Regan's Rumblings: 32 Teams, 32 Disappointments

With so many high-profile guys off to slow starts, I wanted to take a look around the league and examine one guy from each team. If you own more than one or two of these guys, your team may be in trouble, so let's see which of the 32 offer some hope and which are destined for a disappointing season.
Arizona: Paul Goldschmidt, 1B – It feels odd to be writing a "what's wrong with Goldschmidt" blurb, but a few folks have asked me exactly that. He's off 30 points of ISO over last year and his K% is up from 21.8% to 24.7%, but that's far from alarming. He's also walking a solid 17% of the time and his 0.85 BB/KI is a career-best, but it's really the .284 BABIP that's hurting. Goldy is hitting a few more infield pop-ups and groundballs than normal, but I have to think the average will trend up to the .280-plus range over the course of the season.

Atlanta: Nick Markakis, OF – Markakis has a solid .371 OBP, but after dropping from 2014's 14 home runs to three last year, he's yet to go deep in 2016. He does have an encouraging 12 doubles, but that's of little use to fantasy owners, as are his zero steals. At this point he is what he is, it seems.

Baltimore: Matt Wieters, C – Wieters is batting just .233/.290/.326, which would represent the second consecutive year in which his OPS has dropped considerably - .839 (2014), .741 (2015), and .616 (this year). Not coincidentally, Wieters' 26.9% K% is a career worst and if you dig into his plate discipline metrics, they are down across the board. His swinging strike rate of 13.8% (career 9.2%), contact %, swing %, etc are all subpar for the catcher. Wieters turns 30 in a couple days, and it sure appears his best days are behind him.

Boston: David Price, SP – Who wouldn't have thought giving a 30-year-old pitcher with 500 innings (exactly) pitched the past two years (includes the playoffs) a seven-year deal could have blow-up potential? Price's velocity is down 2-plus mph over last year and his walks are up a bit to 2.4 BB/9, but surprisingly his K/9 is an excellent 12.2 so far. Those solid ratios give him a 2.64 FIP versus a 6.00 ERA, so the results will get better. He just needs to figure out how to pitch against AL East foes, as his last three starts (two vs. NYY, one vs. TB) have resulted in 20 runs allowed on 23 hits over 15.1 innings.

Chicago Cubs: Jorge Soler, OF – When Tommy La Stella is playing over you, you know you've been struggling, and at .174/.263/.267, Soler has struggled mightily. I think we'll continue to see more of Kris Bryant in left field and Javier Baez at third base as the season progresses. Manager Joe Maddon may give Soler one more run of at-bats, but this is looking like a lost season for Soler.

Chicago White Sox: Carlos Rodon, SP – Rodon has yet to build upon the 3.75 ERA he posted in 139.1, innings last year, but his 9.3 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9 are both improvements over last year's marks (9.0 and 4.6). He's posted QS's in three of his last five starts, but the home runs (1.5 HR/9) continue to be his downfall. Rodon does have a reasonable 1.7 GB/FB ratio, and with his stuff and the solid ratios, I'm pretty bullish on the third-overall pick.

Cincinnati: Billy Hamilton, OF – Hamilton is still in the big leagues because his glove and legs are game-changers, but at .222/.271/.356, we have to wonder at 25 if he's ever going to be a viable big league hitter. With a 6.1% BB%, he doesn't walk enough to compensate for the low BA, and when he does hit the ball, his hard-hit rate sits at just 18.2% which is among the five or six lowest marks in baseball. He really needs to spend some time in Triple-A, but the Reds aren't there yet it seems.

Cleveland: Yan Gomes, C – After batting .274 with 21 homers in 2014, Gomes has done nothing but regress since, entering Wednesday with a .183/.222/.385 mark. He does have six home runs, including three in his last four games, so perhaps we're seeing some improvement, but it would be good to see such a run over a longer period of time before concluding he's again a top-15 catcher. That .189 BABIP can only improve, so seeing him hit .250 with 12-15 homers the rest of the way seems reasonable.

Colorado: Jake McGee, RP – The 13 saves are nice, but McGee's velocity is down 3 mph compared to three years ago and 1.2 mph versus last year, so he's no longer able to blow guys away quite as easily. That's born out in his 5.9 K/9 after McGee had posted 11-plus marks the previous two seasons. Lefties are batting .400 against him, which is surprising given he's a southpaw himself, so maybe he'll get that figured out and the results will come. I could still see him losing the closer job to Chad Qualls or Jason Motte at some point.

