Dynasty expectations for Gunnar Henderson, Miguel Vargas and more post-hype rookies

Publish date: 2024-06-23

We should all tip our caps to the fantasy managers who drafted Corbin Carroll this year. You had to be aggressive to get him — in NFBC leagues, he commanded a 61 ADP. Despite the fact that the Diamondbacks outfielder had played all of 32 major league games heading into this season, fantasy managers took the plunge and made him a core part of their teams. As it turns out, Carroll currently ranks as the eighth-most valuable hitter in standard 5×5 Roto leagues (per FanGraphs’ value calculator), and there is just about one-quarter of the season remaining.

Carroll is not alone among highly-drafted rookies living up to their hype. Though Josh Jung (thumb) will miss all, or most, of the rest of the season, it’s fair to say he’s established himself as a top third baseman heading into 2024. At age 21, Francisco Álvarez is already a staple in shallow one-catcher leagues. Despite some early struggles, Anthony Volpe is set to become a 20-20 player in his first season, and he looks at home in 12-team leagues. And Elly De La Cruz has made a huge impact in just over two months. Tanner Bibee, Andrew Abbott, Bryce Miller and Eury Pérez are all Top 50 starters, even though none started the season in the majors.

We all know that drafting rookies or adding them via FAB is a risky proposition. Many of us can scan our rosters and find at least one or two we drafted or spent a sizable chunk of FAB on, only to find they haven’t delivered what we hoped for or expected. This doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t fulfill our expectations next year or beyond. For those of us who have been carrying these players in dynasty leagues for multiple seasons, it doesn’t mean they are no longer keepers.

This column will focus on five such players, looking at what went wrong and what could possibly go right in the seasons to come. Each player’s NFBC ADP is listed in parentheses.

Gunnar Henderson, 3B/SS, BAL (90)

While it feels a little funny to label Henderson as a disappointment, the fact is that he hasn’t lived up to his lofty draft position. On average, he was the 55th hitter taken in NFBC leagues, but he currently ranks 78th among hitters in Roto value. That hardly qualifies Henderson as a bust, but for those of us who looked at last year’s minor league line of .297/19/101/76/22 (split between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk), this season’s .237 batting average and six stolen bases have to rank as a disappointment.

There is still hope, though. Henderson hasn’t popped out much (3.2 percent) and ranks in the 88th percentile for sprint speed, so with a higher line drive rate (currently 18.1 percent), he could be an above-average hitter on balls in play, instead of the roughly average hitter (.289) he’s been. He has also cut back on strikeouts dramatically over his past 149 plate appearances. He entered July 5 with a 31.8 percent strikeout rate, but that mark has been just 18.1 percent since then. Henderson has already proven himself to be a reliable power source (19 home runs, 94.7 mph EV FB/LD) with a selective approach, and a batting average in the .270s could still be a realistic expectation next season. Brandon Hyde has been loathe to give Henderson the green light, so we can’t count on him to amass steals in the double digits, despite his speed. Given that he should be, at worst, a four-category contributor, it’s hard to fathom a format where Henderson wouldn’t be a keeper.

Jordan Walker, 3B/OF, STL (177)

Walker’s season started promisingly with a 12-game hit streak, but there has been little to get excited about since then. He did emerge from his early-season demotion to Triple-A Memphis on an encouraging note, as he sat with a .306/.375/.472 slash line over 160 plate appearances at the end of June. While Walker did accumulate a 56.0 percent hard-hit rate during that span, he also hit ground balls at an alarmingly-high 58.7 percent rate Even the high batting average looked suspect, as it was propped up by .369 BABIP. Since then, Walker has slashed .206/.262/.351, with a 35.4 percent hard-hit rate. The lone positive from July forward is a more normal 43.4 percent ground ball rate.

Perhaps Walker wasn’t ready to make the jump from Double-A to the majors, as he had done on opening day, though this year’s 29-game stint in Triple-A didn’t produce great results (.239/.348/.398 with four stolen bases and an 88 wRC+). Walker just turned 21 in May, so it’s far too early to conclude that he can’t replicate the speed/power/batting average combination he displayed in the minors. Because of what Walker was able to achieve in the minors, where he was young for each level, he is still a keeper, with the possible exception of leagues where teams only get to protect a handful of players.

