MLB Barometer: Risers & Fallers

We're at an interesting point of the season when it comes to trying to draw any meaningful insights from the games played thus far. There have been roughly three times as many games played as this time last week, though it's obviously still quite early. Some parts of the baseball world already make sense: The Dodgers have the best record in the entire league, with the Padres right behind them. Others, not so much: Cedric Mullins, Yermin Mercedes and Tyler Naquin all find themselves as top-10 hitters according to the fWAR leaderboard.

Mike Trout has spent a brief period atop that leaderboard already, though he sits third through Sunday's games, so we haven't yet reached the unofficial point at which stats become believable. We've also yet to reach the stabilization point for even those numbers, which stabilize the quickest. Strikeout rates for both hitters and pitchers are among the fastest to become relevant, but even those tend to take at least 15 games for hitters and 17.1 innings for pitchers. Other stats take considerably longer.

We should start hitting the first of those marks this week, so it's worth a reminder as to how stabilization points actually work. A stabilization point tells us that for a given number within said sample, a meaningful portion of that stat was reflective of a player's true talent rather than luck. What it doesn't tell us, however, is anything with much precision about the future. Players' true talent changes in all sorts of subtle ways throughout any given season due to things like minor injuries or small tweaks to a swing or a delivery. A player who struck out 40 percent of the time in his first 15 games may well have had a true-talent strikeout rate near 40 percent over that sample, but he could make adjustments and have a much lower true-talent strikeout rate the rest of the way.

Of course, while the usefulness of stabilization points is often overstated, the reverse is also true in some ways. It's not as if those points represent a switch being flipped between a stat being entirely useless and perfectly predictive. Nine games from a hitter or two starts from a pitcher do at least tell us something. If a hitter is striking out nearly half the time at this point in the season, we certainly can't say he'll strike out that often the rest of the way, but nothing stops us from saying, "Wow, he's sure striking out a lot. That's not great." This week's risers and fallers will feature a number of players who have produced particularly noteworthy early lines.

RISERS

Joe Musgrove, SP, Padres: Throwing the first no-hitter in Padres' history is quite a good way to land yourself atop this list. While Musgrove's achievement did come against a hapless Rangers squad, it was a remarkable outing nonetheless. It followed six shutout innings against Arizona in his first start of the year, a game in which he struck out eight and walked none while allowing just three hits. He now owns a 36.7 percent strikeout rate and 0.0 percent walk rate on the year to go with his 0.00 ERA and 0.20 WHIP. There's perhaps an argument that Musgrove isn't actively rising but is merely confirming last year's rise. While he showed some promise in his first four years, it didn't translate to particularly interesting results, as he owned a 4.37 ERA through the end of 2019. His 3.86 ERA last season came with a very encouraging 3.19 xFIP, helped in large part by his strikeout rate spiking from 21.3 percent over his first four years to 33.1 percent last season. That came in a very small sample of just eight starts, but if his first two outings this year are any indication, the growth is real.

Corbin Burnes, SP, Brewers: While Burnes hasn't thrown a no-hitter this season, there's a case to be made that it's him, not Musgrove, who's gotten off to the hottest start of the year. Both of his outings this season have been outstanding. He allowed just one run in 6.1 innings against the Twins in his first turn in the rotation, striking out 11 while walking none and giving up just a single hit. In his next start, he held the Cardinals scoreless over six frames, striking out nine while again walking none and allowing just one hit. He now owns a laughable combination of a 48.8 percent strikeout rate and a 0.0 percent walk rate to start the year. While his .056 BABIP certainly won't last, he's managed contact very well thus far. His groundball rate sits at 57.9 percent after coming in at 46.6 percent over his first three seasons, while his hard-hit rate comes in at 26.3 percent after sitting at 35.1 percent prior to this year. Burnes is just 26 years old, had plenty of hype as as prospect and already showed signs of breaking out in last year's shortened season, so it's entirely possible he winds up as one of the first few pitchers off the board next winter.

