Welcome Back Deep Leaguers! We are almost 20 games into the season and the Dodgers are your early NL leaders while the Guardians and Twins share a lead of the AL. Exactly what we all expected… Our top five scoring teams so far are the Astros, Dodgers, Twins, Braves, and Nats. A couple of those teams were expected to hit well, but the Nationals and Twins have not been the streaming targets we might have hoped for in the early going. I’m sure these rankings will shift around, but it’s a good idea to step out of the weeds and take a wide angle look at team performance every now and then. Make sure your internal calibrations don’t drift too far away from reality. Speaking of reality, we really oughta get to those…
Fallers
Alex Freeland, Second Base, Third Base and Short Stop, Los Angeles Dodgers – 2% Rostered
Freeland did not get a ton of hype coming into the season, because he didn’t have a clear path to playing time. Tommy Edman was always going miss the start of the year, leaving the second base job open, but Freeland faced stiff competition from Miguel Rojas and Hyeseong Kim. Still, Freeland was intriguing for a couple reasons. He did club 16 dingers and he stole 18 bases over 106 games at AAA before his MLB debut last season, and the Dodgers will score a ton of runs. In Deep Leagues, we want all the pieces of all the high scoring offenses.
That playing time issue cleared itself up when Mookie Betts hit the IL with an oblique strain, and Freeland has started 11 of the Dodgers’ last 12 games. He has usually batted in the bottom third of the order, but has slotted as high as 6th. So he is getting chances, which is great, but we are beyond the point of the season where usage is my only concern. Freeland has slashed just .220/.289/.341 with a single homer. He has yet to attempt a stolen base.
On the bright side, his underlying rates do paint a rosier picture. Freeland has posted a 92.7 MPH exit velocity so far, to go along with a solidly above average 44% hard hit rate. He’s also displaying a good eye at the plate with just a 21% chase rate, and an acceptable 8% walk rate. However he’s still whiffing too much (30%) and striking out in over 31% of his at bats. Eventually Mookie and Edman will return from their IL trips and Freeland simply isn’t doing enough to steal away the second base gig.
Spencer Steer, First Base and Outfield Cincinnati Reds – 17% Rostered
Spencer Steer has provided fantasy managers, and the Reds, with at least 20 dingers and 75 RBI per season for the last 3 years. He was a batting average asset back in 2023, but a drag the last two seasons. He’s mostly playing outfield now, but is still covering first when Sal Stewart covers other infield spots. That dual eligibility looks safe for now. I say for now, because Steer has slashed just .176/.218/.353 in the early going.
Steer’s underlying rates are more of a mixed bag than you might expect though. His exit velocity is sitting pretty low at just 87.4 MPH, but that’s actually the same exit velocity he averaged last season, when he still launched 21 dingers over 146 games. His barrel rate sits at nearly 17% which falls in the league’s top 10%, and dwarfs his roughly 7% marks from the last two seasons.
On the other hand, I don’t like the trends in his walk and strike out rates. Steer carried an 11% walk rate in 2024, then a 9% rate last season, and is at just 5.5% so far this year. At the same time his K rate has spiked from 21% in 2024, to 22.7% in 2025 and is all the way up over 29% this season. Steer’s bat speed is up a tick this season as well. All of this paints a picture of a player trying to sell out for a bit more power, but getting more whiffs instead.
Steer has not seen a drop in playing time yet, but the Reds have already made one move this season. They optioned Noelvi Marte (who was not getting full time at bats) and called up Rece Hinds. Hinds, an outfielder, has been crushing AAA to the tune of .354/.475/.771 with five dingers and a 12:15 walk to strike out rate. I’m not saying Steer’s playing time is definitely in danger, but he isn’t doing enough to keep himself in the lineup every day and the Reds are already looking at outfield options. I do think Hinds is worth a speculative add either way, and hope to see him back here next week in the later half of the article.
Marcell Ozuna, Utility, Pittsburgh Pirates – 7% Rostered
As many of you may know, (since I mention it weekly) I am a Pirates fan. I may have had Ozuna based discussions with other Pirate fans I know. Those discussions are unfit to print in this space due to the profanity. It would also be difficult to convey all of the angry fist shaking, the huffing sighs, the defeated exhalations and the fed up eye-rolls. Thankfully there is an editor between my vitriol and your eyes and you will read a family friendly account of Ozuna’s early season struggles.
First off, I get the signing. Ozuna smacked 40 homers in 2023 and 39 in 2024. The Buccos brought in Ryan O’Hearn and Brandon Lowe over the offseason to a lineup that already featured Spencer Horwitz and Oneil Cruz. They had a ton of lefty bats and a big bopping right handed bat made sense. We are 11 games into Ozuna’s tenure as a Pirate and he has three hits. None of those hits are home runs. None of those hits are doubles. None of those hits have driven in any runs.
