Which players' stone-cold starts should worry you?

— -- With almost the entire month of April in the books, playing-time totals are getting closer to the point where you can be legitimately excited or disappointed in a player's hot or cold start. Looking at the guys off to bad starts, who should you be genuinely worried about?

Position players

There's good news and bad news here. The spike in his strikeout rate is scary, but he's actually hit his fly balls harder than the MLB average thus far, though admittedly not as hard as we're accustomed to seeing from him. He hasn't pulled the ball as regularly as in the past; on the ground, that's good, as it will help him beat a shift every now and then. But in the air that's a bad thing; selectively pulling for distance is an indispensable part of his arsenal.

On balance, I'm not overly worried. Bautista is clearly in decline, but I see the pulling deficit as a minor timing issue more than anything else. But if he's still whiffing 30 percent of the time at the end of May, all bets are off.

Granderson found a comfy middle ground last season, cutting his popup rate to a career low while keeping his batting average out of the danger zone. This year, about a quarter of his fly balls have landed in infielders' gloves. That's a recipe for disaster. He's still a dead-puller on the ground, so there's no help there, and while his presently low line-drive rate should improve, it might not be enough to raise his average materially over .200. Even with his 20-homer power, that's a problem. I'd be worried.

Oh, and as an added bonus, Jose Reyes is cooked, in case you had any doubts. He's hitting tons of popups with no authority on any balls he puts into play. Paging David Wright, Amed Rosario, anyone...

It's been more "nothing" than "all" so far; the strikeout and walk rates are right where they always are, and he simply hasn't been able to square the ball up into the air. His popup rate is way up as well, adding another layer of concern.

As with Bautista, I'm not too worried -- yet. Trumbo is extremely streaky, and he has been hitting his line drives as hard as ever. Minor timing adjustments should lead to a homer spurt before too long. Temper your expectations, however; 2016 was a best-case scenario for Trumbo offensively. At least he's DHing more this time around.

He clearly hasn't been lucky this time around. His average fly ball velocity isn't all that bad, hovering just under 90 mph. That's a good thing when there's a bunch of 100-plus mph flies as part of that average. Unfortunately, a 90 mph fly ball is almost always an out, and Swanson hits a ton of them. Toss in his ongoing pull tendency on grounders plus poor strikeout and walk rates, and you've got a problem.

The diagnosis? Swanson isn't ready offensively and needs more minor league seasoning. He will grow into some power, but he needs to learn to use the entire field or it will be tough for him to bat .250.

What can the Twins do? The Reds faced a similar situation with Billy Hamilton, and they have opted to reap the defensive benefits of playing him as he works through his offensive issues at the MLB level. The stakes are even higher with Buxton, who has way more upside with the bat but also a much lower floor. Forced to choose, I'd use up a minor league option and let the new front office take a crack at fixing him in a lower-pressure environment down on the farm.

Pitchers

There's one more reason for optimism that's a little further under the radar. The grounders hit off of Samardzija have been struck very weakly thus far, but they have found more than their share of holes. His FIP has been running around three full runs better than his ERA; that sounds about right to me.

The good news is that Anderson continues to allow by far the weakest grounder contact numbers of any ERA-qualifying starting pitcher in either league. He has also been overly victimized by the mile-high air on his fly balls and liners allowed, as the actual damage allowed has been far greater than that suggested by the exit speeds yielded.

Anderson's rough start hasn't all been bad luck -- he needs to bring his fly-ball frequency back toward his 2016 levels. Even though everything looks bad now, his ceiling remains quite high.

Well, hitters stopped chasing pitches out of the zone against him, making a key adjustment against a pitcher with a nasty but limited repertoire. Few pitchers throw as many four-seam fastballs as Gausman does, and he can settle into predictable patterns.

The slider has become Gausman's key pitch. It's the only thing resembling an off-speed pitch in his mix, and it has been hit hard over his career. As long as it isn't working, the whole is less than the sum of his parts.

That said, there's still a lot to like here. Ground balls hit against him are struck very weakly, thanks in large part to his effective changeup -- well under 80 mph on average in the early going. This hasn't translated to success, as hitters are hitting over .300 on the ground against him. That will come back down in Davies' favor. He has also fallen victim to some initial bad luck on fly balls. Assuming his command returns, he'll post a sub-4.00 ERA when all is said and done.

Gsellman's poor early-season results have been driven by a rate of line drives allowed, which is highly likely to come back down. Hitters have wrought maximum damage on those liners, hitting over .800 and slugging almost 1.300, way worse than his exit speeds allowed would suggest. He was a great insurance policy for the Mets' rotation last year, and will be again in 2017.