There's less than a month until the MLB Postseason and the standings remain entirely unsettled. Very few teams are truly secure in their position right now. As always, baseball is a chaotic and mercurial sport, where nothing is ever quite as it seems. This is the time of year for surprises. A player can struggle for months on end, just to hit their stride in mid-September and completely change the World Series race.
In the spirit of such magical turnarounds, here are seven MLB "stars" who could move the needle for their respective teams with a timely bump in productivity:
RHP Freddy Peralta | Tampa Bay Rays
The Mets brought in Freddy Peralta last winter to serve as their primary ace. Instead, he completely fell off the map and was shipped to Tampa Bay at the trade deadline as a pennies-on-the-dollar rental.
The early returns on the Peralta trade were grim. He put up a 7.17 ERA and 5.77 FIP in his first four starts for the Rays. Don't look now, but the tide is turning — maybe. Peralta has back-to-back quality starts since then, with one earned run allowed in 12.0 innings. He has 11 strikeouts and a 2.59 FIP in wins over Detroit and New York, the latter serving as a revenge game.
Silver linings have been few and far between for Peralta this season, but he finished third in NL Cy Young voting a year ago. To act like he was dead and buried was always a stretch, and Tampa's track record of "fixing" pitchers is unrivaled. If Peralta can rediscover his fastball and better locate that changeup, watch out. The Rays certainly need the help.
SS Trea Turner | Philadelphia Phillies
Trea Turner will get paid $27.3 million per year through 2033, so it would sure benefit the Phillies if he started living up to his contract, even a little bit. On the heels of a triumphant 2025 campaign, it felt like Turner was on stable ground for a while. Alas, he has promptly posted career lows in average (.239) and OPS (.669) this season, with an all-blue Baseball Savant page.
It's not hard to discern the "problem" with Turner. He's just whiffing on everything, with an elevated chase rate and less in-zone contract than we're used to from a two-time NL batting champ. Turner is still an electric base-runner and he dials up the power on occasion. It's not like he's completely unplayable. But for a Phillies team with depth problems aplenty, they need their stars to play like stars. Turner has totally dropped the baton this season.
It does not help that he's a minor disaster at shortstop, completely undoing all the progress he made last season, when his five-tool production landed him fifth in NL MVP voting. If Turner can turn it around down the stretch, that might be enough to catapult the Phillies into the real contenders circle. Absent that, It's much too easy to poke holes in Philadelphia's roster.
3B José Ramírez | Cleveland Guardians
Coming into this season, José Ramírez finished top-10 in AL MVP voting for six straight years (and top-five in four of those six years). Unfortunately, the 33-year-old has found himself undermined by injuries and uncharacteristically muted at the plate. His .714 OPS and 99 wRC+ simply does not align with the five-tool superstar we've come to know over the last decade.
Luckily for Cleveland, there's reason to believe Ramírez can turn it around. The metrics under the hood are quite promising; he's still extremely disciplined, with low strikeouts and high walks. His expected average (.274) far outpaces his actual average (.238), an indicator of bad luck that should eventually turn.
Ramírez's résumé is much too strong for the Guardians to worry. He's still an excellent defender with 31 stolen bases and counting, so he will continue to provide value on the margins, even if the bat stays cold. If Ramírez can catch a spark, however, that would mean a world of difference for a Guardians team on the AL Wild Card bubble.
SS Otto Lopez | Miami Marlins
If the season ended at the All-Star break, there's a nonzero chance Otto Lopez would've finished third in NL MVP voting behind Pete Crow-Armstrong and Shohei Ohtani. Unfortunately, the talented shortstop has been on a precipitous decline since then, with a .553 OPS since the calendar flipped to August.
The Marlins are currently four games back of the final NL WIld Card spot. Miami has the talent and the schedule — with Arizona and San Diego on the docket — to climb back into the fray. Given how strong the Marlins finished last season, and considering the young talent up and down their lineup, the path certainly exists. But Lopez is their guiding light, and such a run would require him putting his best foot forward.
Lopez is not a typical star for the modern age; he's a slap-hitter focused on contact and quickness over raw power, with a ton of value rooted in his elite glovework at shortstop. To his credit, Lopez continues to clean up in the middle infield, and he's a dangerous base-runner to boot. He just needs to start making more solid contact; his .224 average over the last month, with just one home run and a .288 slugging percentage, won't cut it.
C Adley Rutschman | Boston Red Sox
Boston overpaid for Adley Rutschman at the trade deadline by all accounts, sacrificing their two most talented pitching prospects to pry the All-Star catcher away from a division rival. It was a bold move (complimentary), rooted in a desire to maximize a wide-open World Series window. The American League is mediocre across the board and Boston has the pitching depth and offensive firepower to get the job done.
Rutschman was meant to move the needle. Instead, coming off of a nagging elbow injury, Rutschman has struggled to find his rhythm at the plate. The switch-hitting catcher has a .180 average and .598 OPS since joining the Red Sox lineup in mid-August. That is not what the Red Sox paid for. Rutschman has another year on his contract, so this is not strictly a short-term calculus, but Boston moved mountains to acquire Rutschman with the clear intent to topple their AL opponents come October.
Of note, Rutschman homered twice in his return to Baltimore on Thursday, which could be a sign of the changing tide. Inconsistency has been a problem for Rutschman in recent years, but he's without question one of the most talented catchers in baseball. If he can find his swing, with Roman Anthony back in the lineup and back to hitting nukes, the Red Sox match up with anyone.
1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | Toronto Blue Jays
Perhaps the most obvious candidate for this list, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has dramatically underperformed all season. He currently has a .692 OPS and 96 wRC+, grading out effectively as a below-average bat with a 0.9 fWAR — worst among Blue Jays regulars. This is the same Vladdy Jr. who went blow-for-blow with the best players in MLB last postseason and came oh so close to leading Toronto to a World Series victory.
Guerrero has eight home runs on the season and zero at his home ballpark. He's on pace for career lows across the board, essentially. And yet, Guerrero is still exceptionally talented. Much has been made of his $500 million contract and what it means for Toronto if Guerrero continues this slide. But under the hood, it feels like Guerrero is a couple small tweaks away from a monster breakthrough — not unlike Cal Raleigh in Seattle or Fernando Tatis Jr. in San Diego, two down-on-luck superstars who turned it around last month.
He does not strike out. Guerrero has always had a penchant for generating hard contact on pitches all over the zone, even occasionally outside the zone. He's chasing too many pitches right now, especially breaking balls down and away, but that's fixable. The exit velos are high. He's playing some of the best defense of his career at first base, which helps. At 27 years old, methinks it's a bit too early for the "Is Guerrero A Sunk Cost?" thinkpieces. Toronto is a half-game behind Cleveland for the final roster spot and we know what Guerrero — and this roster — is capable of.
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