Outfields In Flux And Hello Matthew Lugo

We have officially passed the quarter pole. We’ve also passed the Preakness, which reminds me that the quarter pole in horse racing is actually the marker that the race has a quarter mile to go, not that it’s ¼ done. Thus, there is no quarter pole in baseball so I shouldn’t use that phrase even though it’s pretty common. And hey, I volunteered at the Preakness once when I was in college. It wasn’t really as fun as it sounds unless you like to spend 12 hours trying to help herd a bunch of people who’ve been drinking plenty Black-Eyed Susans.

But I really digress. I’m going to take a look at a few outfield situations that are in a bit of flux. Are there any opportunities to be found amid the changing opportunities? Will some heretofore useful guys see their playing time shrink or evaporate? As usual, stats go through Saturday. Oh, and “outfield” really refers to our game and whether we can slot them there.

Tampa Bay Rays

Josh Lowe returned this week, and promptly homered in his first game back. It’s now a kind of crowded situation for the Rays OF eligible gang, though that’s always the case here. They’ll mix and match and move guys up and down in the order no matter who is healthy. Right here, right now it looks like Lowe, Chandler Simpson, and Kameron Misner will start every day vs. righties, and Christopher Morel and Jose Caballero will get in with southpaws on the mound. Caballero mostly plays in the infield when he’s in the lineup, so two of the Lowe/Simpson/Misner gang may still start and just bat lower. Or not. The Rays love to “Ray” and mess with all of us.

What happens if/when Jonny DeLuca, Jake Mangum and/or Richie Palacios come back and crowd it even more? I am a total Simpson Homer (hopefully not a Simpson, Homer). That’s mostly because I bid up to FAAB him in a few spots including a Main where I actually have a good team so far (crossing fingers). He’s performed as advertised so far, perhaps even better with a super helpful .301 avg., 9 steals and 15 runs in 25 games and 99 PAs while providing literally zero power. His 14.5% HardHit% is 1st percentile and scary bad, but he’s arguably better off hitting a soft grounder since he’s also 99th percentile sprint speed. The question is whether he’s ultimately good enough to stick since in real baseball terms he has a .298 wOBA and (very early on) does not have good fielding metrics. 

It will likely come down to Simpson vs. Misner at some point. Morel really only starts vs. lefties and has a .215 average and 38.1% K% and fields poorly everywhere. But he also has no options and the Rays likely keep running him out there vs. lefties. Misner started off hot, but since April 24th he’s hit just .136 with a 6 wRC+ and a 47.1% K%.t. He’s a 27 year old Quad A or 4th OF type who fields well. I wouldn’t totally put it past the Rays to keep his glove around, but he feels like the next shoe to drop.

Simpson hit leadoff vs. righties before Lowe returned, and now bats 8th or 9th, so that’s not wonderful. Again, it’s the Rays, and everything shuffles all the time for no reason we mere mortals can parse.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Mike Trout went down at the end of April for his annual injury that sounded relatively minor at first. But for all we know, it will keep him out until August or beyond again. Taylor Ward got off to a hideous start, but has hit a bit better lately and will play every day as long as he’s healthy and not traded. Jorge Soler has OF eligibility but mostly plays DH, so that leaves two spots. Beyond that, there’s a playing time competition between Jo Adell, Kyren Paris and recent callup Matthew Lugo to fill the other two holes.

They all bat righty and all can play CF, or at least fake playing CF. All three provide potentially interesting power/speed packages. In the week plus since Lugo’s up, the Angels have more or less rotated them by sitting one of the three. Lugo is the most interesting now in that we haven’t had a chance to fall for him yet, and have the rug pulled out from under us. He’s a 24 year old who came over from the Red Sox at last year’s deadline for whichever Luis Garcia pitched in relief for the Halos at the time.  He hit .287 in AAA across two organizations with 17 homers, 15 steals and a 156 wRC+. He’s already popped 3 homers in 22 PA’s in Anaheim. The projection systems peg him to hit in the .225 range with about a 28% K%, so he really sounds like a statistical clone of Adell and Paris. But again, we can still dream on this panning out. Adell popped 3 homers last week and has a .331 xwOBA, but his .198 AVG is tough to roster even if his skills suggest it should be better. Paris has flamed out big time since his scorching start (.133 1 HR and 1 steal since April 10), and he looks like the odd man out for now as he has not played since Tuesday.

