Buying or Selling Bryan Reynolds, Adam Duvall and Baseball's Hottest Starts
It's a little over a week into the 2023 season, which makes it a great time to overreact to small sample sizes across Major League Baseball.
As usual some surprising players are off to hot starts, whether it's a veteran putting together a bounce-back season, a young player looking like a breakout candidate or a rookie making an instant impact.
Ahead we've highlighted a number of players who fit into each of those categories and taken a closer look at their early stats. Using advanced metrics, past track record and a dash of subjectivity, we've made a buy or sell decision on each player's hot start.
This will be a fun one to revisit in a few months.
Top AL Hitter: Adam Duvall, Boston Red Sox
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It's easy to forget that Adam Duvall entered the 2023 season just a year removed from launching 38 home runs and leading the NL with 113 RBI while helping the Atlanta Braves win a World Series.
The Braves brought him back for the 2022 season, but he hit just .213 with an 86 OPS+ in 86 games before undergoing season-ending wrist surgery at the end of July.
The Boston Red Sox inked him to a one-year, $7 million deal, and that is quickly looking like one of the steals of the offseason as he has gone 10-for-21 with three doubles, two home runs and nine RBI through his first five games, including a walk-off home run in the opening series against the Baltimore Orioles.
He has a 28.4 percent strikeout rate and .232 batting average for his career, so it's unlikely he is suddenly going to contend for a batting title, but he has always had playable power with three 30-homer seasons on his resume.
A 2-WAR campaign with 30 home runs with solid defense in center field is doable, and that would be well worth the investment.
Buy or Sell: Buy the power, sell the batting average
Top NL Hitter: Bryan Reynolds, Pittsburgh Pirates
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The Red Sox can rest easy knowing they won't have to face Bryan Reynolds again this season, provided he stays with the Pittsburgh Pirates all year.
The outfielder went 7-for-12 with two doubles, three home runs and five RBI to help lead the Pirates to a three-game sweep at Fenway Park, and he entered play Thursday atop the MLB leaderboard with four homers.
The 28-year-old made headlines during the offseason when he publicly requested a trade, and while the Pirates have him under club control through the 2025 season, it looked like the sides might be headed for a split.
Instead, he opened the season in Pittsburgh and they have continued to talk about a possible extension, per The Athletic's Rob Biertempfel and Tim Britton, but his asking price is climbing with each swing of the bat.
Beneath the surface of his red-hot start, he has also seen a huge uptick in his average exit velocity (90.4 to 94.6 mph) and hard-hit rate (42.9 to 57.1 percent), and while we are still talking about an extremely small sample size, those numbers provide some confidence he can keep it rolling.
Buy or Sell: Buy an MVP-caliber season
Top AL Pitcher: Jeffrey Springs, Tampa Bay Rays
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Let's do a little side-by-side comparison:
Player A is New York Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes, who was one of the most talked-about breakout players of the 2022 season.
Player B is Tampa Bay Rays left-hander Jeffrey Springs, who, unless you're a die-hard baseball fan or live in the Tampa Bay area, there's a good chance you have never heard of until right now.
If his first start of the season is any indication, everyone will know his name before long.
Fresh off signing a four-year, $31 million extension during the offseason, Springs tossed six no-hit innings in his first start of the year, allowing just one walk while striking out 12 of the 19 batters he faced.
It has to be mentioned that he did that against a bad Detroit Tigers lineup, but they are still MLB hitters, and there's no reason to think he won't build on last year's success.
Buy or Sell: Sell him as a Cy Young contender, buy him as a solid No. 2/3 starter
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Top NL Pitcher: Noah Syndergaard, Los Angeles Dodgers
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Noah Syndergaard signed a one-year, $21 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels prior to the 2022 season hoping to rebuild his stock after missing significant time recovering from Tommy John surgery.
A year later, he signed a one-year, $13 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, so suffice to say things did not quite go according to plan last year when he logged a 3.94 ERA in 134.2 innings and was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.