Detroit: Justin Upton, OF – At this point if you said that Melvin was the better Upton brother right now, it would be tough to argue given Justin Upton's .575 OPS and two home runs. Upton has a pretty decent track record, so I think he'll turn things around somewhat, but the first order of business will be doing something about that 37.6% K%.

Houston: Dallas Keuchel, SP – The biggest issue has been that a drop in velocity looks to have led Keuchel to be more of a nibbler, as his BB/9 has doubled from last year's 2.0 to 4.0 this season. When he's forced to catch a big piece of the plate, hitters have been teeing off and there's really nothing Keuchel has been able to do to adjust. It's tough to not be worried here.

Kansas City: Alex Gordon, OF – He's forgotten how to hit lefties (.176 BAA) and overall, Gordon is striking out more than 30% of the time. I still think he's too good a hitter to stay down long and I also wonder if he's putting too much pressure on himself after signing a $72 million deal this winter.

LA Angels: Albert Pujols, 1B/DH – There were multiple candidates from the Angels, but Pujols of course stood out. Pujols did have a couple hits Wednesday, but at .222/.298/.392, I've even seen him dropped in some leagues, which is amazing, but justifiable. Given the .244 BA last year, the average is unlikely to climb even to the .250 range, but I do think 30 homers is within reach.

LA Dodgers: Yasiel Puig, OF – Puig went 1-for-3 with a walk Wednesday, batting eighth for the first time in his career. Given he's hitting a paltry .234/.279/.372, the slide is well deserved. Still, this is a guy who played at an All-Star level from 2013-2014, so that talent is still there, but he's still a work in progress. Given the emergence of Trayce Thompson and the fact that Andre Ethier (leg) will return sometime in June, Puig may need to get hot here soon to keep an everyday job. He can certainly do it, but a 4% BB% indicates he needs to be a bit more patient at the dish.

Miami: Giancarlo Stanton, OF – With 11 homers and a .288 ISO, the power is still there, but with a .227 BA, Stanton is looking like more of a second-round pick if we redrafted right now. He's hitting just .218 versus RHP (DFS alert), and he's striking out more than 30% of the time, so his rest of season BA ceiling may be as low as .250 unfortunately.

Milwaukee: Wily Peralta, SP – With a 7.30 ERA in eight starts, Peralta got a vote of no-confidence from his own manager recently, so he may already be out of the rotation. He's still a hard thrower, but he's fooling no one and may be better off in the bullpen.

Minnesota: Byron Buxton, OF – Buxton is hitting .301/.356/.494 in Triple-A, so he should be back up in the next few weeks if that continues, but this is now two failed MLB trials for the No. 2 overall pick. He's struck out in a whopping 49% of his 187 big league plate appearances, so the best thing may be for the Twins to keep him in Triple-A until he forces the issue, but I'd still expect to see him back no later than mid-June. I'm not all that optimistic either way on him this year.

NY Mets: Matt Harvey, SP – It's not overly concerning that Harvey's fastball velocity has dropped from 95.9 to 94.1 this year, as his 8.1 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 are still solid. That said, those numbers in 2013 were 9.6 and 1.6, so he's clearly not the guy he was before undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2014. He's still solid, but he may be the fourth-best starter on his own team rather than a guy we thought would be competing for Cy Young trophies. The ratios suggest his 4.93 ERA will trend down, and an ERA more in line with his 3.46 FIP the rest of the way is probably the best-case scenario.

NY Yankees: Jacoby Ellsbury, OF – The nine stolen bases put him ahead of last year's pace (21) significantly, but with a .259/.314/.384 slash line, Ellsbury looks like a one-trick fantasy pony these days. We weren't expecting a return to 32 homers and a .928 OPS (2011), but now it's looking like half a dozen homers and hopefully 25-30 steals IF he doesn't get hurt again for a significant period of time.

Oakland: Stephen Vogt, C – Vogt was a huge positive in fantasy leagues last year, particularly in OBP formats, as the 31 year-old hit 18 homers en route to a .261/.341/.443 slash. He's down to .244/.275/.374 with three homers this year. Besides the drop in power, Vogt has seen his BB% drop from 11% to just 3.8% so far this year. Given his age, 2015 will likely go down as his career year, though some improvement the rest of the way seems likely given what we saw last year.