Now there’s a world where all three can play. Yoan Moncada has looked great in his limited time at 3B, but he reinjured his thumb on Friday which only serves to remind everyone that he rarely stays on the field. That could open up a spot for Paris to move back to the infield while both Adell and Lugo man the OF. 

Toronto Blue Jays

Kudos to anyone who boarded the George Springer Train. Unfortunately, that does not include Yours Truly. He’s stayed on the field and slashed ..265/.377/.463 with 5 homers and 6 steals from a very affordable draft price. Meanwhile, Dalton Varsho has returned. While his .229 AVG. remains an issue as always, he’s popped 6 homers already in just 53 PA’s, and his fantastic glove will keep him in CF while he’s healthy.

The most interesting guy here for our purpose is Addison Barger, who has OF eligibility but is actually starting at 3B pretty regularly now. And that figures to continue for at least as long as Andres Gimenez remains on the shelf as that bumps Ernie Clement from 3B to 2B. And if Barger plays well, Clement will not ultimately block him.

So far, so good on that front as Barger has hit a passable .243 with a 14.5% Barrel%, 52.7% HardHit,% and 94.3 EV that would be about 95th percentile if he had enough PA’s to qualify. The big risk here is that he becomes a purely platoon bat. It’s tough to tell right now since Toronto has faced 9 straight righty starters. But in the extremely small sample size of 45 career PA’s vs. southpaws, Barger has just a .182 wOBA. He’s only 25 and has some promise, so I hope they let him play full time,e but they’re trying to compete this year, so not sure he gets that full run.

Nathan Lukes is starting in a corner most days now, and he’s playing well enough to at least get deep league relevant. He’s hitting .257 with 3 homers, 14 runs, and 13 RBI’s in just 84 PA’s. I wouldn’t break the bank for him or count him as a Fantasy starter. He’s a 30 year old with a contact first profile and 87.6 career EV. But in deep leagues he could accumulate a bit so he’s bumped from afterthought to bench bat.

Seattle Mariners

It’s really just one question. Can the Mariners turn the 2025 Leody Taveras into the 2024 Victor Robles? There are obvious similarities as they’re both speed and defense guys that really can’t hit consistently. Or at least couldn’t before they became Mariners. Robles started in Seattle on June 5th and proceeded to hit .328 with 30 steals in just 262 PA’s. He went down with a gruesome shoulder injury early this season, opening up RF in the Pacific Northwest. Enter Leody after his unceremonious exit from Texas.

Taveras feels like he’s been in our Fantasy Baseball lives forever, but he’s still just 26. He fields well and had 12 homers and 23 steals last season, which plays except when you hit just .229 with a .289 OBP. Or I should say it doesn’t play as Texas couldn’t afford to keep running out a glove first guy in a lineup where no one was hitting. So welcome to the land of salmon and Starbucks. The good news is that the Mariners have given Taveras pretty much full time run since they signed him. The bad news is that he has just 4 hits and 13 K’s in his first 28 AB’s. Yeah that’s a microscopic sample size,  but Leody has a career 238 Avg and .289 OBP in 1856 PA’s, so he’s not going to get unlimited rope here. He sat on Saturday, but as we all know, when you have a chance to squeeze Miles Mastrobuoni into the lineup, you take it. My FAAB waterfalls landed on Taveras 4 times in 7 leagues last week, so apparently I’m more optimistic than most. Or really less pessimistic since I didn’t bid more than low $30’s (out of $1000) or rank him higher than 3rd or 4th on waterfalls. I’ll give it a little time since he’s at least healthy and playing virtually every day, which is better than all sorts of other guys I am rostering now.