RADIO
Welcome to the inaugural edition of Roto Never Sleeps, where I’ll take a brief look at a handful of players around the league to determine if their stock is going up or plummeting to the ground. I’m here to help you identify players to target or trade to get you the sweet, sweet feeling of a fantasy championship.
MLB & Fantasy Baseball Week 1 Player Recap
Adrian Gonzalez, Los Angeles Dodgers
Color me extremely impressed with Gonzalez’s first three games. In the offseason, my take on A-Gonz was that he’s a low ceiling/high floor option. You could lock in 25 home runs with a respectable average, but not anything more. He’s done everything in his power to prove me wrong, tallying five home runs in just three games. His numbers will normalize, but it appears that he has a lot left in the tank entering his age 33 season. It looks like 30 home runs or more is a real possibility for Adrian this year; we’ll check back into him in a few weeks, assuming he doesn’t reach 30 home runs by then…
Masahiro Tanaka, New York Yankees
If you’re not worried about Tanaka yet, you should be. He had a dreadful outing in his first game, going just 4 innings and giving up four earned runs. The lone bright side was his six strikeouts, but what concerns me the most is how he’s openly discussing a shift in his pitching strategy this year by throwing more off-speed pitches. Why is this concerning? Because he was basically unhittable in 2014! You know the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Apparently he’s broken, because if he was pain-free, he’d be maintaining last year’s velocity and approach. Best case, he throws 170 innings this year, but realistically he’s a ticking time bomb. Deal him for decent value if you can, but avoid him in all formats if you can.
Adam Lind, Milwaukee Brewers
As he always does, Lind has been crushing right-handed pitching in the early going of 2015. Lind is a must own in leagues that allow daily lineup changes. Last year, Lind batted .321 in 96 games, including an ungodly .354 vs. right handers. What’s even more encouraging is that he hit his first home run already; if you were to gripe about anything last year, it was that he only had six home runs due to a career low 7.6% HR/FB rate vs. a career average of 14.9%. Daily leagues should use Lind against righties every chance you get, while weekly leagues should limit his usage unless you know he has at least five games slated against RHP. He’s poised for another year of an average around .300, but with more power.
Billy Hamilton, Cincinnati Reds
Hamilton went 3 for 5 with a walk and three stolen bases on Wednesday, giving him four on the young season. We’re only two games in, but a more patient approach at the plate would pay enormous dividends for Hamilton owners. He’s still just 24, so perhaps he’ll come to realize that a walk is almost as good as a double. It’s too early to tell which Hamilton we’ll see, but at the very least things are pointing in the right direction.
Jake Odorizzi, Tampa Bay Rays
Odorizzi flew a little bit under the radar this year, but opened a lot of eyes yesterday after pitching 6.2 innings with seven strikeouts while allowing just two hits to the Orioles. There was a lot to like with Odorizzi last year as he was a great source of strikeouts (9.32 K/9) and sported a reasonable ERA of 4.13, which should’ve been a little better as evidenced by his 3.75 FIP and 3.66 SIERA. At age 25, we can reasonably project a sub 3.50 ERA with a K rate over 9, which can put Odorizzi as a strong number 2 candidate in any rotation. If you can get him on your roster, do it now before another owner realizes the potential.
Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado Rockies
Is Cargo going to play a full season, or is he just roping us into another month of excellent production before inevitably finding his way on the disabled list? It’s too early to tell, but if there’s a healthy Cargo in this Rockies lineup… hide your children. Blackmon, Cargo, Tulo, Morneau, Arenado, and Dickerson arguably represent the best top six in the league – and they play half their games in Colorado! Through three games outside of Coors Field, the offense has put up 20 runs already. The Rockies have the ability to set all kinds of records if they can finally stay healthy. That’s a big if, but with that amount of talent, I’m willing to take the risk with Gonzalez. If you’re lucky, you can get him from an owner that drafted him at #2 OF value, but he has the potential to put up top 15 numbers in this lineup.
Do you have a player you want me to cover? Shoot a message on Twitter to @Silent_Investor
