1st Quarter Report: Fantasy Baseball Duds & Disappointments
By orleanscardinals at 26 May, 2008, 7:58 pm
Here’s the third and final installment looking at the 1st quarter of the fantasy baseball season. This post takes a look at draft selections fantasy owners may have made that just have not panned out and the early round choices who may be making managers bang their head against the wall with frustration.
The Disappointments
The difference between major duds and disappointments is that you may have invested the mid to late round selection and hoped you picked up one of this year’s fantasy baseball surprises. Or, perhaps injury or misfortune are the root cause. Either way, there is still a chance these guys can pick it up as the weather gets warmer and the season rolls on.
- Andruw Jones
I put Jones in the same class as Todd Helton or Jeff Kent. You know you want to upgrade, but no one ever takes the bait for their name value. Unfortunately, Jones hasn’t even lived up to those expectations this season, and the recent news of a DL stint should have most fantasy owners dumping him ASAP in all but the deepest of leagues.Why Andruw Jones is not a major dud? Because you hopefully did not spend more than a 10th round pick for his services - and I don’t feel sorry if you were in an auto-draft league and failed to make adjustments to your draft settings.
- Eric Gagne
I’m not sure if anyone was really surprised that Gagne was a bad as he has been, but the recent DL news seals the deal on what can only be called a major disappointment, even at the discounted 14th round average draft pick. At least fantasy owners can relish the fact that the rest of the Brewers bullpen has done nothing to take advantage of the situation. - Miguel Cabrera
Even though these selections are mostly for mid to late round picks, how can you not consider Cabrera’s season to date anything but a disappointment? Cabrera is only batting .200 with runners in scoring position and maybe just needs a day or two off to take some of the pressure off (he’s played in all 49 of the Tigers’ games thus far).
The Major Duds
What can I say. These are guys you spent at least a mid-round draft pick for and are they are pretty much sucking wind in every category they should be producing in. The bad thing is, you can’t drop them (for fear they somehow erupt) and no one will give you anything reasonable in a trade request.
- Víctor Martinez & Travis Hafner
If this article was being written at the end of April, you’d have to throw Sabathia into the mix as well (but it seems he’s corrected the issues of April - 7.76 ERA and 1.8 WHIP).The lack of production from the Cleveland offense is now getting widespread recognition and you would have laughed at the beginning of the season if I told you Martinez and Hafner have only combined for 4 HR’s (0 by Martinez) and 38 RBI (9 players have more than the 2 combined).
In my 5×5 Roto League, there are 11 free agents who ranked higher than Martinez thus far and Hafner isn’t even in the top 30 for eligible first basemen.
- Francisco Liriano
It probably was premature for fantasy managers to think Liriano would be the guy we saw dominate the majors in 2006. But we would have hoped he would have done better than an 0-3 record, 11+ ERA, 2.71 WHIP and 7:13 K/BB ratio in only 10 innings pitched. We’ll see if he can straighten himself out in the minors and re-establish himself sometime later this summer. - Rich Hill
In one of my leagues, someone actually selected Rich Hill with their second round pick (ouch!). While Hill still has time to redeem himself, he clearly has yet to live up to the expectation of even a mid-round draft selection. - Manuel Corpas
The first real fatality of the start of the season closers, Corpas never got things straight and now may sit #3 in the depth chart for the Rockies closing situation. It seemed pretty inconcievable given the 4 year contract signed at the beginning of the season and likelihood of Fuentes being moved at some point early in the season.
Hopefully, your fantasy baseball roster does not include many (or any) of these guys, but if they do, I’m sure that there are others who feel your pain.
We hoped you enjoyed Fantasy Baseball Tips‘ look at some of highlights of the first quarter of the MLB - Fantasy Baseball season. Looking forward to more baseball and fantasy analysis and I am sure more twists and surprises as the season rolls on.
Jeff Kent turned out to be terrible regardless what anyone says.