Interesting New Outfielders In The Pool; Is Javier Baez Really A Thing Again?

With 20% of the season in the books, we have a fair number of additions to our outfield pool. It, of course, varies from format to format. Yahoo seems to require that you just need to own an outfield glove, or think about buying one. Others are 5 or 10 games. Anyways, I wanted to take some dives into interesting guys that are either eligible in your leagues now, or will likely get in there soon. I play mostly NFBC, and they have a 10 game requirement, so I tend to default to that. But I do also have a Yahoo home league and a Fantrax AL only, where you just need 1 appearance to qualify. 

As usual, stat counts I reference go through Saturday.

Tyler Soderstrom

When I first heard that the A’s were going to call up Nick Kurtz, and move Tyler Soderstrom to some kind of 1B/DH/OF rotation, my first reaction was “Nooooooo!’. I have Soderstrom in the Main Event, and he’s my 2nd best hitter there (after Kyle Tucker) as per the Razzball Player Rater. My head says his numbers were going to mean regress down a bit no matter what the A’s do with him. What looks like causality (messing with him in the field) is likely just a coincidence. My heart says I’ve seen Bull Durham a bunch of times and Crash Davis said not to ever mess with a streak (OK, it was in reference to Nuke and Annie, and I’ll keep this PG, but the gist is the same)

Well, his numbers have trended down since the Athletics Baseball Club of West Sacramento announced that Kurtz would get promoted. Soderstrom was slashing .298/.362/.643 with 9 homers and a 183 wRC+ after his 4/20 game. Since then, he’s gone just .239/.300/.304 with no bombs and a 76 wRC+. So, blame the A’s for messing with greatness? Probably not. To state one obvious point, Soderstrom did not just discover that Nick Kurtz existed; he exploded out of the gate under the pressure of knowing he could lose his job at any moment. And a look under the Statcast hood shows he’s turned himself into an excellent hitter

Soderstrom has achieved that magical combo of vastly improved plate skills with an uptick in hard contact and power. He’s got his SwStr% down from 13.7% to just 9%, and his Whiff% from 30.1% to 23%. At the same time, his EV is up a shade from 91.9 to 92.,4 and his Launch Angle Sweet Spot% has soared from 31.4% to 44% (95th percentile). Roll it all together and Soderstrom now has a 88th percentile Barrel% with a league average K%. Only 7 other players in MLB have a better Barrel% and K%, and six of them are Vlad Jr, Corey Seager, Aaron Judge, Pete Alonso, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Matt Olson, so that’s pretty good company. OK, Jorge Polanco is the 7th one for the record. But he is not going to get OF eligibility, whereas Soderstrom will have it just about everywhere soon, he’s at 9 games ahead of hitting the pine on Sunday for the first time all season.

If I redid my rankings right this minute, I would have Soderstrom about 30th. His overall numbers look great, so hopefully what we’ve seen the last two weeks is just normal variation.

Brent Rooker

Utility only guys are always tough to value in Fantasy drafts. How much does that roster inflexibility force you to leave good stats on your bench or never on your roster to begin with? It’s tough to quantify. But hey, Brent Rooker came into the season with only Utility eligibility in formats that required 20 games at a position from the prior season. But those same formats often have a 10-game in-season requirement, and with Kurtz on the way, it sure looked like the easiest path to playing time was to get Rooker back in the outfield, while Soderstrom and Kurtz mostly share 1B/DH. It might only take Rooker a month or so to get those ten games!

Well, we’re still waiting. As from just above, Soderstrom is the one getting the OF run, and Rooker remains almost fully planted at DH. He did play 14 games in the outfield in 2024, so he’s eligible in plenty of non-NFBC formats already. But Rooker has appeared in just 4 games on the grass in 2025, so we’re talking maybe June at this pace to get to 10. And that’s if the A’s stick with Kurtz, far from a given as Kurtz has a frightening 44% K% as I type, with nary a Barrel to his name. But hey, Rooker should get to at least 5 games within the week, so let’s take a look.

Rooker had a “league winner” sort of stat line in 2024 as he hit .293 with 39 homers, 112 RBI’s and 11 bags, all from a low draft pick in deep leagues and likely the waiver bait in everything else. That looked very tough to repeat, and indeed he’s down a bit early on, though he’s still an excellent hitter. He has 9 homers, so he’s not much off pace, but his average has dipped to .250, with no steals on just 1 attempt. Advanced stats don’t see an enormous change though, his Barrel% is 14.4% vs. 16.6%, and his EV of 90.9 vs. 91.5 in his career. Meanwhile, his K% has declined to what would be a career low 26.2%, though his SwStr% has popped to a career high 16.8%.. Roll it all together, and his xwOBA of .390 is 87th percentile and actually up from .380. And his xBA of .284 suggests he should be hitting more like he did in 2024 as opposed to his .250 average so far.. He’s actually an all around stronger hitter in 2025, but clearly not the huge fantasy asset if the steals are gone. His sprint speed has not budged, so perhaps that comes back.

