Fantasy Baseball Risers and Fallers: Cam Smith rises from redraft afterthought to a draft-worthy player

10 days until Opening Day ... 

The stuff looks the part. Every time Jackson Jobe pitches, the various pitch-quality metrics light up, thanks to Jobe's high-90s fastball and feel for spin across multiple planes of movement. He should be making batters look silly every time he goes out there – especially given the inconsistent quality of competition he's facing.

He should be shooting up the rankings for Fantasy this spring. 

And then you look at the box score and it looks so much less impressive than you expect – in that most recent outing, it was two earned runs on two homers, with one walk and three strikeouts over 3.2 innings of work. He has yet to finish four innings in a start this spring and has just seven strikeouts to three walks over 10.1 innings of work.

To be clear: Jobe hasn't been bad. He has surrendered just three earned runs, all coming on solo homers as he has mostly limited damage on contact. And, with a rotation spot more or less locked up, he might just be focusing more on finishing off his development than finishing off hitters – he's working on a sinker and sweeper in addition to the return of his curveball from earlier in his prospect days. And, for what it's worth, Job has made comments this spring to that effect. 

"Now it's just learning the best way to use it, the best way to sequence it," Jobe told FanGraphs.com this week. "I put my stuff up against anyone in the league on paper, to be completely honest. It's just a matter of learning how to harness it."

I want to be process-oriented in the spring, and the process looks exactly like what you want from a still-developing young pitcher like Jobe. The results shouldn't matter nearly as much right now. But after he had a rather pedestrian 25.6% strikeout rate last season in the minors, I want him to be blowing people away this spring. If he was, he would be moving up rankings even faster, and I'll still happily take him as a late-round flier. 

I just wish I had more confidence he would be more than a late-round flier. 

Today, we're focusing on some players who have moved in the rankings – five who are up, and four who are down. Jobe hasn't moved as much as I would have liked, but there's still time for him to show signs that he's figuring it all out. And I'm still excited about drafting him in the later rounds of all leagues, even if he doesn't have the obvious star path I expected by now. 

Five players moving up the rankings this spring

Cam Smith, 3B, Astros

It's still not 100% certain Smith is going to be on the Opening Day roster for the Astros, but it sure sounds like it's what they want. The long-time third baseman made his last two appearances in the spring lineup at right field, where they're hoping he can hold his own defensively and force his way into the lineup – the alternative is both Chas McCormick and Jake Meyers in the everyday lineup. Smith has just 32 professional games to his name but with a .409/.519/.773 line through 10 spring games, he's gone from completely off redraft radars to someone who should be drafted in most 12-team leagues. 

Ryan Weathers, SP, Marlins

Weathers got bumped up draft boards last spring thanks to a velo bump, and we're seeing the same thing play out this time around. He's been sitting 98 mph from the left side, a two-mph jump from last season – when he already had a changeup and sweeper that looked like good pitches for him. Weathers had a 3.63 ERA last season, and if the fastball bump helps him get more strikeouts, there's must-start upside here. He absolutely belongs on your late-round sleeper list. 

Jack Leiter, SP, Rangers

Command will probably never be a strength for Leiter, so the question is if he can be effectively wild enough to let the big strikeout stuff play. He's up to nine walks in 14.2 innings of work, which is probably too high to really work, even with 17 strikeouts. Still, Leiter's stuff – always impressive – looks even better this spring, and with injuries to Jon Gray (wrist) and Cody Bradford (elbow), the opportunity is there for Leiter to crack the rotation, and that's enough to make him worth drafting in the reserve rounds of most drafts, even if his chances of actually making this work aren't great. 

Ben Rice, 1B, Yankees

Rice probably ran into some bad luck last season, with his .340 expected wOBA more than good enough to be an MLB bat, despite his overall struggles. And he's crushing it this spring, posting an .816 OPS with four batted balls over 110 mph among 20 tracked in games so far. With Giancarlo Stanton out to open the season, Rice looks like the starting DH for the Yankees and belongs in the CI discussion for Roto leagues if you want to wait to fill that spot. 

Robbie Ray, SP, Giants

Usually, we're looking for young guys making unexpected leaps into playing time, as the previous four players highlighted. But in Ray's case, this spring has mostly just served to remind us how good Ray is when he's healthy. That didn't happen much last year, as he made just seven starts coming off Tommy John surgery before a hamstring injury more or less wrecked his season. But he had a 33.3% strikeout rate in his 30.2 innings last year, and he's put up an absolutely bonkers 50% rate this spring without issuing a walk in his first 9.1 innings of work. The stuff looks terrific – and his new changeup could be a nice bonus – but mostly, this one was just about Ray being ranked too low. There just isn't that much separating him from top-20 pitches like Robbie Ray or Tyler Glasnow. 

Four players moving down the rankings

Bailey Ober, SP, Twins 

It hasn't been a big fall for Ober, though I've never been quite as high on him as my colleagues, among others in the industry. The issue here is that the stuff has just never been great – it plays up because he's massive and gets tons of extension with his delivery and generally has good enough command to avoid putting the ball in the wrong. But while some will point to his 3.98 ERA last season as inflated due to a few blowup starts, I'd argue the blowups are the price of doing business when it comes to Ober. And now this spring, his average fastball velocity is down to 90.5 mph, down 1.2 mph from last season. The velocity may end up being there by the time the games start to count, but I just find Ober isn't someone I'm all that interested in chasing these days. 

Spencer Steer, 1B, Reds

Steer is still trying to get ready for Opening Day as he recovers from a shoulder injury, and it sounds like he might get there. But I'm not the only one dropping him in my rankings – he's been in a freefall in drafts, with a 172.1 ADP over the past week in NFBC drafts. The problem is, Steer is already a pretty fringe-y talent, posting mediocre quality of contact metrics that are largely buoyed by his great home park. Now he's playing through a shoulder injury that has been an issue since last season, and which might limit him just to first base and DH in the early going. His versatility helped assure him an everyday lineup spot, but if he can't move all around the field, it puts a lot more pressure on the bat to keep him in the lineup, and that's no guarantee. If he's healthy, Steer's all-around skill set is very valuable for Fantasy, but it feels like he'll be dancing on a knife's edge all season long. 

David Bednar, RP, Pirates

I've never had much interest in drafting Bednar, and that was before manager Derek Shelton refused to name him the closer Sunday. "I don't think right now we have that," Shelton told reporters when asked if the team had a set closer entering the season. "I think right now we'll go and kind of figure out what we're going to do from there." Bednar had a lot of job security when he posted 58 saves between 2022 and 2023 – including an NL-best 39 in the latter season – but he squandered that amid an injury-plagued 2024, and that has cost him the benefit of the doubt as he has struggled this spring. He still could be the team's closer, but I wouldn't touch him inside the top 200 at this point. The other problem? I'm not sure there's an obvious alternative worth drafting in the Pirates bullpen for most leagues. 

DJ Herz, SP, Nationals

I was totally ready to tab Herz as one of my sleepers for 2025 at the end of last season, after a rookie season with two different double-digit strikeouts, zero-walk outings, and a 27.7% strikeout rate overall. However, the Nationals never guaranteed him a rotation spot entering spring, and he's done absolutely nothing to earn it, with nine walks and just four strikeouts in 9.2 innings of work. At this point, Herz is a name to know if he gets off to a strong start to the season, but he's not worth drafting, since that'll likely come at Triple-A Rochester.