Major League Baseball has now played six of 26 weeks this season, which means we have some stats, but not quite enough, to evaluate players for our fantasy baseball squads. With Opening Day well past us and the dog days of summer ahead, who have been some of the more interesting risers and fallers?
In the aggregate, six weeks of production are not a lot of information to use when evaluating players for the rest of the season. That’s why it’s also important to look at usage, lineup placement, platoon splits, and other factors when trying to determine what to do with tough player choices.
This piece will look at some MLB fantasy assets that have seen their fantasy value rise and fall through the first four weeks of games. This will hopefully give us an idea of what to do with these players moving forward.
Roster percentages (from Yahoo) and stats include all games finished by May 7.
MLB Risers
Julio Rodriguez (OF), Seattle Mariners
For about a month, I had Julio Rodriguez on the list of potential players for the FALLERS portion of the column, but then a funny thing happened on my road to bash the Mariners’ multi-tool superstar: he started raking. Over the last week, J-Rod is hitting .333/.407/.583 with two home runs and (get ready!) zero strikeouts! On the season, Rodriguez now has six home runs, five steals, and 25 runs for a surging Seattle offense.
It’s the strikeouts and the plate discipline that are starting to turn his season around. Overall, Rodriguez’s 19.9% strikeout rate is far and away the best of his career. His 10% walk rate is also 50% better than any other season on the back of his baseball card. His season slash line is still a disappointing .228/.325/.407, but that has a lot to do with the fact that he has a .255 batting average on balls in play (BABIP), 85 points below his career average. His Statcast data shows his expected batting average is a much more respectable .257, so bigger days may still be ahead.
Zach Neto (SS), Los Angeles Angels
No one would have blamed Zach Neto if his season started slowly. He missed the first month with a shoulder injury and didn’t have any kind of Spring Training. In fact, his entire ramp-up time for his return to the majors was fewer than 60 plate appearances in AAA. Rust was to be expected, but he showed up 17 games ago and has been hitting, running, and producing like a fantasy superstar through his first 70 plate appearances.
Overall, Neto is hitting .292/.343/.554 with four home runs and seven steals. Even with the missed time, he is already on pace to break his 23/30 season from 2024, where he broke out as a fantasy star. His hard-hit rate and barrel rate are way up. His exit velocity has seen a massive increase. And his expected batting average (.323) and expected slugging percentage (.653) are all well above what he’s actually done, meaning this has a good chance to continue.
Reese Olson (SP), Detroit Tigers
Although some thought Jackson Jobe or Casey Mize could step up and be the solid number two behind Tarik Skubal this year, it’s Reese Olson who is making the case for being the Tigers’ next star pitcher with his performance the past few weeks. In his past 14 days, Olson has a 2.38 ERA, a 60% groundball rate, and an 11.91% strikeout rate. He has not allowed a home run in that span, and while the walks are certainly too high (4.7 per nine innings), he has been under three per nine innings the rest of his career.
Olson is limiting hard contact this season; he is only giving up about a 5.5% barrel rate, and he is keeping the ball in the park. For a pitcher who has just turned 25 years old, this is exactly the type of skill improvement you would like to see. If he can keep the gains he has made in strikeout rate overall (9.31 strikeouts per nine this year), we are potentially watching a fantasy stud form before our eyes.
MLB Fallers
Trevor Story (SS), Boston Red Sox
It was another bad day at the office for Trevor Story on Tuesday. Despite hitting fourth and fifth most of the season, Story hit sixth against the Texas Rangers and proceeded to go 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. That continued an awful two-week stretch where Story is hitting .130/.184/.130 with no home runs. What that simple slash line tells us is he is not hitting for average, not hitting for power, not drawing walks, and not making contact (he has a 31% strikeout rate).
Earlier in the season, Story was absolutely on fire, with a sustained stretch hitting over .350, and he has five home runs and seven steals this year. But those days seem long gone right now. Surely it’s a combination of age, injury history, rust, and decline in bat speed that are the factors. His BABIP is still .333, so it’s not like this is bad luck or anything. He is still playing every day, but with super-prospect Marcelo Mayer ready to come up from AAA at any point, Story might have a future that is in jeopardy.
