Fantasy Baseball six-pack: Jose Abreu is ready to surge

If you happen to prefer your stats with a dash of meaningful context, today you're in luck. We're bringing you another fantasy baseball six-pack of statistics to help make sense of the MLB landscape. Let's start with a former MVP who hasn't exactly met expectations in the early weeks...

94.3 - Jose Abreu ranks fourth in the majors in average exit velocity at the moment (94.3 mph), with weirdly little to show for it in terms of box-score production. He's just behind Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez on the EV leaderboard and a few spots ahead of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Mike Trout. You'd think that would translate into something more than three homers and a .625 OPS, but it hasn't to this point. Abreu seems like a screaming buy in fantasy.

39 - The Tampa Bay Rays have 39 stolen base attempts this season, the highest total in MLB. This seems like a very good thing for young Vidal Brujan if he can ever get himself on base. Randy Arozarena hasn't entirely satisfied fantasy managers to this point, but the six steals have kept him relevant. Detroit has been the least aggressive (and least successful) team on the bases this year, in case you were wondering, with only five steals in 10 attempts. Ron LeFlore ain't walking through that door.

25.5 - Marcus Semien's hard-hit percentage is just 25.5, among the lowest in baseball and a mile below the rate he produced last season (41.3) when he launched a career-high 45 homers. Unlike the situation with Abreu, Semien's dreadful start is underpinned by dreadful batted-ball data. His next home run this season will be his first. His current OPS (.432) is lower than Manny Machado's OBP (.438). If there are reasons to be hopeful regarding Semien, they can't be found in anything he's done this season.

11 - Pirates right-handed pitching prospect Roansy Contreras has allowed only 11 hits over 22.1 innings so far this season, splitting time between Triple-A and the majors. He's struck out 30 batters to this point, showcasing the same stuff that resulted in a 12.7 K/9 and 0.93 WHIP last year over 58.0 minor league innings. Here's hoping he gets a real shot to stick in the big leagues now that Mitch Keller is apparently out of the starting mix.

6 - Dodgers prospect Miguel Vargas has a streak of six consecutive multi-hit games at Oklahoma City, raising his season slash to .317/.418/.514. Vargas hit .319/.380/.526 with 23 homers across two minor league levels last year, too. He's spent time defensively at first, second and third this season, so L.A. has a few potential paths to get the 22-year-old's bat in the lineup.

3.6 - Only 3.6 percent of all batted balls allowed by Adrian Houser this year have been barreled, the eighth lowest rate among qualifiers. It puts him in outstanding company, obviously. Houser has given up only one homer on the season and, per his usual, very few fly balls. He was a tough-luck loser against Atlanta on Tuesday, striking out six batters over 6.0 frames and allowing just one unearned run. The Padres will test him in his next turn. Houser isn't some secret ace, necessarily, but he's at least looking like a useful fantasy piece.