MLB Barometer: Risers & Fallers

We've now reached the one-quarter mark of the 2021 season, with the majority of the teams having played at least 40 games. Our natural human preference for round numbers and clean cutoff points might imbue that mark with more significance than it truly deserves, but it certainly seems as though we're at a point where we can more accurately assess where our fantasy teams sit, as the standings are starting to look much more real.

I've seen that in my own leagues, with trade offers starting to pick up across the board over the last week or so. That's especially true in dynasty leagues, where people likely had something of an idea where they stood in the competitiveness cycle heading into the year. If your team's performance has matched your preseason expectations, it's very easy to believe that your spot in the standings is real, meaning it's time to think about buying or selling. If you have a team that's underperforming lofty expectations or is surprisingly competitive, it might also be time to think about buying.

If you're looking to buy in a dynasty league, there's strong incentive to buy as early in the season as possible. Getting, say, two years and 120 games of Mookie Betts is meaningfully more valuable than getting two years and 80 games, especially when considering just this season, when you'll get 50 percent more production out of him than if you wait until the midpoint of the season to make a move. Selling teams won't necessarily charge you a premium for those extra 40 games, instead judging any potential trade by its impact over the next several seasons given that they're likely already out of the mix this year.

It's also time to start thinking about trades in single-season leagues. While there's no concept of buyers and sellers in those formats, it's still beginning to become clear where each team's strengths and weaknesses are. Assuming you aren't in a league with a bunch of people you can reliably rip off, one way to get an edge on the trade market is to think about risk. If you're doing very well already, you want to minimize uncertainty. Consider trading a high-variance player for someone who may have a lesser ceiling but a higher median outcome. If you're struggling, you're going to need some 90th-percentile outcomes to break your way to get back in the mix, so consider doing the opposite.

RISERS

Buster Posey, C, Giants: Posey's numbers fell off significantly in the first few years of his thirties, with his wRC+ dropping from 128 to 106 to 84. After he opted out of last season to be with his newly adopted premature twins, it wouldn't have been at all surprising to see him continue to trend downward with age, fading into a backup role right as Joey Bart was ready to claim the starting job for good. That hasn't come close to happening. Instead, the year off seems to have keyed an incredible renaissance for the 34-year-old, as he's hitting .382/.466/.685 and is showing no signs of slowing down, posting an 1.198 OPS thus far in May after recording a 1.123 OPS in April. A .406 BABIP will surely fall and take a bite out of his line with it, but his .327 xBA and .598 xSLG are both easily personal Statcast-era bests. He's already homered eight times, putting him well on his way toward his third-ever 20-homer season and his first since 2014. The veteran surely won't end the season with numbers quite this good, but it's a lot easier to believe in a hot start for a player with a track record as strong as his. 

Kyle Tucker, OF, Astros: Tucker struggled to produce at the plate for most of the season. Through his first 33 games, he hit just .175/.242/.342. Over his last eight games, however, he's turned things around dramatically, hitting .429/.515/.964 with four homers. That doesn't necessarily represent a new level of performance, though, but rather a case of his luck evening out. Even during that poor stretch, his 10.0 percent barrel rate and 45.6 percent hard-hit rate both beat his numbers from last season. Looking at the entirety of his season, his .291 xBA and .547 xSLG are both far better than his actual .225 batting average and .465 slugging percentage, and are both career highs. His .213 BABIP similarly suggests that better days are coming. Once that evens out, Tucker should become everything he was supposed to be this season. There was arguably no better buy-low a week ago, and while it may be harder to pry the young outfielder loose now that his results have started to match his process stats, it's probably still worth a shot.

Teoscar Hernandez, OF, Blue Jays: Hernandez owned a .517 OPS through his first seven games of the season before being shut down for three weeks due to COVID-19. Since his return, he's hit an excellent .328/.406/.557 with four homers and two steals in 16 games. Perhaps most notably, he's struck out just 14.5 percent of the time while walking in 11.6 percent of his plate appearances during that stretch. That's a very encouraging sign considering that his breakout 2020 campaign came with very poor plate discipline, as seen in his 30.4 percent strikeout rate and 6.8 percent walk rate. For a hitter who had rarely been a particularly interesting option in the past, that gave his doubters plenty of reason to stay away from him during draft season. If those gains hold, he'll have a lot better chance to maintain a good batting average alongside a profile that has already featured plenty of power and a bit of speed.

Robbie Ray, SP, Blue Jays: For most of his career, Ray was a favorite of fools like me who thought that maybe this would be the year he lucked into a good ERA to go along with his excellent strikeout numbers. Occasionally it worked, and he was great all-around, though most of the time we had to content ourselves with the knowledge that he was striking out enough batters to make up for the damage he did to our ratios. Everything went wrong last season, when his walk rate spiked to 17.9 percent and his groundball rate plummeted to 24.3 percent, leading unsurprisingly to a 6.62 ERA. He was an afterthought during draft season but has wound up reemerging in what looks to be the best form of his career. His 28.9 percent strikeout rate isn't quite as good as what it was at his peak, but he's suddenly stopped walking batters, issuing just a single one in his last five starts, posting a 42:1 K:BB over that stretch. That's led to a 3.79 ERA and an even more promising 3.39 xFIP. The rebound follows offseason work to return to his old arm slot, and he's still just 29 years old, so there's plenty of reason to believe the improvements will stick.