Lawrence Butler (OF), Athletics
On Wednesday afternoon, Lawrence Butler was moved to sixth in the Athletics’ batting order. This was just the second time all season that he did not hit leadoff, but his play over the last two weeks absolutely warranted the decision. In addition to hitting .182/.196/.327 over his last 56 plate appearances, Butler has an astronomical 41% strikeout rate. Combine that with a paltry 1.8% walk rate, and you have a player who is up there hacking away and not making the kind of good, solid contact that defined his 2024 breakout.
In fact, his contact rate has dropped from 75% last season to 69% this year. His outside-the-zone contact rate is even worse. That has fallen from 56% last season to 38% in 2025. All of this has happened while his overall swing rate is identical from 2024 to 2025 (76.7%). To get back to the top of the order, Butler is going to have to learn more patience and more discipline at the plate. He has plenty of guys behind him who can drive him in, so he needs to be a table setter as much as he can.
Garrett Crochet (SP), Boston Red Sox
There are three pitchers who have at least 15 innings pitched and at least 5.00 walks per nine innings over the last 15 days. Those pitchers are Kodai Senga, Dylan Cease (who is melting down in real time), and – surprisingly – Garrett Crochet. Now, a pitcher like Crochet can often rely on his strikeout rate, which is over 11 Ks’ per nine innings, but the fact remains that his ERA is approaching 4.00 in this span because he has not been able to limit the free passes to hitters. In fact, Cease and Senga both have Crochet soundly beat in ERA over their last three starts, as Crochet is letting more than 20% of runners on base score in that time.
This is a fixable problem, and perhaps we just need patience for him to work through it. Crochet’s walk rate in 2024 was 2.03 batters per nine innings across 146 innings. The control and the command are in there. Could this be the result of what was a fantasy community worry heading into this season? The fact that Crochet had never pitched anywhere close to 146 innings before 2024, and how would that impact him this season? Perhaps, but he deserves some leeway to see if he can figure it out.
Hunter Goodman or Ivan Herrera?
Can someone please tell me what to do with Bo Bichette? I have Jacob Wilson and can only roster one shortstop rest of the season…
I have Bichette in 3 of my 4 leagues, but as my MI. In one league I also have Wilson + Lindor (but 2 x UTY spots). Bichette presently has an empty AVG, but his underlying numbers look very good. I think a serious hot streak is coming – never underestimate the motivation of a big contract year – at which point I will consider selling high. That said, would I rather have Wilson vs Bichette? I prefer Wilson ($1) in my auction keeper league, but I think Bichette is probably more valuable in standard roto the rest of 2025.
Title correction: 2025 AL Risers And Fallers……….
Purely a coincidence! I hadn’t noticed that…
Fair to say that the Orioles prospects just haven’t developed as anticipated? Gunnar, Mayo, Kjestad big disappointments. Notwithstanding their inability to develop pitching at the major league level, those prized prospects leave a lot to be desired. 9 games under 500 is not coincidental
I wouldn’t call Gunnar a developmental disappointment. ROY a couple years back, and an MVP-type season last year. He was hurt in spring, which set him back this year. This year is definitely disappointing. I’d say their pitching is more of a problem
I agree with both of you, it’s been mixed – Gunnar is injury and slow-start related. Holliday is actually raking past couple of weeks. Rutschman is elite, but hasn’t been the same since injury last year. But Mayo, Kjerstad, and even Mountcastle (another one they drafted) have been disappointing.
Some people are worried about Crochet’s velo dip, but I’m thinking maybe it’s intentional?
We know last year the ChiSox weren’t going anywhere and they were showcasing him to other teams, perhaps the Red Sox told Crochet to dial things back a bit in hopes of being more economical with his pitches for more innings and he’s still tinkering with adjustments (especially considering how bad the Red Sox pen has been).
Yeah, and I’m good with them utilizing the “Degrom plan” where they decrease velo and decrease innings. But what innings he has thrown lately have had serious command issues. Yes, it’s a small sample, but it’s more than double hie walk rate from ’24 and that’s alarming
I’m very concerned there’s an injury here. Check the drop in his extension, now the velo dip.
I’ll be very interested to see if the team says something about velo dip. It’s not a little thing at this point.
On the bright side if Crochet’s velocity dip is a problem maybe he’d be willing to play 1B