Grayson Rodriguez, SP, BAL (202)

Like Walker, Rodriguez had an extended stay with his team’s Triple-A affiliate after being on the major league squad early in the season. Unlike the Cardinals outfielder, Rodriguez has markedly improved since coming back from the minors. In the six starts he has made since being recalled from Norfolk, he has virtually abandoned his cutter while getting more ground balls on his four-seamer, changeup and curveball. That pattern has helped to curtail his early-season propensity for allowing homers (2.58 HR/9 in 45.1 first-half innings). After posting a 7.35 ERA prior to his demotion, Rodriguez has recorded a 3.03 ERA with a 56.4 percent ground ball rate since his July 17 promotion. He’s not only been avoiding flies and liners, but he’s been eschewing hard contact on the ones he is allowing, with a 91.5 mph mph EV FB/LD in his past six starts (as opposed to a 94.7 mph EV FB/LD previously).

Rodriguez was never a ground ball pitcher in the minors, so we shouldn’t assume that this recent trend is going to stick. Nonetheless, it’s a welcome development, especially since he has maintained a solid 29.2 percent CSW% and 8.0 percent walk rate since his most recent promotion. While Rodriguez’s season-to-date ratios (5.44 ERA, 1.41 WHIP) call into question his keeper status, fantasy managers should be just as excited about rostering him for next season as they were back in March.

Miguel Vargas, 1B/2B, LAD (222)

Vargas’ midseason slump was so lengthy, spanning seven weeks and 133 plate appearances, and so complete that it’s hard to remember that, on May 20, he owned a .240/.341/.432 slash line and a 113 wRC+. From May 21 until his July 9 demotion to Triple-A Oklahoma City, Vargas slashed .136/.258/.282 with a 50 wRC+. The biggest difference between these two stretches was his line drive, which shrank from 21.2 percent during the first period to 8.6 percent during his slump. Ever since Vargas’ first season in High-A in 2019, he has been a fly-ball hitter, so it’s probably not realistic to expect him to be an average or above-average hitter on balls in play — his .272 BABIP and .240 overall batting average through May is about the best we could have reasonably expected.

The good news is that Vargas didn’t lose any power during his drought, registering a 91.5 mph EV FB/LD that was only 0.2 mph below what he had previously this season. He did strike out more often, though a 24.1 percent rate during that stretch is hardly a cause for concern. If you rostered Vargas expecting a .300 hitter with 15-plus stolen bases for seasons to come, then you’ll probably be disappointed. But if you can live with a batting average in the .240s with 20-plus homers, on-base skills and the opportunity to produce runs in what should continue to be a good Dodgers lineup next season, he will be worth protecting in leagues where 100 hitters are likely to be kept. Of course, the 23-year-old could hit another gear in 2025, if not next year, and be even more productive.

Brett Baty, 3B, NYM (467)

Unlike the other rookies featured here, Baty wasn’t typically being drafted in 12-team leagues, but he was on the radar in deeper redraft leagues, and he was highly rated on prospect lists prior to the season — FanGraphs’ No. 19 prospect, Keith Law’s No. 31 prospect. During his first two seasons in the Mets system, Baty was a line drive hitter who managed to show some thump despite high ground ball rates. His 2022 campaign, spent almost entirely at Double-A Binghamton, was a revelation, because Baty cut his ground ball rate down to 42.6 percent (after posting a 61.2 percent rate at the same level in 2021), and he blasted 19 home runs in 394 plate appearances.

After joining the Mets for 11 games last August, he got his first extended taste of the majors this season, and he reverted to a 51.3 percent ground ball rate. Worse yet, despite a 22.3 percent line drive rate, Baty didn’t even get the benefit of a decent batting average, clocking in at .216 before getting demoted to Triple-A Syracuse on August 7. Those rostering Baty should not give up hope, though. He showed a great deal of power (95.6 mph EV FB/LD) when hitting flies and liners — he just needs to hit more of them. He also probably deserved a little better than a .222 batting average on the ground balls he did hit. Baty hit the ground running at Syracuse, homering in his first two games after getting demoted, and a good finish to the 2023 season could go a long way towards getting him back on track.

Note: Season-to-date stats are for all games played through Monday, Aug. 14

Statistical credits: FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, Baseball-Reference, Brooks Baseball

(Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images)