Greetings ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first edition of “Buy/Sell” for the 2019 season! For those who remember the column from last year — and for those who don’t — here’s how it works. Each week, I’ll be covering three players to buy and three players to sell. We’ll alternate weeks between hitters and pitchers, beginning this week with the batsmen. It will typically be recommendations of players to buy low and sell high, but sometimes I’ll switch it up and offer a breakout star to buy high or a cratering has-been to sell low.
While the buy/sell terminology of this column typically lends itself to trades, the advice here will sometimes better apply to pickups and drops. If a recommended “buy” is available on the waiver wire in your league, the purchase price may be a simple waiver claim or perhaps some FAAB dollars. And if you can’t find a taker for a recommended “sell,” it’s possible in some cases that it’s time to just cut bait and move on with your life. I’ll try to be as clear with my recommendations as possible, but if you have any questions about your specific roster, feel free to ask me on Twitter @andrew_seifter.
That about does it for the rules and regulations, but before we jump in, it’s worth emphasizing that the 2019 baseball season is less than a week old. Christian Walker is not going to win the batting title. Tim Beckham and Kolten Wong are not going to hit 40 homers. David Hess is not going to win the Cy Young award.
Right now, most of the statistics we’re seeing are just noise. Every hitter will have a hot streak at some point in the season, some just happen to have theirs during Week 1. The same thing applies to slumps. If you’re drastically adjusting your preseason evaluations for tons of players based on the first three or four games of a 162-game season, you’re overreacting.
As the season progresses, this column will evolve, taking a deeper dive into advanced stats to uncover some important predictive indicators that don’t show up in the box score. There will, of course, be some unexpected breakout players this season, just like there are every year. But for now, we need something beyond a few games’ worth of statistics to justify buying into a player we were skeptical of at this time last week. If there isn’t some underlying explanation for a player’s improved performance, it’s probably just an opening week hot streak.
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Players to Buy
Eddie Rosario (OF – MIN)
If you play in a competitive league, you shouldn’t be able to acquire a bankable asset like Rosario at a discount following his 0-for-11 start, but it never hurts to ask. The weather in Minneapolis was unsurprisingly chilly to begin the year, and Rosario also had to face three ace-caliber Indians pitchers. It’s unreasonable to expect anyone who invested an early pick in Rosario to be panicking after three games, but perhaps you could acquire him for a solid-but-inferior outfielder who is off to a quick start, such as A.J. Pollock or Mallex Smith.
Andrew McCutchen (OF – PHI)
I was beating the drum for McCutchen in the preseason, so I’m not about to quit now just because he’s hitting .182 through three games. Cutch has already hit two home runs, which could limit the buying opportunity, but none of the other balls he’s put in play so far have fallen for hits. He’s also managed to draw three walks already, a promising early sign for my prediction that he will lead the league in runs scored. McCutchen (ADP 130) was drafted too late in most leagues to begin with, so perhaps his ugly batting average will extend the buying window for another week or two.
Domingo Santana (OF – SEA)
Here’s one of those buy highs I was talking about. Santana is off to a fabulous start, but this isn’t coming out of the blue. He put together a .278-30-15 season just two short years ago. It is particularly encouraging that Santana has settled into the top third of the Mariners’ batting order after struggling to even get onto the field last year in Milwaukee. Stolen bases are also something I like to emphasize early in the year — we can find out relatively quickly whether players and managers are interested in running aggressively — and Santana has got two of them already. Santana (ADP 229) wasn’t being properly appreciated by the fantasy community writ large coming into the season, so it’s quite possible that the Santana owner in your league doesn’t fully appreciate how good he can be.
Players to Sell
Joc Pederson (OF – LAD)
Pederson is off to a scorching start (.438 AVG, three HRs), and he’s even taken hold of the leadoff spot against right-handed pitchers. Unfortunately, he doesn’t even start when the Dodgers face a left-hander. Pederson’s power is legit — he’s reached the 25-HR plateau in three of the last four seasons and could do so again even in a part-time role. But he’s also a .230 lifetime hitter, and there is no reason to believe he’s suddenly going to be an asset in batting average. There may be some value to squeeze out of him as a platoon option in daily lineup leagues, but if someone in your league is expecting a bigger breakout, don’t hesitate to sell.
Tim Beckham (3B/SS – SEA)
Once upon a time, Beckham was the first overall pick in the 2008 June Amateur Draft. That gave him a bit of hype in dynasty and keeper leagues, but he did very little on the field as a professional to justify it. Even his minor league numbers weren’t great. Then, just when most people had given up on him, Beckham came out of nowhere to hit .278 with 22 home runs in 2017, before crashing back down to Earth last year. His 2017 numbers were always due for some significant regression, and have to be viewed as an absolute best-case scenario for 2019.
The far more likely scenario is that he performs like the middling player he’s been over the rest of his career. There’s no shame in riding out his current hot streak, but if you can get anything of long-term value for him, I’d sell quickly.
Kolten Wong (2B – STL)
Wong is another familiar name for prospect lovers. A former first-round pick who was once the number one second base prospect in baseball, Wong’s best season in the Majors was his first one, when he produced 12 home runs and 20 stolen bases back in 2014. He’s been a mediocre part-time player ever since, and while he stands a good chance to set a career high in plate appearances in 2019, there’s little reason to expect a major breakthrough to occur at age 28. He’s unlikely to provide much in the way of batting average or power and will struggle to provide big run production numbers while hitting towards the bottom of the Cardinals’ order, meaning he’ll probably need to run a lot to matter in mixed leagues. Wong is well worth adding off the waiver wire on the off chance he’s a late bloomer — I just grabbed him in my home league — but like Beckham, I wouldn’t hesitate to move him for anyone likely to provide season-long value.
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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.