The 6'6" right-hander had some of the most electric stuff in baseball prior to missing the entire 2020 season and making just one appearance in 2021 following surgery, and that premium stuff has never quite returned.
Now the challenge will be learning to pitch without overpowering stuff, and he looked great in his Dodgers debut, averaging 92.7 mph with his fastball while limiting the Arizona Diamondbacks to four hits and one run across six strong innings.
The Dodgers don't need him to be anything more than a serviceable middle-of-the-rotation starter,
Buy or Sell: Sell him being the old Syndergaard, buy him as a useful rotation piece
AL Bounce-Back Candidates
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Aroldis Chapman, Kansas City Royals
Once the highest-paid reliever in baseball, Chapman was forced to settle for a one-year, $3.75 million deal from a rebuilding Royals team after posting a 4.46 ERA and a 6.9 BB/9 walk rate last year. The 35-year-old has seen a nice uptick in his fastball velocity (97.5 to 99.8 mph) and fastball spin rate (2,362 to 2,481 rpm) through two scoreless appearances, but he has done that in low-leverage situations and with a fresh arm.
Buy or Sell: Buy, but with a hand hovering over the sell button
Yoán Moncada, Chicago White Sox
Moncada struggled to a .212/.273/.353 line in 104 games last season while suffering from an array of nagging injuries, but hopes for a bounce-back sky-rocketed when he went 10-for-23 with five extra-base hits with Team Cuba in the World Baseball Classic. The 27-year-old is 11-for-25 with four doubles and two home runs through his first six games, and he again looks like an impact player at the hot corner.
Buy or Sell: Buy
Myles Straw, Cleveland Guardians
Straw hit .271 with a .349 on-base percentage and 30 steals in a 3.2-WAR season in 2021, and the Guardians signed him to a five-year, $25 million extension. He won Gold Glove honors in center field last season and went 21-of-22 on stolen base attempts, but he hit just .221/.291/.273 for an abysmal 64 OPS+. The 28-year-old has eight hits and six walks through his first 30 plate appearances, and he leads the majors with five steals.
Buy or Sell: Sell a true breakout, buy him ending up closer to his 2021 numbers
NL Bounce-Back Candidates
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Brian Anderson, Milwaukee Brewers
A Marlins team in serious need of middle-of-the-order production appears to have made a grave mistake by non-tendering Anderson at the start of the offseason. The Brewers scooped him up on a one-year, $3.5 million deal and he is 9-for-18 with three home runs and 10 RBI through his first six games. Beyond that, he ranks among the MLB leaders in exit velocity (86th percentile), hard-hit rate (86th percentile) and barrel rate (100th percentile).
Buy or Sell: Buy him as an All-Star candidate
Seth Lugo, San Diego Padres
Lugo is not so much a bounce-back candidate as he is a proven reliever pitching in a new role as a starter. The 33-year-old was developed as a starter, but just 12 of his 239 appearances over the past five seasons have come in the rotation. The Padres signed him to a one-year, $7.5 million deal (which carries a player option for 2024) to fill a spot on the starting staff, and he tossed seven innings of four-hit, one-run ball in his debut.
Buy or Sell: Sell him as a breakout star, buy him as a useful No. 4 starter
Jorge Soler, Miami Marlins
Soler turned a strong postseason run with the Atlanta Braves in 2021 into a two-year, $27 million deal (player option for 2024) with the Marlins last offseason. He hit just .207 with 13 home runs in 306 plate appearances last year but already has three doubles and three home runs through his first 28 trips to the plate this season.
Buy or Sell: Buy him as a 30-homer threat, sell everything else
AL Breakout Candidates
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Trevor Larnach, Minnesota Twins
The No. 20 overall pick and one of the most polished hitters in the 2018 draft class, Larnach has yet to spend a full season in the big leagues. The 26-year-old broke camp as Minnesota's starting left fielder, and he is hitting .391/.481/.609 in 27 plate appearances over his first six games. That came on the heels of a .351/.400/.730 line and four home runs during spring training, and as long as he can stay healthy, he looks like a bona fide breakout candidate.
