May Outfield Slumpers

The MLB season is really short in that it seems to just fly by every year. We’re drafting in late winter/early spring and anxiously awaiting to see if we nailed it. Then you blink and the season is a *insert measure of time* of the way done already. 

It’s also long in that teams and players go on what seems like extended hot and cold streaks over and over, and you think you’re set in Fantasy or with your real-life team, and then notice there’s still 100 games to go. I’m a Mets fan, as I probably mention every week. The ‘24 version went from 0 to Grimace in a blink.

Anyway, it’s a long-winded way of saying we all get a bit anchored in our first impressions and can miss hot and cold streaks if they happen a bit later. So I set out to dive into outfielders that started fast and then cooled big time since the start of May. And I have to say, some of these guys took me by surprise. If I roster them on a good team, I’m more likely to have noticed it (cough, Tyler Soderstrom, cough). Anyways, here’s a sampling of guys that had an excellent >150 wRC+  through the end of April, then slumped to 100 wRC+ or below in May

Fernando Tatis Jr.

182 wRC+, .345, 8 HR, 7 steals, 25 runs, 18 RBI’s, March-April

75 wRC+, .184, 5 HR in May

I was a shade lower than the market on the Padres superstar and went with Jackson Chourrio instead in his part of the draft. That was a bad choice, as even with this slowdown, Tatis is way better. The K% has shot up a bit from 15% to 22.1% amid a drop in Z-Contact% from 88.4% to 81.6%. Barrel% is a bit fickle for everyone, but his drop from 17.9% to 6.5% is pretty large. It’s also odd as he increased his Launch Angle from 3.0 to 10.6. In other words, he started elevating the ball and that somehow translated into fewer barrels? It probably just means not to read enormous gospel into small samples. One concern with Tatis was whether he would still run. He seemed to allay that early on, but he only had 3 steals in the last month. His Sprint Speed is back up to 89th percentile, so hopefully the steals pick up again if/when he starts getting on base more.

Obviously, there’s no action to take. Anyone lucky enough to have Tatis should roll him out at all times, as it feels more like normal variation than anything else.

Cedric Mullins 

171 wRC+, 6 homers, 5 steals .278/.412/.515 March-April

58 wRC+, 4 HR, 3 steals .179/.205/.369 May

This one surprised me, though I only have 1 share and it’s on a bad DC. I guess it won’t matter there now as Ced the Entertainer hit the IL ahead of Friday’s games. But before that, he simply lost command of the strike zone.

He went from 21% K%/16.8% BB% through April to 30.7%/3.4% in May. He dropped a click in EV and HardHit%, but not beyond normal variation. It’s more likely than not that it’s just a slump and nothing too serious. He’s only 30, and he has a career .250 average and 20.2% K%. The projection systems peg him for about an additional 10 homers and 20 steals for the balance of the season. It’s unclear when he will return, though it does not look like an extended IL trip is on tap. The wild card is where Mullins will accumulate his future stats. He’s an impending free agent, and assuming he’s healthy by the deadline, the Orioles will almost certainly trade him to a contender. Presumably, any acquiring team will not deal for Ced unless they plan to let him run. And said team will have a better offense than the underachieving O’s. 

Wyatt Langford

174 wRC+, .299 6 HR, 4 Steals, 10 runs, 12 RBI in 88 PA through April

75 wRC+, .189, 5 HR, 6 Steals,15 runs, 11 RBI in 120 PA

Should we care here? Langford’s Fantasy production stayed pretty much the same, minus the drop in batting average. Also, he missed 10 days in April, so it took him 32 more PA’s for the same productions. The counting stats do underwhelm a bit, but a lot of that has to do with the bad Rangers offense.

I would not worry much about this one. He does just about everything well

Langford has traded some contact for power. His K% has bumped up from 19.3% to 28.3%, but so has his EV from 90.1 to 93.1 and his HardHit% from 42.6% to 54.8%. He’s a guy that barely played in the minors and is headed for a 25+-25+ type sophomore season with a batting average in the .260 range. 

Wilyer Abreu

164 wRC+, .295, 6 HR, 4 steals through April

83 wRC+, .212, 7 HR, 0 steals in May

Abreu started the season on fire and kind of had to cool down. On the plus side, he’s still popping homers. But he somehow had just 9 runs and 8 RBI’s in May despite hitting 7 homers. That’s REALLY tough to do. Getting on base at just a .243 clip accounts for some of that as his BB% dropped from 17.4% to 3.9% Bad timing accounts for most of it, however, as Boston has literally a league average offense in May. The lack of steals does not help the Fantasy bottom line either.

Going forward, Abreu remains a solid Fantasy asset. He’s a platoon bat but not your typical one, as he still starts at times vs lefties and his excellent defense keeps him in games. The Sox have Roman Anthony perpetually waiting in the outfield wings, but it’s way more likely the versatile but somewhat light hitting Cedanne Raffaella takes the big playing time hit if/when Anthony gets the call.

Tyler Soderstrom 

156 wRC+ .284, 9 homers, 20 runs, 24 RBI’s, through April

100 wRC+ .241, 3 HR, 11 runs, 11 RBI’s in May

OK, we all know Soderstrom got moved to the outfield when Nick Kurtz got called up. And his bat has severely cooled off since then. He played 1B on Friday and Saturday, and popped homers each day, and he finished the month as a league average bat. Coincidence? Probably. But there’s obviously no way to know for sure. Also, it looks like Kurtz will return soon, so Soderstrom will need to figure out how to mash while playing OF or DH.

A shade of this is bad luck. His EV has barely dropped, going from 92.8 at the end of April to 91.6 since then, while his HardHit% has actually lifted from 48.9% to 53.5%. His first 9 homers came on 15 barrels, but in May, he hit 11 more barrels but only had 3 additional homers to show for it. On the flip side, he’s hitting too many worm burners now as his average Launch Angle dropped from 12.2 through April to 8.8 since then. So lots of those extra hard hits are now grounders. Also, his SwStr% has nearly doubled from 9.1% to 17.7%, lifting his K% from 20.9% to 30.6%. It’s all gone bad in that department. His O-Swing is up from 23.6% to 34.7%, while his Z-Contact has dipped from 91% to 83%. His F-Strike% is up from 54.3% to 68.6%, so basically, he’s falling behind 0-1 constantly and then chasing. Not great.

Bottom line is he could have hit a few more homers in the last month, but it would have come with too many grounders and alarmingly deteriorating plate skills. Hopefully, for Soderstrom owners, this weekend breakout portends a return to his productive ways.

Andy Pages

151 wRC+ .292 6 HR, 3 steals 15 runs, 14 RBI’s through April

91 wRC+, .259 4 HR, 12 runs, 22 RBI’s 3 steals in May

I am so whipsawed by this one. I cut Pages too early, he goes nuts….but then a month later he’s a subpar hitter again? I guess the answer is yes, though his Fantasy production actually only dipped in batting average in May. 

He has 95th percentile Fielding Runs value as per Statcast, plays pretty much every day, and bats 5th through 7th in the lethal Dodgers lineup. That alone gives him excellent Fantasy value. He runs a bit, and even in his “weak” May, he only had a 15% K%, while his 22 RBI’s were a huge plus. I remain unsure he’s actually a good hitter. He only had a .283 OBP in May, thanks partly to a pretty bad 3.5% BB%. He’s meh in all of power, contact, and plate discipline. I still totally regret cutting him and would pick him up even in shallow leagues.