Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Panic in the Outfield

Memorial Day Weekend is an unofficial benchmark of the Major League Baseball season. We have reached the point where most stats have begun to stabilize, for better or worse. That does not mean all hope is lost for players like Julio Rodriguez or Randy Arozarena going forward. Nor does it mean that I will escape criticism for not ranking Jared Jones (or some other pitcher) high enough in this week’s ROS rankings. But it does mean that we can probably trust what we are seeing more than we could a month ago. And yet, it almost makes rest-of-season rankings trickier for those who have drastically underperformed to this point in the season.

Let’s start with Rodriguez and Arozarena. Offense is down across baseball, approaching levels we have not seen since the early 1990s. But neither Rodriguez nor Arozarena are in the top 200 overall from a year-to-date perspective in fantasy. Rodriguez hit his third home run of the season on Saturday. Meanwhile, JJ Bleday has had three homers since Wednesday. Only so much blame can be attributed to the baseball or bad weather. Rodriguez is just not hitting the ball with authority. His barrel rate is down from 12.4 percent to 7.7 percent this season. Rodriguez is also not pulling the ball. Fangraphs credits him with a 31.9 percent pull rate, which is far below his career number entering the year (41.9 percent). As a result, he is slugging just .319 this season. For reference, Zack Greinke’s career slugging percentage is .336.

Having said that, I do not think Rodriguez is that far away from figuring it out. While his walk rate has decreased and strikeout rate has risen this year, Rodriguez’s contact rates are more or less in line with his career norms. And even though his barrels are way down, he is still hitting the ball hard. Rodriguez ranks in the 86th percentile in hard-hit rate, per Baseball Savant. His line drive percentage is way up this year, and he still possesses elite bat speed. Perhaps Saturday’s home run can get him going. The Mariners have scored the second-fewest runs in baseball, which hasn’t helped his counting stats. Ultimately, I still think Rodriguez is an elite talent and should still produce big numbers going forward. I am a bit more concerned about Arozarena.

While Rodriguez has at least maintained a solid batting average and has some decent underlying metrics, Arozarena cannot say the same. He enters the weekend hitting a cool .159. His expected batting average is higher, but is still only .200. Arozarena ranks in the bottom five percent of players in xBA, launch angle sweet spot percentage, and whiff rate. He has the second-lowest line drive rate (11.1 percent) among 160 qualified hitters. That has resulted in a .186 BABIP, the lowest among all qualifiers. He does still have eight home runs to his credit, which is in line with his career averages. But he looks like he’s trying to hit every pitch into the upper deck in left field. I would be lying if I said I knew exactly where to place him in this week’s rankings.

He has only started three of the team’s past five games. But with Josh Lowe back on the Injured List again, I do not think Arozarena is in real danger of losing his starting job. Tampa Bay faces Oakland and Miami in the next couple of weeks. Both teams rank in the bottom eight in team ERA, and Miami’s rotation features several left-handed pitchers. Perhaps this stretch can get Arozarena looking like his old self. I still think you probably have to start him in most formats for the time being and hope for the best. Having said that, I did drop him a bit in my ROS rankings. Is it too much? Not enough? Only time will tell.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings