Vientos as a productive player. The one thing I will say, you mentioned the bat speed being down. That's a tradeoff that can work. Trading a little bit of bat speed for contact skills, like that can work.

What we're not seeing from Viantos, typically there is a, an inverse relationship between bat speed and swing length. So the faster you swing your bat, the higher velocity with which you swing your bat, the longer your swing is. Vento's swing speed is down significantly, 1.4 miles per hour on average.

His swing length is identical to last year. And so that's where it's, that's where it's concerning, because he's not getting those, you know, the quicker to the ball games that you would hope for to trade some of that power, some of that damage for contact skills. We haven't seen that yet. And I just don't know if this is a guy who should be trying to be a contact hitter. Lean into your natural strengths as a hitter. And we've seen a couple of Mets guys have this problem. Viantos was one of the big exceptions

last year where he did make that jump, but Brett Beatty has struggled to make that balance. Francisco Alvarez is another guy. that they've talked a lot about like, we want you to hit for contact and then the power will come and he's not doing either. That's kind of where we are with Mark Vientos, where, yeah, he's making a little more contact. The plate discipline's still bad. So I just don't think he's ever going to be a contact hitter.

I think he's a guy who has to sell out for power and the fact that he's not doing it right now is concerning. And the fact that I didn't believe he was as good as he was last year makes me less inclined to believe he's going to bounce back. Yeah, I dropped him a little bit lower in the third base ranking, so I have him down behind Matt Chapman. Michael Garcia, I mean, Michael Garcia has looked so good this season. And this is more so for Roto, but, you know, Garcia steals bases.

He hits the ball hard. He looks like he's taking a legit step forward. Royce Lewis, I have ahead of him. I mean, for as long as he's healthy, I struggle with that one. I still think he's a more talented player. And Jorge Polanco, like, not exactly sure that I buy everything that he's doing, but I mean we're two months in and he kind of looks like Polanco from like three, four years ago.

Maybe he's finally healthy. So yeah, I've just, I've been a little bit more aggressive with moving guys up and down and Viantos was one of those. One of them that I have not lowered yet is Junior Camerro, who, look, he's been so bad. He hasn't earned the song. He's looked so bad we can't even play the sound drop anymore.

I mean, in May it's a sub-500 OPS for Junior Camerro. Just so many ground balls. The quality of contact is actually now, taking a little bit of a step back for him. But his ADP was right around 90. He's 142nd overall. You know, not a terrible season, but he's a player I get a lot of questions about Chris

because, you know, people have these sky-high expectations. They see him dominating the Dominican Winter League and hitting these massive home runs and huge home runs in spring training and he's 21 years old. Like, I totally get it. I wrote him up as a breakout too. He still has eight home runs.

He has three steals, but the plate discipline is not good. The batting average. the OPS, not there for Junior Camero. Is he someone that you expect to get back on track here? And would you be looking to buy? I do expect him to be better. And I think there could be a world in which someone drafted him too high

and is just panicking and trying to get something for him. And maybe there's an opportunity to buy there. But I had reservations. I don't want to say I had doubts about Camerro because I think the talent is there. But we go through this a lot. We did it with Vlad Jr. for a while where we kept expecting that huge leap. And it finally did happen, but it took a couple of years.

And that might just be the case with Junior Kamenera. He's still so young, 21 years old. The comp I made preseason, the guy that he like, I get accused a lot of not watching the games and being too into my spreadsheets and stuff. but like when I watch Junior Camerra, what he looks like to me is a young Marcelo Zuna. And it was a very similar thing. Marcelo Zuna was not the prospect that Junior Kamenaro was.

But he was a guy who had really obvious skills, hit the ball hard, had a good swing. The problem was he had a very, I think the best way to describe it was a very loose swing. You know, that like kind of one-handed finish. where I think the problem Marcelo Zuna had a lot was just when he connected right, it was beautiful. But he just, I don't know if he had too much movement or he just didn't time his swing right.

