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Dan looks at big fantasy baseball stories from the fifth week of the 2024 MLB season: MLB games in Mexico City, Elly De La Cruz finishing a monster April, and the White Sox sweeping the Rays.
Happy Monday, RotoBallers, it’s time again to start a new week by looking back at the one that just passed. Since my last roundup of MLB’s top stories, another international series took place, Elly De La Cruz racked up eight more stolen bases, and the White Sox won not just one, not two, but THREE games. In a ROW!
Major League Baseball returned to Mexico City for a short series featuring the Astros and Rockies. The games lacked the fireworks provided by last year’s series there but provided some exciting moments nonetheless. Elly De La Cruz’s torrid pace at the plate has slowed a bit in the last few days but what he has accomplished in the first month of the season has been nothing short of amazing. And in the biggest twist of the week, the lowly White Sox pulled off a sweep against the Rays.
In this series on RotoBaller, I take a look at the news and trends from the week that was and offer some thoughts on how they might affect fantasy baseball going forward. You can keep tabs on the latest happenings in Major League Baseball as they happen at our fantasy baseball news feed or by downloading our mobile app. Without further ado, let's get into some of the bigger stories from Week 5 of the MLB season.
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MLB World Tour: Mexico City
Major League Baseball made its second stop on its “World Tour” this past weekend. The host city’s 7,350-foot elevation (over 2,000 feet higher than that of Coors Field) spurred expectations for an offensive barrage, though nothing too far out of the ordinary occurred. The handful of home runs that were hit did have some extra carry, though.
Yordan Alvarez had a pair on Saturday that each went an estimated 462 feet per Statcast, helping the Astros put down the Rox 12-4. Kyle Tucker smoked a 456-foot bomb of his own on Sunday (his second of the weekend), drawing first blood in that Astros’ 8-2 victory that day.
A little poke from Yordan Alvarez puts the @Astros ahead. #MexicoCitySeries pic.twitter.com/irKIySPwRp
— MLB (@MLB) April 27, 2024
The wins snapped a five-game skid for Houston. The team has had a surprisingly poor start to 2024 and their record is now 9-19. Unsurprising is Colorado’s place in the standings. The Rockies finish the weekend 7-21 with the league’s second-worst run differential (-70).
Fantasy impact: The games didn’t provide any offensive breakouts as hoped for. Perhaps the bigger takeaway is how well Houston’s starting pitchers performed despite the thin Mexico City air.
Ronel Blanco came within one out of logging his fifth quality start on Saturday. He needed 102 pitches to get through 5 ⅔ innings but generated 21 whiffs and got eight strikeouts in the process. Blanco's breakout has been a fun ride but fantasy managers should be aware that his season's numbers are still getting a boost from his first two dominant starts. Leaving those out and looking at just his last three games, his ERA goes from 1.65 to 3.06 (still not bad!) and his WHIP jumps from 0.92 to 1.30 (YIKES!).
Framber Valdez returned from the injured list on Sunday and lasted five innings, giving up five hits, no walks, and two earned runs while striking out six. Manager Joe Espada called the result “encouraging” in post-game remarks. He made his return without even testing it out in a rehab start, signaling the player and team are confident the elbow inflammation that landed him on the IL is behind him.
Elly De La Cruz Running Wild
Elly De La Cruz has spent the last month silencing critics. This past offseason, there were a fair amount of fantasy baseball content producers who pooh-poohed the notion that he was already a proven commodity, worthy of his 23.51 ADP. Detractors were quick to remind audiences of his strikeout rate and the horrendous second half where he slashed .191/.271/.355 following the All-Star break. I confess that I was one of those to predict De La Cruz would be a bust and not worth risking a second-round pick to acquire.
Oops.
With two games left in April, he has seven home runs (t-4th most in MLB), 25 runs (t-3rd), 18 RBI (t-9th), and 18 stolen bases (1st). He has failed to reach base safely in just four games. As of this writing, he is batting .283 and has a .987 OPS. De La Cruz’s impressive month is made more notable by the fact that he is the first player in the modern era to achieve those stolen base and home run totals in the first month of a season. In fact, the only other player to record at least seven home runs and 18 stolen bases in any month is Rickey Henderson, who did it in May of 1986.
With 18, Elly De La Cruz now has the fourth-most stolen bases before the end of April in Major League Baseball history. ⚡
Only two men had more:
Rickey Henderson stole 22 in 1982
Rickey Henderson swiped 20 in 1988
Deion Sanders stole 19 in 1997.@ellylacocoa18 | @johnsadak pic.twitter.com/6e2LvART54
— Bally Sports Cincinnati (@BallySportsCIN) April 28, 2024
Fantasy Impact: De La Cruz is making a strong case to be considered the top-ranked player in fantasy baseball. His current pace outdoes Ronald Acuna Jr.’s in his historic 2023 season, wherein the eventual MVP averaged about seven home runs and 12 steals per month. It will be difficult to maintain but if anyone has the tools to match Acuna’s numbers last year, it’s De La Cruz.
His batting average is still an area of concern for me as it is propped up by a lofty .380 BABIP. We saw last year what happened to his average when his BABIP fell closer to the league average. For the counting stats he should still manage to accumulate it will be worth it. Any team rostering De La Cruz should already have some high batting average players as a countermeasure anyway.
Chicago White Sox Winning Streak?
Chicago’s abysmal start to the season has drawn comparisons to the historically bad 1962 Mets, losers of 120 games. The White Sox have already made their mark in the history books by getting shut out eight times in their first 22 games and have averaged a league-worst 2.7 runs scored. They have also experienced three losing streaks of five games, each one a game longer than that which preceded it.
*Updated*
This is how the #WhiteSox have started their 2024 season
L
L
L
L - 4 losses in a row
W
L
L
L
L
L - 5 losses in a row
W
L
L
L
L
L
L - 6 losses in a row
W
L
L
L
L
L
L
L - 7 losses in a row#ungood— Herb Lawrence (@Ecnerwal23) April 25, 2024
An eight-game losing streak will have to wait. As of Sunday afternoon, the White Sox no longer own the worst record in MLB. Both they and the Marlins have just six wins but Miami has 23 losses to Chicago’s 22. Their wins on Friday and Saturday marked the first time this season that Chicago had back-to-back victories, making them one of the last teams (along with the Rockies and Marlins) to accomplish the feat. The White Sox completed the sweep of the Rays on Sunday on the arm of Erick Fedde who threw 8 ⅓ innings and struck out nine.
Fantasy Impact: Sweeping the Rays still does not inspire me to invest in the White Sox. It is hard to overstate how terrible their offense is. They are hitting .207 as a team and their .587 OPS and 2.75 runs per game rank dead last in the majors. Tommy Pham, who recently signed with the team, should be a regular fixture in the lineup. He joined the team for the series and went 5-for-14 with a run scored in each game but going forward his upside will be hampered by the rest of the roster.
Fedde’s gem earned him his second win and for the season he now has 39 strikeouts, a 2.60 ERA, and a 1.07 WHIP. He is rostered in 25% of leagues and is projected to face the Cardinals and Nationals in two of his next three starts. Wins are hard to predict but the anemic offenses of those teams give Fedde a fighting chance to snag one or two more without putting ratios at risk.
Erick Fedde's 7th and 8th Ks. pic.twitter.com/BZyAs87PD5
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 28, 2024
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