usatsi-adley-rutschman-orioles.jpg

One question we get from a lot of Fantasy Baseball players is some variation of "Can I drop [insert random struggling/disappointing player]?" And in some ways, it's a funny question; of course, you can drop any player, assuming they aren't on some sort of "undroppable" list in your league. That's not really the relevant question. 

The question is whether you should drop any given player. And it's an impossible question to answer at least some of the time because it's not just a question about that player; it's also about the alternative options you would be replacing them with. 

But I understand the question, obviously. You're looking for permission to do something you already want to do. But, as with everything, droppability exists on a spectrum. So, with today's column, I wanted to cover the spectrum of droppability. We do something like that on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast when host Frank Stampfl fires up the "Drop-O-Meter" and Scott White and I try to answer how droppable each player is on a scale of 1 to 10. 

Let's extend that exercise here since there were only five games on the MLB schedule Thursday. We'll get to the standouts and news from Thursday, but first, let's take a look at 10 big-name players who are struggling, ranked from 1 to 10 on the Drop-O-Meter – with a "1" meaning "there's no way I'm dropping them" and a 10 meaning "well, what are you waiting for: 

Drop these stars? 

1 - Adley Rutschman, C, Orioles (98%) 

Rutschman is another one whose struggles have gone on for a year at this point, as he is hitting .219/.310/.341 over the past calendar year. And if having him on your roster means you missed out on the likes of Agustin Ramirez, Ivan Herrera, or Hunter Goodman, I can understand being pretty frustrated right now. But here's something that should make you feel better: Only four catchers currently have a higher expected wOBA than Rutschman right now. Three of them are stalwarts at the position – Will Smith, Cal Raleigh, and Salvador Perez – while the other is Carson Kelly, who was a nice story in April but has turned back into a pumpkin in May and would be a relatively easy drop if not for Miguel Amaya's recent injury. Rutschman still has a great approach at the plate, and his .383 expected wOBA on contact is actually the second-best mark of his career, and now far from his career-best. I know Rutschman has been a source of frustration, but there's no way I'm dropping him. 

2 - Zac Gallen, SP, Diamondbacks (96%) 

I'm not doing it. Gallen's track record is too strong, and there have still been impressive high points this season amid the struggles – that 13-strikeout performance against the Yankees obviously stands out, but he also had a stretch in early May with two runs allowed over two starts. That's a low bar, I'll grant, and Gallen's struggles have gone on for longer than a month – he has a 4.50 ERA and 1.36 WHIP over the past calendar year, a span of 29 starts. It's possible Gallen has just irrevocably lost it, but I'll give him more time as a 29-year-old former star without a serious injury to explain his struggles. You can (and probably should at this point) bench him, however. 

3 - Willy Adames, SS, Giants (95%)

Adames was a bust pick for me before the season, so you'd think I would be inclined to fade him at this point. But the thing is, I thought he would struggle to live up to the standard he set in his career-best 2024 season; what I didn't see coming was Adames slumping to the point where we'd be happy to get him back to his Tampa Bay-era production. This is obviously speculative, but I feel like Adames' struggles are probably mental in nature, if only because we're also seeing them carry over to the defensive side, where Adames has gone from one of the best defenders at the shortstop position in recent years to one of the worst. There are probably some adjustments he can make in the batter's box, but I think the likeliest explanation is that he's just pressing after signing a big free agent contract this offseason. I'll bet on Adames turning things around before long. 

4 - Christian Walker, 1B, Astros (95%)

I'm open to the idea that Walker is just totally washed up. He's 34 years old, after all, and sometimes players hit an age where they just fall apart without much warning. I'm also open to the idea that the oblique injury Walker suffered this spring is just going to end up totally ruining his season. Either seems like a reasonable possibility. But I still think, "He's just slumping" is the likelier explanation. As bad as Walker has been so far this season, it's not like it's a total outlier for him – in 2021 he opened the season hitting .230/.285/.351 through the first 53 games. Of course, the problem there is that Walker hit just .257/.340/.410 the rest of the way, so it's not like we can really argue that the slow start didn't carry over; 2021 was the only bad season we've seen from Walker since his breakout in 2019. His bat speed and sprint speed are both right around where they were last season, so I'm not willing to write him off entirely, but there isn't as much positive to point to here as I would like. 

5 - Tanner Bibee, SP, Guardians (94%) 

Bibee has talked recently about the work he and the team's coaching staff have put in to identify what's gone wrong with him so far, saying they identified a mechanical problem in his delivery that has been holding him back. Those changes didn't help him against the Dodgers, who tagged him for four earned runs in five innings Tuesday, though he did still generate seven strikeouts, a promising sign in an otherwise forgettable start. And coming off his eight-strikeout showing last week, his best start of the season, it's worth highlighting that promising sign. 

