Pretty straightforward board on Wednesday. I think you have to stick with Fried and Gausman despite their slow starts. There’s a nice handful of streamer types to take shots with across all formats or in DFS. I really wish Feltner wasn’t a Rockie so I could just roster him all year, I think he’s really good. Next week I’ll start adding this year’s stats for pitchers. I just don’t want to people to get overly influenced by weird ass ERAs. It’s not like next week is some perfect cut-off, either, but I’m trying to wait for most guys to have 4-5 starts at least and I’ll do my best to point out when there’s 1 start causing a misleadingly bad ERA and things like that. I’ve got my chat on Wednesday at 1 pm ET so feel free to bring your questions there or just leave ’em in the comments of this post!
How do y’all handle Hunter Greene? Do you try to time him and skip home starts? Or just go all out and use every start? Obviously he’s a start in Seattle, but I feel like you almost have to do the latter and just run him everywhere. He was a top 150 pick so even in the shallowest formats, he is part of the upper 2/3rds of a roster so there is some real expectation of production. I can envision having a rotation deep enough to spot him a bit in 10-teamers, but in 12-teamers or more, I can’t see sitting him, especially because his splits aren’t even that severe so you can find yourself sitting gems and eating duds.
Hunter Greene’s Home/Road Splits
IP
ERA
WHIP
K-BB%
HOME
116
4.87
1.32
20%
AWAY
138
4.43
1.28
23%
Soure: I looked it up
He and Nick Lodolo are tough ones for me because I’m a really big fan of both, but Great American Ballpark’s 128 HR Park Factor the last three years paired with Greene’s 1.6 HR9 and Lodolo’s 1.4 HR9 rates kept me away at the draft table. I know there’s a world where they both put it together enough to start suppressing homers, even at home, and fulfill their breakout prophecies. And that world is what feeds my FOMO with them.
Skipping Lodolo was just the injury to start the season and I don’t love drafting already-injured guys in the NFBC universe (7 reserves, no IL). But when push came to shove with Greene requiring a pick around 100 to really secure him (137 ADP in the Main Event with a min pick of 89), I just couldn’t see it. In one of my drafts, I took Tanner Bibee (who also throws on Tuesday) and Shota Imanaga in the 2 picks where I was really considering Greene, who went 4 picks after Imanaga at pick 125.
In my other draft, he lasted until 150 but I was hitter focused with 3 of my 4 picks from 101-150 and Yu Darvish as my only pitcher. I can certainly understand the argument for Greene over Darvish, but even at age-37 I felt more confident about what I can get with Darvish. They’ve been about the same thus far per our new Player Rater with Greene at 84 among pitchers and Darvish at 92. It seems like Greene has more upside because we can dream on just about anything if that stuff comes with a summer of premium command a la Germán Márquez in 2018, but we’re also not that far removed from Darvish’s 3.10 ERA/0.95 WHIP of 2022 which still exists as a potential upside. He started off that season with an 11% BB rate in 4 starts before delivering a 4% BB rate over his next 26 starts, fueling the excellent season.
Who do you like the rest of the way: Greene or Darvish?
You can find that ADP here and then select Main Event. I think I want at least 5-6 starts before moving off this group if I bought in on them at the draft table. League size and who is available of course plays a role as these are mostly for 12s or more.
No comments on today’s chart. I am just dead tired and need to get to bed, but I will answer the comments throughout Friday if you have questions about anyone for tomorrow or the weekend.
I updated the wOBA rank to this year’s versus the pitcher’s handedness. Once the pitchers start to get 4-5 starts for everyone, I’ll add in their numbers. Even those are small samples, of course, but one absolute gem or dud isn’t carrying quite as much weight. Plus, I’m usually citing core skill changes in the blurbs.
Don’t panic over ugly ERAs. Yeah, they’re ugly to look at and frustrating, but I’m not going to panic if the core skills are in order. Luis Castillo has a 19% K-BB, right in line with his 20% the last two years. George Kirby’s is a bit further off the pace, down 4 ticks from last year at 16%, but his calling card control remains in order with just a 0.5 points higher walk rate at 3% flat. Hell, I don’t even worry about decimals on those rates so it was 3% to me last year, too. The difference between 2.5% and 3.0% is about 4 walks in the span of a full year, but I digress. I’m literally 0% worried about either Castillo or Kirby. But even if I was, it wouldn’t be actionable because there’s no world where we cut them. This was all just a slightly different way of telling y’all not to panic, which is the same thing I did yesterday, but after my chat today I figured it was worth reiterating… so don’t panic, it’s dangerous!
Matt: Jackson Holliday goes straight into my team, right? Do I bench Bogaerts or Andres Giminez for him?
1:03
Paul Sporer: Gimenez
1:03
Frank: I’m in a 12 team mixed that uses OPS instead of BA. It’s a 1 catcher league. I have Realmuto as my C and I have Garver stashed on my bench as “insurance”. Would I be better off dropping Garver and using that roster spot for something else?
1:03
Paul Sporer: Yes, in a 1 C league with a premium C like JTR, you gotta use that spot elsewhere
1:04
Yeah Well Hiura Towel: Who’s got the better offensive profile rest of season, Turner Ward or JD Martinez?
The internet has done a lot to foster the fantasy baseball community, but those innovations came at the expanse of a scourge: the up-to-the-second standings. They really don’t do us a ton of good at any point in the season, but they can actively hurt fantasy managers early on. Well at least how we react to them can. Your team doesn’t really have clear needs yet, at least not ones that weren’t there coming out of the draft. The exception of course would be a major injury that undercuts you in a stat.
The first two guys just eclipsed 60 PA on April 8th meaning no one is really off to a legitimately slow start just yet. That doesn’t mean you can’t monitor their skills, but there hasn’t really been much that is actionable thus far, outside of injuries. You can obviously churn 2-3 of your late rounders, but if you’re getting rid of any of your foundation (~top 2/3rds of your roster), then you’re probably doing too much. Trust the guys you drafted for some real time before declaring them cuttable. Just be careful out there.
