In dynasty baseball leagues, timing is everything. There is nothing worse than getting excited about acquiring a player only to watch him immediately go into a slump or never return to the highs that he had before you acquired him. On the flip side, there is nothing better than acquiring a player for a cheap price only for his stock to skyrocket immediately after. The other side of trading maybe even more rewarding or pain-inducing – shipping off a player at the right or wrong time is something that can cause you to lose sleep at night.
The most important thing to note is that nobody bats 1.000 here. Everybody that plays dynasty sports, and everybody in your league, is going to win some trades and lose some trades. The best you can hope to do is come out on the better side of that ledger more times than not. Be ok with losing some trades – if you’re not, you may become too hesitant to make them at all.
The first few weeks of the season may be the most difficult time to make trades. Everybody is fighting their best instincts to overreact, but it’s also human nature. What’s real? What’s small sample size noise? As with all trades, it’s best to try to have as much information as possible when buying or selling, even if we are only a handful of games into the season. Let’s do our best to pin down some buys and some sells after a handful of games to start the year.
DYNASTY BUYS
Julio Rodriguez, OF, SEA – It may feel silly and obvious to include Rodriguez here, especially after he seemingly turned a corner last week, but it’s easy to imagine the dynasty managers are getting frustrated by his slow starts each year. After his hot week where he hit .304, J-Rod is now up to a .228/.318/.392 triple slash. That’s good for a 110 wRC+ in this environment. He also has six home runs and five steals.
Last season was a down year for the talented outfielder. Het hit .273 with 20 home runs and 24 steals. For most players, that’s a fantastic season, but after Rodriguez had a a sophomore campaign that saw a .275 average with 32 home runs and 37 steals, it was a little bit of a disappointed. Right now, we are about a quarter of the way through the season, so Rodriguez’s numbers prorate much closer to his 2024 numbers than his 2023 ones.
The good news is there are some positive signs here – Rodriguez’s walk rates and and strikeout rates (9.5% and 19.6%, respectively) are the best they’ve ever been, and his ISO (.165) is a bump up from last season (.136). His BABIP is also considerably lower than it has ever been. Coming into this season, J-ROD had posted a career .339 BABIP. This season? It’s checking in at .256. That’s looking at some pretty tough luck with his xBA sitting at .264.
The bad news is that Seattle plays in one of the toughest parks for hitters and that’s actually the bigger reason for Rodriguez’s slumpy stretches than the times of the year. For his career, Rordiguez has a .763 OPS at home compared to .822 on the road and those numbers have only gotten more extreme since the start of 2024. This year, he has a .655 OPS at home and a .771 on the road. His home park doesn’t appear to be trading anytime soon.
In total, though, I’m willing to bet that Rodriguez’ positive regression comes and that he can probably be had at a slighlty cheaper price than you’d normally see for this caliber of player.
Maikel Garcia, INF/OF, KCR – Garcia has always been an interesting fantasy player – he has positional versatility, steals a ton of bases and hits the ball hard. But he’s never been able to put it all together, mostly due to high groundball rates. That’s changed in 2025, at least through 41 games, and the results have been wonderful.
Through those 41 contests, Garcia is triple slashing .306/.373/.472 with four home runs and 10 steals. He’s posting career-best walk and strikeout rates (9.9% and 14.8%, respectively) and, perhaps most importantly for him, has dropped his groundball rate to a career-best 45.1% while still increasing his average exit velocity to 92.4 MPH. All that adds up to his expected stats backing his results (.309 xBA, .489 x SLG) and lends me to believe that what we are seeing from Garcia is sustainable going forward.
The Royals bounce Garcia all around the diamond, which also adds to his value – so far in 2025, he’s checked in at second base, third base, shortstop and in the outfield. The versatility means he’s never really going to be at risk of losing playing team, and depending on your league settings he could get eligibility at all of those spots, all while batting in the top half of the lineup. A full season output of a .285 hitter with 15 home runs and 40 steals is in play.
