Buy High
“Buy high” is a relatively new phrase when it comes to fantasy baseball. It makes sense though. There are certain players who start the season red hot and, naturally, owners try to flip them. Some of those players make sense to stay away from, while others make perfect sense to target. There are several players who their owners will simply be too far in love with to allow you to have reasonable trade negotiations (think Michael Conforto, Aaron Judge, and Ryan Zimmerman), but there are others where you can make the owner think you’re a fantasy rube who doesn’t know what she/he is doing, but you actually have them right where you want them.
Reasons others might think they should sell: History of concussions for a catcher is never a good sign; wRC+ is currently 70 points higher than his career rate; has a smaller sample size (34 games) than some of the other fast starts.
Reasons you shouldn’t be worried: Avila is all over the Statcast leaderboards this season, best summarized by the fact that he has the straight-up best xwOBA among all MLB players in 2017; he has nearly doubled his fly ball rate from last season; his 57.4 percent hard hit ball rate is (by far) the highest in all of baseball; he has hit only two balls all season that FanGraphs has classified as soft contact – he’s absolutely puring the ball this season.
Make move for what price: You could totally give up Matt Wieters or Welington Castillo for Avila and reap the benefits. Wieters might even get you a side piece in the same deal.
Yonder Alonso
Reasons others might think they should sell: Already above his previous career-high in home runs; one of those long-time prospects that people can get roped into over and over again only to have him peter out part way through the season.
Reasons you shouldn’t be worried: Alonso is one the biggest success stories for the “elevate your swing” revolution going on in baseball. His 0.49 ground balls per fly balls rank fourth among players with at least 100 plate appearances, and this is just one season after posting a 44 percent ground ball rate. The power is here to stay.
Make move for what price: Many owners may have stumbled onto Eno Sarris’ piece that said as much about Alonso, so he might be tougher to pry away, but Alonso is still owned in fewer than 50 percent of ESPN leagues, so someone like Matt Holliday might get the job done.
Justin Smoak
Reasons others might think they should sell: He’s Justin Smoak.
Reasons you shouldn’t be worried: Despite being Justin Smoak, Smoak has actually been legitimate with his production in 2017. He’s striking out about half as much as he was in 2016, and his batting average is up 66 points despite having a lower BABIP this season; the power has always been there, and he’s hitting the ball harder than in any season past.
Make move for what price: I’ve never been a fan of Yasmany Tomas, so if you can convince a fellow leaguemate that Tomas is just having a slow start, that’s a good option. Or selling high on Aaron Altherr (as recommended earlier) would work.