It’s not unusual to find several unexpected names among the top fantasy producers at a position nearly a quarter of the way into a particular season. Because they’re unforeseen, they aren’t necessarily among your league’s most owned players.

At some point, though, some antsy owner will have begun to question his loyalty to a player he drafted when the season-to-date performance of a player he didn’t is still rated higher in his league’s free-agent list. Even though at some point in the near future, regression to the means of both players would seem likelier than not to benefit him, ignoring signs of changes in their baseline performance and reliability.

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As we’ve spent the past few weeks picking the bones of injury replacements here in the waiver wire dumpster, let’s turn to our other pastime in this business: placing bets on penny stock prospects in the hopes they’ll yield some value. In the cases of the Diamondbacks and the Mets, however, we’re talking about two sub-.500 teams, which presents the possibility that these young guns could stick around in the majors with some regular playing time — presuming, of course, that they produce.
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Yesterday, I discussed eight hitters whose batted ball distances suggested an imminent power surge. Today I’ll take a look at the opposite side of the coin — those whose distances suggest their current HR/FB rates are unsustainable. As a reminder, this analysis assumes the distances are maintained. Obviously we’re still dealing with a relatively small sample size and these hitters are capable of boosting their batted ball distances to match their HR/FB rates.

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• I don’t think Manny Machado’s knee is close to 100% yet. I timed him to 1B on a double play he sprinted on (5/7, 3rd inning).  He got to 1B in 4.6 secs which is a 20, the worst possible scouting rating. The rest of his stats back this lack of speed up. No doubles since returning (51 last season). No stolen base attempts. Three grounded into double plays (1 GDP per 43 PA in 2013, 1 GDP per 14 PA in 2014). Speed score down from 3.7 to 1.4. The knee just can’t be 100% yet.

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The first pitch is a complicated moment in any at-bat. The strike rate on the pitch is rising as pitchers pump it in the zone to get their advantage. And yet the swing rate on the pitch is diving as hitters try to be more patient in an era in which on-base percentage is praised. There’s evidence that this new approach isn’t any worse than the old-school approach — but that’s for baseball as a whole.

There have to be batters that are taking or swinging too much on the first pitch of an at-bat. If you’re a selective hitter, it makes sense to take. You’ll get a lot of 1-0 counts, and you’ll have a great sense of what’s a hittable pitch. If you’re more of an aggressive hitter that reaches often, maybe it makes sense to swing more often at strike one. You’ll avoid more 0-1 counts, and you’ll put some nice pitches into play.

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Last week, I unveiled the May Tiered Rankings for the second base position, and readers quickly zeroed in on my rankings of Dee Gordon and Aaron Hill. They believed I had placed both of them too low. One intrepid reader even took the time to pound at the keyboard and ask exasperatingly, “WHAT DOES DEE HAVE TO DO!”

While I appreciate the lack of question mark at the end of the sentence — as it would’ve resulted in an uncouth double punctuation — it’s clearly a question about which this individual feels passionately and desires a sincere answer. After all, Dee Gordon is hitting .331/.364/.441 with 24 steals. He’s the number-one ranked second baseman in ESPN leagues and the number-three overall player, behind only the Colorado duo of Charlie Blackmon and Troy Tulowitzki.

How the [insert choice expletive here] could I possibly rank Dee Gordon as a fourth-tier second baseman?

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For the past few years, we’ve grown accustomed to a steady diet of high on-base, high-average, moderate power output from Billy Butler. In the early going, 2014 hasn’t been nearly as tasty.

Terrible breakfast puns aside, Butler’s numbers are down across the board, and anyone lining him up in a util slot has got to be concerned. So is Butler a buy low or a guy you should be trying to get rid of?

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There is just so much fun you can have analyzing the batted ball distance leaderboard. The possibilities are seemingly endless and we haven’t even scratched the surface of exactly how we could use this data. But since we know distance is highly correlated with HR/FB rate, we could look at the leaders and laggards to predict who might be in for a surge or decline in their respective HR/FB rates. The key, of course, is that the player maintains a similar batted ball distance. We’re still dealing with a relatively small sample size here, so these potential surgers will only surge if they keep hitting balls as far as they have on average.

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Let’s jump into some fantasy baseball and existential questions from the readers this week. Why should you ask me questions and take my advice? You absolutely shouldn’t; however, I did draft Troy Tulowitzki this year. Just go admire Tulo’s player card right now. We are not worthy. Hopefully the gods of baseball health acquiesce and keep this guy on the field so he can set the all-time WAR record or something insane.

Harry from San Francisco asks, “What happened to Will Venable?  Last year he was a 20/20 guy with a near .800 OPS.  This year, he’s failed to contribute even a single SB or HR to my team.  Do I give up?”

It’s early, obviously, but yes, I’d probably give up on Venable. He’s 31, he’s not getting the bat to the ball enough, the power is missing in action, and it’s not like he’s some horrendous victim of the BABIP gods right now. Also, unless you are in an NL only league, you should be able to upgrade on Venable even if he does get back to where he was last year (.268/.312/.484, 22 dingers, 22 SB). That near-30 percent strikeout rate and .060 ISO would send me running for the hills right now.

