Baseball is a streaky game: A player can hit .500 for a week with four home runs in four games in April but be spitting sunflower seeds in Triple A by August.
Fantasy baseball is a lot different than fantasy football, where one bad week by a player can ruin your team. The key to fantasy baseball is looking at advanced statistics and each circumstance to determine who can keep their hot streak alive and who is just in an unlucky slump. Let’s breakdown Week 1 in the MLB to see who is trending up and down, for now and the future.
Baltimore Orioles first baseman Chris Davis was the talk of the majors after one week of play. The 27-year-old slugger hit a home run in each of his four games this season — only the fourth player in major league history to do so — and his 16 RBI through four games set a new record, since RBI became a stat in 1920. Davis is currently batting a ridiculous .556 with four home runs, 17 RBI and a .591 on base percentage.
Davis will clearly not keep up this pace, en route for 162 home runs and 648 RBI, but he has potential to mash over 40 home runs and finish north of 100 RBI. Most promising about the hot start by Davis is that he has only struck out twice this year in 18 at bats. This is an immense improvement from his 31 percent career strikeout rate. Bouncing around in the minors and some stints on the DL, Davis has only played over 100 games in the 2009 and 2012 seasons. In 2009 he hit 21 dingers, and last season he hit 33 home runs and knocked in 85 RBIs but had a whopping 169 strikeouts while hitting .270. The strikeouts will not go away, but Davis could be a huge boost to fantasy teams this season if they diminish.
Seattle Mariners outfielder Michael Morse has quietly swatted four home runs thus far to go along with six RBIs and four runs with a .333 average. The 31 year old was originally supposed to be a utility player for the Mariners, but it seems he has earned himself a full-time gig. I don’t trust him. Morse has bounced around in the minors for most of his career until getting full-time work the last two seasons with the Nationals. In 2011, his best season, he hit .303 with 31 home runs and 95 RBI to go along with 126 strikeouts. Morse, who stands at 6-foot-5, 245 pounds, has virtually no speed, but the big man has some power for an outfielder. Morse may give somebody 30 home runs this season, but that is his absolute ceiling. I don’t trust him. Consider him trade bait right now.
A player I’m buying into is Oakland Athletics shortstop Jed Lowrie. The 28 year old has earned the starting spot in Oakland and has produced early hitting .476 with two home runs and four RBI to go along with a .560 on base percentage. Lowrie has never displayed true power with his high in home runs coming last season with 16 and has never hit more than nine, but there is something special in the Athletics water. It seems like Oakland could even take a homeless man off the street and turn him into an everyday baseball player while somehow competing for a playoff spot. That’s why I believe in Lowrie. This is going to be his career year. Given a chance to flourish in Oakland, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lowrie finish with 20 home runs, 65 RBI and 60 runs with a .275 average. Those are certainly not gaudy numbers, but they aren’t anything to scoff at from a shallow shortstop position.
On a quick note, stick with Red Sox outfielder Jack Bradley Jr. I know he is off to a slow start, hitting .176 thus far, but his unbelievable glove — which earned him minor league defensive player of the year last year — will make him tough to keep out of the Red Sox lineup, which is one that is already surprising people. The hits will come. His patience at the plate, already drawing four walks this season, is far beyond his years.
Remember, fantasy owners, trading the hot player is sometimes the best move. Robinson Cano and Matt Kemp aren’t ranked in the top 1,000 — that’s right, top 1,000 — so far in the season. Trading a hot player for an established stud can leave a fantasy owner tossing and turning at night.