6 - Ben Rice, 1B, Yankees (88%)

Predictably, it gets significantly harder to answer this question around the mid-way point of the scale. I think Ben Rice is good. Like, really good. Among players who have at least 250 plate appearances since the start of last season, he ranks 16th in expected wOBA. Just ahead of Freddie Freeman, Jackson Merrill, and Kerry Carpenter, all of whom are must-roster players, obviously. And here's another really compelling reason not to drop Rice: He needs just one more appearance to be eligible at catcher, where the bar for Fantasy relevance is so much lower than it is at any other position. Even if he's a part-time player, he's worth rostering in every single two-catcher league, at the very least. 

Unfortunately, we might not be far from that being the only way Rice can be Fantasy-relevant. He's been a part-time player for much of the season, but that's really become an issue in May, as he has started just 15 of 23 games. With Paul Goldschmidt and Trent Grisham playing so well right now, the choice the Yankees have is usually between Jasson Dominguez and Rice, and while Rice is the better hitter right now, balancing that with the long-term need to develop Dominguez makes it tough to just bench him outright. And while injuries could certainly open up a bigger opportunity for Rice, it goes in both directions – Giancarlo Stanton's return from the IL could come sometime in June, and I don't think they're just going to bench him outright, either. I want to hang on to Rice if I can, especially with catcher eligibility so close. But he might be a pretty fringe option even as a catcher if he isn't playing more than a few times per week. 

7 - Shane Baz, SP, Rays (82%) 

As I wrote Wednesday about Max Meyer, it's hard to drop a pitcher who has shown the kind of upside Baz has. He has two double-digit strikeout games this season, making him one of just 14 pitchers who have done that to date. That includes most of the best pitchers in baseball, but it also includes some pretty fringe-y guys like Eduardo Rodriguez and Tylor Megill, so accomplishing that is not necessarily a guarantee of success.

Especially because, in Baz's case, his strikeout rate never quite felt sustainable. He was throwing the ball in the strike zone too often without generating either swings and misses in the zone or chases, so it's not especially surprising that his strikeout rate has regressed. Baz still has good stuff, led by a fastball he can throw in the high 90s without a ton of effort, so I think his struggles are mostly about approach and execution. More four-seamers up in the zone and more curveballs below it could be just what he needs to take off. The talent is clearly there, but you have to view Baz as basically a stash at this point, and you have to decide if you can afford that on your roster at this point. He had another start Thursday where he struck out three and had just four swinging strikes on 86 pitches, so there certainly isn't any forward momentum building yet. 

8 - Marcus Semien, 2B, Rangers (89%)

If there were more can't-miss options at second base, I'd be much more inclined to give up on Semien, who is going on 200 games of poor production at this point. And, like Walker, he's at the age where it might just be the end of the road for Semien. Sure, you could point to the fact that his underlying metrics aren't actually much worse than they were when he was a must-start Fantasy option. But the key difference is that Semien pretty consistently outperformed those underlying metrics when he was at his best thanks to plus athleticism, low strikeout rates, and a swing geared toward hitting the ball in the air to the pull side a bunch. His pulled air percentage is down to 19.5%, his lowest rate since 2019, while his 21.4% strikeout rate is his worst since 2017. Semien doesn't seem to be doing the things that used to make him special anymore, so the only real reason to hang on to him at this point is a lack of options at second base – among players rostered in fewer than 50% of CBS Fantasy leagues, I'm just not sure the likes of Brett Bary or Chase Meidroth are really a long-term upgrade, unfortunately. But if you want to just play the hot hand, I can't argue against it at this point. 

9 - Sandy Alcantara, SP, Marlins (77%)

Alcantara is an even more extreme version of what I talked about with Baz. He's clearly not useful right now and doesn't seem to be getting any better – he was tagged for six runs in four innings Wednesday against the Padres, and it could have been worse, as he had seven hits and four walks without a strikeout. I'm very confident that Alcantara will be a must-start pitcher again at some point, it's just that "at some point" might just mean "2026." In a daily league, I think Alcantara is a pretty easy drop, just because "stashing" doesn't really exist in those leagues, because getting something out of every roster spot really matters. In weekly leagues, I would hope I still have some room for a pitcher with the kind of upside Alcantara once had and presumably still does have. But he hasn't shown even a hint of upside in 2025, and you really have to go back to 2022 at this point for a time when Alcantara was a true difference-maker for Fantasy.

10 - Nolan Arenado, 3B, Cardinals (95%) 

I was open to the idea that Arenado might be able to pull out of his late-career slider, especially when he showed increased bat speed this spring. But while there were some positive signs early on, they've mostly dissipated – his average swing speed is up from last season, but only back to 2023 levels, and it has come with a significant increase in swing length, negating much of the value of the quicker swing. Arenado still makes a lot of contact and still does a good job elevating to the pull side, but he just doesn't impact the ball with any kind of authority anymore. Arenado is more rostered than (among others) Mark Vientos, Royce Lewis, Josh Jung, Matt Shaw, and Jake Burger. I would drop him for any of them, and probably any hot hitter with a hint of upside like Bretty Baty or Miguel Vargas.