The good news is that at age 35, Ozuna’s bat has not slowed down. He’s swinging just as hard as when he was belting 30+ dingers. His whiff rate is barely up and his K rate has held at roughly 25%, right where it sat the last couple years. His barrel rate has plummeted from 15% in 2024 and 11% last season down all the way to 3% this year. Ozuna’s ground ball and line drive rates have dropped and his pop up rate has jumped to 22.6%. He is making the worst kind of contact and producing easy outs.
Things aren’t as bad under the hood as Ozuna’s .070/.167/.070 line would have you believe, but I simply can’t see him performing anywhere near the level he performed at two or three years ago. He’s 35 , and age catches up to everyone. I also can’t see the Pirates giving up on their 12 million dollar free agent signing before the end of April, even if Esmerlyn Valdez has a .969 OPS and more walks than strike outs at AAA. They ran Andrew McCutchen out of town for this.
Risers
Dominic Smith, First Base, Atlanta Braves – 3% Rostered
Dominic Smith isn’t a new name to fantasy managers. He gave us a couple useful seasons back in 2019 and 2020. He batted nearly .300 and launched 21 round trippers over 139 games combined over those seasons. (Remember 2020 was the short season). Then he fell off and failed to produce an OPS above .700 for the next 4 years. But Smith had a small resurgence slashing .284/.333/.417 for the Giants last year, and has excelled in a strong side platoon role for the Braves this year.
The 30 year old “first basemen” has played 10 games at DH this season, and carries a .353/.378/.647 line with three dingers and 11 RBI already. Smith is showing more aggression at the plate this year than ever before. He is sporting the lowest walk rate (5.4%) and highest chase rate (40.5%) of his career by far, and yet he’s only struck out in 16% of his at bats and is making great contact in the zone, with just a 17.3% whiff rate.
He’s also posting an average exit velocity over 90 MPH, which he has never done over a full season. Furthermore, Smith is smacking line drives at his highest rate since that 2020 campaign, and nearly 10% above his career mark. He does still sit against lefties, and has mostly batted 7th, both of which will limit his upside, but I like what I’m seeing in his approach and I think he can get back to being a 20 homer, .275 batting average, 70+ RBI corner infield option.
Brandon Marsh, Outfield, Philadelphia Phillies – 9% Rostered
Marsh is coming off a bit of a weird 2025 season. He gave us a very good line of .280/.342/.443 over 133 games. That’s a plus player for batting average, on base percentage and OPS, all the hitting ratios you might include in a category league. However, despite his strong ratios, Marsh provided just 11 dingers, seven steals and a combined 102 runs + RBI. For comparison: Spencer Steer (in 10 more games played) accrued 141 combined runs + RBI, even though all three of his major batting line ratios were at least 30 points lower than Marsh’s. The Phils were also a top 10 offense in terms of runs scored while the Reds were middle of the pack.
Marsh is once again giving us great ratios with his .304/.333/.482 line, but he’s also homered twice and stolen two bases over his first 15 games. His seven runs scored and 11 RBI look more in line with the rest of his statistics too, and make me optimistic he can help us out beyond batting average this season.
Except for his dwindling walk rate and elevated chase rate, I like what I see in his underlying numbers too. Marsh has gotten his whiff rate down below 22% and cut his K rate down to 23% which would be the best of his career if it holds. He’s also got his hard hit rate up over 46% and into the league’s top third and his exit velocity, while a touch lower than last year, is holding over 90 MPH.
Even more encouraging, Marsh has slotted into the middle third of the Phils’ lineup the last several games after batting seventh for the first few series. If that change sticks, Marsh should get a lot of opportunities to drive in runs and could post much better run and RBI totals than we’ve seen from him lately. Believe in the beard.
Jose Fernandez, First Base and Short Stop, Arizona Diamondbacks – 14% Rostered
Fernandez made a big splash, homering twice in his debut way back in March. Then after, getting everyone all excited, he went 1 for his next 12. Fernandez did rebound after a day off though. He went 8-24 over his next six contests, including a modest five game hitting streak that ended Monday afternoon, minutes after (and likely because) I decided to make him our DLRF cover athlete of the week.
I’ll get right to it here, because there is nothing in Fernandez’s profile to support whatever success he’s had in the majors so far. His average exit velocity is just over 85 MPH. His barrel rate of 6.7% is below average even with two dingers in his first 40 at bats. His 38% chase rate is near the league’s bottom, as is his 33% hard hit rate. His 25% K rate is not especially bad, but his 0% walk rate sure is. Fernandez’s best tool is his elite sprint speed, but he’s stolen just one base in one attempt this year, and has just 47 in over 400 minor league games.
His minor league track record doesn’t impress either. Fernandez slashed.272/.321/.454 with 17 homers and 12 steals in 122 games at AA last year. He has just four at bats at the AAA level, and a .745 AA OPS is absolutely not something that would indicate impending MLB success. Fernandez is just 22 and I’m honestly impressed at how well he’s held his own so far, but he could benefit from more time at AAA and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back there pretty soon.
Marsh and Smith seem like interesting adds this week, but also check in on Antonacci and Hinds before they end up as Risers. Thanks as always for reading, and good luck out there Deep Leaguers!
