Sure, it’s only a little more than week into the regular season for Major League Baseball. But it’s never too early to start shaping a fantasy team for the season.
The best fantasy players pick on the ones who lose interest or are fan boys. Fan boys get really excited in the moment, and see a week’s worth of production as a sign of things to come.
Fan boys don’t always grab the hook right away. It’s never a bad strategy to put out feelers early, just in case that person may pay attention for the next few weeks, and may take first month’s success as a sure indication of what’s to come for the rest of the season.
Here are three players who if they’re on your team, it might be of best interest to start shopping them in anticipation of a collapse in the next few weeks.
Edinson Volquez
Edinson has the capability of turning in quality performances. In his first start of the season, he showed his capabilities, scattering five hits, allowing one run over eight innings, and striking out five. The WHIP also registered a 0.63, giving owners a glimmer of hope with Volquez.
For how good he can be on occasion, he can be that bad, too.
Last year, he turned in a 13-7 performance with a strong end to the season. That’s where he can be really good. He also turned in an above 5 ERA in the month of May. What last year doesn’t tell us is that his ERA for the previous seasons were 5.71, 6.01, 4.18, 4.14, 5.71, and so on.
Other than a quality 2008 with more than 200 strikeouts, he’s registered more than 150 strikeouts once.
Innings also pose a problem. In 2008, he logged 196 innings. The year after, he had 49.2 innings. Last year was the most innings he’s thrown since 2008. This also is the first year in the American League since 2007, where the offense is more potent.
He’s a decent option to have on a fantasy team. But if he lights it up in the first part of the season, he may be able to generate a quality position player in a trade.
Bartolo Colon
Pitchers can be found on the waiver wire. Grab a dominant starting pitcher to go along with a closer and a set up man if your league has holds.
Colon is 2-0 with a 2.77 ERA and a 0.77 WHIP already this season. He’s matched those numbers with 13 strikeouts. If he’s on your team, you’ve already gotten more out of him than you likely thought.
It’s not that Colon has been bad in the past few years, but it’s just a matter of time before he breaks down.
His trade value likely won’t be very high because most owners will realize that he’s likely to not keep up anything close to this pace. It’s likely that his trade value won’t be higher than it is now, and if he can string together a few more quality starts, he may look just attractive enough to lure someone into taking a gamble on him.
Matt Holliday
Maybe last year was just an aberration. Last year pretty much all the major statistical categories were down from the previous year, giving owners headaches with what to do with him. Last year, he would be hot for a week, but down for multiple ones at a time.
It’s difficult to structure a weekly contender with that sort of production.
This year he’s looked more like his previous self, getting on base and hitting above .300. He’s still missing the RBI and home run production, making his value stay relatively similar from the beginning of the season.
He’s just not trustworthy to put up numbers in fantasy categories, so put him on the block to see if he gets any bites.
