It was an exciting week of baseball across the league with a complete game shutout and a three-homer game. Players are implementing changes and starting to see results one way or another. Each week during the season, I take a deeper dive into certain players who are worth the hype to buy and others with whom you should probably cut your losses. The following players have had notable early-season performances.
- Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Assistant
- Fantasy Baseball Trade Tools
- Weekly Fantasy Baseball Content
- MLB Prop Bet Cheat Sheet
Buy High, Sell Low (Fantasy Baseball 2024)
Buy High: Gunnar Henderson (3B, SS – BAL)
Gunnar Henderson is following up his Rookie of the Year season scorching hot, batting .279 with 15 runs, six home runs, 15 RBI and four steals through 21 games. His advanced stats back up everything he has done so far and suggest he can maintain this high level of production. He is in the 90th percentile or better in the following statistics: xwOBA, xwOBAcon, xSLG, avg EV, max EV and Hard-Hit%. Not to mention the countless other stats he is well above average in. The 22-year-old is a little worse than average in K and BB rates, but he is still in line with his MLB career averages. Those less-than-idea numbers have proven to have little effect on his fantasy output. Batting atop the Baltimore Orioles lineup, Henderson is in for a big year.
Buy High: Jared Jones (SP – PIT)
Jared Jones has been nothing short of dominant in his first four career starts. Through 23 innings, he is 1-2 with a 3.13 ERA, 0.78 WHIP and 32 strikeouts. He is in the top 5% of the league in both K and BB rates and leads the league in swinging strike rate and K-BB%. He relies strictly on two pitches — a fastball and a slider — that have led to some hard quality of contact. However, those pitches each have a high swinging strike rate, so good luck to any hitters trying to make contact. It’s fair to assume hitters will adjust to the two-pitch flamethrower, but we’ve seen this profile work very recently with Spencer Strider.
Sell Low: Nico Hoerner (2B – CHC)
Nico Hoerner is batting .289 with 16 runs, six RBI and zero homers or steals through 21 games. If you drafted him for batting average and runs scored, you have been happy. However, if you drafted him for his 43 steals from a year ago, you’ve been very disappointed. Hoerner has only attempted two stolen bases on the year and the entire Chicago Cubs team has stopped running. The Cubs are last in the league with four steals and are second-to-last in attempts (10). They are the only team in baseball with more players caught stealing than stolen bases. Hoerner should remain a good source of average and runs but the 40+ steals he was drafted for seems less likely.
Sell Low: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (1B – TOR)
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is off to a rough start batting .226 with nine runs, three home runs and nine RBI in 22 games. Since his near triple crown season in 2021, the first baseman hasn’t reached 100 runs or RBI nor has he hit more than 32 homers in a season. His highest OPS in a season since 2021 was .818 in 2022. That is a solid number but not what you expect of someone with his name value and draft capital. He has played in 98% of Blue Jays games the past four seasons and can be valuable for volume. His ceiling doesn’t seem near as high as it did three years ago.
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