Roundtable time, baby! Today, the Gurus discuss some slow starters we predict are about to turn it around. Dig in!

Brandon Ring (@ringb39.bsky.social)

Luis Robert Jr.

Luis Robert Jr. has had a rough couple of seasons. Robert has always had “Best CF in Baseball” potential, and at times has looked the part. His 2021 and 2022 seasons were shortened due to injuries, playing 68 and 98 games respectively. Robert played 166 games combined in those seasons, slashing a terrific .307/.344/.485 with 25 homers and 17 steals in his age 23 and 24 seasons. He was healthy in 2023, playing 145 games, hitting 38 home runs, and stealing 20 bases. Last year was a disaster of a season as he battled nagging injuries while playing on one of the worst teams in history. Robert still managed to hit 14 home runs and steal 23 bases in 100 games, but slashed .224/.278/.379.

Robert is now entering his prime but is off to a slow start this season on another terrible roster. Through the first 42 games of the 2025 season he is slashing only .176/.276/.297. He is leading the Major Leagues with 17 steals despite his low on-base percentage.

Robert Jr. still possesses elite bat speed and is now combining it with a walk rate above 11%. He has not posted a walk rate above 6% since 2020. Robert Jr.’s barrel rate and hard-hit rate are both well above average. He also seems to have some poor batted ball luck, as Fangraphs calculates his expected batting average and slugging numbers to be .247 and .435. He is posting maximum exit velocities near his career best at 115.8 miles per hour.

He is striking out at a high rate for him, nearly 30%, however his chase rate is the best of his career by a mile. Robert Jr. is typically first percentile in chase rate, and this year he is 42nd percentile or near league average. Robert is hitting in a lineup with exactly one player currently hitting above league average by OPS+ in Miguel Vargas. Everyone else with significant plate appearances is hitting 20-25% under league average. I suspect that his chase rate is less about significantly improved discipline and more about seeing fewer competitive pitches than he ever has before. I understand that lineup protection theory is mostly overstated, but I think in this case it’s apt. Why throw any pitch near the zone to the only hitter in the lineup who can hurt you unless you absolutely had to?

The White Sox are going nowhere this season, probably next season as well. Robert has a contract option in ’26 and ’27 which gives any team that trades for him this year two more years of risk-free control. I expect Robert to be dealt near the trade deadline, and once he is moved I expect his bat to pick up once he’s in a proper major league level lineup.

Joe Juliette (@joejuliette.bsky.social)

Brent Rooker

The term slow start is relative… right? We recently had a question in the TDG discord about Juan Soto’s “slow start,” which has ONLY produced a .246/.376/.439 line. Obviously that is not what is expected from one of the game’s best in Soto, and it is best practice to believe that he will bounce back. Betting on bounce-backs from more elite players is always a safer exercise, and I guess I’m playing it a bit safe today, when I predict Brent Rooker has more in the tank this season.

Just like Soto, Rooker has been a solid contributor on the surface (.241/.310/.445 slash line). His 10 HRs in 191 ABs still puts him on pace for 30+ HRs for a third straight season. All is good. But I firmly believe there is another level.

If you told me that Brent Rooker improved his K% to 25.2% (from 28.8% in 2024), while ~mostly~ maintaining his elite quality of contact metrics (avg EV > 90 mph, 13.8% barrel rate), I would expect him to be among the elite of the elite. Yet, his production has been exceedingly modest. Speaking to the slight dip in the quality of contact as compared to last year, I expect some bounce-back here as well. He has importantly maintained his 80th percentile bat speed of 73.9%, which qualifies him as someone who will continue to hit the ball with force. Add to all this, Rooker has gone from the pitcher-friendly Oakland Coliseum, to the second most batter-friendly park in the MLB. Importantly, this field should only become more dangerous for batters come summertime, as Sacramento begins to really heat up.

Ultimately, come season’s end, I think we will be looking back at Rooker’s first few months as a truly slow start compared to what he was able to produce during the summer. He has some natural positive BABIP regression coming (.281 BABIP compared to a .320 career BABIP), skills growth (3.6% improvement in K%), and a ballpark that I believe will continue to heat up alongside Rooker. There is nothing to suggest that Rooker’s underlying skills have diminished enough to reflect the lowered surface stats.

Actionably, it is the time of the dynasty season when teams begin to see the writing on the wall and decide to become sellers. Rooker is a guy I like for competing teams to target at a slight dip to bring a significant boost worth moving for.

David Gofman (@dgofman.bsky.social)

Cole Ragans

On the surface, Cole Ragans has been a slow starter this year. After a very promising 2024 season, Ragans was considered a Cy Young contender heading into 2025, but a 2-3 record to go with a 4.53 ERA would hardly fit the bill through 9 starts. A look under the hood however would show that there’s plenty of reasons for optimism.

In just about every underlying metric, Ragans is as good or better than his 2024 campaign that saw him go 11-9 with a 3.14 ERA and 223 strikeouts, 5 shy of the league lead. Despite his ERA sitting at 4.53 in 2025, his expected ERA (xERA) is actually 2.27, and his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) score, a statistic designed to estimate ERA without fielding outcomes factored in, sits at just 2.00. On top of that, Ragans’s strikeout rate is an astonishing 37.7%, and his K minus walk (K-BB%) is 30.9%, which would be excellent for an elite reliever (Astros Closer Josh Hader currently sits at a 29.3% K-BB%). So what has plagued the Royals lefty?

