We are still far from the point in the season where you should be looking at the standings. At a minimum, you should consider your place in the standings irrelevant until at least May 15th, if not June 1st. There’s just too much noise in the data to draw any meaningful conclusions prior to that point.
But that does not mean that you should refrain from examining your team’s strengths and weaknesses just because it is only mid-April. Perhaps your rotation looks weaker than you expected because of Mike Clevinger‘s injury, or perhaps now that Adalberto Mondesi seems legitimate, you’re more confident in your position in steals than you were coming out of the draft.
Your focus should always be to try to make a realistic assessment of your team and to determine how to fix any problems even before they’re visible to the naked eye. To that end, you should always be scouring the trade market for ways to improve.
And to help you in that endeavor, you should consult our rotisserie-league trade chart. As always, we’ll continue to update the values each and every week until your trade deadline passes, pointing out how the values have shifted and offering you explanations as to why.
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As you can see, the majority of the significant moves are to starting pitchers, as even a few positive or negative starts can confirm or deny your pre-season values. For example, I personally was wary of Patrick Corbin, given his velocity fluctuation and overwhelming reliance on his slider last year. But his early returns are incredibly encouraging, enough so that I believe his value should be right in the Zack Greinke and Stephen Strasburg range.
At the same time, I was incredibly bullish on a fully-healthy Chris Archer and a full year out of the American League East, and his first few starts have only helped to fan the flames of my enthusiasm. My reluctance to value him just below the Corbin/Greinke/Strasburg tier is now gone, and his value rises accordingly.
Other significant pitching movements came to the values of Clayton Kershaw, James Paxton, Tyler Glasnow, and Matthew Boyd. The former two quieted some doubts in their most recent starts, while the latter two have shown consistently solid production suggesting that their strong finishes to the 2018 season were not a fluke.
Some hitters also took significant moves, including Marcell Ozuna and Kris Bryant, albeit in opposite directions. Ozuna homered again on Wednesday, making that five long-balls in his last four games. Ozuna’s overall metrics are not overwhelming. He’s walking less, striking out more, and not hitting the ball particularly hard, at least not consistently. But he looks to be very clearly past the shoulder woes that derailed his 2018 season, and his recent production suggests that a return to the 30-homer plateau that he reached with ease in 2017 may be in the cards.
Kris Bryant’s early returns, on the other hand, show much of the same from his poor 2018 season. Bryant ranks 211th in the game in average exit velocity and has barreled just three balls all year. After a 2018 season that saw him hit just 13 home runs, Bryant’s slow start is enough to warrant caution when trading for him. As you can see, Bryant’s value has not fallen off a cliff. But it is fair to think long and hard before making a move for him.
The remainder of your risers and fallers are much more a product of constantly revisiting rankings and re-calibrating values. More movement will come each and every week. But for now, consult the values, and may all your trades be prosperous.
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Dan Harris is a featured writer for FantasyPros. For more from Dan, check out his archive or follow him on Twitter @danharris80.