Welcome back to Week 12 of our Patience or Panic series, where we profile three struggling players and provide recommendations on how you should react to their poor performance. Last week, my co-author covered three players who were typicaly drafted inside the top 100 and have been dreadful this year. This week, I will be breaking down three players who weren’t quite as costly but have had huge fantasy hype at one moment or another. One of them has really fallen off after a fantastic start while the other two have been disappointing pretty much all season. All stats are through the games of Monday, June 16.
Matthew Liberatore, SP, STL
Last three starts (since 5/30): 0-3, 14 IP, 11 Ks, 10.29 ERA, 1.86 WHIP
2025: 3-6, 73.1 IP, 62 Ks, 4.17 ERA, 1.19 WHIP
Regression has hit Liberatore like a freight train lately. Hopefully you sat him in his most recent start against the Blue Jays since they crush lefties, but you probably took the bad outings against Texas and Kansas City on the chin. Libby was one of the biggest breakouts in the first couple months of the season. From April 13 to May 24, he rattled off eight straight starts of two runs or fewer while posting a 40:8 K:BB ratio. The once-touted prospect seemed to be flashing top-of-the-rotation upside after several years of being shuttled between AAA and the majors in a swingman role.
Liberatore has made a successful transition to the rotation thanks to his wide repertoire. He’s continued to reduce the usage (26.4%) of his hittable fastball (4.81 PLV) and features five other pitches at least 10% of the time: slider, cutter, changeup, curveball, and sinker. He throws all six of these offerings against righties and only shelves the slow ball against lefties, making it impossible to sit on any one pitch. He’s also improve the shape of his changeup and curveball. The cambio is coming in 1 MPH harder than last year but with almost three inches of additional run and no added lift, while the already rainbow-like curveball has added an inch of drop. The PLV on both of these offerings has skyrocketed (4.66 to 5.02 and 4.56 to 5.02, respectively), and the results back that up. The change has been a great weak contact pitch with an elite .220 xwOBACON (87th percentile) while the curveball boasts a 35.8% CSW% and .259 xwOBA.
Verdict: Patience. Liberatore probably doesn’t have future SP2 ceiling as his hot run to start the year may have led us to believe, but he has all the tools to be a command over stuff lefty that eats innings and has a good WHIP. I don’t believe that this recent rough stretch is a sign of things to come but rather a combination of some expected regression and the type of thing that can happen sometimes when you fill up the zone with average stuff. I’m sort of thinking about Liberatore like a Bailey Ober/Jameson Taillon type from the left side. Ober’s struggles this year show us how fragile this profile can be sometimes while Taillon’s excellence represents the other side of the coin. I have confidence in Liberatore to remain a guy you hold and start in most matchups in a 12-teamer but can probably treat as a streamer in 10-team leagues. That’s a big win given that he was basically undrafted outside of deeper NFBC leagues. I would recommend that you continue to monitor Liberatore’s velocity each start, as sitting at 94 or above has been key for him this season.
Xander Bogaerts, 2B/SS, SDP
Last 30 days: .200/.260/.232 (41 wRC+), 9 R, 0 HR, 6 RBI, 5 SB
2025: .232/.310/.317 (79 wRC+), 29 R, 3 HR, 26 RBI, 13 SB
Bogaerts is on pace for a second straight disappointing fantasy season after almost a decade worth of solid to elite campaigns. We all expected the power to take a step back when he moved to San Diego, but it’s shocking to see a player of his caliber posting a .317 SLG mark. This offensive downturn has come despite Bogaerts posting the highest hard-hit, walk, air pull, and chase rates of the three seasons that he’s been out west. On the other hand, his 4.5% barrel rate is in the 15th percentile and would be his worst since 2015.
Above, you see Bogaerts’ Process+ rolling charts from each of the last two seasons. These charts are far less impressive than those from his Boston days, when he was above average in all three facets, but they still paint the picture of a productive hitter. His power is now consistently below average, perhaps due to a wrist issue that has been nagging him for years. But, the contact skills and swing decisions remain strong, and it’s nice to see that the power hasn’t gotten any worse since his return from a shoulder fracture late last season. We’ve also seen some process improvements from Bogaerts in the past month, specifically in the plate discipline department, so it surprises me that he’s been hitting so poorly. Rolling Process+ charts should not be considered an indicator of fantasy value, but it offers useful information about how a player’s abilities and approach at the dish may be changing.
Verdict: Patience. The days of Bogaerts being an elite fantasy contributor are likely gone for good, but the skills he’s showing more closely resemble those from his solid 2023 season (19 HR and 19 SB in 155 games with a .285 AVG) than his current production. He seems to be replacing the reduced power with more steals, which I would expect to continue since he hasn’t been caught so far. I also anticipate some natural upward regression in the batting average department given that neither his contact quality nor his strikeout rate has changed appreciably. I went into this one expecting to be recommending “Panic,” but the process charts and lack of actual skills changes combined with the increased stolen bases have me believing Bogaerts can still be a fantasy contributor at a weak position. He’s somehow still 11th at the position to date in standard formats according to the Fangraphs auction calculator.
Dustin May, SP, LAD
Last four starts (since 5/27): 2-0, 22 IP, 18 Ks, 5.32 ERA, 1.55 WHIP
2025: 4-4, 72.2 IP, 67 Ks, 4.46 ERA, 1.33 WHIP
Towards the end of draft season, Dustin May was one of quite a few starting pitchers (Spencer Schwellenbach, Robbie Ray, Grant Holmes, etc.) catching steam and shooting up the board. For May, he became a more attractive option once an injury to Tony Gonsolin made his path to a rotation spot more clear. The chief concern with May has always been health. He was actually pretty durable in the minor leagues, eclipsing 120 IP across all levels from 2016-2019. But since his MLB debut in 2019, May has only thrown 264.1 IP across 59 appearances (47 starts). Because his career numbers are so strong (3.33 ERA, 1.13 WHIP) and the stuff often looks electric, it seemed like the only ways May wouldn’t return ADP value would be injury or getting pushed out of a crowded Dodgers rotation.
So naturally, and somewhat infuriatingly, May hasn’t missed a turn through the rotation all season but has performed relatively poorly. This recent stretch has been particularly bad, as he’s striking out fewer hitters while also issuing more free passes. I wasn’t grabbing May everywhere I could this draft season, but I would be lying if I said I saw this coming. When we last saw May as a starter for six starts in 2022 and nine starts in 2023, he was throwing 2-3 ticks harder with a five-pitch arsenal. Now, he’s sitting 95 and basically only throwing three pitches, as the changeup is gone and the cutter (4.47 PLV, .556 xwOBA) has only been thrown 5% of the time and is completely unreliable. May now grades out as a below-average starter in terms of PLV (4.87), Pitching+ (95), and K-BB% (11.7%).
Verdict: Panic. I know that May’s season-long numbers aren’t all that different from Liberatore’s, but the slightly inflated ratios make a big difference, and our expectations were higher for May. The stuff has clearly taken a step back this season, and recent results don’t suggest that he’s rounding into form. The uptick in walks specifically is concerning and hints at May continuing to be a real detriment to your WHIP. Nick has him at 72nd on the most recent version of The List sandwiched between other shallow league streamers like José Soriano and Kumar Rocker. I think that makes sense given what we’ve seen, and I would recommend cutting May in almost any format that doesn’t have wins as a category. In wins leagues, he’s a pure streamer in 10- and 12-teamers and a guy you pick your spots with in 15-teamers. If the control improves or the stuff ticks up, it might eventually be worth jumping back in for the long haul.