Michael from Gloucester, MA asks, “Is Chris Colabello a witch?”

To the best of my knowledge, Colabello is a living, breathing human being with no relation to witches. If nothing else, he’s a mediocre baseball player who I assume you are partial to because he went to college in Worcester which has some of the same letters as Gloucester. Also, if this is the same Michael from Gloucester who I once worked with for a number of very painful years, it’s time for you to get back to our shared cubicle. I miss you. We can fight the post-traumatic stress together by never leaving.

Also, Colabello is probably thinking that if he’s a mediocre baseball player according to this writer, well, this writer is a 20-grade talent. To which I say…I have no comeback there.

Turkelton from Boston, MA and the hit television show Scrubs asks the existentialist, “I’m in a 16-team, points based, head-to-head league. David Wright is currently my starting third baseman. I’m worried that he is going to eventually hit the shelf, so I’d like to ensure that I have a solid backup on the roster. The problem is that third base seems particularly shallow this season. Right now, I’m rostering Mike Olt who has third base eligibility (and a serious prospect pedigree). Olt offers some power upside, but he’s currently hitting a crisp .162/.237/.353. Here are some other options on the waiver wire: your namesake Mark Reynolds, Cody Asche, Lonnie Chisenhall, David Freese (currently on the DL), Donnie Murphy, etc. Should I hold on to Olt and trust his one-time prospect pedigree?”

My shoulder is still messed up from a recent car accident and I have no bat-to-ball skills. Wait, I’m getting my Mark Reynoldses confused here. Just stay away from anyone named Mark Reynolds. Freese gets hurt all the time, Olt and Chisenhall probably don’t play enough, and I honestly don’t even know what in the world Donnie Murphy is. Is he related to Donnie Baseball?

If the Cubs believed in Olt, wouldn’t they have just turned the position over to him for all 162 this year? What do the Cubs have to lose besides another century’s worth of baseball games? Chisenhall would be more deserving of a gamble than Olt, and Asche is probably your best bet because who else are the Phillies going to put there? The Phillies aren’t actually that bad for me. I’d take Chase Utley, Cliff Lee, A.J. Burnett, and a healthy Cole Hamels any day of the week. Okay, the Phillis probably are that bad despite those guys.

Richard from Alameda, CA asks, “Does good pitching beat good hitting?”

Good pitching beats good hitting and good hitting beats good pitching. As John Kenneth Galbraith said, “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.” That written, even a great hitter doesn’t get on base 60 percent of the time. Thus, pitching generally beats hitting whether it’s good, bad, ugly, or indifferent. If I were a GM of something other than a fantasy baseball team, I’d draft position players over pitchers with high picks in most cases because of the high attrition rate of pitching prospects. For instance, I think the Astros blew it drafting Mark Appel last year. I watched Appel pitch in person several times at Stanford, and I never walked away thinking of him as some kind of future ace the way people probably did when they saw Stephen Strasburg dominate in college.

John from Petaluma, CA asks, “Should I regret not playing fantasy baseball this year for the first time ever, really?”

If you have to ask, you probably aren’t missing out too much. Like, if there was anything for you to regret, you’d be feeling it in the deepest recesses of your soul. There are a lot of things in my life that I regret having done or not done. That reminds me of the Taoist proverb, “When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.” I kind of understand that, but I couldn’t explain it for the life of me. I guess it means if you do nothing, there’s nothing…yeah, I don’t know. It’s all about the do-do. Intellectually understanding things isn’t that important, anyway, unless you can somehow apply it towards like right living.

Anyway, I quit baseball during my senior year of high school. I regret that decision. I’d probably be in the big leagues right now if I had kept playing. Okay, I definitely wouldn’t be in the big leagues, but the point here is that regret is something you know you are experiencing, not something you have to question. Fantasy baseball might not be for you anymore and that’s okay. It doesn’t matter either way.

Okay, we’ll leave it there for this week. If you have any fantasy questions you’d like answered in a future mailbag—if there is one—you can leave a comment or tweet at me. In the meantime, I’d strongly advise the acquisition of Troy Tulowitzki. He’ll improve your fantasy team and, if you’re like me, your extremely superficial, shallow, and sometimes low self-esteem.

Last weekend, the Blue Jays called up consensus top-100 prospect Marcus Stroman, adding him to their bullpen in a middle relief role. It would be silly to expect him to stay in the bullpen for long, as Toronto’s rotation is just too thin and shallow for Stroman to pitch in relief long-term.

Brandon Morrow is already hurt (again), and also hadn’t yet been able to improve on last year’s 5.63 earned run average. Dustin McGowan, having thrown 30 innings so far this season, has already tossed more frames in the majors than he did in any given year from 2009-2013, and hasn’t been particularly good himself (4.80 ERA, 4.67 FIP, 5.41 xFIP).

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