Welcome back deep leaguers! We have just about one month of baseball in the books and every team in the NL Central is above .500. My Pirates look better than they have for most of my life, so of course the rest of the division started strong too. We’ve already started to see some exciting call ups, with Sam Antonacci, Rece Hinds, and Peyton Tolle over the last couple weeks. Now we get to see Trey Yesavage for the first time since last year’s World Series and Travis Bazzana is set to debut for the Guardians. It’s always fun to see the next wave of potential stars. But that’s enough blind optimism. As always, we start with the…
Fallers
Kodai Senga, Starting Pitcher, New York Metropolitans – 25% Rostered
Senga excelled in his first MLB season back in 2023. He made 29 starts, covering over 166 innings and finished the year with a 2.98 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP and a whopping 202 strike outs. His 77 walks were a bit concerning, but that sky high strikeout rate made up for the extra base runners. Senga missed nearly all of 2024 due to injury, but bounced back strong last season. The first half of last season anyway.
Senga managed a 1.39 ERA with a 70:33 strike out to walk ratio over 77 innings before the 2025 All Star break. Then he suffered a hamstring injury and struggled to a 6.56 ERA with a 35: 22 strikeout to walk ratio over just 35 second-half innings. Senga looked strong again this spring, topping out at 97 MPH on his four seamer. He carried that momentum into the regular season, allowing just four runs over 11.2 innings. He walked five batters, but also struck out 16.
All that early season mojo disappeared after that second game though. Senga has completed just 8.1 innings combined over his last three starts. He has walked eight batters and struck out seven while allowing 17 hits, including five homers over those three turns.
Senga does not appear to be a fundamentally different pitcher than he was back in 2023. He’s throwing his heater even harder than he did as an MLB rookie. He’s still throwing his three main offerings – a four seamer, fork ball and cutter – roughly as often as ever. He’s not getting hit especially hard. In fact, his exit velocity allowed of 89.1 MPH and 40% hard hit rates are both nearly identical to his 2023 marks. His walk rate is up from 11% to 13%. His chase rate has dropped a bit, but his whiff rate has held steady. Overall though, his strike out rate has dropped significantly, albeit still remaining slightly above average. Maybe most importantly, his ground ball rate has fallen off a cliff.
Senga has had some back luck, as his BABIP stands at .382, a full one hundred points above his career average and his strand rate has plummeted from around 78% over the last few seasons to just 57% right now. So we have a pitcher who always allowed too many baserunners, mostly due to free passes, who is currently unable to get the Ks or grounders he needs to get out of jams.
He managed just 2.2 innings in a home matchup against the Rockies (Rocky Road, the Streamers Delight!) on Sunday, allowing three runs on three walks and three hits. With his big K and BB numbers, Senga was always bit of a double edged sword. Right now he looks like a falling knife, and catching those is dangerous.
Alec Bohm, First Base and Third Base, Philadelphia Phillies – 37% Rostered
Bohm never had the power breakout fantasy managers and Philles’ fans might have hoped for, but he’s been a great source of batting average and RBIs over the last few seasons. He’s had a brutal first month though. Through his first 110 plate appearances, Bohm is slashing just .143/.218/.194 with a single dinger, and an 8:19 BB:K ratio.
All of his underlying power metrics are down. He was never a barrel master, but he’s in the bottom 5% currently. His hard hit rate, which tends to be above average, ranks in the league’s bottom third. His exit velocity is the least of his troubles, coming in at 88.7 MPH, just a couple ticks under his career norm. And his plate discipline, which really is his calling card, remains strong. Bohm’s chase, whiff and K rates are all right around the top quartile. His whiff and K rates are slightly worse than his career norms, but his chase rate has actually been better so far.
Bohm has a career BABIP of .313, but so far this season it’s at just .163. Sure his power metrics look off, but he started slowly last year too. He had no homers and just a .526 OPS to end April last season. I’ll even drop a contact ability rolling chart to ease your mind.
See, he’s looking better already. Have some patience with Bohm and he should be the solid CI you’re used to.
T.J. Rumfield, First Base, Colorado Rockies – 7% Rostered
I was pretty pleased to see the Rockies include Rumfield on their Opening Day roster. He earned it with a great spring, and started the season well enough that he’s already been covered in this space as an early season riser. Alas, over the last couple weeks, Rumfield is slashing just .188/.291/.313. He has one homer, but has still managed to chip in eight RBI over that span.
He’s also maintained a decent on base percentage during his slump thanks to a nearly 10% walk rate. In fact, Rumfield’s plate discipline is still his strongest asset. His chase rate is just a little worse than the MLB average, but his whiff rate is just outside the top 25% and his K rate is inside the top 20%. The downside with Rumfield is his lack of bat speed and power.