Byron Buxton, OF, Twins: Who among us hasn't dreamed on Buxton at one point? There may be no bigger "if he could just stay healthy" guy on the hitting side in recent memory. He's just begun his seventh big-league season and has appeared in more than 100 games just once, averaging 72 games and 250.7 plate appearances per year. Those injuries have perhaps prevented him from fulfilling his potential at the plate, but he's steadily started to show more signs of life over the last two years, hitting 23 homers and stealing 16 bases in just 126 combined games while posting a lopsided but strong .259/.299/.534 slash line. Even those who were willing to buy in without much discount this winter couldn't have seen this kind of start coming, however. Through eight games, he's tied for the league lead with five homers and leads all qualified hitters by more than 150 points with a ridiculous 1.734 OPS, the product of a .481/.548/1.185 slash line. Every small-sample caveat in the book applies here, and eight games of health doesn't imply 162 games of health in any way, but it's hard to fake a run that's quite this good. Buxton is still just 27 years old, so it's not at all out of the question that he's grown as a player and is about to make good on his considerable potential. Dream away.

Jake Cronenworth, 1B/2B/SS, Padres: I was too low on Cronenworth heading into the season, ranking him just outside the top 300 in the final set of rankings I submitted for the Roundtable Rankings. I don't think the logic was all that bad: With just four homers and three steals last season, I saw him as mostly an empty batting average guy, and I was concerned about his playing time following the signings of Ha-Seong Kim and Jurickson Profar. Through 10 games, it looks like even the broader pool of drafters, who picked him on average just outside the top 200 in NFBC drafts, was far too low on him as well. He hasn't done anything to dispel concerns about being an empty batting average guy, as he doesn't have a homer or steal thus far, but that's acceptable when you're hitting .351 like he is. He's earned that high average about as well as he can, posting a .318 xBA, a near match for his .321 xBA last year, while he's struck out in just 4.5 percent of his plate appearances. Perhaps more importantly, the playing-time concerns have completely evaporated. He's started every game this season, even before Fernando Tatis suffered his shoulder injury, so there's little reason to fear he'll fall into a utility role anytime soon.

Ha-Seong Kim, SS, Padres: Kim was part of the reason I wasn't high enough on Cronenworth over the winter. He was one of the better players in Korea for several years, but he made the jump across the Pacific at the perfect time, as he was coming off his best season. He hit .306 last year with 30 homers (tied for ninth in the KBO) and 23 steals (good for fifth). Even after adjusting for the step up in competition, he still looks vaguely like a Tommy Edman-type player, hitting for a respectable average with homer and steal totals in the mid-teens. Playing time was a concern on a deep Padres roster, however, and he started just one of the team's first five games. Since Tatis has gone down, he's started every single game and he's gotten to play his preferred position of shortstop. Early returns on his bat haven't been great, but it's way too early to make much of his .174 batting average. His 3:4 BB:K is very encouraging and not too surprising, as he walked more than he struck out in his final KBO campaign. The Padres are saying positive things about Tatis' timeline, but anyone expecting him to be completely injury-free all year is probably overly optimistic. Kim should be a worthy inclusion until Tatis returns, and he'll likely be no more than one injury away from an everyday role once Tatis is back.

Yusei Kikuchi, SP, Mariners: The Kikuchi of 2020 didn't look very similar to the Kikuchi of 2019, though the end result was much the same, as his ERA fell only slightly from 5.46 to 5.17. Most of his changes were positive, however, as he increased his velocity from 92.5 mph to 95.0 mph, increased his strikeout rate from 16.1 percent to 24.2 percent and increased his groundball rate from 44.0 percent to 52.0 percent, with only his walk rate trending in the wrong direction, rising from 6.9 percent to 10.3 percent. The ERA estimators were pretty convinced that he'd already taken a big step forward, as seen in his 3.30 FIP and 3.78 xFIP. This year, it looks as though he's combined the good parts of both of his seasons. He's held onto his velocity gains and has seen another big step forward in his strikeout rate, which sits at 32.7 percent, and he's gotten his control back, walking just 6.1 percent of opposing batters. There's at least one notable negative here, as his groundball rate has plummeted to 33.3 percent, but the early signs seem to suggest that this fairly common sleeper pick is in for his best MLB season yet.

