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 which 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 we have so little to work off of right now, it gets overblown. If someone in your league is ready to overreact, then take advantage of their impatience. Here are some players that I would try and buy low and sell high on at this point in the season.
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Here are players to buy and sell this week in fantasy baseball.
Players to Buy Low
Mountcastle has been up and down this season, hitting just .237 but with 10 home runs and two stolen bases. However, he has actually been pretty unlucky in the batting average department with a .259 BABIP which is almost 50 points below his league average and a .280 xBA. He is making the best zone contact of his career. If you can get a discount, I would jump on it.
J-Rod has started off the season hitting just .204/.280/.376. He has hit for power and he has stolen bases which are a good sign and the underlying contact numbers are right in line with what he did last season. I would pay first round prices on Rodriguez, but you may be able to get him a bit cheaper than that.
Berrios has struggled this season throwing 52.2 innings with a 4.61 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP this season, but he has been pretty unlucky. He has a .324 BABIP and a 65% strand rate which are contributing to the bad numbers. His FIP is 3.60 , his xFIP is 3.72 and his SIERA is 3.72 He actually has the best walk rate, zone contact rate and swinging strike rate of his career and an improved home run rate. I think this is a decent opportunity to buy low on a guy that should be better the rest of the way.
Lynn has struggled this season, but he is finally starting to show some signs of life. IT may be a bit too late because he has turned in two good starts in the beginning, but there are probably some people who might be looking at this as an opportunity to get from under him. His contact numbers and swinging strike rate are all in line or better than his career average and the only real issue has been his home run rate which is starting to regress. Buy before it is too late.
Players to Sell High
Morel has been absolutely fantastic since getting called up, hitting .370/.396/.957 with eight home runs and a stolen base. So why would I try to sell him right now? Well, the underlying skills that prevented him from making the team out of spring training are on full display. Last season he had the worst zone contact of any hitter in Major League baseball and right now he has the second worst of any Major League player with at least 40 plate appearances and a 20% swinging strike rate which is the third worst in the Majors. This will all come crashing down at some point.
Rooker has been fantastic this season, hitting .284/.391/.567 with 11 home runs and a stolen base. However, the underlying numbers have been less than appealing for his prospects at keeping this up. He has a below average contact rate and bad swinging strike rate. He is struggling in the month of May, so if you can get rid of him for something of value before he returns to being a short side platoon player, I would.
Bassitt has been great especially if you look past his atrocious first start of the season. However, he continues to get lucky with an unsustainable .199 BABIP. In his most recent start he gave up three home runs, but only two of the six runs he gave up were earned, getting bailed out from being hurt from the bad outing. I think it is a matter of time that the 4.94 FIP and 4.78 xFIP come back to haunt him a bit.
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