I get it: It's a new month, and 17% of the fantasy baseball season is now in the books. Your standings are beginning to solidify, decreasingly changing on a day-to-day basis. You're beginning to panic, as some of your early-round picks aren't getting the job done.
Here's the reality: 83% of the season lies ahead of us, and 32 days is nowhere near enough from which to draw rash conclusions, especially in the absence of clear shifts in a player's ability or injury status. Yes, May is prime time for buy-low trading season, and Monday's column therefore begins with a pair in whom I've scarcely changed my opinion from their generous preseason rankings.
Go get these guys now:
Kenta Maeda, SP, Minnesota Twins: The preseason's SP16, and No. 49 overall selection, in terms of average draft position, Maeda has struggled to the tune of an SP205 and No. 803 Player Rater ranking through 4 ½ weeks, which would be by far his worst finishes in a big-league season if the year concluded today (his single-year low was SP71 and 217th overall, in 2018). Fortunately, the season hasn't wrapped, and Maeda's miserable year-to-date numbers have reached such an extreme that it shouldn't be difficult to acquire him at a discount relative to that ADP. His pitch-selection metrics show no substantial changes, as his average four-seam fastball velocity has declined by a mere 0.5 mph from his 2020 number, but that's also not his primary pitch and it did match his 91.6 last year mark in his most recent start this past Tuesday. Maeda's command of his slider, and to a lesser extent his splitter, seem the problem, and bad luck on batted balls -- best illustrated by his career-worst 16.3 home run/fly ball percentage (and 26.9%, or nearly 13% worse than his career rate, if you prefer the FanGraphs calculation) -- have also contributed.
There's nothing here that casts Maeda in a troubling light, other than the reminder that his 2020 raw rotisserie rates would've been tough to match. Still, he seems plenty capable of a 3.50-or-better ERA, he has the pinpoint control to post a sub-1.15 WHIP the remainder of the year and Statcast concurs, noting that he has pitched to the level of an ERA deservedly a run-and-a-quarter better so far in 2021. There's still a top-20 fantasy starter's path in his right arm.
Dominic Smith, 1B/OF, New York Mets: The poster boy for bad luck thus far, Statcast's metrics paint the perfect picture of Smith's 2021 misfortunes. Their expected metrics have him posting a .319 batting average and .384 wOBA, meaning that he has the majors' widest differential between his actual and expected wOBA in the "unfortunate" direction (120 points), and the ninth-widest between his actual and expected batting average (85 points). In short, while the age-old BABIP numbers paint a similar picture, they lack depth in terms of quality of his misfortune -- think extra-base production -- on batted balls. Smith remains that same .280-hitting, 25-homer capable hitter, with upside in either category, that he was during the preseason, and it's a great sign that the Mets remain committed to him as their everyday left fielder, starting him there in 19-of-22 games thus far.
Three to add for Monday
Daniel Lynch, SP, Kansas City Royals: Kiley McDaniel's No. 3 from within the Royals' organization, No. 18 among pitchers and No. 65 prospect overall during the preseason, Lynch is aligned to make his major league debut on Monday night, ejecting Jakob Junis -- on an aside, really, Royals, Junis gets bumped rather than the struggling Brad Keller? -- from the team's rotation. From a mere streaming perspective, it's a dream opening matchup, and my past analysis shows that rookie pitchers tend to enjoy some of their best fantasy production in their first big-league starts (and certainly in their first 3-5, rather than the couple dozen after that), even if pitch efficiency has held that group back and a conservative pitch count might in Lynch's case. Cleveland is simply a great matchup for an opposing pitcher, as its lineup ranks 23rd in wOBA against left-handers (.289) and the Forecaster concurs, grading it a raw-talent 20th against that side (note that it does project righties to garner the stronger matchup). It's also a good thing that the game is in Kansas City, in the Royals' homer-suppressing ballpark.
Lynch's raw skill is greater than at least the bottom third of what's in current big-league rotations, and considering the specialization of pitching staffs, ever-changing rotations and shifting skill sets we've seen thus far, he's a definite add in anything larger than ESPN's 10-team standard -- and even there he's worth the pickup if it's not coming at the cost of a clear contributor. He has the mid-90s mph fastball and slider to generate a good number of strikeouts with a solid ERA, though I'd worry that he might struggle initially against right-handed lineups, making him a matchups risk there. For those of you in weekly leagues, keep that in mind: He faces the Chicago White Sox next, and they're a much tougher matchup for a lefty.
Josh Rojas, 2B/SS/OF, Arizona Diamondbacks: It's the nature of a standard mixed league that you chase stats on the back end of your roster, so it's understandable that after Rojas was nabbed as an end-of-spring-training sleeper, that he was dropped in a slew of leagues after his miserable regular-season start. The flashy skills he displayed during the Cactus League -- remember that his Diamondbacks called the only Statcast-equipped venue in Arizona their home -- have reappeared during the past week, and the team has leaned heavily upon him in the wake of injuries during that time, granting him starts in each of their past five games and 8-of-10. In just the team's four-game weekend series against the Colorado Rockies -- played at Chase Field rather than Coors, an important distinction -- he swatted six batted balls at 100-plus mph, covering 2-of-3 home runs he hit overall, which looked a lot more like the player who had 13 such exit velocities on 44 tracked batted balls during the preseason. Rojas' stint as a regular might not have legs, as Kole Calhoun, Ketel Marte and, to a lesser extent, Tim Locastro will need places to play once healthy, but Rojas' positional flexibility is a good thing on a team willing to freely mix and match. With continued success, he might even make a case for more leadoff assignments. Consider his "sleeper" status fully restored.
Garrett Richards, SP, Boston Red Sox: OK, I'll bite. After four forgettable starts to begin his 2021, Richards has turned in a pair of gems, totaling 17 K's with only two runs, 11 hits and one walk allowed in 12 innings' work. Yes, one of those came against the light-hitting Texas Rangers, in their now-apparent-pitching-friendly venue at that, but Richards' newfound fastball velocity, coupled with his own admission that it came with an adjustment to his delivery, is the bigger storyline. He averaged 94.0 and 94.7 mph with said fastball in those games, up a full mile per hour compared to his previous four turns, with the pitch showing greater break than it had previously. In short, this does appear to be a meaningful adjustment, and Richards' improved control is a huge plus, one that eases a lot of worry about his slow start. I'll keep saying it: Add pitching pieces where you see hints of growth, in the hopes that one sticks. It'll work in some cases (Kyle Gibson) and not others (Alex Cobb) -- and even then, we're still way too early in the year for definitive conclusions on any -- but it's the best way to polish the back end of your pitching staff.