There seems to be something hard-wired in fantasy baseball owners’ DNA that makes them suddenly start thinking about trading once the calendar flips to June.

It must be something about the season reaching the one-third mark that makes us think what’s happened already is no longer just a product of small sample sizes.

Mookie Betts has scored more than 50 runs and is on pace for 153. That would be the most in a single season since Lou Gehrig scored 167 in 1936. (Though should-be Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell did have 152 in 2000.)

Clayton Kershaw is a third of the way to a second consecutive 300-strikeout season, something no one has done since Randy Johnson. (Thank you, Baseball-Reference Play Index.)

For some reason, those and other numbers seem real now.

As the legendary Yogi Berra once said, “It gets late early out there.”

Maybe that’s why many fantasy owners are ramping up efforts to improve their teams before it’s too late.

One of the ways to do that is by acquiring players who have underachieved in the early going but still have significant upside. By now, it’s fairly easy to identify them because we’ve spent most of the first third of the season trying to figure out what’s gone wrong: Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, Jose Abreu, Carlos Gomez, Troy Tulowitzki, Dallas Keuchel, Chris Archer and Michael Wacha, to name a few.

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If you’re in the bottom half of your league, a bold move to acquire one (or more) of these underachievers might be your only hope of getting into contention.

Research done many years ago for the old Baseball Weekly Hot Sheet found that there’s an 80% chance the winner in any 12-team Rotisserie league will be one of the top three teams June 1. If you’re in fourth, your chances are 8%. In fifth, 4%. Beyond that … it takes a minor miracle.

That doesn’t mean we can’t swing for the fences.

I found myself in that situation last week, mired in 13th place in the 15-team LABR mixed league. Sitting last in home runs and RBI, I inquired about the one player who could single-handedly make my team more competitive: Giancarlo Stanton.

So I touched base with RotoExperts’ Jake Ciely, whose team was a few slots ahead of mine in the standings. To see if I could pique his interest, I sent him a cryptic email: “Danny Valencia, Kyle Hendricks and Jose Reyes for Stanton. Who says no?”

Ciely, the Stanton owner, did say no — even though Stanton was hitting .214 with 12 homers. But he added that we might have some common ground if I’d started with Todd Frazier instead.

When we held our draft in mid-February, I already was bullish on Frazier maintaining his power stroke with the Chicago White Sox. Sure enough, he’s among the major league leaders in homers with 17. But making a major move in the standings is going to require even more power.

I offered Frazier for Stanton straight up. Again no sale, and we agreed to part ways.

“Guess it’s a pipe dream,” I wrote back, “but I’d just love to have a share of Stanton when he busts out like El Chapo here very soon. It’s gonna happen.”

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A few days later, Ciely wrote back wondering if I would trade Frazier and Valencia for Stanton. But that was just as Stanton was in the process of missing several games with a rib injury.

To even out the two sides, our conversation turned to pitching. And he just happened to own another disappointing but high-upside player: Matt Harvey.

For a team in 13th place, that represents the best of both worlds. Stanton and Harvey could be the answer! Sadly, he wouldn’t take Frazier, Valencia and Jake Odorizzi for them. And the deal officially fell through when Harvey rebounded the next day by throwing seven scoreless innings against Frazier and the White Sox.

And Stanton’s impending bust-out? We’re still waiting for it.

Perhaps that’s just enough to give desperate owners the additional time to acquire him.

For more fantasy insight, including the one player most likely to switch leagues at the MLB trade deadline, check out the full column in the June 8 issue of USA TODAY Sports Weekly.