Fantasy Baseball: Keep the faith in these 14 struggling studs, which include Austin Riley and Trea Turner

Ketel Marte serves as a reminder of how quickly things can turn around

May 26, 2026 at 1:57 pm ET • 1 min read

We've reached the end of May, which means the season is about one-third of the way done. It's showing its wear now, with "early-season noise" becoming less and less of an excuse for aberrant performances.

So let's come up with some new ones.

Even now, a lot could change. Baseball is defined by its uneveness, which is why it takes 162 games to get to the bottom of what's actually real (and even then, there can be fakeouts). It's hardly uncommon for a player to be miserable for two months of the year and aces for the other four. It's just more conspicuous when the bad months are the first two.

Not every player can get the benefit of the doubt, of course, but the ones who most deserve the most generally fall into two categories:

1. Those with a strong data set, meaning exit velocities, spray angles and plate discipline readings that belie their poor production.
2. Those with strong track records, meaning such a clear history of standout production that it's reasonable to presume everything will fall back in line even if the underlying data suggests otherwise.

Someone who fit both descriptions a short while ago was Ketel Marte. He's been an early-round fixture at one of the weakest positions in Fantasy, and his Baseball Savant page has been splashed in red all season long. Eleven days ago, he was batting .209 with a .619 OPS. Now, he's batting .275 with a .797 OPS. That's how quickly things can turn around.

I'm still counting on these 14 players turning their seasons around for similar, if slightly more fallible, reasons, and I'm asking you to keep the faith in them as well.