Fantasy baseball‘s Week 3 gets off to a compelling start on the pitching front, as in addition to Shohei Ohtani kicking things off by starting the Patriots’ Day game in Boston on Monday at 11 a.m. ET, top-15-from-2022 starter Max Fried rejoins the Atlanta Braves after recovering from a hamstring injury, while hot-starting youngsters Jesus Luzardo of the Miami Marlins and Dustin May of the Los Angeles Dodgers make their fourth starts of the season, both at home.
Fried’s return goes under the start/sit microscope, primarily due to the absence of a rehabilitation start, fueling questions about a prospective pitch count in the outing. It’s possible he’ll be held to 75 pitches or fewer, but otherwise is too talented to bench in any fantasy league, so let how strict your league’s start cap drive your decision.
Shifting to the hitting side of things, here are three players you should be adding to all of your fantasy lineups for this week:
Three to add
In any such example, the “small sample noise” question is fair, as we’re still talking about only 18 days of baseball, and really just eight strong days of power production. But in Kelenic’s case, he looks like a different hitter this season than in either of the previous two, not to mention more like the type of player who earned consensus top-five-in-baseball prospect rankings entering his 2021 rookie year. Many prospects take an extended time to get fully acclimated to the majors, and Kelenic is still only 23 years old and just two years removed from those future-star predictions.
He brings far too much promise to be left available in any fantasy league. Best yet, he’s somehow still out there for the taking in about 54% of ESPN leagues!
Between the majors and Triple-A ball from 2017-22, he had .222 isolated power, he has an 11.3% career big-league Statcast Barrel rate (the MLB average during that time is 6.8%), and he’s pulling the ball at a 54% rate this year. Cordero does have a lot of “swing and miss” in his game, and he’s still too ground-ball oriented to be a budding superstar (54.2% rate this season, 46.1% career). Still, he’s in a good situation for home runs, RBIs and runs scored, and he should play regularly for the foreseeable future, especially with Giancarlo Stanton now on the IL.
Consider adding Cordero, who has the added benefit of being both first base and outfield eligible, if power is what your team needs.
From a general — i.e. non Week 3 schedule-specific — standpoint, Marsh stands out as a prospective long-term pickup, too, being that he has made some subtle changes that might fuel a breakthrough. He’s chasing fewer non-strikes with his 23% chase rate checking in at well beneath his 29% career number. He’s also delivering more Barrels to go along with his well-above-average speed. There might be a 20/20 caliber season in his skill set.
Pitching in
The AL West-leading Texas Rangers should fatten up their lead during fantasy’s Week 3, beginning with three road games against the Kansas City Royals and concluding with three home games against the Oakland Athletics. That’s a pair of opponents that currently place among the league’s five worst run-scoring offenses. Ace Jacob deGrom is aligned as the Rangers’ two-start pitcher, and he’ll be working both games with five days of rest, having thrown 92 and 98 pitches in his previous two outings.
Beyond deGrom, however, the Rangers have an entire rotation of widely-available starters who all warrant streaming consideration. Nathan Eovaldi and Martin Perez are aligned to face the Royals, while Jon Gray and Andrew Heaney are set to battle the Athletics. Gray, incidentally, is expected to be ready to take his turn this week despite having been hit in the forearm by a line drive in his last outing.
It’s the Rangers bullpen, however, that has their top pickup, with the team likely having a number of leads to protect in the ninth inning.
Setup man Will Smith might see a good share of late-inning work, warranting a mention — especially with the new reward for holds in ESPN leagues, but Leclerc seems like the team’s “go-to guy” in the ninth for now. This is an ideal week to slot him in, with the hope that he’ll deliver multiple saves.
Source: News