Archive for Justin Bour

Fantasy owners tend to give good hitters on bad teams short shrift, and that was certainly the case for Justin Bour this spring. Even though he was coming off a breakout season in which he batted .289 with 25 home runs and 83 RBI in 429 plate appearances, Bour fell to the late rounds in many leagues, lagging behind the less accomplished Greg Bird and Josh Bell in ADP.

Two-and-a-half months into the season, the Marlins first baseman seems to be validating owners’ fears. He ranks 29th in a largely-disappointing pool of first basemen in terms of Roto value (per ESPN’s Player Rater). Bour is batting just .242, and despite posting a .375 OBP, he has scored just 24 runs. With 10 home runs and 27 RBI in 253 plate appearances, he is well behind last season’s pace for both stats. It’s little wonder he is widely available in 12-team mixed leagues.
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RotoGraph’s Bold Predictions pieces make for an undoubtedly fun series to be a part of. The challenge is finding that sweet spot between bold and insane which, to my understanding, results in about 3 correct predictions out of 10. Last year, my first, my boldness led me off the deep end as faith in such luminaries as Aaron Hicks, Chris Heston, and Chris Bassit went unrewarded. Hard to believe.

But given that our job at RotoGraphs is to give our readers advice as to how they should manage their fantasy teams, it’s only fair that I put my money where my mouth is and base my predictions, to the extent possible, on players I’ve recently endorsed. So, with that said, let’s get bold!

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In our last edition of Deep League Draft targets, we took a closer look at three catchers who, perhaps overlooked in standard leagues, represent attractive draft day targets in deeper ones. Today, we move onto first base.

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In Ottoneu, the top tier of 1B usually cost a pretty penny. Whether it’s Miguel Cabrera, Paul Goldschmidt, Joey Votto, or Anthony Rizzo – the clear top tier will likely cost $40 or more in FGpt leagues for 2017, and I would not be surprised if any of these 4 clear $50. Maybe you really like Freddie Freeman and want to add him to the mix. It’s certainly defensible given Freeman’s ridiculous 2016. However, after that group things get a little more congested. Edwin Encarnacion is another name who will likely come up. He has helped round out the upper echelon of 1B for the past few seasons, but projections have him taking a slight step back. Either way, you will probably be left pushing $30 for the likes of E5 come march. So what do you do when you are left on the outside looking in a as the top 1B come off the board? Today I want to look at two options who can help if roster construction leaves you pinching pennies at 1B.

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