Philadelphia: Adam Morgan, SP – When we last saw Morgan in 15 starts for the Phillies in 2015, he was posting a 4.48 ERA and 5.2 K/9 while averaging 89 mph with his fastball. This year, the results have been worse (6.41 ERA, 1.53 WHIP), but the southpaw's velocity has jumped to 91.3 mph. His one excellent start (7 IP, 1 ER) came against the Double-A Braves, so the jury is very much out, but the added velocity and his left-handedness make him a guy I'm watching.

Pittsburgh: Andrew McCutchen, OF – Hitting just .255 with one steal makes McCutchen a bust given he was a low first/high second-round pick in most 12-team mixed leagues. The power is still there with eight home runs, but FanGraphs shows his hard hit % at a career-low 33%, so not as many of his batted balls are going for base hits. I'm hopeful that will turn around, but given he's turning 30 in October, the days of 20-plus steals are gone.

San Diego: Alexei Ramirez, SS – We figured the power would take a hit moving from the Cell to Petco, but no home runs? We're pretty sure a 0.0% HR/FB rate won't continue all year for a guy who combined for 25 homers the previous two years, but Ramirez's value now is solely in his legs, and he's just 4-for-8 in SB attempts so far. He'll be lucky to finish with a .250 BA and five HR.

San Francisco: Matt Duffy, 3B – Duffy went .295-12-77 last year but sits at just 245-2-11 so far this season. Duffy though has improved his K/BB from .31 to .65, but with a .241 BA vs RHP (.310 last year), maybe he's having issues seeing the ball this year. I think he'll trend up as the year goes on, but he'll have trouble matching last year's numbers.

Seattle: Felix Hernandez, SP – The days of Hernandez being considered an elite starter may be coming to a close. He's done well dealing with his declining velocity, but after posting a 3.53 ERA with a 91.8 mph average fastball a year ago, Hernandez is averaging just 89.9 mph this year with a 4.30 FIP, though his ERA sits at a Felix-like 2.47. That seems unlikely to last, particularly given his 3.9 K/9 (2.5 career). Sell if you can.

St. Louis: Adam Wainwright, SP – Anyone in our Staff League want this guy? He'll come cheap! Wainwright has been a huge bust with a 6.80 ERA and 1.60 WHIP and his K/9 has cratered to 5.2 versus a 7.5 career mark. His velocity is okay, but I wouldn't go anywhere near Wainwright right now. Maybe stash him in your bench in 12-team mixed leagues for a couple more weeks to see if he turns it around, but it's tough to be optimistic.

Tampa Bay: Matt Moore, SP – I have a few shares of Moore this year and was feeling good early this year, as Moore fanned 10 White Sox in his third start to give him a 2.95 ERA and 0.98 WHIP. Five starts later, Moore is now 1-3 with a 5.09 ERA. What gives me some optimism are his 9.0 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and solid velocity (92.8 mph). Still, consistency seems likely to continue to elude him, perhaps until later this year once he has a few more innings under his belt.

Texas: Prince Fielder, DH – Fielder is neither hitting for average (.193) or power (two homers) and he's striking out more and walking less than he has the last few years. There's really nothing nice to say here other than I'd have to question whether his neck is giving him issues or perhaps something else in his large frame is impacting things negatively. No one is going to give you anything of value, so cutting Fielder loose in 12-team mixed leagues or benching him if you have a deep bench are really the only options.

Toronto: Troy Tulowitzki, SS – The eight homers put Tulo on pace for a solid 25-30, but a .200 average isn't quite what we were hoping for. Tulowitzki incredibly has just an 8% line drive percentage compared to a 20%-plus rate the previous two years, so that explains his .200 BABIP. He's not going to be the guy who hit .290-.300 with 25-30 homers in his heyday with the Rockies, but this can't be the new baseline can it? He's hitting .360 in his last seven games, so maybe the turnaround is already here.

Washington: Ryan Zimmerman, 1B – He's hitting a bit better in May after a .219/.301/.301 April, but at .237 with four homers overall, he's been a bust and has been moved down in the order (finally). I guess the good news is he's not yet on the DL after playing in a total of 156 games the previous two years, but a guy once good for 25-plus homers isn't going to suddenly turn things around given what we've seen the last three years.