Repeat after me: The fantasy baseball season is less than one week old. Rule number one of this column is not to overreact to what’s transpired so far.
Outside of situations where a player’s role on his team has substantially shifted — inheriting the closer role, earning an everyday starting job thanks to a teammate’s injury, etc. — it would be foolhardy to believe a player’s outlook has dramatically changed based on a handful of games. As the season progresses, we’ll be digging into advanced metrics in search of buying and selling opportunities, but the sample sizes are too small to tell much of anything yet. After all, as of Monday morning, Matt Davidson was on pace for 243 home runs, while Paul Goldschmidt, Jose Ramirez, and Andrew Benintendi were still looking for their first hit.
That doesn’t mean you should stand pat and rest on your laurels. Now is the time to be scouring the waiver wire for breakout candidates, and it’s also never too early to explore the trade market.
If you drafted too much depth at one position and not enough at another, maybe you can balance out your roster by striking a deal. Plus, if a player you were high on just last week has started out the season in a slump, it doesn’t hurt to float a trade offer to his potentially-impatient owner.
Here are some buy and sell candidates for week one.
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Players to Buy
Hunter Strickland (RP – SF)
This one is as much a bet against Mark Melancon’s health as anything else. Strickland has been a popular waiver wire addition in the season’s opening week, but he is also a buy-low candidate if his owner is merely viewing him as a short-term fill-in. Bruce Bochy has tried to sound optimistic that Melancon can return in a few weeks, which isn’t surprising given that he’s only in the second year of a four year, $62 million contract.
But this is a 33-year old pitcher with a lot of mileage on his arm, who is suffering through pain that feels “very similar” to what he felt before undergoing surgery last September. Strickland, who has long profiled as a potential closer-in-waiting, successfully converted his first two save chances and could easily be the Giants’ closer for the rest of the season.
Rougned Odor (2B – TEX)
Odor barely managed to hit above the Mendoza line last season (.204), so it’s conceivable that some of his owners are already panicking now that he’s begun the season 1-for-12 with four strikeouts. If so, he’s a terrific buy-low option. Odor remains a great bet to put up another 30 HR, 15 SB season, and his batting average should rebound into the .250-.270 range as his league-worst BABIP from 2017 normalizes.
Lorenzo Cain (OF – MIL)
This one qualifies as a buy-high. Cain had an average draft position (ADP) of only 83.2 this spring — a spot where he would have been a good value even if he were still playing in Kansas City. Cain was the 76th-best player in standard 5×5 roto leagues last season, but he would have finished much higher if he had benefited from a stronger supporting cast.
His .303 batting average, 15 HRs, and 26 SBs in 2017 were nearly identical to the .307-16-27 line he produced in 2015 when he was the 21st-most valuable player in 5×5 leagues — the only difference was that he scored and drove in far fewer runs last year. Now, he’s going to benefit from a far better lineup, a far better home ballpark, and a manager who loves his players to be aggressive on the base paths. Cain has stolen a base in each of his first three games, and stolen base attempts is one statistic that could be quite predictive despite the small sample size.
Players to Sell
Matt Davidson (1B/3B/DH – CWS)
Davidson hit 26 home runs in just 414 at-bats last season, so it doesn’t qualify as a shock that he mashed three home runs on Opening Day. But he also struck out in 37.2 percent of his plate appearances in 2017, a K-rate that trailed only Keon Broxton among players with at least 400 plate appearances.
Considering he doesn’t steal bases and is unlikely to hit higher than .220, Davidson will need to approach 40 homers to be of much use in standard 12-team mixed leagues. He’s never even hit 30 at any level of professional baseball, so that’s not something fantasy owners can count on.
Adam Eaton (CF – WSH)
Eaton is a fine fantasy option, and if he’s able to stay healthy, it’s certainly possible that he can repeat his 2015 season when he compiled a .289-98-14-56-18 line and finished as the 55th-most valuable fantasy player in standard 5×5 leagues. Maybe he can even top 100 runs scored for the first time in his career hitting atop a loaded Nationals lineup. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Eaton is a 29-year old player who has never hit 15 home runs or stolen 20 bases in a season.
He’s also only played more than 123 games twice in his Major League career, and Nationals manager Dave Martinez has said he’ll look for opportunities to limit Eaton’s workload coming off last season’s torn ACL in his left knee. Eaton’s 2015 season looks close to a best-case scenario, so if someone in your league is willing to pay a top-50 price, he could be worth moving.
Felix Hernandez (SP – SEA)
King Felix had a nice start to his season, tossing 5 1/3 innings of shutout ball to pick up a win over the Indians on Opening Day. If you play in a league with less savvy managers, that could present an opportunity to sell Hernandez as the Felix of old. Hernandez has had a great career, and may still have something left in the tank for the Mariners and fantasy owners alike, but he’s nowhere near the pitcher he once was.
Over the last three seasons, Hernandez’s velocity and strikeout rate have plummeted, his walk rate has grown, and he’s given up almost twice as many home runs. Last year, his FIP was over 5.00. Even if he has a bounceback season, he’s unlikely to provide anything more than back-end starter numbers in a 12-team mixed league.
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Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.
