Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Me and Julio

I am notoriously hesitant when it comes to putting too much stock into rookies for fantasy purposes. It probably stems from my early days as a fantasy manager about 20 years ago. I would go to the food court in the local mall during my lunch break and read Baseball Weekly’s Fantasy Preview edition to see their rankings for the upcoming season. They were ahead of their time in many respects, but one (at least from my perspective) was that they loved young players. They would have fit in quite nicely in this age in that regard. “How can you rank Victor Martinez ahead of Mike Lieberthal? He’s unproven!”, I would cry incredulously to myself while trying not to stain my shirt and tie with Taco Bell grease.

I understand the phenomenon. People want to be first to the party and be part of the next big thing. But in my opinion, that tends to overinflate the value of many hot prospects during draft season. Without doing a formal study, I would say that ignoring the hype when it comes to young players has worked out for me more often than not. I think anyone who has drafted Jo Adell the last couple of years would agree with me. But while we are on the subject of young AL West outfielders, I have to concede defeat when it comes to Julio Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners.

Ranking Julio Rodriguez

Before the year, I had Rodriguez ranked 175 overall, four spots ahead of the aforementioned Adell. Through the end of April, Rodriguez had yet to hit a home run and was batting just .205. His nine stolen bases were the only thing keeping his fantasy value afloat. But before I could victory lap yet another successful rookie fade on my part, Rodriguez took his game up a notch or two. Entering the weekend, Rodriguez is hitting .313 with six home runs in May. For the season, he leads the American League in stolen bases with 13 and is one of just two players (Cedric Mullins being the other) with at least five home runs and 10 stolen bases. I finally bumped him into the top-100 in my rankings, and even that seems low given the ceiling he has exhibited in recent weeks.

I do have some pause about going all-in on Rodriguez for Redraft purposes. His metrics, much like his results at the plate, are very hit or miss, pun intended. First, the good. His hard-hit rate is in the 90th percentile, with an average exit velocity in the 88th percentile. Rodriguez is in the top-10 in MLB in sprint speed. That power-speed combo is what fantasy managers dream about. On the flip side, his strikeout and whiff rates are in the bottom 10 percent among Major League hitters. His chase and walk rates are in the bottom third, while his expected stats (xBA, xSLG, and xwOBA) are in the bottom half. Because of his elite tools, I expect him to outperform what his batting average metrics would suggest. But you have to make contact before you can crush 450-foot bombs, leg out infield hits, and steal bases.

To his credit, nearly all of his metrics have improved exponentially over the past few weeks. His strikeout rate in May is still relatively high at 25.7 percent but is much more palatable than the 37 percent mark he entered the month with. Rodriguez has improved his hard-hit rate while pulling the pull more often and hitting more ground balls. He enters the weekend with a very respectable .266 batting average. His batting average (based largely on his contact skills) is what is going to make the difference between Rodriguez being a top-100 fantasy player and a top-10 player.

We know that baseball is a game of constant adjustments on all sides. Rodriguez has made adjustments at the plate that have resulted in a dramatic increase in productivity. Now it may be the pitchers’ turn. Can Rodriguez continue to torch the league, or will pitchers supply him with a heavy diet of breaking balls and offspeed pitches, and make him beat them that way? Rodriguez is hitting .303 and slugging .485 on fastballs this year. On breaking pitches, however, he is hitting just .230 and slugging .378. And though he is batting .280 versus offspeed pitches, he has yet to record an extra-base hit in 25 at-bats that have ended on an offspeed pitch.

It is scary to think about Rodriguez’s ceiling considering he is still just 21 years old. There are not a whole lot of players I would rank ahead of him in Dynasty formats. In Redraft, though, I am not quite ready to rank him inside the top-20, or even the top-50 overall. He currently sits 55th among hitters in this week’s rankings. Rodriguez is a tremendous asset regardless of format, but I think his current skill set is best suited for Best Ball or H2H leagues. I want to see a bit more consistency from him before declaring him a top-50 Roto player. But even when he struggles as he did in April, he still provides some value with his legs. That is a very valuable attribute in fantasy, so managers should continue to reap the rewards Rodriguez is providing.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings