It’s that time of the year again. Just far enough into the season to get a taste of the possibilities, not far enough to really trust the outcomes. Nonetheless, every year there are fantasy managers showing panic and overexuberance in leagues across all platforms. This leaves you with a chance to trade for a player you may have missed in the draft or move a player that’s outperforming for one you know will provide consistent five category numbers from here on out. Let’s look at the best buy low and sell high opportunities in the game right now. Keep in mind, there will be trade targets associated with each player. Just remember that every league is different and you may need to pivot to make sure both sides are happy with the deal.
Quick Reference
Skim before you read; share if you like it. All 10 names below get a deeper breakdown in the article.
| Player | Team / Pos | Verdict | One-line thesis |
| Julio Rodriguez | SEA / OF | BUY | Notorious slow starter — career splits and elevated walk rate suggest normal J-Rod, with a May power surge historically on deck. |
| Josh Naylor | SEA / 1B | BUY | Peripherals match his career norms; a .183 BABIP is doing all the damage and is overdue to correct. |
| Francisco Lindor | NYM / SS | BUY | Same slow-start pattern as J-Rod; one of the game’s premier players one stolen base shy of three straight 30/30 seasons. |
| Alex Bregman | CHC / 3B | BUY | Elite-tier squared-up, chase, and whiff rates plus a hard-hit jump — the surface stats will catch up. |
| Jordan Walker | STL / OF | SELL | Real power but the contact profile leaves room for regression; cash in on prospect pedigree while he’s hot. |
| Andy Pages | LAD / OF | SELL | Leads MLB in average on an unsustainable BABIP — sell the league leader to fix a roster hole. |
| Jesus Luzardo | PHI / SP | BUY | Elite Stuff+ and Whiff% with a 6.91 ERA make him the textbook positive-regression candidate; FIP already at 3.25. |
| Logan Gilbert | SEA / SP | BUY | FIP a full run below ERA, BABIP 80 points above career norm, and the bat-missing ability is fully intact. |
| Jose Soriano | LAA / SP | SELL | 0.28 ERA is historic and unrepeatable; Barrel% and walk rate suggest the regression is coming. |
| Michael Wacha | KC / SP | SELL | 1.00 ERA on a 34-year-old whose Stuff+ is league-average — flip the late-round value while it’s peaking. |
Buy Low Hitters
Julio Rodriguez, OF, Mariners
Currently hitting .237/.336/.301 with just 1 HR and 1 SB, J-Rod is a notoriously slow starter. With that said he could be a tough get since I would assume most owners should be aware of this by now. But he has a career .224 batting average in March/April and a .279 batting average in May with almost twice as many homeruns in the second month of the season historically. One thing that shows J-Rod is doing normal J-Rod things is his walk rate. His career average in March/April sits right at 8.4% as opposed to his career average of 6.7%. In 2026 he is walking at a 12% clip to start the season. This just tells me he needs to see a lot of pitches to get in the zone, especially this year. He currently is swinging at pitches in the zone 5% less than last year, the lowest rate of his career thus far, sample size be damned. Quick note that his Barrel % has dropped every year since 2022 and his average exit velocity has dipped below 90 MPH for the first time as well, so keep that in mind when sending any offers out.
Trade Candidates: Andy Pages, Taj Bradley + Brendan Donovan, Ozzie Albies,
Josh Naylor, 1B, Mariners
Currently hitting .170/.253/.261 but Naylor’s peripheral numbers are all in line with his career so far. Walk rate, contact percentage, swinging strike percentage, barrel percentage are all within one percentage point of last year. One could point to his strikeout rate bumping up to 16.2% from last year’s 14%, but the real culprit for the slow start, is as simple as his BABIP sitting at .183. Obviously set up for some regression there. Pair that with the differential between his AVG and xBA being over 100 points, he is an easy candidate for improved numbers going into month two. Let’s also not forget that once his teammate mentioned above heats up and the Mariners as a whole start to roll, Naylor will be right in the mix of it. With that said, Naylor’s new home does suppress a bit more offense than he may be used to so I would be a bit more selective with offers.
