Fantasy Baseball Stats: Daily All-Stars from May 31
Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
We had a balanced fantasy baseball stats day on Saturday, with hitters and pitchers each occupying two spots in today’s recap, and each producing one guy that just missed the cut.
But as good as the honorable mentions were, Saturday’s daily fantasy baseball stats MVP was a no-brainer.
Daily Fantasy Baseball MVP
Hanley Ramirez — Los Angeles Dodgers
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Hanley has yet to completely catch fire this year, but he’s beginning to heat up and games like this are downright terrifying. I haven’t gone back and researched every day, but this may be the best single day we’ve seen from a player this year.
If you were patient with Ramirez, your patience may not be that far from being rewarded. Heck, he might have won you a head-to-head matchup with today’s game alone.
Daily Honorable Mentions
1. Yoenis Cespedes — Oakland Athletics
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Charlie Blackmon and Anthony Rizzo were hard to keep off of today’s list, but Cespedes was just a little more dominant and the pitching performances were too good to ignore.
Likewise, a five RBI game is hard to ignore, only a tremendous day from Hanley kept Cespedes from the top spot. Fantasy owners would certainly like to see a better average from Cespedes, but his power is undeniable. He’s not as complete as Yasiel Puig, but when his A’s teammates are working around him, Cespedes is about as reliable a power hitter as there is.
2. Masahiro Tanaka — New York Yankees
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Not much more can be said about Tanaka’s 2014 season. He’s not only the AL Rookie of the Year front-runner over Jose Abreu and a hard-charging George Springer, but he’s an absolute AL Cy Young contender.
He should be treated like an ace (not exactly breaking news there) but against offenses like Minnesota’s, Tanaka becomes a dream for fantasy owners, and a nightmare for their nearest rivals.
3. Jason Hammel — Chicago Cubs
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A special nod needs to be given to Rubby De La Rosa of the Red Sox. He was called up to make the start on Saturday and produced identical fantasy baseball stats as Hammel — at least in standard leagues. But because he’d just gotten the call, he had essentially no ownership and therefore didn’t help many fantasy players — Hammel did.
Hammel started the year on a great hot streak but has had a few rougher starts in his last few outings, so this outing was nice for his fantasy owners. At this point, I’d say he’s a nice guy to keep around and start in positive matchups, but these kind of games show what he’s capable of doing against a quality opponent like the Brewers.