Our esteemed RotoGraphs editor recently passed along a question to the team that came to him from a reader:
“If a player runs a high k-rate upon debut for a significant amount of time, how likely is it that they’ll ever be a viable fantasy hitter?”
Streaming pitchers is a much cleaner exercise than streaming hitters. And oftentimes, the expected production is relatively more guaranteed. But in an offensive environment where hitting seems to be increasingly hard to find on the wire, then playing hot hands, and even better, trying to predict hot hands, becomes worthwhile.
That’s what I’ll try and do in this article. At the team level, I’ll point you to the teams who are playing the most games this week, the teams playing in the friendliest hitter’s parks. Then, I’ll look more into platoon splits, playing time, and how hot they are heading into the week to try and identify a crop of hitters you should consider streaming. To limit the player pool to hitters who are likely to be available, I’ll only use hitters who are around 50% rostered or less in either Yahoo or CBS leagues.
This is my first attempt at this exercise. I’ll try and provide plenty of information to help you make decisions that apply to your league and team context, from position eligibility to rostership rates.
Please let me know in the comments if there’s other information that’d be helpful, format changes, or any other potential changes!
Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images
Angels
• Wade Meckler (vs RHP) and Jose Siri (vs LHP) form a left field platoon.
• Donovan Walton (.693 OPS, 0 HR, 0 SB) started in 10 of the last 12 games.
Haase around and find out!
On the Agenda:
Below is our weekly table of the most significant swings in remaining projected playing time for position players, headlined by Jacob Gonzalez and Edwin Arroyo benefitting from hamstring injuries to Munetaka Murakami and Elly De La Cruz:
| Name | Team | Positions | Proj. Remaining PT%, 5/26 | Proj. Remaining PT%, 6/2 | PT Change | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Crooks | STL | C, DH | 12% | 50% | 38% | Called up and taking time away from Pedro Páges in three-headed catching group |
| Taylor Trammell | HOU | RF, LF, CF | 16% | 48% | 32% | Back from the IL and in the middle of the lineup |
| Jacob Gonzalez | CHW | 1B, 3B, 2B, SS | 6% | 37% | 31% | Earned first call-up to the bigs, will bounce around but mostly 1B vs. RHP |
| Pavin Smith | ARI | DH, 1B, RF | 28% | 57% | 29% | Back from the IL |
| Edwin Arroyo | CIN | 2B, SS, 3B | 25% | 53% | 28% | Called up to replace Elly De La Cruz (who just missed the cutoff for a significant PT decrease), will bounce around |
| Mickey Gasper | BOS | 1B, DH, C | 16% | 37% | 21% | Continues to play pretty well and start often |
| Ryan O’Hearn | PIT | RF, 1B, DH | 60% | 79% | 19% | Back from the IL |
| Blake Dunn | CIN | CF, RF, LF | 23% | 41% | 18% | Continues to take time away from TJ Friedl and hitting leadoff lately |
| Jase Bowen | SDP | LF, RF, CF | 6% | 23% | 17% | Welcome to the big leagues! |
| Abimelec Ortiz | WSN | 1B, DH | 19% | 35% | 16% | Has gotten hot at Triple-A, first call-up soon? |
| Eric Haase | SFG | C, LF | 23% | 38% | 15% | Jesus Rodriguez demotion makes him the clear backup C to Daniel Susac |
| Kerry Carpenter | DET | DH, RF, LF | 55% | 70% | 15% | Back from the IL |
| Jung Hoo Lee 이정후 | SFG | RF, CF, DH | 68% | 83% | 15% | Back from the IL |
| Harrison Bader | SFG | CF | 75% | 59% | -16% | Plantar fasciitis |
| Carson Williams | TBR | SS, 2B | 58% | 39% | -19% | Optioned back to Triple-A |
| Davis Schneider | TOR | 2B, LF, DH, 3B | 45% | 21% | -24% | Optioned down after tough start to the year |
| Munetaka Murakami | CHW | 1B, DH | 89% | 65% | -24% | Hamstring strain will keep him out 4-6 weeks |
| Zach Cole | HOU | LF, RF, CF | 47% | 22% | -25% | Optioned to minors |
| Jesus Rodriguez | SFG | C, DH, LF | 40% | 14% | -26% | Optioned to minors |
| Pedro Pagés | STL | C | 54% | 20% | -34% | Will lose significant time to Jimmy Crooks |
It’s been nearly a month since I took my last look at batter xwOBA underperformers and overperformers, and a lot could change during that time. So let’s revisit the hitters who have underperformed and overperformed the most, determine whether it’s been a consistent trend, and decide if the hitter is due to perform closer to his xwOBA the rest of the way.
Since 2021, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been one of the best hitters in the league. As we enter June, he has just three home runs and his worst power numbers for several years. At this pace, he will finish with nine homers — the same as he managed in the shortened 60-game season in 2020. His top-20 average ADP has resulted in returns that barely put him in the top 20 at first base, and that poses the question: Can this regression be explained?
Before I decided on the topic of this article, I was randomly wondering which hitters have enjoyed the largest skill gains and suffered the biggest declines. Whose skills have actually surged most and whose have collapsed? Lucky for us, we have an all-encompassing metric that accounts for the majority of underlying skills, Statcast’s xwOBA.
Jeff Zimmerman’s son competed in the State Track Meet this weekend, so he only had time to cover the pitchers while I’ll cover the hitters.
In this article, I am helping Jeff Zimmerman cover the hitters using CBS’s and Yahoo’s ADD/DROP rates. Both sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS uses a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now, while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week aren’t missed. I will start with hitters being added at CBS who started the week on less than 40% of rosters.
Staying true to the format, the players are ordered for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference, separating out catchers and prospects from the overall hitter pool.
With a third of the season in the books, the sample size for certain data and metrics has grown from too small to large enough that it must be taken seriously. The New York Yankees post a wRC+ of 123 against left-handed pitching — the best mark in baseball. The Mariners, another pre-season World Series contender, sit at 75. That 48-point gap between the two elite lineups on paper, against southpaws, is no longer such a small sample that we need to ignore it. Leveraging platoons has long been an important strategic lever for lineups looking to gain an advantage. Using wRC+ through the first stretch of the 2026 season, we can see every team’s offensive production against left- and right-handed pitching to find where the real discrepancies lie, and how we can target these matchups on both sides of the ball as we move deeper into the season, and what trends we should be watching.