NHL Best Bets for Tuesday (11/19)
Kenneth Le
Well, we’re through the month of April, and this fantasy baseball season currently resembles a chaotic episode of the Looney Tunes. Injuries are becoming commonplace, and we’ve also had to deal with plenty of star players underperforming. That’s what I’ll be focusing on today. Since there are so many struggling early round draft picks off to slow starts, I’m going to break this little series up into multiple articles, starting with outfielders this week.
The five outfielders below were all drafted in the first four rounds of most fantasy drafts, with three of them having a top-six ADP overall. What’s gone wrong? How concerned should we be? What level of player should you target if looking to trade them? I’ll try to answer all of those questions below.
Ronald Acuña Jr., OF, Atlanta Braves
After a 2023 season where Ronald Acuña Jr finished with 149 runs, 41 home runs, 106 RBIs and 73 steals, he was easily the No. 1 pick in 2024 drafts. Well, outside of that brief period when it was uncertain he’d be ready for Opening Day due to a knee injury in early March. The injury was deemed as general soreness and was considered to be minor, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s still impacting Acuña as his quality of contact has taken a notable hit this season.
I’m obviously not a medical expert, but let me explain my reasoning here. After Acuña tore his ACL in 2021, he was dealing with lingering soreness during the 2022 season where he had 15 home runs in 119 games with the lowest single-season slugging percentage of his entire career by over 100 points. And the knee issue from March was on the same knee he had surgically repaired back in 2021.
Fast forwarding to this season, Acuña is still running with 13 steals, but he’s been struggling mightily at the plate with a .246/.366/.318 slash line. On top of that, Acuña’s barrel rate has dropped 7.3%, his hard-hit rate has dropped 7.2% and his AVG EV is down 3.5 mph. That’s just the beginning too. Acuña has also had significant drop-offs in his contact metrics and his strikeout rate has risen 15.3%.
There seems to be plenty of denial and “Oh, he’ll be fine” going on with Acuña right now, but I’m not so sure. Given that this power fizzle has happened before with him following a knee issue, I’m not so sure he’s magically going to revert to 2023 QoC levels. But hopefully, since this knee issue wasn’t nearly as severe, Acuña can slowly get better month by month this season. I’m not sure I’d even want to trade him away right now, but if you do, make sure you get a first-round talent in return.
Worry Meter: 6.5/10
Would Trade For: Top 10 Player
Corbin Carroll, OF, Arizona Diamondbacks
Out of all the elite players struggling right now, you could make a strong case for Corbin Carroll having the most disappointing fantasy season so far. Sure, he has eight steals, which are something, but Carroll’s production outside of that hasn’t been cutting the mustard. In fact, Carroll’s performance isn’t even in the fridge with the mustards, it’s across the room in the trash can right now.
Even with the eight steals, Carroll is slashing .191/.294/.236 with one home run in 126 plate appearances this season. Am I worried? You bet I am. Carroll’s struggles began after a shoulder injury in early July. And while the injury didn’t even force him to the IL, Carroll’s power hasn’t been the same since then. If you include spring training this year, Carroll has five home runs in his last 446 plate appearances. This season alone, we’ve seen Carroll’s AVG EV dip from 90 mph to 84.1 mph and his hard-hit rate from 40.9% to 27.2%.
Carroll can still give you a speed boost, but since this power drop-off correlates to the shoulder issue from last July, I’m very concerned this level of power production is going to continue until he gets the shoulder fixed.
Worry Meter: 9.5/10
Would Trade For: Top 100 Player
Julio Rodríguez, OF, Seattle Mariners
With Acuña and Carroll, we can attribute some of their struggles to injuries. But as far as I know, Julio Rodríguez is 100% healthy. In 124 plate appearances so far, he has slashed .256/.298/.308 with one home run and seven steals while seeing nearly every metric under the hood regressing from last season.