Buy or Sell: Buy
Luke Raley, Tampa Bay Rays
Raley hit .189 with three home runs and a 34.0 percent strikeout rate in 55 games of MLB action the past two seasons, but he won a spot on Tampa Bay's roster as a left-handed power bat to platoon with Harold Ramirez at designated hitter. The 28-year-old has three home runs through his first 16 trips to the plate, and while he has shown power in the minors with 40 home runs in 168 career games at Triple-A, he still has a lot to prove in the majors.
Buy or Sell: Sell
Matt Vierling, Detroit Tigers
The Tigers acquired Vierling as part of the deal that sent All-Star closer Gregory Soto to the Philadelphia Phillies in January, and he has been the team's starting right fielder in the early going, seeing multiple starts in the leadoff spot. The 26-year-old is hitting .350/.381/.550 through 21 plate appearances, and he has been one of the few bright spots in an anemic Detroit offense.
Buy or Sell: Buy him as an everyday player on a rebuilding team
NL Breakout Candidates
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Graham Ashcraft, Cincinnati Reds
Eno Sarris of The Athletic ranked Ashcraft as a top-100 starting pitcher at the start of the season using his emerging Stuff+ advanced statistic, and the right-hander backed it up in his 2022 debut with seven innings of four-hit, one-run ball against the Pittsburgh. With a mid-90s cutter and a swing-and-miss slider, he has the pure stuff to slot alongside Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo for a long time.
Buy or Sell: Buy
Nolan Gorman, St. Louis Cardinals
Gorman showed some of the best raw power of any prospect during his time in the St. Louis farm system, and he launched 14 home runs in 89 games last season as a rookie. The 22-year-old has two home runs in his first five games while going 7-for-16 at the plate, but the more significant number is the early strides he has made with his walk rate (9.0 to 23.8 percent) and strikeout rate (32.9 to 28.6 percent).
Buy or Sell: Buy, with some obvious regression
Dennis Santana, New York Mets
The Mets claimed Santana off waivers from the Minnesota Twins near the end of spring training, and he has thrown 2.2 scoreless innings with five strikeouts while recording a pair of holds in three appearances. With Edwin Díaz sidelined because of a knee injury, the Mets could use an unexpected contributor or two in the bullpen, and Santana looks like a potential diamond in the rough thanks to his new slider-heavy approach.
Buy or Sell: Buy as a seventh-inning option
Surprise AL and NL Rookies
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Jhony Brito, New York Yankees
With all the buzz surrounding Anthony Volpe, another Yankees rookie quietly impressed in his MLB debut as Brito tossed five shutout innings against the San Francisco Giants. The 25-year-old goes fastball-changeup against lefties and sinker-curveball against righties, which means a lot of pitches have to be working for him to be effective. If he can hold down the No. 5 starter job for a month or so, it would go a long way.
Buy or Sell: Buy him as useful rotation depth
Garrett Mitchell, Milwaukee Brewers
The knock on Mitchell going back to his time at UCLA was that he didn't generate enough in-game power despite a strong 6'3", 224-pound frame. He hit 13 home runs in 132 games in the minors and homered twice in a 28-game debut last year, but he already has three long balls in 22 plate appearances this season to go along with a .300/.364/.850 line. With an improved launch angle (9.5 to 16.2 degrees), there is reason to believe his power surge is for real.
Buy or Sell: Buy
James Outman, Los Angeles Dodgers
Sometimes lost in the shuffle of a deep Dodgers farm system, Outman put himself on the map last year when he posted a .978 OPS with 31 doubles, 31 home runs and 13 steals in 125 games in the upper levels of the minors. The 25-year-old is 4-for-14 with three extra-base hits and 0.7 WAR through his first six games, but his seven strikeouts do give some reason for pause.
Buy or Sell: Sell as an NL Rookie of the Year contender
All stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and accurate through Wednesday's games.
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