Whatever it was, he was very inconsistent. He hit a lot of balls hard on the ground or a little, he would get a little too under or whatever. And so that might be where Junior Commonero is right. now in his development path. And I think one stat that we don't talk a ton about because I don't think it has a ton of value in and of itself, but it's launch angle sweet spot, which is basically the percentage of your batta balls that are within a certain range of launch angle. And he is in the first percentile in that.

And so what that tells me is it's a lot of grounders and a lot of fly balls, but particularly like pop-ups. pop-ups, yeah, like not in-field fly-balls, but fly-balls that have no chance of doing anything. You know, those kind of medium fly-balls. And I think that's probably what we're seeing with Kamenaro is just a little bit of inconsistency, a little bit of, like I said,

looseness in his swing. And once he tightens up, whether that's, you know, a better cue for a certain type of pitches or just improving his plate discipline, improving his pitch recognition, whatever it is, because he does chase quite a bit as well. Whenever he figures that out, it's going to be really impressive.

And I think Vladimir Guerrero's had some issues with this as well. And it's kind of visually a sort of similar swing where it's a really high effort swing with a big follow through. And it could be that there's just a little bit of that inherent inconsistency or volatility to his swing. of that when it's locked in, it looks really good. And when it's not, it looks like it does right now. But I, it's still a bet on talent. And it's still obvious how talented junior common era is.

He is one of the fastest swing in baseball right now. He hits the ball really hard. When he gets into one, he can send it a mile. I'll still bet on that talent as long as, you know, in the preseason, it was like starting to be top 60 picks, top 70 picks. I didn't like that. He was always more around the 80-ish mark. I've moved him down a little,

but I still want to bet on the talent here. Yeah, he's so insanely talented, and I get that people are impatient, and look, the May has been really bad for Camerro, 180, 479 OPS. It's just, there are some moving. No way I'm dropping him, to be clear. No, no, no, no.

And I wouldn't be trying to sell low. I would be looking to buy. I would be looking to buy low. It's just, he is a really aggressive hitter, and that's kind of been a theme with some hitters we've talked about today, where I think, A, there could be some streakiness to him, and B, as great of a hitter as he is, his swing is still not optimized for power.

And you see that in the launch angle sweet spot, which you mentioned. There's too many ground balls there. He also hits the ball to all fields, which in this, in George Steinbrenner Field this season, that actually might work, because obviously they have the short porch in right field. but he's someone who just kind of hits to those power alleys. And we've talked more about that in recent years where, you know, not as likely to hit home runs.

Like maybe it's double power type thing. And you kind of see it in the slug, but not in the home run power. But he'll get there. Like he's 21 years old, right? So we do have to kind of remind ourselves of that with Junior Camerro as well. Like, look, Josh Young is still available in some leagues. Max Muncie is available in a lot of leagues.

And he's really hot right now. He's wearing glasses. That's been very helpful. maybe you bench Caminero but I wouldn't drop it. Yeah. Bench Camerro, if you can pick up Josh Young,

if you can pick up Max Muncie, if you can pick up Jake Burger, if you can pick up Matt Shaw. I don't hate the idea of starting any of those guys ahead of him. I would not drop him for any of those guys. Yeah. Because I think the long term,

I've phrased this a few times this season, but I think it's a helpful way of thinking about it. When you're talking about a roster move, I do think one thing you should keep in mind is how likely is a player to make you regret letting go of them? And Junior Camerre, maybe the median outcome is he's just a guy and he's just tantalizing, but he finishes with 20 homers and the 260 average and he's just okay. Yeah.

That might be the most likely outcome for Junior Camerrero. But if you do regret dropping Junior Camerranoero, you're going to really regret it. That's, I think, the key takeaway with him. Yeah. All right, Chris, let's wrap up with one. bonus one, and you sent me this name earlier, and he actually mentioned the name already. Tyler Soderstrom, just trying to talk about what's been going on over the past month. Obviously, started the season like gangbusters and kind of looked like this year's massive breakout hitter.

