Judging Dread: Which cold starts in fantasy baseball should worry you
By Jim Turvey
In true arbitrary end-of-month tradition, it is time to look back at the first month of fantasy baseball and reflect. We’ll look at six players (four hitters, two pitchers) who had rough Aprils and decide whether there is truly cause for concern, or whether it’s just a case of the first month blues.
We all know the baseball season is a marathon not a sprint (check that bad boy off your overused baseball sayings bingo card), and there are plenty of cases in which a cold April is followed by a scorching final five months of the season. Heck, just last season Joey Votto was slugging .313 at the end of May before tearing the cover off the ball the rest of the season to the tune of .342/.453/.592 and a near-fantasy MVP performance. If you traded for Votto at the end of April you were a genius. You bought at the lowest point and enjoyed a beast five months.
On the other hand, Prince Fielder came into 2016 as the 58th-ranked player on Tristan Cockcroft’s big board. This is not to poke fun at Cockcroft, he simply had the most public venue with his rankings, everyone was a bit high on Fielder, he was fresh off a 2015 season in which he had bounced back with a .305/.378/.463 campaign. Of course, Fielder was slashing just .207/.265/.310 by the end of April last season, and prospective owners were wondering if they should buy low. You all know how this one ended, as Fielder was retired by the middle of the summer, and if you bought low on Fielder at the end of April, it was a complete waste of whatever player you traded away for him.
That’s the part of fantasy baseball that makes it seem like a crap shoot at times. However, if you look close enough, there are signs. Despite their similar struggles, Votto was sporting a hard hit ball rate of 43.9 percent in April; Fielder was down at 25.4 percent. These are the types of numbers that can show whether a slow start is legitimate or just a consequence of bad luck. Now simply looking at a few numbers isn’t going to guarantee you know which players will break out of their April slumps and which will continue to struggle, but it’s the best chance we have at present.
Over the next six slides, we’ll be looking to find 2016 Joey Vottos for you to target and 2016 Prince Fielder’s to sell while you still have time.