It can be difficult to draft players who, for lack of a better term, screwed you last season, but just like you and me, we all have off days, or in this context, off years. In baseball, there are usually indicators that will tell us if we can expect more of the same in the future or if it’s simply an outlier. Sure, you may have been burned, or you simply just can’t stand the look of that 4.56 ERA or .220 AVG, but fantasy sports is about doing everything possible to win a championship and that includes drafting certain players who disappointed fantasy owners in the previous season.

Now obviously not all players will magically turn it around the following season, but we asked our featured pundits below who they believe has a bounce-back season in store.

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Q1. Name one hitter you expect to have a bounce-back season after disappointing fantasy owners.

Matt Holliday (1B/LF – NYY)
“I like Matt Holliday moving back to the American League, where the womb of the DH can help extend his career. I expect a meaty gain in batting average – maybe 30 or 40 points – along with decent run production and power in New York. The Yankees knew how to handle Carlos Beltran in recent years, and I think they’ll get a similar final push from Holliday. This isn’t a sexy pick, but it’s priced for profit.”
– Scott Pianowski (Yahoo! Sports)

Jason Heyward (CF/RF – CHC)
“Heyward has been around for seven seasons already, and he had arguably his worst in 2016. In 142 games with the World Series-winning Cubs, Heyward mustered an unsightly .230/.306/.325 slash line, along with just seven (!) homers and 11 stolen bases. That simply is not the player that Jason Heyward is. While he’s never actually lined up a 20/20 season, his career highs are 27 homers and 23 steals, so he’s certainly capable of the feat. He’ll be 27 in 2017, so there should be plenty of tread left on the tires, and I fully expect him to bounce back with a season closer to what he averaged in his first six seasons as a pro–at least 15/15 and a batting average between .270-.280.”
– Bill Dubiel (RotoBaller)

Jose Abreu (1B – CWS)
“While it may be difficult point to Jose Abreu’s .293-25-100 campaign in 2016 as a disappointment, those who called his name in the first two rounds of drafts last year were left wanting just a little more. Abreu tallied a pair of 30+ home run seasons during his first two years of big league action and has driven in over 100 in all three major league seasons. His metrics across the board look similar or even improved from his 2015 season — he bumped his walk rate and cut down on strikeouts last season — but watched his hard-hit rate drop for the third consecutive year. Entering his age-30 season, Abreu is still in the midst of his prime and if we take a deeper look at his struggles in 2016, we see a tale of two seasons. On June 1, the Cuban slugger sat with a .237/.301/.374 slash line, tallying just 6 home runs and 28 RBI over 53 games. He was a .322/.379/.516 hitter after that date, ripping 19 homers and 72 RBI in his final 106 games. Adjustments are critical to extended success in the big leagues and despite a disappointing start to the 2016 season, Abreu proved that he can be an elite power producer. Take the draft day discount and bank on Abreu once again, mashing 30+ home runs for your squad.”
– Wayne Bretsky (BretskyBall)

Miguel Sano (3B/RF/DH – MIN)
“Perhaps most people wouldn’t qualify Miguel Sano as a bounceback candidate because they may assume he was just falling back into the negative regression everyone expected after breaking onto the scene as a rookie. I see things the other way, however. What we saw of Sano in 2015 with a .269 BA, 18 HR and 52 RBI in 80 games was the real Miguel. In fact, that performance, as most rookie campaigns are, was just scratching the surface of the home run hitting mammoth Sano can become. If he can stay on the field, I believe Sano will hit around 40 homers this season with over 90 RBI in his bounce-back this year.”
– Bobby Sylvester (FantasyPros)

Q2. Name one pitcher you expect to have a bounce-back season after disappointing fantasy owners.

Dallas Keuchel (SP – HOU)
“I’m throwing all of Dallas Keuchel’s 2016 stats in the shredder – he clearly wasn’t healthy. And while no one expects him to go back to 2015 levels, the 2014 ratios – 2.93 ERA, 1.18 WHIP – seem attainable to me, so long as Keuchel’s body holds up. Watch him very closely this spring.”
– Scott Pianowski (Yahoo! Sports)

“Though we can set aside major injuries for pitchers, it is nearly impossible to avoid finding health issues with any “disappointing” hurler. Dallas Kuechel was able to battle through shoulder issues to pitch 168 innings (26 starts), though his 4.55 ERA left many wondering what happened to the defending Cy Young winner coming off of back-to-back sub-3.00 ERA seasons. Even with the nagging injury, Kuechel was not quite as bad as the numbers showed, posting a 3.53 xFIP for the year. He continues to keep the ball on the ground (56.7 GB% in 2016) coupled with a strikeout rate hovering near 8 K/9. Early reports that the “major inflammation” he experienced in his rotator cuff last season has subsided has us buying.”
– Wayne Bretsky (BretskyBall)

Zack Greinke (SP – ARI)
“Greinke is a huge candidate to bounce back after his worst season since 2005. The perennial ace posted a 4.37 ERA (and a 4.12 FIP, so there wasn’t much flukiness to it) across 158.2 innings, and while he dealt with injuries during the season, he was still a far cry from the pitcher that finished second in Cy Young voting in 2015. Assuming that Greinke is totally healthy, he should return to form in his age-33 season with an ERA much closer to what we’ve seen over the last three seasons (2.91).”
– Bill Dubiel (RotoBaller)

Chris Archer (SP – TB)
“With all the aces who had disappointing 2016 seasons, it is difficult to pick one over all the others; to me, Chris Archer stands out as the most likely to be perceived as having a bounce-back in 2017. The reason I say perceived is because his stats (8.2 H/9, 3.0 BB/9, 10.4 K/9) were not actually much worse than his two dominant seasons in 2015 and 2016. The only difference was that Archer’s ERA was somehow 80 points worse and he was charged with 19 losses despite similar underlying statistics. What’s more is that in the second-half last season, we saw the best Chris Archer has to offer and fantasy owners can bank on that carrying over into this fantasy season.”
– Bobby Sylvester (FantasyPros)

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