The 2024 Major League Baseball season is about 16 weeks old (more than halfway done already!), which means we finally have meaningful numbers that count to start evaluating our fantasy squads. With only 27 weeks in the fantasy baseball season, even a few weeks of information should help guide us to decisions about who deserves a valuable roster spot on our teams and who deserves the bench or deserves to be cut.
With the small sample size caveat pushed to the side for this exercise, most players are about 90-95 games into the 2024 regular season, so this piece will look at some MLB fantasy assets that have seen their fantasy value rise and fall through the past couple of weeks of Major League Baseball games.
Fantasy Baseball Risers
Colt Keith (2B/3B), Detroit Tigers
It may have taken some time, but Colt Keith is finally delivering on some of the prospect promise many saw in him when he was drafted out of high school in 2020. Over the last two weeks, Keith is hitting .292/.333/.583 with four homers and a steal, while chipping in nine runs and eight RBI. He has become an essential part of the top half of the Tigers lineup in that span.
A few weeks ago in this column I answered a question about how I would rank Masyn Winn, Colt Keith, and Nick Gonzales the rest of the season. I put Winn over Keith in my answer and that has turned out to be dead wrong so far. His 157 wRC+ in the last 15 days is the same as players like Freddie Freeman and Jose Altuve.
Brenton Doyle (OF), Colorado Rockies
You might be able to say Brenton Doyle enjoys playing home games at the Colorado Rockies stadium this year. Taking advantage of a number of home games recently, Doyle is hitting .395/.460/.1000 with a 272 wRC+ this is third-highest among all hitters in baseball the last two weeks. He has seven homers, 14 RBI, and two steals while being one of the best all-around hitters in that span.
Doyle might be the absolutely best player to have for fantasy leagues with daily swaps. At home, he is slashing .346/.407/.588 with seven homers and 11 steals. Away from Colorado, Doyle is hitting .216/.287/.352 with six bombs and nine steals. Doyle is doing all this damage in just his second year and there is room to believe more could be in store.
Taj Bradley (SP), Tampa Bay Rays
The best ERA in the American League over the last 30 days belongs to none other than Taj Bradley. At 1.20, it’s half a run better than Bailey Ober, Seth Lugo, and Bradley is near the top of the charts in strikeouts per nine innings as well (11.4). This dominant stretch has knocked his season ERA down to 3.23 and that’s with some relatively high walk and home run numbers.
Bradley even has room for improvement. If he can knock his 3.3 walks and 1.5 home runs per game down a notch, he might have a case for the best pitcher in the AL. His hard-hit rate is way down from 2023 and his pitches are up a tick in velocity. At just 23 years old, this is a young phenom on the verge of becoming a superstar and it could happen as early as this season.
Fantasy Baseball Fallers
Noelvi Marte (3B), Cincinnati Reds
While I’m not ready to cut bait just yet, it’s been a discouraging first 50 plate appearances for Noelvi Marte after his return from an 80-game steroid suspension. With the caveat that he is still basically in Spring Training mode, Marte’s .128/.160/.213 line since his return looks putrid compared to the 35 games of his rookie season (.316/.366/.456). We can give him at least another 20 games to see if he turns it around, because some of this might be bad luck and small sample size.
Marte’s batting average on balls in play is a very low .167. If he had enough plate appearances to quality, it would certainly be the lowest in the league. His line drive rate is around 9% which is comically low, and he is only walking 2% of the time. This screams positive regression coming at some point, but it might take a little while longer.
Nolan Jones (OF), Colorado Rockies
This season has not been pretty for Nolan Jones, but it’s been especially bad since he came back from a six-week injury on June 14th. Since that time, Jones is hitting .219/.363/.344 with two home runs and one stolen base. The power is gone, the speed is going, and it seems that all that remains are the high walk numbers.
This isn’t a BABIP-related problem. Jones is at .316 during this span since injury. His 25 strikeouts in 84 plate appearances are way too high and the lack of contact is sapping his power when he finally does make a connection. Add it all up this season and his .190/.295/.304 line is not what fantasy managers paid up for after his 20/20 season in 2023.
Carlos Rodon (SP), New York Yankees
The issue with Carlos Rodon the last several seasons has never been with production, it’s always been his health. For some reason, that switch has flipped this year and Rodon is healthy, but has lately been truly horrific. In the last month, Carlos Rodon has one win and five losses with an 8.40 ERA. That ERA is 1.3 runs higher than the next-worst pitcher in baseball in that time frame: Austin Gomber.
Primarily, the problem has been home runs. He is allowing 2.4 per nine innings and a 19% home run per fly ball rate. Combine that with 3.00 walks per nine and he is giving up long balls with too many men on base. Rodon’s velocity seems to be on par with his career, but he must not be spotting his pitches well because his hard-hit rate and barrel rate against are both way up from his what he has allowed in his career.
