We’re more than a quarter into the Fantasy Baseball season, so it’s a good time to reboot the Shuffle Up series. We’ll start with those players who have outfield eligibility in Yahoo.
What you see below is how I would arrange the outfielders if I were entering a new draft today. Use it to evaluate your team, consider pickups and drops, grade trade offers — it’s up to you.
My salaries are unscientific in nature, meant primarily to show how I rank the players and, more specifically, where the clusters of talent are. Your list will look different, of course. That’s why we have a game. Players at the same number are considered even.
I priced injured players separately, at the bottom. I’m no doctor, and the level of injury optimism is highly variable from fantasy manager to fantasy manager.
More positional shuffles will come in the ensuring weeks.
Dig in.
The Big Tickets
Tucker has long been a star, but maybe he’s ready to challenge for an MVP His walk rate has spiked, and he’s walking more than he’s striking out — that’s the sign of an elite batter. He’s a perfect 9-for-9 on steals. He’s only swinging outside 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 in the Houston lineup. And to think, former manager Dusty Baker loved to bat Tucker sixth in the Houston order.
Ozuna remains comically underrated, someone who has smashed MLB pitching for over a year now. Check his past 365 days of stats: .302/.373/.605, with 46 homers, 126 RBI, and 96 runs scored. He’s the only Atlanta batter significantly outproducing his projection, though Travis d’Arnaud has been a surprise behind the plate. Meanwhile, Matt Olson and Ronald Acuña have OPS+ numbers just over 100 (which is league average), and Michael Harris is 14% below the league mean. Eventually the weather will warm and the Atlanta lineup will too, but Ozuna is already sizzling.
What’s a little scary about Acuña’s start is that he’s been a little unlucky but not absurdly so. His expected batting average is a modest .268 (15 points unlucky), and his expected slugging is a very Acuña-unlike .420 (61 points higher than the current number). His plate discipline stats remain solid, but he’s swinging and missing more than ever before. Temporary slump? Has the knee issue from the spring carried over? Perhaps time for an eye exam? I know it’s not a satisfying conclusion, but with players carrying this explosive a resume, usually you simply hold and hope for the best. He’s still capable of being the best player in baseball at any time.
A handful of Rodriguez trends are moving in the wrong direction — strikeouts up, walks down, pull rate significantly down. And as you’d expect, he’s also swinging and missing more often. Imagine how ugly things would be if not for that .382 BABIP? Still, Rodriguez is running at the same pace as last year, and there’s too much upside to strongly consider a sell-low. If you want out of the Rodriguez business, you probably want to see some kind of binge first, so market confidence rebonds and you can get a reasonable return. Of course, his home ballpark is unlikely to help him, not to mention the ordinary lineup around him.
Legitimate Building Blocks
Yelich has probably exited the MVP discussions for good, but he remains one of the smartest players in the league and makes do despite ordinary hard-hit metrics and sprint speed that’s just a little above average. I’m here for his boring-value veteran days. The Brewers offer surprising lineup buoyancy, ranking third in runs per game.
Adell and Profar are a couple of post-hype sleepers and difficult to rank; Adell earned a slightly-higher ticket because he’s six years younger and more likely to run aggressively. To be fair to Profar, we’ll always wonder what his career might have been if injuries left him alone and if some of his teams stopped making him play so many different positions. The Padres have him locked in left field, and maybe that’s allowed Profar to relax and settle into this surprising offensive season. Profar’s batted-ball data doesn’t completely validate his back-of-card stats, but an expected .307 average and expected .446 slugging would play for anyone. And with 25 walks against 28 strikeouts, he’s basically mastered the strike zone.
Despite the modest frame, Morel has turned himself into a legitimate slugger, in part because of his pull-happy approach — he’s hitting to left field a whopping 53.4% of the time. He’s also getting better with pitch recognition, notably improving his chase rate and his contact rate.
Talk them up, talk them down
The good news on Carroll: he still makes plenty of contact, he walks at a respectable rate, and he’s interested in running. But his hard-hit metrics are a mess, and even though his current average is unlucky per the component stats, his earned average is merely .238 (his expected slugging doesn’t bump much either, only to .343). It’s fair to speculate that his shoulder isn’t right.
I’m glad the Twins aren’t jerking Castro out of the lineup because at this point I think he’s more reliable (and probably better) than the injury-prone Byron Buxton. Castro covers four positions in Yahoo fantasy and will probably end the year with 12-15 homers and 20-25 steals. He bats all over the lineup, but at least he’s become a daily staple in that lineup. He’s welcome on all of my rosters.
I’d love to rank Carpenter higher, but he rarely plays against lefties and it feels like the Tigers face multiple southpaws every week. The Detroit offense is also an eyelash below league average at the moment. If you’re in a league that allows you to enjoy the filet of Carpenter’s game — the work against right-handed pitching — note that he slashes .287/.341/.528 in the platoon advantage.
Some plausible upside
If I knew the Cubs would play Tauchman all year, I’d push him into double-digits. He’s an OBP machine and could score 90 runs if they leave him alone. He’s not a nothing in the category juice columns, either.
Young’s willingness to run like crazy has earned double-digits so far, but playing time could be dicey as the Nationals start to get healthy. The .270 average is fine, though it’s a punchless .270 (no homers, career .333 slugging).
Meyers has played well enough that I don’t think we can assume Chas McCormick gets his job back when he’s ready to play again. Meyers has a snappy .290/.355/.530 slash, and it’s completely validated by his Savant page.
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Bargain Bin
Courtesy Ranks for Injured Players — Not for debate
Generally I have less injury optimism for injury comebacks than the market does. 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 solid — shop him to a contender. Give him a chance to be relevant in October, for once (he’s played all of three career playoff games). Trout said before the year that he didn’t want a trade right now, but he couldn’t predict the future. That could be a nice say of saying “see what’s possible, guys.” It’s amazing the Angels never had a winning record during the Trout/Ohtani era.