Trade Candidates: Chase DeLauter, Brendan Donovan, Chandler Simpson + TJ Rumfield
Francisco Lindor, SS, Mets
Currently hitting .209/.301/.341 with 1 HR and 2 SBs, Lindor shares a very similar story to J-Rod during the months of March and April, although not quite to the same extremes. He walks a little more, lacks a little more in the power department (.177 ISO is lowest amongst any other months during his career), and his contact is down 2.5% from last year, which is negligible in the grand scheme of things. Not really too much to be concerned about here as Lindor is obviously one of the premier players in the game, falling one stolen base shy of three consecutive 30/30 seasons. You may be able to grab him from teams with a lot of middle infield depth and below average pitching.
Trade Candidates: McKenzie Gore + Gleyber Torres, Joe Ryan, Jose Soriano + Maikel Garcia
Alex Bregman, 3B, Cubs
Bregman is currently hitting .245/.327/.340 with 2 HR and a stolen base but he is 98% percentile in Squared-Up%, 99% percentile in Chase% and 93% percentile in Whiff%. To top it all off, his Hard-Hit% is about 20% above where it was last year. Bregman will be fine. Assuming he stays fully healthy, you should be expecting close to 30 HRs and a ton of walks from Alex by season’s end. Just allow him to get acclimated a bit more in his new home on the north side of Chicago.
Trade Candidates: Emerson Hancock, Jeffrey Springs, Brice Turang (if you don’t need steals), Max Muncy, Ramon Laureano, Jeremiah Jackson
Sell High Hitters
Jordan Walker, OF, Cardinals
Walker is riding the best streak of his career all while striking out at a 31% clip. This means his current line of .292/.357/.607 is at least somewhat unsustainable. While the power will always be in his repertoire, there is some room for regression here considering the .360 BABIP, .278 xBA. Not to mention the fact he is in the bottom 8% of the league when it comes to swings and misses. Again, the power and speed are there but this could be a great time to make the move toward someone who has sustained success at the big-league level. Now keep in mind we are selling HIGH here, so these guys could be a bit tough to get, but why not shoot for the stars (pun intended).
Trade Targets: Julio Rodriguez, Jose Ramirez, Alex Bregman, maybe pair with a pitcher for Gunnar Henderson, Bryan Woo, Dylan Cease
Andy Pages, OF, Dodgers
Pages is currently hitting .366/.411/.598 with 5 HR and 4 SB. All of this comes with a .455 BABIP, a 25% K rate, and a chase rate in the bottom 32% of the league. Now while Pages xBA is still sitting above .300, it is important to realize how hard it is to sustain the numbers he has already put up in 2026. So, if your team has good OF depth or is lacking in the pitching department, offering up the league leader in batting average is a good way to fill gaps in your roster.
Trade Targets: Mason Miller, Christopher Sanchez, Logan Gilbert, Chase Burns, Corbin Carrol
Buy Low Pitchers
Jesus Luzardo, SP, Phillies
In all my years of playing fantasy baseball, Jesus Luzardo seems to show up on lists like this quite often. He has great stuff (Stuff+ 111), doesn’t walk hitters too much (career 8% BB rate), but seems to still give up a good amount of hard contact over his career (bottom 10% or less in four out of the last seven years). With that said, in 2026 he has the 10th best Hard-Hit% of anyone that has pitched at least 15 innings. Of all those pitchers, he has by far the highest ERA (6.91), sits second in Stuff+ behind only Chris Sale’s 115, and sits third on that list in Whiff% (32.7%) behind only Dylan Cease and Jose Soriano. All this tells me Luzardo is ripe for some positive regression to the mean here. His FIP is currently sitting at 3.25 which isn’t too far from what he has shown he can do in the past.
Trade Candidates: Chase DeLauter, Jorge Soler, Jake Burger, Xander Bogaerts
Logan Gilbert, SP, Mariners
With a less extreme but somewhat similar situation to Luzardo is Logan Gilbert. His current ERA sits at 4.03, while his FIP is sitting at 2.90. With Gilbert’s track record, he is already a candidate for some positive regression. Add into the equation his Stuff+ of 107 shows he hasn’t lost the ability to miss bats, as he is close to Luzardo in Whiff% at 30.1%. His Hard-Hit% isn’t spectacular at 45% so far, but even with the league hitting him a bit harder than Luzardo, his BABIP is still sitting about 80 points above his career norms. Logan will cost you a bit more than Luzardo but if there is a manager who is worried or needs a bat you may be able to pull it off.
