The Fantistics Fantasy Baseball Podcast · InsiderBaseball

April 10, 2025 - Early Season Stars

·1 hr 8 min·2 clips

Kyren Paris has even odds of being back in AAA by the all-star break or hitting 20 home runs.

1. The Fantistics Fantasy Baseball Podcast episode of April 10, 2025 examines which early-season hot hitters are backed by changes in skill, using roughly 13 games of hitting data. 2. Host Skylar and his co-host, who mentions living in snowy New England and 'Brandon' as a regular partner, trade opinions on about nine hitters. 3. Their stated question is 'what changed,' and they argue that three pitcher starts equal roughly 50 to 60 hitter at-bats, so only some changes, such as a 1.5 to 2 mph velocity bump, can be verified now. 4. Tyler Soderstrom, 23, has six homers, a 92.5 mph exit velocity, an 18% barrel rate and a swinging-strike rate lower than anything he posted in the minors, and the hosts project 25 to 30 homers with Sacramento a friendlier park than Oakland. 5. Wilyer Abreu shows a 16% chase rate and a 111 mph max exit velocity against 114.5 last year, and the hosts say cold weather in Fenway and Baltimore suppresses those maxes while his arm is compared to Vlad's and Ichiro's. 6. Ben Rice is batting at the top of the Yankees lineup against right-handed pitching with a 72% hard hit rate and a couple of steals, and the hosts say 10 to 15 steals would be possible as only one top-25 first baseman stole 10 bases last year. 7. Kyren Paris is called 'the hottest' with 'the most helium,' but the hosts cite only 78 major league batted balls, a lowest swinging-strike rate of 10% in rookie ball six years ago, and a 53% fastball rate they expect to fall toward 38%. 8. The hosts call Kyle Tucker a possible number one fantasy hitter at age 28, with a 40-40 ceiling and health as the main concern, and call Christian Campbell a 15-15 floor player who could be 20-20 within three years. 9. They name Wyatt Langford a net seller after his oblique injury and IL placement, and warn that Cedric Mullins, 30, is pulling the ball 47% of the time and 'fell in love with home runs' the year he hit 30. 10. Fantasy baseball players weighing early-season trades and waiver pickups will get the most from this.

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