It’s an arbitrary date, but June 1st has always been the first day I allow myself to look at the fantasy baseball standings in a meaningful way. Of course, like any sane fantasy player, I check the standings every day. But truly, I don’t consider there to be any actionable takeaways from the standings in April or May.
But come June, fantasy players need to start taking a long, hard look at where they are in their leagues. Sure, you may feel that despite your low RBI total, your team is simply filled with underperformers, whose normal correction should lead to a boon in stats. But as Bill Parcells said, you are what your record says you are.
And often times, to remedy your deficiencies, you need to turn to the trade market. But before you take that plunge, having a sense of the market values is critical. To help you along, we provide our rotisserie-league trade chart below. Updated every week and designed for 12-team leagues, the trade chart helps you evaluate any deal, to make sure any trade is both fair and, hopefully, benefits your team.
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There are times when, even as analysts, we neglect to take a close look at certain players. And Whit Merrifield falls into that category for me. Because he started off strong and every day when I check the box scores, he’s pitching in. So I have not closely reassessed his value in several weeks. But now that I have, I realize that he has only eight steals on the year. That puts him on pace for 21. Maybe it’s fluky, but Merrifield now has five caught stealings in just 13 attempts, far worse than his usual percentage. And he’s on pace for just 35 attempts after 55 attempts last year. Merrifield can attempt to steal as many bags as he wants and may up his rate for the rest of the season. But with his attempts and success rate currently down, he needs to be moved down in value.
As does Aaron Nola, who simply cannot seem to find what he’s been missing. Nola is currently walking four batters per nine innings with a 10% walk rate, both far higher than his career marks. Nola has walked at least three batters in four of his last five starts. This is something that I’ve wanted to write off for a while but at this point, it’s hard not to be concerned. Nola remains a pitcher with plenty of value. But that value is more in the Jose Berrios/David Price range at the moment.
Others losing significant value this week include Jose Ramirez, Paul Goldschmidt, Paul DeJong, Carlos Carrasco, and Joey Gallo. There is an extremely strong argument to be made that Ramirez should be significantly lower than he remains on the trade chart, and I accept that. He is currently batting .207 and is on pace for 53 runs, 11 home runs, and 53 RBI. But the trade chart measures value from this point forward and, certainly, I expect things to get better. Ramirez is batting .207 with a .311 slugging percentage. But his batted ball profile suggests that he should be batting .248 with a .408 slugging percentage. That’s not elite. But his overall batted ball data does not look like a player who is totally unusable now. I still expect things to look much closer to last year than this year going forward.
And no matter whether Goldschmidt rebounds in June like he did last year, the stolen bases are likely gone forever. Goldschmidt’s 33-homer pace is more than passable, but it’s not at the level we’re accustomed to seeing. Nor are his meager 27 RBI. And after a hot start, DeJong is 3-for-40 over his last 12 games, and his numbers suddenly look remarkably similar to the last two years, when he was a solid but unspectacular option.
As for Carrasco and Gallo, it’s all about their injuries. Carrasco has an undisclosed blood condition and it’s unclear for how long he’ll be shelved. But if you’re thinking of trading for him, it’s prudent to bake in a couple of months’ absence. And Gallo’s oblique strain may hopefully not sideline him for long, but his current absence and the risk alone moves him down.
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Dan Harris is a featured writer for FantasyPros. For more from Dan, check out his archive or follow him on Twitter @danharris80.
