Howdy, folks! 

Writing about baseball in April is a tricky beast. If you read my debut article here at Prospects Live, you can see how things can change in just one week.

  • Kyren Paris is no longer ranked as a top-5 bat (not shocking).
  • It may have been a great sell-high window for Wilyer Abreu, after all.
  • And Adolis Garcia has started popping off to match his underlying metrics.

Again, the general perception of all three has shifted in just one week!

But this week, I want to hone in on three big names underperforming in 2025 and I advise you to pounce on all three!

Sunday Smoke: What’s Real, What’s Not
A weekly column where Darren “Doc” Eisenhauer (@DocEisenhauer) provides win-now insight at the Major League level.
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Mark Vientos, sleeping giant?

Mark Vientos, 3B, NYM

Last year, I lamented all season long about how absurdly low Mark Vientos’ ownership rates were over on Yahoo. It seemed like folks had been burned on the former top prospect to the point that no one wanted to believe in the breakout!

He ended up with 27 bombs in just 111 games, including an ice-cold September that brought his overall ratios down to a more reasonable level.

If we’re being honest, I was a little concerned that the September return of his high-strikeout profile might be a sign of things to come, and then he blasted five more homers in just 13 playoff games, coming through while the rest of the Mets floundered.

I understand that playoffs aren’t everything, but they are something.

After a deflating end to the regular season, for a then-24-year-old to come alive under the brightest lights - in New York, of all places - is nothing short of impressive.

Now, what if I had told you that in April of 2025, Vientos would:

  • Improve his walk rate by 4 points
  • Dock his K rate from 30% to 18%
  • Ramp up his Z-contact + contact rates by 3-4 points apiece

Superstardom-bound, right?

Maybe not.

At the time of this writing (Saturday morning), Mark Vientos’ surface stats are sub-Mendoza line, and folks have already begun to drop him in shallow redraft leagues. Please, do not do this. Vientos has legitimate 40 HR upside in a stacked lineup and has no business being dropped.

No matter the format, Mark Vientos is someone you need to acquire at a discount while you still can! The power is sleeping, not dead, and if his patient metrics continue to play out?

We could be looking at a 25-year-old superstar, after all.