While Rodríguez has seen a 5.4% dip in barrel rate, 6.5% decrease in hard-hit rate and 1.5 mph drop in AVG EV, those aren’t the metrics I’m the most concerned about right now. Rodríguez’ approach at the plate has noticeably worsened this season and is what I consider to be the root cause of the struggles here.
To start, Rodríguez’ already below-average walk rate has dropped from 6.6% to 4.8% while his strikeout rate has shot up from 24.5% to 32.3%. On top of that, Rodriguez is running a 78.4% zone contact rate, 68.5% overall contact rate and 16% SwStr rate to pair with his usually high chase rate. It also doesn’t help that he’s hitting .083 with zero extra-base hits and a 50% whiff rate on off-speed pitches this season.
In general, I’m not terribly worried about Rodríguez, but he has some adjustments to make right now. He’s still hitting the ball hard overall and is heating up of late, hitting .328 over his last 14 games, albeit with a 31.1% strikeout rate and .086 ISO.
Worry Meter: 4/10
Would Trade For: Top 10 Player (but would rather hold)
Randy Arozarena, OF, Tampa Bay Rays
After three straight 20/20 season and an offseason report that he added bulk, the hype surrounding Randy Arozarena was a bit loftier this draft season. He was already a target of mine, and I was drinking that Kool-Aid this spring, drafting him in a few leagues with an early-round selection. But unfortunately, it’s been an extremely lackluster first month of the season for Tampa Bay’s 2020 postseason hero.
In 123 plate appearances so far, Arozarena does have a trio of taters and a quartet of steals, but those come with an abysmal .143/.220/.241 slash line. And to continue the trend in this article, Arozarena’s quality-of-contact metrics have fallen off this season, most notably a 12.8% drop in his hard-hit rate. Arozarena is also striking out 5.4% more frequently and has a zone contact rate of 68.9%. While he’s never been one to run higher contact rates, this is a new low for Arozarena.
Additionally, after faring well against off-speed pitches in 2023, Arozarena has looked lost against them through the first month of the season.
Given the lower contact rates entering the season, there was a smaller margin for error with Arozarena than others, but many of us tried to look past that given the consistent power/speed contributions. I’m not pressing the panic button just yet as Arozarena has proven to be a tad streaky before and might just be getting used to the added bulk on his frame. This is more of a hold situation that someone I’d be looking to offload via trade.
Worry Meter: 6/10
Would Trade For: Top 70 Player (but would rather hold)
Nolan Jones, OF, Colorado Rockies
Given what I saw during draft season, Nolan Jones was one of the most polarizing early round draft picks. The upside and ballpark brought plenty of intrigue after Jones hit .297 and went 20/20 in just 424 plate appearances last season. However, the profile also brought some red flags that were hard to ignore.
Those red flags went from more of a pinkish-red to a bright red this season, and bulls across the world are fuming about it. In 103 plate appearances before landing on the IL this past weekend, Jones had only one home run and two steals with a .170/.243/.277 slash line. But in the infamous words of the late Billy Mays, “But wait, there’s more!”
In 2023, Jones ran a 29.7% strikeout rate and 71.5% zone contact rate. In general, those are worrisome rates, but Coors Field has a way of masking a player’s flaws. Jones is actually making a big more contact in zone this season but is still 6% below league average. At the same time, his strikeout rate has risen to 35.9% while his walk rate has dipped from 12.5% to 8.7% and his barrel rate from 15.7% to 3.5%.
Jones’ overly passive nature is also coming back to bite him and limit his overall impact. Through April, Jones has a first-pitch swing rate of 15% and overall swing rate of 39%, both well below league average. Jones also has the second-highest called strike rate and ninth-lowest zone swing rate of any qualified big-league hitter this season.
As mentioned above, Jones is now on the IL with a back strain, but the injury doesn’t appear to be major. But overall, I’m pretty concerned with Jones moving forward if he’s going to be this passive and run lower contact rates. That’s not a recipe for success.
Worry Meter: 8/10
Would Trade For: Top 150 Player
