At an age when most players are chasing a trip to Omaha or cutting their teeth in Low Class-A, Jason Heyward crushed major league pitching in 2010. The pre-season #1 prospect, whose legend grew with each car he dented while going deep in spring training, batted .277/.393/.456. Heyward’s 131 OPS+ as a 20-year-old bested that of Willie Mays and put him in the same company as Ken Griffey Jr. It’s no surprise, then, that there were enormous expectations for the Braves’ right fielder in 2011: the fans projected him to hit above .290 while getting on base nearly 40 percent of the time and slugging north of .500.

Instead, Heyward will step into the box for his first post-All-Star at-bat with a .226/.315/.404 triple-slash. Bothered by a right shoulder injury that has lingered since spring training and pushed him to the DL in late May, Heyward has yet to reach the double digits in home runs and has drawn criticism from Chipper Jones regarding his ability to play through injuries. It’s impossible for anyone outside of the Braves’ training room and front office to assess Heyward’s health. But let’s diagnose why Atlanta’s prodigy is turning in a subpar sophomore season.

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After a ho-hum second stint in the Bronx last year and a disastrous beginning to his Marlins career, most fantasy owners stuck a fork in Javier Vazquez. After all, the soon-to-be 36-year-old was struggling to hit the upper 80s on the radar gun while ensuring that every person in attendance at Sun Life Stadium went home with a souvenir home run ball.

But there has since been a twist in Vazquez’s seeming destiny to finish his career by getting pummeled in front of droves of empty orange seats: he’s starting to pitch more like the workhorse who routinely posted impressive strikeout-to-walk ratios.

Take a look at Vazquez’s K/BB ratio and xFIP by month:

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Zack Greinke is currently starring in ‘The Peripheral Disconnect,’ but Felipe Paulino has been a worthy leading man for the role during most of his career. The 27-year-old righty, long a scouting favorite for his mid-90s gas and upper-80s slider, has nearly a run-and-a-half difference between his xFIP (4.06) and ERA (5.50).

Yet Paulino, now in his third different organization within the past year, appears poised to get off baseball’s D-list by matching process and results with the Royals. Given a chance to start in K.C before another wave of upper-echelon pitching prospects arrives, the former Astro and Rockie is making Dayton Moore look like a smart man.

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The Grady Sizemore that fantasy owners fell in love with — the swift, slugging center fielder with perennial 30-30 potential — is gone. Microfracture surgery on Sizemore’s left knee, as well as a right knee contusion that put him back on the DL in May, has robbed the 28-year-old of his once-plus speed. But Grady’s wheels aren’t the only thing that’s missing in 2011: his previously superb strike-zone judgment is gone, too. Sizemore is doing a convincing Dave Kingman impression, slugging the ball when he makes contact but chasing pitches and punching out plenty in the process.

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Jayson Werth stayed healthy and blossomed into one of the game’s best players in Philadelphia, topping five Wins Above Replacement each season from 2008-2010 while providing patience, power and speed. But no free agent signing generated more debate this past offseason than Washington’s seven-year, $126 million pact with the 32-year-old outfielder.

The controversy surrounding Werth’s deal had to do with its length — few doubted that he would rake at the beginning of his contract, but would he be worth over $20 million per year by the time Stephen Strasburg resumed racking up Ks and Bryce Harper began droppin’ bombs and blowin’ kisses in the majors?

We’re still years away from finding out the answer to that question. But there’s a more immediate concern for owners who dropped an early pick on Werth: he’s not hitting right now. Werth has a .224/.329/.391 line in 2011. Granted, Nationals Park isn’t especially friendly to right-handed hitters, decreasing offense by about three percent compared to a neutral stadium. But Werth’s production falls well short of his pre-season .263/.360/.475 ZiPS projection. Why is Werth stumbling in D.C.? Let’s take a look.

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For once, the Pittsburgh Pirates aren’t a punch line or a prelude to Steelers training camp. At 38-37, the Bucs are just three games back in the NL Central. That’s no thanks to the offense, however, which ranks 14th in the NL in runs scored.

Pittsburgh will turn to a pair of prospects in an effort to plate more runs: infielder Chase D’Arnaud got the call prior to Friday night’s game versus the Red Sox, and outfielder Alex Presley is expected to be added to the roster before an interleague series in Toronto on Tuesday. Here’s a quick look at what these two will bring to the table in fantasy leagues.

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For a 26-year-old with an even 300 innings pitched in the majors, Andrew Miller has worn many labels throughout his career. He was a college ace at North Carolina and a top-10 pick by the Tigers in the 2006 draft. He was a primo prospect acquired by the Marlins in the December 2007 Miguel Cabrera deal. And he was a bitter disappointment traded to Boston last offseason for nothing more than recently-DFA’d reliever Dustin Richardson.

Last night, Miller took the mound at Fenway Park wearing yet another label: reclamation project. With Clay Buchholz on the DL with a back injury, the 6-foot-7, herky-jerky lefty got a fill-in start versus the San Diego Padres. He didn’t disappoint. Miller’s control wasn’t great, but he showed better stuff at the major league level than he had in years.

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Following a mildly disappointing 2010 campaign, Justin Upton is enjoying his best offensive season to date in 2011. Upton has a .299/.384/.522 triple-slash for the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks. Perhaps no longer bothered by the left shoulder injury that hampered him last season, Upton’s power has bounced back (.224 ISO in 2011, .170 in 2010). But there’s another reason why the 23-year-old is having a career year at the plate: he has cut his strikeout rate by nearly a third compared to 2010.

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The 2011 season has been a high-priced train wreck for the Chicago Cubs. Despite having the sixth-highest opening day payroll among major league clubs, the North Siders own the second-worst record in the game at 27-40. The Cubs are highly unlikely to join the 2008 Seattle Mariners as baseball’s second team to rack up 100 losses with a payroll exceeding $100 million — that would require them to win at a .368 clip or less from here on out — but it figures to be a somber summer in Wrigleyville.

At first blush, Ryan Dempster looks like yet another well-paid underachiever. The 34-year-old righty, pulling down nearly $14 million, has a 5.48 ERA in 15 starts this season. Dempster is on less than half of ESPN players’ fantasy rosters (46 percent), and about two-thirds of Yahoo rosters (67 percent).

Is the starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter finished? Not hardly. The current version of Dempster might not be quite as dominant as the guy who averaged over four Wins Above Replacement per season from 2008-2010, but he’s still well worth owning in all leagues.

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This is part of an ongoing pro/con series on RotoGraphs over the next couple of weeks. Today we’ll look at the positive/negative side of Nick Markakis. Expect the opposite side shortly.

A few years ago, the future of the Baltimore Orioles’ franchise appeared to rest on the shoulders of Nick Markakis*. A lefty-hitting outfielder with superb pitch recognition and power, Markakis seemed well on his way to becoming the new Brian Giles. The O’s rewarded Markakis with a six-year, $66.1M contract extension after a 2008 season in which he popped 20 home runs and got on base at a .406 clip.

*His chin was a bit preoccupied.

A strange thing happened on Markakis’ path to perennial MVP Award contention, though — he has turned into a glorified singles hitter with just ordinary plate patience.

Take a look at Markakis’ Isolated Power figures and walk rates since 2008:

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