Despite opposing teams batting .237 against Ragans overall, hitters are batting .376 on balls in play (BABIP). For context, the league average for BABIP is a shade under .300, and opposing hitters BABIP in 2024 sat at .290 for Ragans. That .376 number should decrease sooner rather than later once Ragans returns from a groin injury, so this might be your last chance to trade for him if any managers in your league make valuations based on traditional statistics, or are frustrated by the slow start compounded by the injury. By September, I predict we’ll again be including Cole Ragans in the Cy Young conversation.

Daniel Labude (@orcabaseball.bsky.social)

Relievers. Lots of relievers.

If you are like me, slow starts are a bummer, but a staple in baseball and can drive the fantasy baseball world insane with some very short-sighted reactions. One area of baseball, not a player, who is off to a very slow start this season has been relief pitchers. Specifically, some of the game’s best closers have had many mind-numbingly ugly games and stretches already this season. Emmanuel Clase, Devin Williams, Mason Miller, Jeff Hoffman, Ryan Walker, and on and on, have all seen crazy bad games this year. Stick with them. Yeah it is hard to see relievers blowing up your amazing ratios, but they all didn’t lose their stuff overnight. More than likely it is just a blip, and all of these relievers will find what they have been missing and become stars again. It just can’t be statistically possible for so many relievers to turn into pumpkins at the same time, so patience is key. Just on sheer volume, most of these relievers will turn things around, just hope you don’t have the one who really did become a pumpkin.

Brian Labude (@polarbearbaseball.bsky.social)

Yainer Diaz

Yainer Diaz came into the 2025 season with really high expectations laid upon him by Houston Astros fans and the fantasy baseball community. After the 2024 season where he hit .299/.325/.441, with 16 home runs and 29 doubles across 148 games, it’s no wonder where the ceiling was for him (all-star level production). Unfortunately for him and fans alike, he struggled mightily to open this season. In March and April he would hit .185/.211/.304, with a 21.1% strikeout rate, and only two home runs. In May he has already begun to turn things around with a slash line of .275/.296/.449. He’s also added three home runs and decreased his strikeout rate down to 15.5%.

Looking at Diaz’s historical trends, he has not typically started slow, but from June 1st to the end of the season he has routinely hit over .300, with his home run and double numbers climbing as well with the warmer weather. As it sits right now, his swing speed, whiff rate, and strikeout rates are all relatively the same as prior seasons, just a tad worse overall. They certainly don’t explain the struggles he has been having and the large decrease he is experiencing in hard hit rates, down to 38.5% from 47.5% the year prior. Inexplicably, his barrel rates have actually increased from 7.6% to 10%, but the hard hit numbers have gone in the other direction. His BABIP is down at .248, far below a league average of around .300. This is either due to bad luck on balls in play, or from his huge increase in fly-ball rate (up 14% to 40%).

Moving forward, if Diaz can drop the fly-ball rates and things begin to normalize for him, he will be back to hitting around .300, and we will all forget any worries we had about him after the first month or two. Everybody cross your fingers that the warm weather brings back the real Diaz.

Drew Klein (@drewgotigers.bsky.social) 

Dylan Crews

To say that Dylan Crews is off to a slow start this year, or even for his major league career, might be considered generous. Last year in 132 plate appearances, his slash line was .218/.288/.353. This year in 167 plate appearances as of May 18, he’s slashing .183/.251/.307.  This is not what we’d expect from a second overall pick, even one selected just two years ago. Looking at his underlying statistics, I can see a few reasons for this slow start and a few reasons to have confidence in a turnaround.

Although his K-rate of 28% is not terrible, it needs to come down for a hitter with his profile. Last year in the majors his K-rate was 20%, in fact his lowest as a professional, and if he can get back to that level, other statistical improvements will naturally follow.  I’m also concerned about such a low walk rate, 6% this year. He’s never walked over 10% of the time as a professional, and this year is his lowest rate. It’s almost contradictory that his chase rate is a respectable 25%. Bear with me here, but the numbers are telling me that Crews, even though he has an in-zone contact rate of 83%, might need to swing at fewer pitches in the strike zone.

Here’s my logic behind that conclusion.  First of all, Crews has a BABIP of .230.  Only twelve qualified hitters, including teammate Josh Bell (.167) have a lower BABIP. Yet, 39% of the balls Crews puts into play are considered hard-hit, per Fangraphs, which ranks him 25th for qualified hitters, tied with Fernando Tatis Jr and ahead of Vladdy Guerrero, Alex Bregman, and Riley Greene. Crews is hitting the ball, he’s hitting it hard, but unfortunately, too often he’s hitting it into the ground (7.8° launch angle). His ground ball rate, which has always been in the 40% range as a pro, was 57% last year and is 49% this year. Conversely, his line drive rate, which was 24% in the minors in 2024, dropped to 10% last year and 18% this year.  In short, pitchers are pitching him low in the strike zone (28% sliders, 24% sinkers), and he’s driving those balls into the ground. Even with the modified shift rules, hard-hit grounders are usually outs in the major leagues.

In short, as soon as he takes a few low strikes early in counts, waits for pitches up in the zone, and starts sending line drives all over the fields, we’ll see the Dylan Crews we’ve been waiting for.

Lastly, watch this video about his connection with special needs kids, and if you aren’t a fan of his yet, you will be. (Final note, within 3 days of when I submitted this, Crews hit two home runs  <yay> then suffered an oblique injury <boo>.)