Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis Jr. were supposed to anchor fantasy rosters this season. Instead, all three are dragging them. But "struggling" hides three very different stories — and the Statcast tells you which slumps are real and which are mirages. We charted their rolling 7-game trends in Player Lab and pulled the season-to-date numbers under the hood.

All rate stats are season-to-date through 6/17; x-stats from Statcast.

The three lines · season-to-date

Same RBI tier (27 / 24 / 35) — the spread is in shape, not counting stats.

The "who's actually unlucky" view. Every one of the three is outrunning his real wOBA on expected contact — Guerrero .354 xwOBA vs .328, Tatis .348 vs .311, Machado .307 vs .270. The gaps are nearly identical; the question is what's holding each one back.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — the bat is fine, the power is hiding

TOR · 1B — .276/.366/.360, .726 OPS · 3 HR, 27 RBI, 5 SB · 292 PA BB% 11.6 · K% 10.6 · BABIP .300 · ISO .084 · xwOBA .354 · xBA .298 · Barrel% 6.3 · HardHit% 44.4 · EV 90.4 · maxEV 116.0 · HR/FB 5.4%

This is the most encouraging profile of the three. His season-average walk rate is the highest of the trio — built on elite discipline: 11.6% walks against just 10.6% strikeouts and a 19.7% whiff rate. His xwOBA (.354) is the highest of the group and outruns his actual wOBA (.328), so the bat is producing better contact than the box score shows.

The one broken input is power, and it's broken in the most fixable way: a .084 ISO and just 3 homers despite a 116-mph max EV and a 5.4% HR/FB rate that's absurdly low for that exit velocity. The Barrel% chart is the lone red flag — his green line has faded to the bottom (~6%) and stayed there, so the loud contact isn't yet finding barrels.

Power is the most regression-prone skill, and the context backs it up: a minor right-elbow contusion from an HBP in late May (day-to-day, never an IL stint) coincided with the dip, Toronto bumped him to leadoff on 6/9 to spark him, and a beat reporter noted him "hitting balls to Jupiter in BP" on 6/6. The talent is visibly intact.

Verdict: the surest rebound. Even if the barrels are slow to return, a .298 xBA and a .366 OBP give him a high floor while the home runs normalize.

Fernando Tatis Jr. — scorching the ball… into the dirt

SD · RF — .278/.344/.344, .688 OPS · 2 HR, 24 RBI, 17 SB · 309 PA BB% 9.1 · K% 20.7 · BABIP .349 · ISO .066 · xwOBA .348 · xBA .283 · Barrel% 10.2 · HardHit% 53.0 · EV 91.3 · maxEV 114.0 · LA 3.9° · HR/FB 2.5%

Tatis is hitting the ball harder than anyone in this group — his HardHit% (53%) leads the trio outright. His xwOBA (.348) badly outpaces his wOBA (.311) — among the largest "unlucky" gaps here.

The HardHit% and Avg EV charts tell the same dramatic story: his orange line craters in late May (EV dipped near 78 mph) and then surges to the top of the group into mid-June (back to ~95). The recovery, not the dip, is the signal.

So why only 2 home runs and a .066 ISO? Look at the launch angle: 3.9°. He's drilling the ball straight into the ground (2.5% HR/FB). That's not a contact problem — it's a swing-plane problem. The catch is twofold: a launch-angle fix is mechanical, not automatic, and his .278 average leans on an inflated .349 BABIP that's more likely to fall than climb. He's been healthy all year (the news is all glove — Platinum-Glove right field, reps at second), and the 17 steals plus elite defense give him a real floor.

Verdict: highest upside, most contingent. If he elevates even a few degrees, the power floods back. Until he does, you're rostering a .278 / 17-SB table-setter, not a middle-of-the-order bat.

Manny Machado — the average will rise; the ceiling won't

SD · 3B — .175/.255/.354, .609 OPS · 12 HR, 35 RBI · 291 PA BB% 10.0 · K% 22.3 · BABIP .179 · ISO .179 · xwOBA .307 · xBA .228 · Barrel% 9.1 · HardHit% 42.6 · EV 89.8 · HR/FB 21.2%

Machado's .175 average looks like a catastrophe, and a .179 BABIP — one of the lowest you'll ever see from a regular — guarantees it climbs. His power never left: 12 homers and a 21.2% HR/FB, and his blue line surged toward 20% on the Barrel% chart in late May, the strongest barrel run of the group before cooling off. His xwOBA (.307) tops his wOBA (.270) by the same margin as Tatis, so he's also been unlucky.

But this is where the underlying numbers cool the optimism. Machado has the lowest xwOBA (.307) and xBA (.228) of the three and the highest strikeout rate (22.3%), and at age 32 he's the only one of the trio whose contact quality looks genuinely eroded rather than merely unlucky or mis-launched. He's been healthy all season — there's no injury to "explain away" the dip — and the noise around him is loudest: a 6/7 beat note had him at ".169 / .596… someone is going to lose their job," with the Padres staring at the trade deadline.

Verdict: a partial bounce. The BABIP regression alone drags his line back toward the mid-.700s OPS, but the eroded contact and age make a return to star form the least likely of the three.

The bounce-back ranking

1. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — Buy. Highest xwOBA (.354) and xBA (.298), elite 10.6% K / 11.6% BB, a neutral .300 BABIP, and a 116-mph max EV against a 5.4% HR/FB. The bat's already good; the homers are coming.
2. Fernando Tatis Jr. — Hold / buy the dip. Group-best 53% HardHit and the biggest EV recovery on the charts, but a 3.9° launch angle and an inflated .349 BABIP. Elite contact, mechanical power outage.
3. Manny Machado — Sell-high into the BABIP bounce. A .179 BABIP forces an average rebound, but the lowest xwOBA (.307) / xBA (.228) and highest K% (22.3%) at age 32. The average rises; the star ceiling doesn't.

Bottom LineSkim

Guerrero is the safest buy — his slump is a power outage sitting on top of elite contact and zero bad-luck drag. Tatis is the boom pick if you believe the launch angle corrects. Machado will look better on the back of a historically low BABIP, but the bat underneath is the most diminished — use the coming rebound to sell, not to buy.