Andrew McCutchen, OF, Phillies: McCutchen started the season terribly, hitting just .154/.300/.231 through his first 19 games while also struggling defensively. For a 34-year-old who'd just seen his wRC+ drop to a career-low 103 in 2020, it looked as though his days as an effective everyday player might have been over. A pair of benchings in late April appear to have turned things around for the veteran, however. Since his return to the lineup on April 28, he's hit .292/.405/.569 in 18 games. His hard-hit rate has jumped from 33.3 percent over his first 19 games to 40.0 percent over the latter stretch. We should still expect a diminished version of McCutchen going forward given his age, as he has a career-worst 24.5 percent strikeout rate on the season, and his .244 xBA, while better than his actual .223 average, would still represent a career low, but it looks as though he should remain a capable enough cross-category contributor and isn't about to be reduced to a bench role.

FALLERS

Luis Castillo, SP, Reds: Castillo featured as a faller in the first regular-season edition of this column this year following a disastrous first start in which he allowed 10 runs (eight earned) against the Cardinals while throwing his fastball nearly three ticks slower than his average of 97.5 mph last season. While his velocity is starting to come back, as he averaged 97.1 mph in two of his last three starts and saw corresponding increases with his slider and changeup, his performances have remained awful. Following an eight-run implosion at Coors Field on Thursday, he now owns a 7.71 ERA on the season through eight starts. His strikeout rate has been slashed nearly in half, dropping from 30.5 percent to 16.3 percent. A .380 BABIP and 51.2 percent strand rate undoubtedly deserve some of the blame for his terrible ERA, and his 4.78 FIP and 4.26 xFIP indicate he's pitching merely poorly, not terribly, that's still miles worse than what was expected from a player who was a top-30 pick during draft season.

Nate Pearson, SP, Blue Jays: Pearson was heavily hyped heading into last season on the theory that the lack of minor-league games would leave the Blue Jays with little reason not to include their top pitching prospect as a member of their rotation. He did indeed get the call very early in the season, but he struggled to a 6.00 ERA and a 16:13 K:BB in just 18 innings while missing much of the year due to a flexor strain. Injuries have once again been the primary story for the young righty during his sophomore season. He suffered a groin strain in early March and missed most of April before getting the call for his season debut in early May following just a single Triple-A start. That outing went terribly, and he was sent back to the minors after walking five and striking out none while allowing three runs in 2.1 innings of work. He's since been diagnosed with a right shoulder impingement and will miss at least one Triple-A start. Those in deep leagues may still want to hold on, as the potential that made Pearson a top prospect is presumably still in there, but the constant stream of injuries and the complete lack of anything resembling his potential have made for a rather demoralizing start to his career.

Mike Soroka, SP, Atlanta: Soroka was expected to miss roughly the first month of the season while recovering from the Achilles surgery that cut his 2020 season short after just three starts. Many were perfectly content to draft the young Canadian righty and stash him on the bench for that month, hoping to get five months of numbers similar to what he showed in his 2019 season, when he finished second in the NL Rookie of the Year voting on the back of his 2.68 ERA. Unfortunately, those who drafted him will wind up waiting far longer than a month, as he's already had a pair of setbacks. A shoulder issue in early April shut him down for more than three weeks, and he hadn't resumed throwing for long when his Achilles flared up again. He's now set for exploratory surgery and doesn't have a clear timeline for when he'll get back on the mound. Those in deeper leagues may be able to wait another week or so until clarity emerges, but cutting bait might not be the worst idea. Even during his strong 2019 campaign, his 3.85 xFIP and 4.11 xERA suggested he wasn't all that dominant, and he struck out a below-average 20.3 percent of opposing batters. If that's all he is, he's unlikely to be worth waiting for.

Dallas Keuchel, SP, White Sox: Is there a lower limit to how few batters a pitcher can strike out while still keeping his job? That appears to be the experiment Keuchel is carrying out this season. The lefty was always a soft-tosser who relied on grounders to get outs, but his career 19.0 percent strikeout rate through the end of last season was at least within striking distance of the rest of the league. This season, that number has fallen all the way to 10.0 percent, well below half of the league average of 24.1 percent and easily the lowest mark among all qualified starters. Given his complete lack of whiffs, it's somewhat impressive that his 4.53 ERA is as respectable as it is. While he still gets plenty of groundballs and issues a below-average amount of walks, he really doesn't offer fantasy teams much at this point.

Brian Anderson, 3B, Marlins: No one confuses Anderson for an elite hitter, but three seasons as a solidly above-average one made him a fine option to fill a corner infield spot. He's been nowhere near above-average this season, however, as his .204/.255/.301 slash line is good for a miserable 57 wRC+. He's struggled on either side of a two-week absence due to an oblique issue, posting a .562 OPS prior to landing on the injured list and a .547 OPS since his return. That latter stretch features a particularly worrisome 37.8 percent strikeout rate and 4.4 percent walk rate. There were already signs of Anderson trending in this direction in his underlying stats last year, though a .323 BABIP helped him to a career-high 122 wRC+. His 28.8 percent strikeout rate that season was nearly seven ticks above his 21.9 percent mark from a year prior, and his .227 xBA came in well below his .255 batting average. If this is viewed as a two-year slide for Anderson, it's a lot easier to cut him loose, especially given that he doesn't have a particularly high ceiling and was interesting mostly for his supposedly decent floor.