Major League Baseball has now played about 21 of 26 weeks this season, which means we have a large statistical basis, but not quite a whole season, to evaluate players for our fantasy baseball squads. With the trade deadline past and teams looking to call up prospects to see what they have next year, or plan for the playoffs, who have been some of the more interesting risers and fallers?
In the aggregate, 21 weeks of production is not a lot of information, even when you’re trying to evaluate 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. As the fantasy baseball playoffs loom, these choices become more and more important.
This piece will look at some MLB fantasy assets that have seen their fantasy value rise and fall through the first 21 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 August 26th.
MLB Risers
Ben Rice (1B/DH), New York Yankees
Ben Rice homered again as part of the Yankees’ offensive outburst on Wednesday afternoon, and remember when Paul Goldschmidt used to play? Those were fun times. Ben Rice, who has played plenty of first base in his four-year minor league stint in the Yankees’ system, has claimed a full-time role as the first baseman, catcher, and some DH this season and is absolutely crushing it. Especially lately
Rice is hitting .316/.435/.737 with four home runs, 10 RBI, and a 17% walk rate through two weeks (and that’s before Wednesday). His Statcast page looks like someone laid red ink pens horizontally across the middle of the screen. The power is legit through these many months of his full-time audition for the big leagues, and if he can cut down on strikeouts, there may actually be room for improvement. Over the last two weeks, he is only at 21%.
Just 26 years old, Rice is still improving and may be the long-term answer to first base the Yankees have been looking for since Mark Teixeira retired.
Riley Greene (OF), Detroit Tigers
Whoever had Riley Greene with 32 homers and 100 RBI before September arrived, please stand up. No one?
There are exactly three players in Major League Baseball this season who have at least 25 doubles, 30 home runs, and 90 RBI. One of them is Aaron Judge. One of them is Taylor Ward (!). The other is, of course, Tigers outfielder Riley Greene. Greene is at .268/.323/.517 this season and is fifth in the league with 99 RBI.
Greene has, without a doubt, been one of the best value hitters in all of fantasy baseball this year. He was drafted around pick 100 in the spring baseball drafts, as we thought the power would come sometime, but perhaps not this soon.
Greene is putting up career-best numbers in barrel rate, launch angle, and max exit velocity. All of those numbers look elite and support Riley’s breakout this year, despite him being only 24 years old. The one thing to watch with Greene is strikeouts. He has 168 strikeouts on the season, the second-highest mark in the league this season (number one is James Wood). But his called plus swinging strike rate this year is not terrible, so some of the high strikeouts from the last month might fade away in the years to come.
This is a legit breakout and superstar-making year for Riley Greene.
Hunter Greene (SP), Cincinnati Reds
How about some more Greene propaganda?
If Major League Baseball handed out an in-season Comeback From Injury award, the winner right now might be starting pitcher Hunter Greene. In his first three starts since coming off the IL, Greene has pitched 17 innings, struck out 21 batters, and allowed only six earned runs.
Greene has always had the potential for dominance not only because of his lightning fastball, but also because of how he has harnessed his command early in the season, and since he came off the IL (only two walks). He is keeping the ball in the ballpark (just three home runs allowed). If Greene keeps up that kind of repertoire, we will be talking about Cy Youngs associated with his name again years to come. The home park is a problem, but when batters can’t hit his stuff and he is pitching in the zone, it’s a lethal combination.
Going just around pick 100 in drafts this spring, Greene is currently another draft steal in 2025. At just 25 years old and with a fastball sitting 99.4 miles per hour, Greene is firmly on the way up.
MLB Fallers
Willy Adames (SS), San Francisco Giants
What do you think and do five months after you handed out a seven-year, $182 million deal to a franchise shortstop, and he is playing like Willy Adames it? After 32 home runs, 21 steals, and 112 RBI last season for Milwaukee, San Francisco invested heavily in Willy Adames, but so far that investment has crashed and burned. Through 62 games, Adames is hitting .223/.313/.405 with 22 bombs (respectable) and seven stolen bases. Through more than two-thirds of the season, Adames is on pace to hit far fewer home runs than last season and steal less than half the number of bases.
We probably should have seen something like this coming. Oracle Park is a horrific place to hit home runs, and is dead last in Statcast’s park factors for home runs over the last three seasons. There might be some bad luck in Adames’ performance this year. His BABIP is way down from his career average. His hard-hit rate is actually up over 2024. But his expected batting average is just .236, and he is striking out more than 26% of the time.
Fantasy managers can always cut bait or bench Adames if they’re tired of the swings in production and the inconsistency. The San Francisco Giants? Not so much.
Byron Buxton (OF), Minnesota Twins
When Byron Buxton plays four more games this season, it will be the most he has played (103 games) since he played in 140 in 2017. He has played more than 92 games just once in that span. And while Buxton deserves some credit for being healthier this year than he has in the past five, the number of games has taken a toll on his production and left him really struggling over the last two weeks. In his last 12 games, Buxton is hitting .184/.245/.265 with one home run and two RBI.
During that span, his strikeout rate is up to 25% and his walk rate is down to 7.5%. He can blame some of it on low BABIP with just a .229 mark in his last 53 plate appearances, but all his hard-hit rate metrics are dropping, so that’s why not as many balls are going to drop in for hits.
Getting 25 home runs, 19 steals, and 75 runs (plus a .268 average) is likely more than you thought you would get if you drafted him, so it’s not a lost season by any means. But this might be a hard last month if he keeps going out there every day.
Luis Castillo (SP), Seattle Mariners
After this season is officially over, the Seattle Mariners will be three years into a five-year, $108 million contract that the team gave to Luis Castillo before the 2023 season. So far, they have no division titles and no playoff wins to show for that investment (pending the outcome of 2025), and now Castillo is beginning to show signs that he is starting to slow down as he approaches age 33 in three months. I wonder how the Mariners feel about the contract for Castillo now, after what they have seen the last couple of months. Inconsistency has been his calling card, and it is starting to feel maddening to fantasy managers as well.
Castillo has posted a 3.75 ERA and 1.28 WHIP with just eight wins this season. Over the last two weeks, the ERA is 9.69, and he has no wins in three starts. His strikeout rate (7.9 per nine innings) is far and away a career low. And he is now walking more than two and a half men per nine innings as well. BABIP and home run rate are normal, and he still gets 42% of balls in play on the ground. This may be a guy whose best years are now behind him, even though he has two more to go in Seattle.
His home park might hide some of his mistakes in the months and years ahead, but this is not an ace profile anymore.
