Fantasy baseball trade values: Overall rankings for Week 5

We’re almost one month through the 2023 MLB season, May is right around the corner, and that can only mean one thing: preparing for Mother’s Day evaluating fantasy baseball trades. Maybe you’re wondering whether you should sell high on your waiver-wire pickup who’s off to a hot start. Maybe you’re an Oneil Cruz owner (or a Corey Seager owner or a Tim Anderson owner or a Jeffrey Springs owner or...) looking to fill an injury-shaped hole on your roster. Or maybe you want to buy low on someone else’s slumping star.

Either way, ‘tis the season for trading — which is where our trade value rankings come in, a fresh top-200 to help you sort through offers and find hidden value. First, though, let’s go through some risers and fallers in the early season.

Risers

• Welcome back, Fernando Tatis Jr. It’s understandable that he’s gotten off to a slow start in his return from more than 18 months away from the Majors, and he’s still shot all the way up these rankings — the man hit 42 homers with 25 steals in just 130 games the last time we saw him, and only Ronald Acuna Jr. matches his full-season, five-category potential.
• Sonny Gray is now around the top 150 after a stellar start to his season. Gray has always had wicked stuff, but he’s commanding both breaking balls much better now, and that ability to harness his movement — and the Minnesota Twins’ increased willingness to let their starters go deep in games — has made him a must-add in every league.
• The swing and miss is a bit of a concern, but I’m all aboard the James Outman train. He’s hitting the ball hard in the air consistently, and his double-digit walk rate helps mitigate the strikeouts a bit. He’s safely ensconced in the middle of that Los Angeles Dodgers lineup which should ensure great counting stats to go with power and speed.
• I’ll admit to having been skeptical of Jarred Kelenic, even as he was nearly launching balls clear out of Wrigley Field. Almost one month into the season, though, I’m starting to come around — mainly because the former all-world prospect is finally proving that he can hit Major League breaking stuff. I still think he’s being overvalued in fantasy leagues — the league will adjust and it remains to be seen how he’ll respond — but this has been an impressive stretch.
• I’m similarly in on Cody Bellinger, who’s made real changes to his swing to close some of the holes causing his swing and miss issues and use the whole field. He’s locked into playing time in a good lineup on a team that loves to run and will let him steal bases.

Fallers

• Ozzie Albies quietly underwent a shoulder procedure this offseason, and he just hasn’t looked right at all this year. More importantly for fantasy purposes, he’s not really running much anymore, which puts a lot of pressure on his power profile. The margin for error here has gotten very small.
• Jose Abreu always starts slowly, so I wouldn’t try to trade him for a bag of baseballs, but Father Time is undefeated — and he might’ve come for the former AL MVP in his age-36 season. The batted-ball profile is abysmal right now, and he just looks like he’s caught behind hard stuff but ahead of offspeed.
• I’m not really out on Jordan Walker — he’s just 20, after all, and he skipped over Triple-A on his rocket ship to the Show. His strikeout and ground ball rates in the Majors were ugly, but it’s nothing that time and reps can’t fix. Still, the St. Louis Cardinals are in win-now mode, and given their glut of outfielders Walker seems like the easiest choice to be odd man out. Stash him if you can, though, because he’ll be back.

Fantasy baseball trade value rankings: Week 5