Fantasy owners need to resist the urge to overreact
No matter how often we remind ourselves the season just started, there’s an irresistible force that compels us to draw conclusions.
Usually there’s even tacit acknowledgment we shouldn’t be doing it. Yet it still doesn’t stop us.
“I know it’s early, but I knew I shouldn’t have wasted such a high draft pick on Sean Manaea. He has a 5.51 ERA!”
Yes, it can be difficult to accept poor results. It’s even worse to jump to poor conclusions.
In Manaea’s case, he tossed five no-hit innings in his last start and left with a three-run lead, but he was let down by his defense and his bullpen.
In addition, the Oakland Athletics lefty has 20 strikeouts in 16 1/3 innings. And hitters are making contact against him far less frequently than they did last season (65.3% vs. 77.1% in 2016, according to Fangraphs). That’s one of the biggest improvements of any pitcher in the majors.
Podcast: Early notes, Sean Manaea interview
Digging even deeper, Manaea has a stellar 63.2% ground-ball rate over his first three starts (fourth highest among starting pitchers). And here’s the kicker: Strikeout and ground-ball rates are among the stats that require the smallest sample sizes to become predictive.
So even though his results haven’t been favorable to his fantasy owners, Manaea really is off to a solid start in 2017.
Oops. I just drew a conclusion based on three starts, didn’t I?
See? We just can’t help ourselves.
Snap judgments
It’s so easy to overreact to anything that happens during the season’s first month, much less the first two weeks.
Perhaps the best example from last season was the horrible start by Minnesota Twins second baseman Brian Dozier.
He hit .191 with three home runs in April, then followed it up with a .215 average and two homers in May. That’s waiver-wire material in all but the deepest leagues.
Of course, Dozier caught fire in June and never cooled off, hitting .294 with 37 homers the rest of the way.
Knowing what we know now, it’s hard to imagine doubting Dozier. But it took an extra helping of patience to stick with him through the lean times.
So what outlandish conclusions are fantasy owners drawing in 2017? I’ve heard some great ones:
• Miguel Cabrera’s back injury could be the beginning of the end. The Detroit Tigers slugger didn’t have a very strong showing in the World Baseball Classic.
The discomfort he experienced in the WBC even kept him out of a couple of games to start the regular season, and when Cabrera had three hits (all singles) in his first 28 at-bats, the rumblings began.
It isn’t uncommon to see slow-footed power hitters decline rapidly. Turning 34 this week, the Tiger is getting a little long in the tooth. But as he quickly showed by hitting home runs in back-to-back games, Cabrera doesn’t let minor ailments bother him. He has played at least 145 games in 12 of his 13 full seasons in the majors.
• Injuries are worse this April than they’ve ever been. Just look at all the important players who’ve hit the disabled list since the regular season began. Pitchers Zach Britton, Jon Gray, Aaron Sanchez and Jake Odorizzi were injured over the weekend. Josh Donaldson and Jean Segura are among the most recent hitters.
But remember the injuries last April to A.J. Pollock, Kyle Schwarber, Pablo Sandoval, Charlie Blackmon and Carlos Carrasco? Those, too, were some pretty big ones.
The thing that might be a little different this season is the switch from a 15-day disabled list to a 10-day DL.
Teams likely will be more proactive with their injured players because they’ll be able to bring them back five days sooner. Maybe that’s why it seems the injuries are more frequent.
With starting pitchers, a 10-day DL stint allows them to miss one start and return in their regular spot in the rotation. That’s exactly what happened with Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Rich Hill, who made his first start April 5 and went on the DL the next day with a blister issue — only to return when eligible Sunday. Fantasy owners didn’t even have to take him out of their weekly lineups.
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• Trea Turner and Gary Sanchez are overhyped busts. Last season’s rookie sensations put up amazing second-half numbers after they were promoted from the minors. Turner’s speed on the bases elevated him into a borderline first-round pick and Sanchez’s power surge made him the No. 2 catcher in this year’s drafts.
But both struggled early before going on the disabled list. Turner had a hamstring injury and a .158 average; Sanchez a biceps injury after hitting .150 with one homer.
That’s not the kind of production fantasy owners expected when they paid hefty prices for both. But injuries were never among the reasons to avoid either one. Turner is expected to be ready to return this week after being out for the minimum 10 days.
Sanchez might not be back until early May, but his power shouldn’t be affected once he’s fully healthy.
Even so, look at how much he was able to accomplish in two months last season. He’ll have another five months this season to validate his fantasy owners’ trust.
• Edwin Encarnacion should never have left Toronto. This one cuts both ways. Encarnacion had eight hits (one homer) in his first 40 at-bats as a member of the Cleveland Indians, striking out in one-third of his plate appearances.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays have the most anemic offense in baseball, averaging a major league-worst 2.8 runs per game during their 2-10 start.
For Encarnacion, the strikeouts should subside in due time. His career strikeout rate is almost exactly half of what it has been in the early going.
As is the case with Cabrera, someone with Encarnacion’s lengthy track record of excellence doesn’t forget how to hit once he turns 34.
There’s usually an adjustment period for any player when he moves to a new team. For some fantasy owners, that’s reason enough to downgrade him. However, Encarnacion eventually will find his new environment more to his liking.
Although Toronto’s Rogers Centre has a reputation as a hitters’ haven, Progressive Field was even more hitter-friendly last season for scoring and home runs.
As for the Jays, they’ve lost a significant part of their offense from last season with Encarnacion no longer around and Josh Donaldson on the disabled list with a calf injury. But new DH Kendrys Morales is no slouch offensively, and with two homers and seven RBI, he has been one of their better hitters.
Transcript: Fantasy baseball advice for Week 3
Two more examples:
Rick Porcello’s 7.56 ERA after his first three starts doesn’t invalidate the AL Cy Young Award he won last year. He has been victimized by home runs, allowing five in 16 2/3 innings. And the balls that have been put in play against him have resulted in a .385 average, third highest among all starting pitchers.
The Cincinnati Reds might, in fact, be the biggest anomaly over the season’s first two weeks. No team has scored more runs (5.0 per game) or posted a higher slugging percentage (.472). And that’s with Joey Votto hitting .178. It’s hard to see either trend continuing for much longer.
As difficult as it is to sit back and do nothing, that’s usually the best course of action for fantasy owners at this point in the season.
Anything that even remotely looks like a trend could easily go the other way just as quickly.