We’re at the quarter mark of the season, which means that we’ve already banked plenty of baseball, but there is also a lot of time for slumping players and teams to turn things around. Yordan Alvarez, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Max Muncy (LAD) were all miserable at this point last year. This season is still in the top of the third inning.
Buy
Mark Vientos, 1B, NYM
After Vientos’ forgettable 2025, it didn’t seem like he had a spot on the Mets’ roster, let alone your fantasy team. Injuries and a swing adjustment have changed that. He’s swinging harder and, at least as importantly, getting more lift, which has bumped his Fly Ball (FB) rate over 40%. He’s also showing some modest improvement with his batting eye, with a few more swings in the zone and a few less out of it. His swinging strike rate, has improved to 14.9% (still on the high side, but better than the previous three years). He’ll never be a high batting average guy, I suspect his K rate will creep up a bit, and his playing time may fluctuate if the Mets ever get fully healthy, but for now Vientos is in a groove and tapping into his natural power.
Willson Contreras, 1B, BOS
From a quick glance, Contreras looks like the same guy he was in St. Louis — 20-ish homers with an average and OBP a notch above league average. Look a little closer, and he’s changed quite a bit in what I assume is a response to playing in a park that is much better for right-handed power. He’s suddenly one of the most pull-heavy hitters in the league, and his barrel rate has leapt up to 17.6%. His strikeout rate is up a bit as well, but that’s fine if it’s part of this overall package of changes. I see him topping his career-high in homers (24).
Carson Benge, OF, NYM
Benge’s first month in MLB was held up entirely by his defense and base running, but in the past few weeks, the bat has come around. In his past 16 games, he’s slashed a nifty .300/.352/.500, which is obviously a small sample, but it gives us some evidence of the solid hit tool and power he showed in the minors. He’ll sit against lefties sometimes, and we should expect some rough patches here and there as he gets acclimated to MLB, but something like a 15-HR, 25-SB season feels reachable, though still far from guaranteed.
Kyle Bradish, SP, BAL
It turns out that Bradish is probably not the new Tarik Skubal, even though he looked like it at the end of last year. He’s also not the mess he’s been so far this year. His .366 BABIP and 69.4% strand rate indicate some amount of bad luck. I still don’t feel like I have a good read on him, but his rest-of-season projections and his career numbers tell a fairly consistent story of an ERA around 3.65 and a K rate of 25%. I’d happily pay for that with some optimism he can find a few more strikeouts.
Sell
Xander Bogaerts, SS, SD
Bogaerts has not changed, but his HR/FB rate has. His bat speed, exit velocity, swinging-strike rate, batting average, barrel rate, xBA, xSLG, FB% and K% are all basically the same as last year. His 17.9% HR/FB rate, however, is nearly double what it’s been since he came to San Diego. He’s been pulling more balls, which helps, and swinging more in the zone, but there’s no compelling reason to think he’s found a new level of power.
Brandon Marsh, OF, PHI
I will confess that until I was digging into his stats for this writeup, I had not fully appreciated the kind of player that Marsh is. By the “raw” metrics, he’s a solid, if unremarkable player — good contact ability and speed, power a bit below average. His career slash line of .267/.335/.423 tells the same story in a different way. Here’s the weird part: his career BABIP is .375. That’s tops in MLB since he came into the league in 2021, and second place (Riley Greene and Xavier Edwards at .352) is not especially close. He’s not doing it with blinding speed or loads of line drives, he just has a swing that is optimized for hitting balls that drop in front of the outfielders. This year, he’s been swinging more, both in and out of the zone, and the results have been great, but even Marsh isn’t going to keep a .413 BABIP going. Expect something closer to his career line going forward.
Clay Holmes, SP, NYM
Holmes’ K rate has been below 20% since transitioning to a starter, which means he needs to excel everywhere else to be fantasy relevant in most leagues. He has been that and more through his first eight starts, with an ERA under 2.00. However, he’s managed that with a .222 BABIP and a 87.3% strand rate, neither of which are sustainable. ERA estimators and ROS projections both put his ERA in the high-3s. That could still be deep league-relevant with his K rate, but he’ll be fringy in 12-teamers.
Sean Burke, SP, CHI
Burke has had better control this year, and it has led to a tidy 5.6% walk rate, backing up a 3.68 ERA. He doesn’t get a lot of whiffs, however, and it won’t take much regression for both of those numbers to rise. If they do, he’ll be on the waiver wire in most leagues by the summer.
Hold
Austin Riley, 3B, ATL
I saw Riley as a bounce-back candidate heading into the year, but it’s been a decidedly not bouncy first quarter of the year. His barrel rate, which has never been lower than 13% since 2021, sits at 9.1%. He’s chasing more and swinging in the zone less than he has in the past three years. The good news is that in other ways he looks like his regular self. His bat speed, BB rate and K rate all look fine. He’s pulling the ball more than usual and his launch angle is up a tick, which makes me wonder if he tinkered with his swing to try to unlock more power. I don’t know if he’ll ever get back to being a top-20 hitter, but he’s better than this.
Tyler Soderstrom, OF, ATH
Soderstrom has had a slow start and it may make some managers wonder if his breakout last year was a mirage. Under the hood, he’s basically the same guy. His bat speed, barrel rate, hard-hit rate, and swinging-strike rate are all around what he did last year. He’s just doing a reverse-Bogaerts: his HR/FB rate of 10.4% is well below his career rate of 16.3% (or last year’s 18.9%). Better luck and the scorching Sacramento summer should get him back on track.
MacKenzie Gore, SP, TEX
Heading into the season, I was cold relative to the market on Gore, because I saw a good-not-great pitcher with a lot of hype behind him. Now I see him as a good-not-great pitcher in the midst of a rough stretch. That said, this is one of those cases where “hold” means “buy for cheap” or “sell at draft-day price” if you can. His velocity was down a tick in his past two starts, which could be a blip, or it could be a physical issue that will need to be addressed at some point. If he’s healthy, I’d expect an ERA around 4.00 with a 27% K-rate.