Even minus the steals, he’s still likely a 30+HR bat with a good batting average hitting in the middle of what’s now a potent lineup in a ballpark that could turn into a bit of a launching pad this summer. 

At a quick glance, I’d rank Rooker almost identically to Soderstrom. They have very similar profiles, but Soderstrom will carry dual 1B/OF eligibility virtually everywhere while Rooker may never get to 10 OF games this season.

Javier Baez

If the Mets were not actually a good team now, New York Sports Talk Radio would be yammering endlessly about how they once traded Pete Crow-Armstrong for two months of Javier Baez. Javy actually played well, but the team floundered, and he left as a free agent for greener ($$) pastures in Detroit. It turned into a major albatross of a contract, 6 years $140 million, and it does not end until 2027. Heading into 2025, Javy had produced a total of 2.1 WAR of value for Detroit.

But lo and behold, he has revived! In his prime with the Cubs, Baez provided excellent defense at short, alongside plus power and speed. But that came with mediocre OBP for a guy with his talent, and terrible plate discipline. He routinely ran a 30% K% and under 5% BB%.. He improved on the K’s in Detroit, but the pop all but disappeared as he has yet to top an 8% Barrel% or 88.1 EV. It didn’t translate to improved batting average or OBP, while his defense regressed. It looked like he would just get some short side platoon run at SS and 3B. That all changed when a wave of injuries hit and the Tigers needed him in a more regular role. Yada yada yada, Baez now starts most days in Center, and he has taken the opportunity and run with it. Well, not literally, as he only has 1 steal. But he’s batting .300 with a .352 wOBA, 3 homers and 14 RBI’s in 95 PA’s

Is this revival real? Probably no,t unfortunately. He still has no concern with this construct we call the “strike zone” as his Chase% of 39.1% ranks him in the 3rd percentile. He doesn’t square the ball up (36th percentile) hit enough barrels (30th percentile) or hit it particularly hard (19th percentile EV). It really just looks like a bit of batted ball luck as his expected BA on Statcast is just .239., which is more or less his actual AVG since he signed with Detroit. He’s absolutely worth an add in deep 15 team formats as he plays pretty regularly, and that figures to continue for now at least until Detroit gets Parker Meadows and Matt Vierling back. If just looks a lot more like he’s on a bit of a heater rather than having achieved any kind of important skills or approach gain.

Cam Smith

Zach Dezenzo

The Astros have done wonders for adding Fantasy positional eligibility this season. I could include Jose Altuve here too, but I don’t have much insight on a guy that’s played forever and is just going through normal age-related decline at the plate. 

Smith came over in the Kyle Tucker trade and went nuts in Spring Training and made the roster, and has learned OF on the fly. He’s graded out well at a position he barely played in college and not at all in his brief stay in the minors, but unfortunately, he looks overmatched at the plate.

I’m not at all a “prospect guy”, but I can’t imagine one month of weak hitting dings him in any way long term. But in the here and now, his 3 homers (on 3 barrels), 1 steal, and .205 batting average do not help anyone’s 2025 Fantasy team, and there’s nothing under the hood that suggests it will get better soon.

He’s starting to lose time to Dezenzo, who now has OF eligibility in pretty much all formats. Dezenzo’s a little older than Smith and not quite the same level prospect, but he looks a shade more ready now. He carried a 139 wRC+ across 2 minor league levels last season, with a .299 Avg., 7 homers and 5 steals in 226 PA’s. The hit tool has not transferred over to the Show just yet, as his 33.3% K% with a 15.6% SwStr% and 77.1% Z-Contact% won’t cut it minus big power. He has an 11.8% Barrel% in his 111 major league PA’s, but just an 87.5 EV.

Right here, right now, these two really only merit Redraft roster spots in deeper 15 team leagues. There’s a world where they can both start regularly if they hit. The Astros could play them in the OF corners and move Altuve back to 2nd. They’ve even talked about Smith in Center in place of Jake Meyers. But Meyers popped 2 homers yesterday, so that’s not happening any time soon. For keeper or dynasty formats, both remain major holds no matter how this plays out. 

It seems like it’s trending towards Dezenzo getting a more regular run and Smith headed back to the minors. If that is the case, Dezenzo gets very interesting.