Ask Nash: Are Smoak, Rendon, or Sizemore Worth Adding?
Joy R. Absalon-USA TODAY Sports
We have finally seen some consecutive days of game action. With that, comes a lot of action on the fantasy baseball waiver wire, and plenty of other activity. It’s great!
I’ve received a lot of questions about the following three hitters: Justin Smoak, Anthony Rendon, and Grady Sizemore.
Looking at their add rates, I’m guessing more of you are interested. So, it seems like a pretty good time to look at these guys.
Each of these guys have a their own unique strengths and weaknesses to address to gauge how “for real” they are as great fantasy contributors.
Smoak: He has the pressure of being Robinson Cano’s protection this season in Seattle. So far, so good!
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Justin Smoak has always been the source of “will he, won’t he finally break out?” questions. While he has shown some early success, there is still the cloud of his past failures.
On the bright side, he is only 27 — which is a bright seeing as he has four years of experience to date — and he now has a big time bat in the line-up to lean on, learn from, and drive in. Maybe this is the year for Smoak, only time will tell.
For now Smoak seems to be the most promising as he is heading into the weekend raking!
Rendon: He is young, in a great line-up, and plays a shallow position, what’s not to like?
The only thing I can think of is that he does run the small risk of losing at bats to Danny Espinosa if he does cool off substantially or get hurt at all. However, this kid is probably 99% safe, especially if he can keep his hot start going.
What would make Anthony Rendon a real coup would be if he could get to the top of the order somehow. Unfortunately the top of the order is pretty well set and as Clave detailed, where one bats in the lineup (especially an NL lineup), can be pretty important. But one can dream, right?
For now, Rendon is a very good end of the lineup guy who will serve your team just fine as a secondary 2B player or perhaps as UTL. However, if you are resting all of your 2B hopes on Rendon, you may want to look for an upgrade.
Sizemore: He sure had a heck of an opening day, didn’t he? I felt like it was 2008 again. Sadly, 2008 was the last time Grady eclipsed 155 games played. The opening day performance was his first MLB action since 2011.
Grady Sizemore is certainly the highest risk injury wise, and probably the hardest to figure out what sort of stats to expect. I am not sure at age 31 after a lot of injuries that he will be running to the tune of 25+ stolen bases any longer. His average was falling each season before 2009 anyway, so that is certainly not bankable. Therefore if his power does not return, then he could just be a flash in the pan.
The bright spot here is that he plays his home and many away games in hitter’s parks. God bless the AL East!
Unfortunately for Sizemore he is not set as an everyday player for the Red Sox at this point. If he can play himself into full time at-bats, can avoid a DL stint, and can keep up his production, then he will be perhaps the come back player of the year. However, that was a lot of ifs.
The reality is, that if you haven’t nabbed one of these guys, the window is closing on that opportunity by the moment. When it comes to early on in the year you either need to be johnny on the spot, or slow play it.
What I mean is that if you are able to get to a computer right away and sign a guy that just went 3/3 with a homer and a steal, then go for it and maybe you get lucky and said player produces well all season. If you don’t think he’ll produce but think that someone else has a more optimistic view, you can also grab him and trade him.
If you miss out on all the hot adds, then make sure you don’t get overly anxious and overpay for one of them in a trade, or try to start guessing on other guys.
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