Rumfield has one the MLB’s slowest sticks, so despite a league average barrel rate, and a slightly below average hard hit rate, he checks in with an exit velocity of just 86.3 MPH. That is barely above the league’s lowest 10% of hitters. I still think Rumfield could be a decent batting average and on base play in deep leagues, but his power upside looks severely limited, even with the Coors Field advantage. He also has to watch out for Charlie Condon, (.880 OPS, 16:18 K:BB) who is putting up strong numbers in his first 20 games at AAA.
Risers
Jung Hoo Lee, Outfield, San Francisco Giants – 14% Rostered
I featured Josh Jung last week, and my readers kept asking “Jung who?”, and it turns out they were right. Seriously though, Jung Hoo Lee has been on fire, slashing .467/.500/.667 with one homer and nine runs scored over the last two weeks. He’s mostly been slotted 6th, but slid up to the leadoff spot on Sunday, and promptly recorded four hits, scoring twice.
Lee has been a strong contact hitter since he debuted in 2024. He’s batted in the .260s through his first two MLB seasons, but has put up elite whiff and strike out rates. He’s added some pop, increasing his OPS from .641 as a rookie, to .735 as a sophomore and all the way up to .833 so far this season. The gains look legitimate, as Lee has raised his hard hit rate nearly 8%, and his exit velocity more than two MPH from their 2025 marks. Both rates are still below MLB average, but the improvement, along with his elite plate discipline is encouraging.
I’ve included Lee’s process chart from 2025 along with his chart from this season. The difference is striking. We can see that his power lies much closer to the mean, with less exaggerated dips and he is actually making even better contact than he was for the second half of last year. Right now Lee is looking like a very strong batting average play, and his emerging power could translate into 15-20 homers.
Oswald Peraza, First Base, Second Base, Third Base and Short Stop, Los Angeles Angels – 16% Rostered
Peraza must’ve studied the Baseball Kama Sutra, because he plays all the positions! And over the last couple weeks he’s doing all the other things too. Over those 14 days, the Great and Powerful Os has slashed .351/.442/.568 with two dingers and three stolen bases. This is all very surprising, because over 200 games spanning 5 MLB seasons, Peraza has a career .583 OPS. He came into this season with a sub .200 career batting average.
For what it’s worth, Peraza has improved some of the underlying metrics I usually like to look at when discussing hitters. His 33% hard hit rate is a bit worse than his 2025 rate, but his 88.4 MPH average exit velocity is up a tick. His barrel rate has nearly doubled from 6.7 to 10.9%. His whiff rate is the same as last year, and his chase rate is actually worse, yet his K rate has dropped from 30% down to 25%. In fact, of all the rates and percentages I rolled out, Peraza’s barrel rate is his only above-average batting asset.
Have I mentioned that his current .340 BABIP is much higher than his career .261 mark? Huh, seems like that could be important. His process chart is likewise unimpressive.
We can see that there is nothing special happening here, but Peraza has improved enough to look more like an average MLB hitter. And that’s not a bad thing for a player with his positional eligibility and willingness to run. Even if this isn’t a breakout, Peraza could be a helpful player with maybe 10-15 homers and 15-20 steals if he maintains his current level of playing time. I would expect that batting average to come crashing down though.
Nathan Church, Outfield, St Louis Cardinals – 11% Rostered
I’ve never been very religious, but it still may surprise you that I was entirely unaware of Church until last week. Maybe a bad fantasy loss is what it took for me to seek salvation? The 25-year-old Cardinal rookie may never become the Pontiff, but his recent performance has been nothing short of miraculous. Church is slashing .361/.390/.722 over the last 14 days with four righteous homers and three blasphemous steals.
This outburst is more than a little surprising. Church has played in 360 minor league games in which he has amassed 25 homers and 64 stolen bases. So the steals have been part of his game, but the power (five homers in 71 MLB at bats) might be a temporary blessing. In fact, Church has a nice 11% barrel rate, but his sub par 86 MPH exit velocity and 37% hard hit rate line up more closely with his minor league rates.
Church is also carrying a ludicrous 43.8% chase rate, an unimpressive 24.4% K rate and a 5% walk rate that is half what it was at AAA. Church is fast, and should continue to pick up stolen bases if he can get on, but nothing in his profile suggests the he will continue to get on base. The power looks like an illusion and it’s entirely possible Moises Ballesteros could turn his bat into a snake next time the Cards play the Cubs. Sorry to say, but Church might not be the path to fantasy salvation.
Thanks as always for reading! That last write up was a lot of fun, to be honest. I’m looking forward to May Baseball, and more prospect debuts. Good luck out there Deep Leaguers!
