Overreacting in Fantasy Baseball

This guy is on fire! But should you pick him up after 1 good weekend?

The baseball season is underway and that means the Fantasy Baseball season is alive and well, too. I mean, seriously (sorry for the 12 year old girl speak), what is better than waking up every day to check the schedule of games to see when your players are playing? OK, other than waking up to a Pete’s Kitchen breakfast burrito…that is pretty special, too.

The Rockies are terrible. They aren’t going to win 60 games this year…they have only won one of their first four! Carlos Gonzalez is swinging at every pitch thrown his way and the team’s overall defensive performance is the exact opposite of what Tom Emanski has been teaching for years. The team doesn’t have a starter other than Juan Nicasio (and possibly Drew Pomeranz) who is worthy of a spot in a big league rotation and Dexter Fowler will be reassigned to the minor leagues by the end of next week.

Don’t overreact.

Your fantasy team is awful. You drafted Dan Haren high in your draft and the Kansas City Royals just blasted him off of the field. Giancarlo Stanton was supposed to hit for big power and Omar-fricking-Infante has three more bombs than the beast in Miami.

Don’t overreact.

The guys you drafted on draft day, for the most part, are still better bets than many of the players sitting on the free agent list. Tyler Colvin might be a nice pickup because he flashed some power two years ago, but that Fowler demotion or even a public stated platoon between Fowler and Colvin is still at least a few weeks away. Fowler is one hot game away from respectable numbers and if he gets two or three hits in back-to-back games the talk of a platoon will be a thing of the past.

It has been said many times but a cold streak at the start of the season is no different than one in July. The only difference is that right now when Root Sports (or whoever locally provides your teams coverage) flashes a players stats that .088 batting average looks really ugly. With a few hundred at-bats under the belt in June an 0’fer streak will not put a dent in an average.

The season is 162 games and six months long so do not overreact to four games played in the past five days. As of right now the Rockies (and your fantasy team) have played less than 3% of the games they will play this year.

Remember Chris Shelton from a few years ago in Detroit? Shelton had nine home runs by April 17th in 2006 and everyone was jumping on his bandwagon. Shelton only played in 115 games in ’06 and only hit seven more home runs the rest of the year. His final line of .273/.340/.466 was good but he didn’t even play in the big leagues in 2007. In fact, since ’06 he has only played in 50 games in the big leagues with his last game coming in 2009.

Before you fall for Kyle Seager and pick him up in favor of someone like Ryan Roberts wait a bit, if you can. If you have a deep bench and are currently starting Edwin Encarnacion then Seager might be worth a bench spot to see if he continues to hit, but don’t overreact and drop a proven guy like Aramis Ramirez in favor of Seager because you have talked yourself into the old/young argument.

On the other end there are guys who performed very well in their first start, but don’t fall for those either. Barry Zito shut down the Rockies yesterday and Jason Hammel nearly threw a no-hitter, but we know who these guys are and we know they are going to get lit up. Don’t take the risk.

There are many fantasy experts who say they don’t look at their leagues standings until May 1st as there is just too much fluctuation during the first month of the season. Come May 1st you can assess your team and start to make moves. Dropping a player you picked up in the 10th round for a guy who had a hot weekend is bad management.

With all of that being said…

Check out Derek Lowe. He had a rough year last year but if his sinker is right he is worth a spot on a fantasy team. Jeff Samardzija is also worth a roster spot. He past performance doesn’t indicate that there will be an uptick in future performance but a lot of the scouting types who have watched him for years see something different in his arm angle and his stuff. His 8 2/3 inning performance over the weekend might be an indicator of what is to come this year. Especially remarkable was the fact that he didn’t walk a batter in his outing and one of his major issues in years past has been his control.

I haven’t update my fantasy rankings yet for this very reason. I want to see at least a week’s worth of baseball before moving players around.

Is there anyone playing right now we need to keep our eye on? Let me know below.

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