You've got questions, and while I may not have all of the answers you're looking for, I've got plenty of thoughts, at least. Over the past few days, I've been asking for your questions, and you filled up our inbox with a bunch of your toughest second-half questions. We're going to answer some more of them on Friday's episode of Fantasy Baseball Today, but today's FBT newsletter is also all about answering some of your most interesting questions.
From ground-level, player analysis to some more high-level questions -- including some about the 2025 season that I definitely didn't expect! -- I've picked a handful of the most interesting questions you all sent in to answer today, our least free day on the MLB schedule until the playoffs. We'll be back tomorrow with Scott White's updated prospect rankings and some help to set your lineups for the upcoming week(s), but for now, let's get to your questions:
Ask FBT Mailbag!
Tom: What I struggle with every year is when to drop a high-rated player who's underperforming. May? June? Post-ASG? Put another way – comparing the benefits of being a "buy and hold" guy vs being a day trader (always picking up this week's hot prospect)?
We're starting out with a question I'm probably a bad person to be asking, because I tend to be on the extreme far end of the scale when it comes to holding on to players, potentially for too long. For context, I took Julio Rodriguez eighth overall in our "re-drafting the first two rounds for the second half" exercise on the FBT podcast today. I'm sure some of the people listening to the podcast have considered dropping Rodriguez; I never would.
But ultimately, this isn't a question with a one-size-fits-all answer. I've held my faith in Rodriguez, but definitely less so for Corbin Carroll, whose struggles started in the second half of last season. I haven't given up on Carroll, but I think he'd probably be more like a fourth or fifth-round pick for me; there's still plenty of upside in there, I'm sure, but given how long his inability to hit for power has gone on, I can't write it off in the same way I mostly do with Rodriguez.
As a general rule, the younger a player is, the longer a leash I'm willing to give him; ditto for players who were drafted in the early rounds. If you were a top-50 player coming into the season, I'm going to need to see some real skills changed to give up on you. But if you were a player I liked in the 150-ish range of drafts – let's say Jorge Soler – I'm much more willing to move on by May or June. There may not be one simple rule for this, but I do tend to think about it this way: "If that player becomes what they were supposed to be, how much would I regret dropping them?" For a Soler-like player, I'd regret it, but I wouldn't feel like it ruined my season; for Rodriguez or even Carroll, I would.
Sam: Some (relatively) big-name pitchers will be making their season debuts in the second half (Robbie Ray, Kodai Senga, Devin Williams, etc.). Which are you most excited about and what can we expect from them the rest of the season?
First of all, I think it's worth looking back at the last time we did an exercise like this when I ranked the IL stash pitchers and said that Gerrit Cole and Bobby Miller were two of the three I expected an impact from. Cole has a 5.40 ERA in five starts coming off IL, while Miller didn't even get to a fifth start before he was sent back down to the minors.
Which is to say, our expectations should be pretty muted for anyone coming back from a serious injury, but especially pitchers. I think Devin Williams is probably the one I expect the most from, given that he's taking on a smaller workload as a reliever and isn't coming back from an arm injury but a back issue. I also don't know how comfortable I feel betting against Clayton Kershaw, even if he's old and coming back from shoulder surgery; he's defied expectations for about a half-decade when everyone expected him to fall apart.
I think Jeffrey Springs has a pretty good chance of making an impact of some kind, as does Kodai Senga, though the latter's recovery from his spring shoulder injury has been problematic enough that I certainly can't say I'm confident. Beyond them and Justin Verlander (maybe), I think anything you get from the injured pitchers the rest of the way is a bonus. I wouldn't plan on getting anything from them. For a full list of the players to know on the IL, check out Scott White's IL stash rankings here.
Tyler: Will Kyle Tucker be a valuable second half option? I know sometimes shin injuries have been real problems for players. Should I sell high when he comes back from the IL, or should I expect him to produce at the pace he was before getting hurt? Tucker or Alvarez from the Astros outfield ROS?
It'd be a lot easier to know how to answer this question if I felt like I really knew what was going on with Tucker! Remember, he was considered day-to-day back on June 3, with what was diagnosed as a shin contusion. He's been out a month and a half since then, and his timeline has kept getting pushed back. That's not that abnormal, but what's weird is that Tucker has not had, as far as I can tell, any change to his diagnosis.
If it was truly just a bruise, even a severe one, it seems pretty reasonable to expect him to come back and look more or less like himself. But given the way this injury has lingered and clearly been more severe than initially diagnosed, it begs the question of whether that initial diagnosis still holds. Did Tucker suffer some kind of fracture? We don't have any way of knowing, but it's a reasonable question given this timetable, and that would certainly make it harder to be quite as confident that he'll come back and be just as good as he was before the injury.
For what it's worth, I took Tucker 11th overall in our re-draft exercise, so I'm mostly willing to say he'll be himself when he's back and that he should be back soon. He would have been a top-five pick if not for the injury, so there's a bit of uncertainty baked in there, but not as much as I would prefer if I'm being honest.
Robb: What to do with Corbin Carroll. Time to drop?