FALLERS

Keston Hiura, 2B, Brewers: Hiura burst onto the scene as a rookie in 2019, hitting .303/.368/.570, but his line cratered to .212/.297/.410 last season. A massive drop in his BABIP from a clearly unsustainable .402 to .273 accounted for most of the difference there, as his xBA dropped much more modestly from .249 to .209. Those who bet on a bounceback this winter were hoping for at least a modest improvement in that category, though some growth in his troublesome strikeout rate, which sat at 32.3 percent through his first two seasons, was perhaps more important. While it's generally far too early to get worried about stat lines, strikeout rates become notable earlier than most stats (as mentioned in the introduction), and the early returns for Hiura certainly aren't good. He's struck out at a 41.4 percent clip through seven games and hasn't walked once, leading to a .107/.138/.250 line. The sample size here remains tiny, but Hiura isn't giving any signs that he's about to turn things around.

Teoscar Hernandez, OF, Blue Jays: While Hernandez is a sixth-year outfielder and Hiura is a third-year infielder, they occupied a very similar space this offseason. Both had one outlier season where they showed a lot of promise, and both had significant strikeout issues. Hernandez was arguably easier to trust during draft season, as his good season was his most recent one. He hit .289/.340/.579 in 2020 after hitting .237/.304/.476 over his first four years. Even in that good season, however, he struck out at a 30.4 percent clip. As with Hiura, he hasn't shown any signs of making more contact this season. Through seven games, he's struck out in 48.3 percent of his plate appearances and has yet to walk, leading to a .207/.207/.310 line. That's a worry, as Hernandez has only shown the elite contact quality necessary to be a star despite those high strikeout rates once. It's too early to get all that worried about the rest of his line, but he'll need to make a lot more contact once he returns from his trip to the COVID-19 injured list, which he landed on Friday after being exposed to someone who tested positive with the illness.

George Springer, OF, Blue Jays: Springer was diagnosed with a Grade 2 oblique strain near the end of spring training, but it still seemed generally fine to take him in late-March drafts with only a slight discount despite the injury, as the Blue Jays downplayed the issue. It wasn't even clear that he'd miss any regular season games, and Toronto didn't elect to place him on the injured list until the day before Opening Day. While that optimism may have been generally correct, as he's reportedly now fully recovered from the oblique problem, he's already onto another issue, and isn't expected to be back until at least the second half of this week due to a strained right quadriceps. That's actually already his third injury of the season, as he missed a couple days with a minor abdominal issue early in camp. While Springer is still a very talented player who will help fantasy lineups when active, injuries have been a theme for him throughout his career. Over the last six seasons, he's missed 17.6 percent of his team's games. It seems unwise to bet that his injury count will stop at three in his age-31 season.

Brad Keller, SP, Royals: It's unlikely very many people had particularly high expectations for Keller, but he's on a lot of fantasy teams, going in the 23rd round on average in NFBC drafts, and was generally seen as an effective, if boring, option to round out a pitching staff. He's done plenty of damage already, unfortunately, as two awful outings have given him a 19.29 ERA and 4.29 WHIP in 4.2 innings of work. He could never be relied on for many strikeouts, whiffing just 16.8 percent of opposing batters in his first two seasons, but his 9.1 percent walk rate was at least respectable. This year, however, he's struggled to a 9.4 percent strikeout rate and a 15.6 percent walk rate. Interestingly, he's actually regained a tick on his fastball, which has so far tied his career high at 93.9 mph, but his slider has gotten hammered, ranking as the worst slider in the league per FanGraphs' pitch values.