As we look at risers and fallers in points leagues, the focus should not just be on how players are performing, but what their role is.
Are your hitters suddenly leading off or batting lower in the order than expected? Have they gotten an off-day, and is it because the manager put them in a platoon? Or did they get subbed out at the end of a game for defensive reasons?
As for pitchers, did they get pulled after just 70-80 pitches, or were they allowed to work deep into the game? And could anyone on the IL or in the minors threaten their rotation spot?
As volume is everything in points leagues, these are the questions you want to answer beyond just whether a player gets hot. So, given their role and their performance, who should you buy in on, and who should you leave alone?
Risers
Cole Carrigg is a versatile player—when the Rockies first drafted him in 2023, they wanted him to play catcher, shortstop, and center field. He also pitched a little bit in college. A switch-hitter (because why not), Carrigg eventually settled into being ‘just’ an outfielder, but that left him time to work on his offense. And his speed.
And Carrigg did work on his speed, because he became an elite base-stealer in the Minors, with almost a hundred total swipes across 2024 and 2025. He was up to thirty steals this season alone before his call-up. Though he doesn’t have any SB attempts so far with Colorado, StatCast has clocked him at 29.4 mph, which is 96th percentile.
Last weekend, the Rockies played the Athletics in Las Vegas and had a scoring bonanza. Like the rest of the Rockies, Carrigg benefited—it was like playing at home, only MORE SO. So his early numbers are somewhat inflated, plus he has the short-term benefit of being an unknown quantity for pitchers.
Looking at his early metrics, he swings hard (75.2 mph bat speed), but doesn’t miss much (17.4% Whiff rate). He’s an aggressive hitter (48% Chase rate) but has taken a few walks in the early going, and had an impressive 39:27 K:BB ratio in the Minors over 225 at-bats.
Overall, Carrigg appears to have an excellent points-league profile, as his speed should net him plenty of doubles and triples in the vast confines of Coors Field. He’s a priority pickup in any league with more than three outfielders.
Rumfield’s another Rockies hitter who greatly enjoyed the Vegas series, where 54 runs were scored over a span of three games. But he’s quietly been productive throughout the season and had an excellent May, batting .310 with a .400 OBP and .883 OPS. He strikes out just 14.4% of the time and walks at nearly a 10% clip, so he’s got an excellent points league profile.
Unlike Carrigg, Rumfield is slow as molasses (4th-percentile sprint speed), so he won’t be leading off any time soon. But he’s somehow collected a pair of triples on the season and has fourteen doubles, so he’s showing solid gap power to leg out those extra-base hits.
Also unlike Carrigg, Rumfield doesn’t swing the bat hard (69.1 mph, for just an 84.9 mph exit velocity), but the field in Coors is so expansive that any contact is good contact. And with that thin Colorado air, the Rockies Rookie is already up to double-digit homers so he should end up in the 20-25 range, with an average over .250 and a decent OBP. That should absolutely play in a points league and make him a valuable entry in your corner-infield slot.
So far, Young’s been a tale of two seasons. Last year, he got roughed up regularly and ended with a 1-7 record. But he spent the offseason focusing on improving his command, especially with the fastball. In 2025, his four-seamer run value was -2; in 2026, it’s jumped to +7, which is in the 91st percentile. Opponents are hitting just .133 with a .267 SLG against the pitch, which is pretty amazing given that his velocity tops out at 94-95.
Though Young lost his last start against the Mariners yesterday, he still turned in a QS even when his control was a little off (he had four walks). Points league owners should like to see pitchers get to six innings even when they don’t have their best stuff.
Overall, Young’s K:BB rate is only about 2:1, but he has a 90th-percentile Chase rate, so there should be improvement there as long as he limits the free passes. But the biggest difference is how he limits damage when hitters are making contact—compared to last year, he’s limited his Barrel rate to 7.1%, where it was over 10% in ’25.
Young is at minimum a streamer to target when you need an arm, but he’s shown enough steady improvement that he might just be more than that. His WHIP so far in June is just 0.98 (where he’s averaging more than six innings per start), and he’s got a sub-3.00 ERA going back to May 1. I’d hold onto him and see if his ceiling goes higher.
Fallers
A thumb injury caused Perez to miss some time last week, but since he’s been back things have not gotten much better. Though he had a three-hit game on June 12, he’s hitting .125 afterward with zero extra-base hits.
And while the thumb is our immediate concern, at age 36 Perez’s issues predate the thumb. Really, he hasn’t had it going all season. His batting average sits at exactly .200; last season it was .236, and in 2024 it was .271. His power numbers have fallen even farther as his OPS is just .570 this year, a 160-point drop from a year ago. He’s barreling balls just barely more than half the rate he had last year, and his Average Exit Velocity has dropped from 93 mph at the peak of his career to 88.5 now. And the .325 SLG is by far his lowest lifetime mark. So there’s clearly some age-related decline at work here.
Salvy’s declining in the lineup, too, batting sixth where he used to hit cleanup most days. Whether he can come back from the thumb issue is one thing, but whether he can reclaim his old production is another. Right now, there are enough solid backstop options that he can be dropped in twelve-team, one-catcher leagues.
I’m holding out hope for one of the league’s liveliest young arms, but the Blue Jays phenom has walked 17 batters in his last four outings and struck out 18, which is not what you want to see.
Yesavage is just a three-pitch pitcher (fastball, splitter, slider) and throws his fastball half the time, so there’s clearly a mechanical issue he needs to work out. While control can be an issue in categories leagues as it inflates your WHIP (and potentially your ERA, of course), it’s even more of an issue in points leagues as it limits a pitcher’s innings. Yesavage has gone six innings in a start just three times this season and has only a pair of Quality Starts on the year, though he did miss most of April.
Fortunately, Yesavage is pretty good at missing bats, and when hitters do make contact it’s pretty weak. But even with his .195 xBAA, he’s got just a 24th-percentile Ground Ball rate, so home runs are a definite risk—especially if he’s putting guys on base with the walks issue.
Yesavage certainly has a bright future as he showed in the playoffs last year, and this is something that almost all hard-throwing young pitchers go through. But I can’t blame people for dropping him with a 9.28 ERA on the month. He’ll need to solve the command issue before he can be trusted.