Refer back to question one! I'm going to go down with the ship, at least in any five-outfielder team or categories league. We've seen some minor signs of life lately, with three homers and four steals in the final 10 games before the break, so if you haven't dropped him by now, I don't see a good reason to do so today. His underlying stats suggest he should at least be better than he has been so far, even if there isn't much reason to think he'll be a star (besides the fact that, you know, he was one just last season).
Jeff: I am in the lead of a 10-team points league, and I am stacked with pitchers. What do you think of me giving Alex Bregman and Paul Skenes to receive Fernando Tatis and Mookie Betts from a guy who is in seventh? Think that's a good trade for me?
I like the idea, and if Betts and Tatis are healthy for the playoffs, you should have a much stronger lineup with those two, even in a points league (Tatis' weaker format and Bregman's stronger one). If you're chasing upside, this is a move to help you do it, but boy is that an awful lot of risk you're taking on with two guys who, as of now, don't really have a timetable to return to action.
Betts is about four weeks removed from an injury that had a soft 6-8 week timetable initially, and Tatis is even more up in the air. He has a stress reaction in his right femur, and the Padres really haven't offered much of anything in terms of a timetable. The best we got is back in late June when Tatis told reporters he would be out "well past" the All-Star break. Does that mean late July? August? September? It feels like it could all be on the table here.
It's a risk that very well may be worth taking, but I think I'd have to pass on this particular deal. If you could re-engage your would-be trade partner on a Bregman-for-Betts deal straight up, I would certainly do that. But taking on two big injury question marks feels like one too many.
Kevin: I was wondering if there really is any difference in playing in Colorado than elsewhere. It seems like years ago the ball was really jumping out of Denver and stats were skewed, but I don't believe that to be the case anymore. If it were, wouldn't the Rockies be playing so much better?
The thing about park factors is, it usually takes a lot more than one season to figure out if an environment has changed, and we usually need a good reason to believe a ballpark's environment is changed. We have some reason to believe the offensive environment at Progressive Field has changed, for example, with some preliminary data showing the ball carrying much better there than anywhere else, but it's still too early to say whether that is real.
But Coors Field remains the best place to hit in the majors. The Rockies rank 16th in OPS as a team, and yet Coors Field still has the highest OPS of any stadium in baseball in 2024, and it isn't particularly close: Hitters are sporting a .779 OPS at Coors, 30 points higher than Chase Field in second place. The Rockies are one of the best matchups for pitchers on the road, where they have a 26.9% strikeout rate and have hit just .225/.284/.372, collectively; despite that, they still rank eighth in home OPS, hitting .264/.327/.427. Yep, it still sits a mile high.
Pat: I've heard the Oakland Athletics are going to be playing in a minor league venue next season. If it is anything like Toronto playing in Buffalo, should we be interested in boosting our A's keepers?
The current plan is for the A's to spend 2025-27 playing in Sutter Health Park, the home of the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats. Someone on Reddit helpfully overlayed the dimensions of Sutter Health Park and the A's current home park, and it looks like it should be a more or less neutral shift – there is significantly less foul territory, which helps hitters, and the fences down the right field line are a little closer, but the Coliseum it actually shallower nearly everywhere else.
Field dimensions aren't everything, of course, but Sacramento sits just 30 feet above sea level, so it also isn't one of those Pacific Coast League parks that sits at elevation and acts as another Coors Field. In fact, when MiLB.com looked at PCL park factors back in 2019, Sacramento was toward the lower end of the offensive spectrum in total offense. Compare that to where the Jays played in either Buffalo or Dunedin, both of which have rated as arguably the best offensive environments in their respective leagues, and I don't think we should expect any kind of significant improvement for the A's based on their home park alone next season.
Bruce: Chris, keep Bobby Miller, or time to let him go? Keep him and let Fedde go. Looking at the Dodgers' possible call-up, River?
How often are you starting Fedde? Is he someone you rely on every week, or only when he has great matchups or two starts on the schedule? If it's the latter, I'm fine with cutting him, streaming that spot when needed, and keeping Miller stashed. Miller has significant upside, and as long as he's healthy, I have faith that the Dodgers will figure something out and get him back on track. If you drop Fedde, you might miss out on some decent six-inning, six-strikeout outings, but you probably won't fare much worse if you just stream that spot. If Miller comes back and looks like we think he can, you could be missing out on a significant difference-maker. I wouldn't pass on that.
Gary: What should I do with Bo Bichette, I'm a 12-team head-to-head league. I've got Jackson Merrill and have plenty of OF depth. Thought about just benching him and seeing if he ever starts to hit. Any thoughts?
Is Rece Hinds still somehow available in your league? I might be willing to drop Bichette to take a chance on his hit tool being good enough to let the impact power player up, but otherwise, there probably aren't any impact players available on your wire. Sure, Bichette might not be one either – the recurring calf injuries are a real concern, and might explain why he's been so bad this season – but we've certainly seen him be one in the very recent past. If you don't need to start the player, I'm almost always going to recommend shooting for upside with your roster spots. You only get so many shots at true difference-makers, and I still think Bichette has a better chance of being that than pretty much anyone you're likely to find on waivers right now.