Trade Candidates: Matt Chapman, Shea Langeliers, Brice Turang, Jordan Walker, Carlos Correa + Jeffrey Springs
Sell High Pitchers
Jose Soriano, SP, Angels
Basically the pitching version of Andy Pages right now, Soriano is pitching to a ridiculous 0.28 ERA so far this season. This is by far the best ERA in the league for anyone who has pitched more than 20 innings. He is actually the only one under a 1.00 ERA. Now while Statcast has Soriano pitching better than 77% of the league in nearly every metric, his Barrel% sits in the 32% percentile range along with his walk rate at 36%. This is a bit nit-picky but with a 0.28 ERA, it is reasonable to expect some of those Barrels to start falling for more hits as we reach month two even as his xERA sits a bit below 3.00. So, if your team has good pitching depth or is lacking in the hitting department, offering up the league leader in ERA is a good way to fill gaps in your roster.
Trade Targets: Jose Ramirez, James Wood, Gunnar Henderson, Riley Greene, Junior Caminero, Bobby Witt Jr. (Hasn’t hit his first HR of the season yet)
Michael Wacha, SP, Royals
Wacha has surprisingly been very effective since bouncing around a few teams from 2019-2021. Each season he has produced an ERA under 3.90 and pitched over 120 innings, so typically around draft season he ends up being quite the bargain in the very late rounds of most drafts. Well now is the time to capitalize on that value. Wacha is currently pitching to a 1.00 ERA (the 2nd lowest ERA in the sport, behind Soriano, for anyone who has reached 20 IP or more). His current xERA is sitting at 3.46 which is serviceable in almost any league, but when you see a 34-year-old pitcher outperforming over the course of March and April, it’s not a bad idea to think about flipping them. Wacha’s Stuff+ doesn’t particularly stand out, as it sits around league average. His Hard-Hit% is in the bottom 22% of the league, and while his command and experience are better than about 60% of the league, you must wonder when the ball is going to drop. You may not be able to get a premier player for Wacha considering his age but for a pitcher you most likely picked up in the back half of your draft there is plenty of value to find out there.
Trade Targets: Junior Caminero, Randy Arozarena, Kyle Tucker, Jackson Merrill, Corey Seager
Honorable Mentions
Buy Low: Logan Webb, Fernando Tatis Jr., Garret Crochet, Nathan Eovaldi
Sell High: Mike Trout, Mason Miller, Chase DeLauter, Shea Langeliers
Trade Like It’s an Artform
Remember that Buy-Low, Sell-High players are not just about grabbing the best player from each team and assuming they will accept. The best way to approach a trade is to legitimately investigate each team’s construction and identify a weakness that coincides with the strengths of your team or the player you are trying to move. Managers (most) aren’t stupid and don’t want the waiver guy you just picked up because he had a hot week. But a Jordan Walker type, who has some prospect pedigree, is only 23 years old, and has completely been tearing the cover off the ball for the first month of the season gives you an opportunity to solve not only your team’s needs but also that of the other managers in the league. The only way deals get done, is if both teams feel like they gained something…and gave up something.
Tip of the day: Don’t start the conversation with the exact player you are looking for (although in some cases it may be kind of obvious), start with something like:
“Hey (insert last word of team name as if it is that person’s last name), I’m looking to move (insert player name here), since I have a ton of depth at that position. I noticed you are a bit light at said position because of {injuries, draft strategies, positional depth, etc} and figured he would be a good fit for you right now, any ideas on who you would send back in a deal?”
Test the waters to see what the temperature is. Now, if it is a league that doesn’t do a lot of direct communication, come up with an offer, put yourself in the other managers’ shoes and ask yourself if you would accept this based on their team context. If not, you may want to reset and go at it from a different angle. Be as fair as the situation calls for. Now, go pick up the phone and do your best Billy Beane impression.
All stats via Baseball Savant and FanGraphs as of April 22
Photo by Tommy Russell (See more in The Press Box)
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