Fantasy Baseball Thoughts: Week 5

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Week five brought us a lot of the same…Jose Fernandez looked like the best pitcher in the bigs.  Meanwhile, Jose Abreu and Giancarlo Stanton appear to be having their own little competition that involves a tape measure too see who is bigger.  However, you need to look deeper than the obvious to successfully manage your team through the long baseball season, so let’s take a look at some not so obvious fantasy baseball thoughts from week 5.

Batters

• Nolan Arenado has a 24 game hitting streak that now includes a grand slam.  He is only going to get better, people.
• Brain Dozier, best value pick ever?
• Howie Kendrick, not doing too bad himself.  He is a career .293 hitter that can steal bases an provide double digit HRs at a thin position.
• Angel Pagan is playing like he is healthy.  Take a closer look and his BABIP is sitting at .362 on the season.  That is quite a bit higher than his career BABIP of .318, making him a prime sell high candidate.
• Colby Rasmus has 7 HRs on the year and his BABIP and AVG are trailing his career averages so he could easily improve on the numbers that he has put up so far.
• Allen Craig had himself a week.  I usually shy away from Cardinals because of their depth and Mike Matheny’s faculty for playing his depth.  Throw in the fact that Craig is injury prone.  However, with his uber slow start, he makes for a nice buy low candidate.
• Desmond Jennings like Craig had a nice week and tends to get hurt more than his owners prefer.  He is on pace for a 20/30 year, feel free to use that in your trade banter and try to sell high because he will not reach those marks.
• Michael Morse is back in the NL and despite playing in the deep confines of AT&T Park, he is looking like a 30 HR hitter once again.  But, following in the pattern of Craig and Jennings, he tends to get hurt often.   Sell.  Sell.  Sell.
• Ok, one more injury prone player, Mark Teixeira.  He has 5 HRs so far this year with 3 of them coming this past week.  He had 3 HRs all of last year.  If you own Tex in a deep league, find the sucker in your league and try to move him, if you can’t spot the sucker in the first five weeks of fantasy, then you are the sucker.
• One more turn the clock back nominee, B.J. Upton  hit a HR, stole 3 bags, and had an OBP of .364 in week 5.  That puts him on pace for a 10/30 year.  Hey, for a career .247 hitter, that is not bad production.  IF you need someone like that, go after him.
• Anthony Rizzo is currently a Top-10 1B, and a Top-50 overall bat, I think he could stay in those rankings all year.  Welcome to your potential Mr. Rizzo.
• Carlos Santana was making his owners say “oye” during the first 4 weeks of the season, but week 5, Santana was back to being smooth.  With a BABIP of .164, there is no place to go but up for a guy with a rare and useful eligibility.

Pitchers

• Brandon Morrow is hurt again and this injury could be the final nail in his fantasy coffin.
• With that said Marcus Stroman got the call.  He is suppose to work out of the pen at first, but will likely get a chance to enter to rotation in the near future.  Minor league pitchers are a coin flip when they get the call, for every Michael Wacha or Tony Cingrani that add value to a fantasy roster, there is a Kevin Gausman or Allen Webster that disappoint.  Stroman is worth a flier, just hope he lands on the right side.  By the way, does anyone want to buy some Todd Van Poppel rookie cards?
• Corey Kluber is the new Cleveland consecutive K king.  He struck out seven batters in a row inching ahead of the immortal Bob Feller in the Cleveland record books.  Kluber’s K/9 is now north of 9 on the year and is a great buy low candidate, but that buy low window may have slammed shut yesterday.
• Justin Masterson is another Indians arm you might want to try to buy low on.  His velocity is down which is worrisome, but with a K/9 of *.65 and an xFIP of 3.36, there is still value to be had in Masterson.
• Clayton Kershaw will be back this week, start ‘im if got ‘im.
• Hector Rondon, with the exception of his non-save situation slip up has been quite solid at the back end of the Cubs bullpen and has pulled away from the rest of the committee and should see his share of save opportunities.
• If you have Francisco Rodriguez, congratulations.  I did not think he had it in him to be an effective closer again.  Selling high on him is not a bad strategy, but by the way closers are coming and going so far this year, you might as well ride it out.
• Between John Axford’s xFIP of 4.78 and his performance on Sunday, his owners should be in full sell mode.
• Kyle Farnsworth is still the Mets’ closer, but I am pretty sure Terry Collins said the same thing about Bobby Parnell and Jose Valverde this year as well.  Daisuke Matsuzaka might be the next man up.