It’s 8-9 games this season, that’s about 6%! It’s been a long time since we’ve made all the disastrous decisions we’ve made and lamented all the winners we’ve nailed. Or rue those we miss as those trains leave the station.
That’s right, me kid. Kind of. Hey, I’m human, and we spend the draft season making calls to these guys, then we see it play out all week and change. I am well aware that the sample size is incredibly small. No doubt it represents very little of the other short episodes. The weather is mixed, and the boys are not yet in full form. But, some data points settle in early and provide us with information. So let’s take a look at some early busts and breakouts and see if we can learn a lot from any of them. The stats are for Saturday’s games, so if one of the Busts has a 3 homer game on Monday please thank me in the comments of my Reverse Jinx!
(Spoiler Alert, you can…DS)
Outfield Busts: What On Earth I Was Thinking
James Wood
.111, 1 HR, 0 SB
I worried about this place a mile away and blurred out the big part…. then I put him “cheap” in my big auction. He looked like a breakout star in the first half of 2025, then posted a 39% K% after the All Star break. Then he kept waving at Spring Training. And I think surprisingly, he hasn’t stopped, and he’s hit 40% of his first 40 PA’s in 2026 with a Whiff% of 39.7% (6th percentile)
Of the 20 times he’s been able to make contact, 10 count as hard hits, but his EV is 90.3, down from 94.3 in 2025. But hey, 3 were barrels! It’s obviously too early to pass judgment on EV, but it’s disappointing considering that in his Whifftastic 2nd half of 2025, he had a 95.4 EV on those rare occasions when he did get the ball.
I’d like to find something encouraging here, but I’m not sure I can. His batting average is still high, but has dropped slightly from 76 to 75.5. You’d like to think that’s on purpose as a way to improve his communication skills. So far, not so good.
Wood is 23.5 years old and has all the skills we love. There is no action you take to maybe bench him in the everyday league until you leave the big game on your bench. But at some point, you have to wonder if the Nats sent him down to AAA shortstop to fix him up.
(Make those 2 homers in Wood….DS)
Brent Rooker
.133, 0 HR
Athletics not named Shea Langeliers got off to a slow start. I’d put Tyler Soderstrom in here as well, as he also has yet to hit a homer and is hitting just .207. But let’s go with Rooker here since he had the highest draft value.
Rooker hit 30 homers last season while posting a career-low 22.2% K% and emerged as perhaps the best outfielder after a stellar class that ended with Fernando Tatis Jr. in the top 20. My model that I used for my OF measurements had the same value as Jackson Chourio. But alas, he looks completely lost now.
Rooker has a 42.4% K% with an ungodly high 50.8% Whiff%. He has only 5 solid hits in 16 at-bats, three of which were home runs. His EV is only 87.8, ve. 90.7 last year.
I’m more confident here than I am with Wood, though I’ll admit I don’t have a regular season data point to back that up. I think it’s more that with Wood it’s just an extension of the bad trend that started last July, while with Rooker, there’s nothing to worry about beyond a small sample size of 33 PA. He hit .340 in Spring Training with 5 homers and a 25% K%.
(And Rooker homers twice on Sunday, including a walk….Reverse Jinx really works…..DS)
Jacob Marsee
.129, 0 HR, 1 steal
I chose Marsee a lot, and not just because it led to big dream team names. “Marsee Playground”, “30 Seconds to Marsee”…I could go into the Brady Brunch Marsha shoots, but I digress.
Marsee hit .292 with 5 homers and 14 steals in 234 PA’s in 2025 and will lead off the Marlins this season. No one expected .292 again this year, but I thought his projections of .220 and .230 years looked easy. He is a speedster with a 20.3 K% last year, which was consistent with his level in the minors. 10-15 homers, 30 steals, and a run for batting average are guaranteed to be in the cards. And frankly, I think it’s all still in play.
He has an inefficient 31.4% K% with his 15.5% Whiff% and 5.2% SwStr%, both of which are close to exceptional. In general, K% is almost twice SwStr%. The difference is that he’s watched more strikes go by (22.5% CStr%), but that’s not something he’s done a lot in MLB (18.8% last year) or in the minors (usually mid-teens). His Contact% is a career high at 86%, and his LA Sweet Spot% of 38.1% is 70%, so very good contact.
No one has written for Marsee’s strength, and he is getting zero right now as he hasn’t got the ball. But I think the average will go back, and we will do some of his calculations.
Outfield Booms and What I Missed
Kyle Isbell
.478, 2 HR, 3 Steals
Okay, I actually didn’t miss Isbel. I wrote honestly not to book him in any way when looking at the Royals OF tournament. Yes, he is a good player in real life as he has a great glove in center. But no, he didn’t have the value of our game. He had 4 homers and 4 steals last year in 409 PA’s. He has a .242 career avg and an 81 wRC+ and has never had more than 42 RBI or 62 runs in a season, both of which he did in 2024 when he also had a career high with 8 homers and 11 steals.
But now? I think he deserves to fly in the deep leagues. Obviously you will want power early and sacrifice connection. His Whiff% jumped from 18.2% to 25.6%, but so far the tradeoff has worked as his EV has gone from 87.8 to 91.5. Can he somehow make this work and turn into a 15-15 guy without taking his Avg? Who knows, yes, pitchers will probably adapt their approach. We will see.
Joey Wiemer
.558, 2 HR, 7 runs
Wiemer redefined the term journey as he rolled around the 40-man roster all season after roaming the bottom of the MLB rosters in Milwaukee, Cincy, and KC over the past two regular seasons. He found a home for now in DC, although they don’t know what to do with this, since he doesn’t get to run every day.
Nothing compares to this in regular season stats, as he only had 89 PA’s in the bigs since 2023. But he was an interesting guy not long ago who had 13 homers and 11 steals in 410 PA’s with the Brewers in 2023. That came with an average of 28.20% and bad luck.
Only 27 PA’s so far, but check out his bright red Statcast page.
Like Isbel, take a deep league shot if you can see if it’s true.
Garrett Mitchell
.318, 1 HR, 11 RBI, 3 Steals
OK, no warnings this time, edit all shallow formats. He’s a solid side bat, and won’t average more than an RBI per game obviously, but he’s a legitimate source of good middle-of-the-road power speed. He has never been on the field, as he has accumulated just 469 MLB PAs since his debut in 2022. Fwiw, he has a wRC+ of 117 with a .257 avg, 14 homers, and 26 steals which is average to close a full season for a club guy. Those numbers play!
Is Avg high risk? It is possible. So far in 2026, he’s throwing downs at a rate of 75.7 (92nd percentile) producing 98.4 EV (100th percentile!). The downside is that his Whiff% is 44.7% (1st percentile) and his K% is 38.5%. Therefore, he could turn into a less powerful James Wood. But again, hit here if you can.
