We’re over a quarter through the season. We can start to have more confidence in certain stats. They are no longer fluctuating wildly with each game. There may be opportunities in your leagues to pick up players off of waivers with unexpected, but legitimate hot starts. You may also be able to trade advantageously by looking at underlying numbers that are stabilizing.
Shane Smith, SP, Chicago White Sox
Smith is a 25-year-old RH SP in his first MLB season. He’s big and strong at 6’3″, 230 lbs. Fangraphs ranked him as the White Sox’s 7th-best prospect, but he is outside the overall Top 100 list. He was given a 45 FV, 55/55 fastball, 45/45 slider, 55/55 curveball, 60/60 changeup, and 45/45 command. His entire minor league career was spent with the Brewers, where he posted good, but not outstanding numbers. Prior to the start of the 2025 season, he moved to the White Sox organization, where he has spent the entire season with the big league club. In 9 starts, he’s thrown 48.1 IP, posted a 2.05 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 21.3% K%, and 7.9% BB%. We know the ERA is unlikely to stay so low, but can we expect him to continue to get solid results?
He is a five-pitch pitcher, and his most-used pitch also gets the best results. What’s behind the four-seamer success?
Metric-wise, there’s not much to like about his four-seamer. He has decent velocity, but it tends to decline precipitously as his pitch count increases, although he seems to be getting better with that in recent games.
It’s certainly not the type of fastball that should be thrown up in the zone, but he has done a good job spotting it away from RHB. Not so much vs. LHB. Perhaps it interacts well with his other pitches, particularly the changeup and slider.
Against RHB, his slider is his primary secondary pitch, and vs. LH,B it’s the changeup.
Hopefully, I’m not overdoing it with the visualization, but they are so nice. The slider locations vs. RHB are similar to his four-seamer. Smith throws a gyro slider, so this makes sense. It’s designed to mimic a fastball until it drops late. His slider results are middling, but I suspect it is helping to boost his four-seamer results.
Based on the primary locations of his four-seamer and changeup vs. LHB, he is trying to play the two off of each other. He must be getting his fastball just up-and-in enough to jam them. It’s the same story as the slider. His changeup gets OK results, but it helps out his four-seamer a lot.
Verdict: Somewhat legit. We know his ERA won’t remain so low, but I get the sense that Smith knows how to utilize what he has to limit damage. He also seems to have above-average command. A K% in the low 20s isn’t particularly helpful, especially since he’s not going deep into games (certainly don’t expect many Wins), but I believe he can help with ratios. I’m excited to see what the future can bring. He knows how to use the tools he has, but if he can improve those tools, he can be even better.
Andy Pages, OF, Los Angeles Dodgers
Pages is 24 years old and in his 2nd MLB season. Last year he had 443 PA, a .248/.305/.407 slash, and 100 wRC+. Certainly not bad for a rookie season. This year in 177 PA, he has a .280/.333/.494 slash and 131 wRC+.
FanGraphs ranked him as the Dodgers’ 4th-best prospect and 68th overall, so he has the pedigree. They gave him a 50 Future Value, 30/40 Hit, 50/55 Game Power, 45/50 Raw Power, and 40/40 Speed. He consistently posted ISOs in the .200s in the minors and a respectable .159 in his rookie season, so the power is there. This year it is up to .213. Strikeouts were never a big concern with him in the minors. Last year he had a 24.4% K% and he has improved that slightly this year to 23.2%.
His Plate Discipline and Batted Ball numbers are remarkably similar to last year. The biggest change is he has improved his Z-Contact% from 84.8% to 88.2%. That’s 80th percentile.
Verdict: Legit. This appears to be a case of a solid prospect building on his relative success from his rookie season. Process+ agrees that his improvements are legitimate. The only yellow flag I see is that his Savant sliders are ho-hum. However, everything else looks good. He’s available in 34% of Yahoo leagues and should certainly be a good source of RBI and R playing for the Dodgers.
Maikel Garcia, 2B/3B, Kansas City Royals
Garcia is a 25-year-old utility man in the midst of a breakout season. Prior to this season, he had 1,164 PA, a .251/.301/.344 slash, and 76 wRC+. In 187 PA this year he has a .301/.371/.482 slash and 139 wRC+. His ISO has also improved from a putrid .093 to a solid .181. His K% and BB% have also improved to an excellent 15.0% K% and 10.2% BB%, but he’s always had strong Plate Discipline. What, if anything, is different behind the scenes?
Process+ is always a great place to start. Let’s start with 2024 first and compare it to 2025.
He’s shown improvement across the board, but the Power is what really stands out. This, of course, reflects his big jump in ISO. Usually, when someone shows sudden improvement in power, it is associated with better Bat Speed, higher Pull%, and/or higher FB%.
Source: FanGraphs
Prior to this year, his Pull% was 32.9% and his FB% was 29.2%. In 2025, those numbers are up to 41.4% and 36.5%, respectively. His Launch Angle is also up to 9.0 degrees, helping to increase his Brl% from 3.6% to 6.4%. In 2023, his Bat Speed was 69.8 mph, in 2024, 70.8 mph, and in 2025, it’s up to 71.9 mph. His Pull Air% has increased from about 10% to a league average of 15.7%. Pulling Fly Balls is the easiest way to hit home runs.
Verdict: Mostly Legit. I expect his ISO to drop to about .150, which is the league average. He’s certainly improved his background power metrics, but just to league average. Average power is fine because he offers a lot of position flexibility and a ton of speed. I could potentially even see him approaching 20/40 territory.
Zach McKinstry, 2B/3B/SS/OF, Detroit Tigers
McKinstry is another utility man who can provide a lot of flexibility, both to the Tigers and fantasy teams. At 30 years old, he is no spring chicken, which is good, since I can’t picture chickens being good at baseball. He is still relatively inexperienced, with just 1,377 PA in MLB. He may be finding himself. In 1,207 PA prior to this year, he had a .220/.285/.357 slash and 79 wRC+.
In 170 PA in 2025, he has a .281/.367/.418 triple slash and 126 wRC+. Is this for real?
He started to show overall improvement about halfway through last season, and that has continued this year. Let’s see if we can find any real changes he made at about that time.
Verdict: Not legit. I’ll save us some words to write and read by saying “No”. There have been some minor changes. He seems to be swinging a bit less, taking more walks and strikeouts, and hitting more groundballs. These do not explain his drastically improved results. His power metrics continue to decline along with his already below-average Bat Speed. He is outperforming his expected stats across the board. He has a .382 BABIP in 2025 while having a .273 BABIP prior to this year. He’s also had hot streaks like this before, and they didn’t stick around. Enjoy this hot streak while you can, but as soon as he cools off, expect him to revert to the same utility guy as before. At best, he may be the league-average bat Process+ expects him to be.
Photos by Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Doug Carlin (@Bdougals on Twitter)
