This is a bit of a slow time in terms of baseball news. Most of the interesting free agents have already signed, such as Mark Trumbo returning to the club he slugged 47 homers for last year. The trade market is also dead, with Tampa Bay starters seeming to be the most likely to move if anyone does. Chris Archer is the best of them, so let's talk about him.

Yahoo! leagues recently opened up, giving our friends at FantasyPros another source of ADP data. It's slightly more reliable now, but major shifts are still likely. With this in mind, let's see if Trumbo and Archer are worth their current Draft Day costs.

Editor's note: Be sure to also check out our 2017 fantasy baseball rankings dashboard. It's already loaded up with tons of great rankings articles and draft analysis. Aside from our tiered staff rankings for every position, we also go deep on MLB prospect rankings, impact rookies for 2017, and dynasty/keeper rankings as well. Bookmark the page, and win your drafts.

The Fantasy Jury is Out

Mark Trumbo (OF, BAL) ADP: 79.3

Fantasy owners knew that Trumbo could hit 47 big flies in a career year, and he did exactly that with a .256/.316/.533 triple slash line last year. The market did not want to pay for his pop, but fantasy owners seem to want to at that ADP. Is he worth it?

Trumbo clubbed all of those dingers with the help of a career best 24.6% HR/FB, a rate unlikely to repeat even given his return to a division of hitter's parks. He also improved his FB% to a career best 43.1% while pulling 27.2% of them, so there was skills growth here to go with the inflated HR/FB. He probably won't hit 47 again, but mid-30s seems like a reasonable expectation going forward.

Is that enough to roster his average? His .278 BABIP last year seems like it has room to grow, but his fly ball tendencies and line drive allergy (16.7% career LD%) conspire to keep it low. His liners also underachieved last year (.671 BABIP) relative to their career norms (.721), but counting on Trumbo hitting liners seems like a bad idea. His grounders aren't as bad as you might expect (.252 career BABIP, .251 last year) thanks to an ability to beat the shift (.319), but Trumbo still seems doomed to BABIP mediocrity.

He also strikes out way too often, with last year's 13.6% SwStr% representing the second best mark of his career. The resulting 25.5% K% was still ugly. He also registered only four games at first base last year, removing his eligibility there in most formats. Trumbo is still a fantasy asset for power, but I can't justify taking him as early as he is currently going. That gives him a Chump tag.

Verdict: Chump

Chris Archer (SP, TB) ADP: 57

Archer's W-L record in 2016 was an atrocious 9-19, but fantasy owners (hopefully) stopped caring about it years ago. His 4.02 ERA was acceptable, especially with both FIP (3.81) and xFIP (3.41) suggesting improvement moving forward. A 27.4% K% is very exciting, as evidenced by his current ADP.

I'm all for SABR-stats, but I think we're collectively pulling the trigger way too early here. For starters, he scrapped his 2-seamer entirely (10.6% usage in 2015) to throw his 4-seamer more. It got torched, allowing a .280/.374/.530 line with 17 HR in 344 PAs. The pitch also lost velocity relative to 2015 (95 mph to 94.3). Archer does not seem to possess a MLB fastball, a very challenging problem to overcome. He also lacks a reliable secondary pitch outside of a fantastic slider (19.2% SwStr%, 44.3% chase rate, 45.8% Zone%). In fact, the only other offering in Archer's repertoire is a meh change (12.3% SwStr%, 31% chase, 43.7% Zone%).

His 16.2% HR/FB seems fluky, but Statcast data may support it in the form of barrels. Put simply, barrelled baseballs are those with a combination of exit velocity and launch angle that make them most likely to ruin a pitcher's day. Archer's unimpressive heat and limited repertoire options may have contributed to his allowing 41 barrels in 2016, tied for fourth most in all of MLB. If the stat proves predictive, Archer may be doomed to underperform his peripherals forever.

It is debatable whether barrels are really predictive of anything, since Statcast data remains a brand new toy. Still, elite strikeout rates are not typically the result of one decent pitch, which is all Archer really has. I expect the homers to keep flying in the AL East, while Archer's K% declines and his ERA remains where it was last year. No way am I drafting him as an ace.

Verdict: Chump