Generally, hitters are correctly viewed as the back of their baseball cards. Any performance that deviates too far from that, especially regarding veteran hitters, is viewed as more of a fluke than a fact. Pitchers are different, given there are so many ways for them to radically improve or decline and sustain those new levels. Again, we should be skeptical when a player’s hitting significantly changes.
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However, we now have new data: expected stats. If hitters are improving their contact profiles at a fundamental level a third of the way into the season, supported by their year-over-year data from Statcast/Baseball Savant, does that warrant a fresh projection? If that’s the case, some hitters are currently undervalued based on Yahoo roster rates. Additionally, some hitters have had an unexpected collapse in contact performance, with their fantasy managers still holding steady based on the baseball-card theory for hitting projections.
Pick up if possible?
Jorge Polanco (SEA, 3B) is 55% rostered. He’s been a 95th-percentile hitter in expected stats, and he’s improved 30.4% from 2024 (through Monday). He’s been a good hitter in the past, but we thought those days were over, even at age 31, given how he declined from 2023 to 2024. He doesn’t strike out much, has a top barrel rate and average bat speed. Polanco is an extreme pull hitter, making up for his suboptimal fly-ball rate. Expect the power to continue at the current pace, along with a top average.
Michael Busch (CHC, 1B) is 48% rostered. Everything is up across the board in his hitting stats, and his expected xwOBA is in the top 15%. He’s improved 17.2% in the stat from 2024. The K rate is still bad, but it’s down to 25% from 28.6% in 2024. Bat speed holds him down in the power department (he only has five expected homers, two fewer than his actual number). This roster rate feels about right, but you could do worse.
Colt Keith (DET, 2B) is 12% rostered. He’s a strong-side platoon option who has not hit lefties. But he’s getting more plate appearances against lefties than in 2024, so this doesn’t account for his 17.4% boost in expected performance compared to last year. He was viewed as a top college hitter and, as a top 20% MLB bat in these expected stats, he’s beginning to realize that potential.
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Ryan Jeffers (MIN, C) is just 17% rostered. Even in one-catcher leagues, this roster rate is too low. He’s been batting leadoff. There’s no reason he can’t finish the season at a 20-homer pace. His Ks are down so much that he should help at least a little in batting average. His 75th-percentile walk rate should keep him in the leadoff spot even when Byron Buxton returns. He had an .859 actual OPS in 2023, when his xwOBA was less than what it is now (.333 vs. today’s .352 — 72nd percentile).
Reassess?
These players are slumping badly, but no one seems to believe it. Should w,e though? All are very young players in MLB experience.
Lawrence Butler (ATH, OF) is delivering homers and steals at the rates we wanted, but he’s been an unexceptional hitter overall — actual OPS of .729 vs. .807 last year and an almost identical 9% decline in xwOBA. His whiff rate on breaking balls is 48.2%, compared to 26.9% last year. He has adjustments to make, but can he make them on the fly?
Jackson Chourio (MIL, OF) is, like Butler, undroppable for the homers and steals. But he’s still a big disappointment, failing to pick up where he left off as one of the game’s best hitters in the second half of 2024. His OPS is just .695. His expected stats are down 11.9% — gross! He’s chasing way more than last year (3rd percentile). He’s a 16th-percentile hitter. Coming into the season, I wanted all the Chourio I could get, and I obviously got ahead of myself.
Gunnar Henderson (BAL, SS) is surprisingly a below-average hitter in expected statistics and has arguably gotten lucky to have only a 108-point OPS decline from 2024. The Ks are moving in the wrong direction. He’s also struggling with breaking balls, whiffing on 42%, compared to 26% last year. Sometimes the pitchers force you to adjust and address your weaknesses. This could change at any time, given his talent, particularly his bat speed, which is in the 93rd percentile. Jackson Holliday (70% rostered) has actually been a better hitter, though he has a lower ceiling due to much less bat speed.
Hold steady?
Now, some general words on hitters who are way off with actual stats. What do their expected stats say?
Juan Soto (NYM, OF) was fairly discussed early in the “Sunday Night Baseball” telecast, which touched on the inescapable point that Soto is probably MLB’s most unlucky hitter right now. Then the announcers spent the next two hours ripping him at every at-bat for all the things he’s doing wrong. It was quite bizarre. His expected stats are down 8%, but from a remarkably high level. He’s solidly a top-10 overall hitter in the data. He is owed a white-hot month or two.
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Mookie Betts (LAD, SS) is down 5% in expected stats but is only a 50th-percentile hitter. That’s shocking. He’s 84th overall in xwOBA — Soto is fifth. Betts has lost so much bat speed – from 71 mph in 2023 to 69 in 2024 and now 68 mph this season, which is 14th percentile. He has to be nearly perfect in squaring up the baseball to produce. That’s a tough way to make a living.
Elly De La Cruz (CIN, SS) is only down 1% from last year in expected stats, but is unable to overcome it by outpacing gravity in 2025. So while his 8% decline in actual stats may seem like a fluke, it isn’t. He’s crushing steals with 17 (pace of about 50), though that’s also disappointing for someone who stole 67 last season. His homers are on track to replicate his 2024 mark of 25. He’s sort of in Julio Rodriguez land as a hitter who just isn’t breaking out the way we’ve built it into his cost. You may wish you had taken the new Cruz — Oneil — at Elly’s price instead. They’re basically the same player, though Elly strikes out marginally less.
(Top photo of Mookie Betts: Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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