Matt McLain, MI, CIN – There is a good chance that if someone rostered McLain throughout his entirely missed 2024 just to watch him hit .165 through his first 33 games, they could be ready to move on. And it’s understandable – there isn’t a ton to love when you see someone triple slashing .165/.299/.298 while striking out north of 30% of the time.
The good news is that despite those ugly numbers, McLain has still tallied five home runs and 10 steals. His expected numbers, while still not great, are better with a .202 xBA and a .386 xSLG. Again, McLain missed ALL of 2024 – a sluggish start out of the gate shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, especially when you factor in that he missed some time this year already due to a hamstring injury.
McLain has 20 home run, 30 steal potential, so if you have a manager in your league who is willing to ship him off, this is the time to pounce.
DYNASTY SELLS
Geraldo Perdomo, SS, ARI – Perdomo is off to a scorching start to the year – he’s triple slashing .292/.395/.458 with five home runs and nine steals through 41 games. He is walking (15.1%) more than he is striking out (11.7%), and seeing career highs in ISO (.167) and wRC+ (138). The now 25-year-old shortstop has always featured strong OBP skills – he’s coming off seasons of .353 and .344, respectively – but now we are finally starting to see him do more with the bat in 2025.
To be clear, Perdomo’s inclusion in the sell category here is not an indication that the expectation is that his production would fall off of a cliff. It feels very logical for a 25-year-old infielder who has always been one of the best in baseball at eyeing the strike zone and making contact with the ball would make some strides as he heads toward his prime years. So, depending on your team structure and outlook, Perdomo is a perfectly good asset to have.
But his inclusion here is to temper expectations a little bit, and also point out that if someone were to pay big for Perdomo’s hot start, it’s also at least worth considering. Here’s a few reasons why.
For starters, Perdomo’s results are are drastically outperforming his batted ball metrics. His .376 wOBA is considerably higher than his .342 xOBA, and the same can be said for his batting average (.292 compared to .256) and slugging (.458 to .397). It’s fair to expect Perdomo’s results to come back down to expectation a little bit going forward. Perdomo is the type of hitter that consistently outperforms his batted ball metrics, so again, don’t expect him to fall off a cliff, but we should see some regression.
Another knock against Perdomo is the Diamondbacks lineup. Arizona has a strong lineup, but in this case maybe it’s too good. Perdomo had an extended run batting in the top third of the order – but Ketel Marte is healthy now, and Jordan Lawlar is getting called up, which pushes Perdomo back to his usually ninth spot. That’s not great for counting stats and opportunities.
Overall, Perdomo is showing he can be a solid contributor, but someone may be able to think he’s more than that given his youth and hot start.
George Springer, OF, Tor – Springer is enjoying a bounce back campaign. Actually, that is underselling it – Springer is enjoying a career campaign, hitting .297 with five home runs and six steals through his first 37 contests. And when you dig beneath the surface…a lot of the metrics actually back up what we are seeing on the field. His xBA is a little lower at .270, but that’s still in the 70th percentile, and his xSLG (.536) is actually higher than his current output (.517). Springer’s 92.7 MPH average exit velocity is is the highest it’s been ever, and by a considerable margin (his previous career high was 89.8 all the way back in 2019. He’s hitting the ball on the ground significantly less (34.9% compared to 49.8% in 2024) and walking at a career best 15.4% rate. He’s also seeing 4.119 pitchers per plate appearance, the second highest mark of his career. With all that in mind, if you want to buy into Springer, I can’t blame you.
But he’s a sell here just because most players these days don’t have their career-best seasons at age-35. Springer could certainly be the exception to that norm, but it feels like a safe bet that he won’t be performing at this level all season long. He can certainly be useful asset to win-now teams, but for those that roster Springer and are not in a contention window, it is also a fantastic selling opportunity.
