Fantasy baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. Unlike other fantasy sports, the season is long and drags as the weeks roll on. However, because it is such a grind, fantasy managers can lose focus on what is important and what is not. That allows astute fantasy managers to take advantage.
When we are super early into the season, we see hot and cold streaks as more important than they are. The numbers we use to gauge players aren’t a large enough sample to be meaningful yet. A three or four-game hot streak wouldn’t even be noticeable in the middle of the season, but since it is all we have to work off of right now, it gets overblown. If someone in your league is ready to overreact, then take advantage of their impatience.
* You’ll notice three values for Shohei Ohtani: Hitter-Only, Pitcher-Only, Combined.
Players to Buy Low & Sell High
Here are some players that I would try to buy low or sell high right now.
Sell High
Cron has started on an absolute tear hitting .467/.529/.1.200 with three home runs in his first four games. Typically Cron is great at home and struggles away from Coors field, but because the Rockies have yet to play at Coors this year, he isn’t experiencing the “Coors Hangover” that hitters run into because of the ball moving differently in the thin air in Colorado versus the sea-level air in other parks. Cron will head to Coors this weekend and I would expect him to go back to being a really great player at home and bad on the road making him a really good sell high candidate after their first homestand.
Cooper has started off the year well, hitting .375/.375/.688 with a home run in his first four games. It is great to see Cooper playing great, but it is likely to be short-lived. He is swinging outside the zone a ton and striking out a lot as well. He also has competition on the roster with Yuli Gurriel being brought in late in spring training and Jorge Soler occupying the DH most nights. Once he slows down, he won’t likely be a full time player, so if you can move him now, it is for the best.
Kelly had a short first start, but it was a scoreless one. However, it was short for a reason. He allowed three hits and four walks in the outing and had an xERA of 11.57. Kelly is a guy that really relies upon being able to get out of innings quickly and his inability to find the strike zone in this one could have crushed him. He was also down a mile per hour on the fastball which is concerning. With another start at the Dodgers coming up, I would be trying to move him.
Gray had a scoreless outing as well with the same type of warts as Kelly. He allowed four walks in his five innings and got extremely lucky in the BABIP department. He struck out just one in the outing and gave up 91% contact in the zone which is extremely scary. I was afraid of Gray before the start of the season and nothing in this first start tells me I was wrong.
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