But so far in May, it's just one home run. You know, 275 is obviously good. 716 OPS. Obviously, we need more than that. But, you know, when I'm looking a little bit deeper here, he's still hitting the ball really hard in the month. 93 average executive velocity, still barreling it up. Ground ball rate is higher than you'd like. I think there's a bit of an adjustment period here,

but the fact that he's still hitting the ball really hard and barreling it up, I still feel okay about it. How about you? So this is one, you go back to April 15th. I think he had either a two-homer game on April 15th or one home run and he had a two-homer game, a couple games before that, but he was red-hot to start the season.

Since that day, he's hitting 256 with a 660 OPS. That is really bad. The underlying stuff is still pretty good though. Over the last 50 plate appearances, it's a 361 expected Wobah. Over the last 100 played appearances, it's a 350 expected Woba. There hasn't really been a significant rise in strikeout rate. There's been a little bit of one in the month of May, but it's not like 30%.

it's like 26%. So I think for the most part, I'm not giving up on him. I'm a believer in the underlying data having a lot of predictive value. He is underperforming there, and we expect that to be a good park to hit in. So Sacramento,

not a park you would expect to be a drain on expected stats. So I mostly believe Tyler Sturm is going to be a good hitter. forward. Yeah, and I think the point you made about their ballpark, I might be trying to just buy stock in athletics hitters right now before the weather really starts to heat up there because and this is a small sample size and I think for park factors in particular you need a lot more

data. But this is multiple seasons. This is what we're working with right now. Sutter Health Park where the athletics are playing in Sacramento is currently the second best offensive hitting environment and for home runs it is the eighth best it's not even June yet in Sacramento where the weather is going to heat up it's going to be really hot and the ball is going to fly there so i noticed brent rookers kind of having a down season think i'd be trying to buy on some brent rooker right now and if anyone's kind of panicking on sodersstrom i think i'd try to take advantage of that as well shay langalears too i mean he's just rock solid i don't think anyone's selling low on him but i i think maybe he could even take off even further once the weather heats up.

I definitely agree on Rooker. That one, the quality of contact, the underlying stuff looks almost as good as it did last year. He's cut his strikeout rate a little bit and there's been a little bit of loss of quality of contact, but nothing alarming. 372 expected Wobah, you should expect him to at least hit up to his expected stats if not outperform them. So I have very little concern with him. Lawrence Butler is the one.

Notice I did not say Lawrence Butler. that there is some concerning stuff going on. I know we've talked about it, and Scott doesn't really have any concerns, but I think he was the most enthusiastic about him coming in. I probably had the most concerns coming in. It's a 306-X-WOBA. So Butler plate discipline still looks okay,

not much worse than last year. He's still hitting the ball pretty hard, 92 miles per hour, average X velocity. The expected Wobon, contact has dropped from 420 to 370. And it's not exactly clear what the problem is. I think the biggest one is just he is pulling off what you don't want, which is he's pulling the ball more,

but only on the ground. His pulled ground ball rate is up to 25%. 25% of his bad of balls are pulled ground balls. That's bad. Those are mostly going to be outs, even in a post-shift era. and his pulled air rate has dropped from 16% to 11.5%. That's bad because a lot of your production comes on pulled airballs.

So I am, it doesn't seem like he's lost the physical tools that were so impressive, although weirdly his sprint speed has tanked completely. He was 58th percent down sprint speed last year. He's down to 25th, which is weird because we haven't heard of any, kind of injury for Lawrence Butler. But his approach, I guess, is the right way to put it, looks much worse than it did last year. And it's worth keeping the mind, it was only two really good months last year. So it could be that just July and August were a little bit of a fluke for Lawrence Butler.

I'm not saying that definitively, I am saying he's not a. an active by low candidate for me. I would agree with that. And you brought this up on the podcast last week. The fact that he is hitting very well against fastballs and just. It's like 45% whiff rate against everything else. Struggling on anything else. Breaking off speed.

It's just a 42% whiff rate or higher on both breaking and off speed pitches right now. Sub 180 batting average on each of those pitches as well. So that's a troubling sound. right now for Lawrence Butler. All right, we're going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a 5-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow.

Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.