The first full week of games is in the books and it’s time to evaluate some performances. Each week I’ll take a deeper dive into certain players who are worth buying the hype and who you should probably cut your losses with.
To start, my condolences go out to Shane Bieber and his fantasy managers. This past week he was on this list and had been looking like his former Cy Young self, but he is undergoing Tommy John surgery and his season is over. Crossing our fingers for good health, here are some players that have stood out in one way or another.
The first full week of games is in the books and it’s time to evaluate some performances. Each week I’ll take a deeper dive into certain players who are worth buying the hype and who you should probably cut your losses with.
To start, my condolences go out to Shane Bieber and his fantasy managers. This past week he was on this list and had been looking like his former Cy Young self, but he is undergoing Tommy John surgery and his season is over. Crossing our fingers for good health, here are some players that have stood out in one way or another.
Buy High, Sell Low (Fantasy Baseball 2024)
Lourdes Gurriel has started his season out hot slashing .310/.383/.571 with nine runs, three home runs, 11 RBI and a 6:5 K:BB ratio through the Arizona Diamondbacks’ first nine games. He was traded to Arizona from the Toronto Blue Jays before this past season and has flourished with his new team. Gurriel showed plenty of potential with his previous team having two different 20+ homer seasons while never playing more than 141 games. He has kept his strikeout rate under 19% the past four seasons and has taken significant strides in improving his walk rate from last year, so far. We may not expect the walk rate to stay above 11%, a career of 5.8%, but batting in the three-hole, he should see plenty of RBI opportunities. Another career-high season in home runs and RBI is very likely.
The entire Red Sox rotation, other than Brayan Bello, qualifies for a Buy High. But let’s focus on Houck. He’s started the season 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, 17 strikeouts in 12 innings and zero walks. This past year was his first time being in the rotation as a full-time starter and it wasn’t exactly pretty. He went 6-10 with a 5.01 ERA and 1.37 WHIP. As bad as he was, he still kept the ball on the ground with a 53% groundball rate (GB%). His expected stats this early on almost seem impossible and his GB% is over 81% to start the season. There will be some regression but Tanner Houck could be in the beginning stages of a big breakout.
Arenado has started the season slashing .268/.279/.317 with no homers, two doubles, four RBI and four strikeouts to zero walks. This is coming on the heels of a down season that saw him fail to reach 30 homers or 100 RBI for the first time since 2014 (excluding 2020). He’s never been a standout in hard contact, but he took advantage of his skills with a high launch angle. This past year that launch angle took a five-degree dip and it’s even lower through the first nine games of 2024. Nado is as steady as it comes at third, playing in 140+ games every season since that 2014 season, but his days as an MVP candidate are long gone.
Stanton is coming out of the weekend having homered in back-to-back games against the Toronto Blue Jays. Including those games, he is batting .218 with four runs, three home runs, six RBI and an unsightly 15:1 K:BB ratio. He still hits the ball as hard as anybody, but he doesn’t make enough contact and a trip to the IL seems all but inevitable. If someone in your league wants to pay to take a gamble on Stanton after his big weekend, let them.
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