April 18, 2021
By Fantasy Baseball Analysts Matthew Rosser and Curtis Bailey
We aren’t quite at cruise control speed yet in this young season, but the road is starting to open up in front of us. There are a few interesting names available that you could grab and make waves in your league with. Much like last week, it’s still too early to drop most of the struggling players you are starting to worry about, but not all of them. Today we are going to tell you who you should add, hold, and drop going into week 3. Green lights are your adds, yellow lights are your holds, and lastly red lights are your drops.
Green Lights
Jed Lowrie:
This was going to be about Anthony DeSclafani, but his peripherals are awful and should be sold everywhere possible, so we’re going back to the well and loving Jed Lowrie this week. While this is our first season writing, I feel like we have written this section for the past ten years. Ol’ Jed is a waiver wire staple, and it’s that time of year again: Pick him up. He is currently on fire, hitting .360 and slugging .560. Lowrie will absolutely calm down, but he runs as hot as anyone not named Adam Duvall (this is what we call a “tease”) and has better fundamentals than most to fall back on. Juice this orange as long as possible. -MR
Joe Ross:
Joe Ross broke into the league in 2015 at just 22 years old. He was immediately effective and seemed to be destined for greatness. This dominance of major league batters carried through into his sophomore season right up until he got hurt. This is why he has only started 27 games since 2016. He opted out of the 2020 season and has come back into the 2021 looking as healthy as he has ever looked in his career. When he pitches, he pitches well, and right now he is pitching. You have one more start to get him before he stops being available. -CB
Adam Duvall:
Is there anyone in baseball better than Adam Duvall when he is on his game? Through 11 games, Duvall is slugging .694 which fuels his ludacris 1.028 OPS. Duvall does this every year. He gets so hot it feels like your phone is going to melt when you check your lineup and then he fades into nothingness. You probably won’t want him all season, but you want/need him right now. So if Duvall is available, go and get him because while he is hot, he will win weeks for you. -CB
Yellow Lights
Patrick Corbin:
We were split on how to value the 2020 year for established guys. Is J.D. Martinez over the hill? Can the Astros, as a whole, hit without trash cans? Are Corbin, Chris Paddack, and Blake Snell fading out of fantasy relevance forrealz? Turns out, J.D. is still very much a badass, the Astros are still paying the karmic piper, and uh well, idkmybffjill about the pitching. Paddack and Snell have at least looked like roster-able streamers, and shown some signs of life, but Corbin… Corbin has shown only signs of strife. Through two starts this year, he has given up fifteen runs in 6.1 innings. You know what we call that in the biz? That’s right folks, it’s “really bad”. Corbin’s overall velocity is down by a mile, and his slider that put him on the map in 2018 hasn’t shown up yet. The Nationals have had a weird start to their season, and while you got a discount on Corbin, you likely paid a little too much to cut ties already. Maybe bench him against the Cardinals this week and give him a chance to right the ship. -MR
Max Fried:
We love Fried here at DraftID. He came into 2021 as the true ace of the Braves rotation, having surpassed the oft injured Mike Soroka. Things didn’t exactly turn out how they were supposed to though. Fried has been so bad. In points leagues he has negative points right now. Mercifully, the Braves put him in on the IL list with a hamstring injury. I know you have other injured players on your team and you need to clear space on your roster. Fried is not the guy to drop. He is going to come back and if he is half the player he was in 2020, he will be more than rosterable. Don’t tank your team by overreacting to 3 starts from Fried. -CB
Ian Anderson:
IAN ANDERSON WAS A SHORT SEASON FLASH IN THE PAN AND WENT HORRENDOUSLY OVERDRAFTED THIS YEAR. Ok, now that I’ve said that, let’s hope the reverse jinx kicks in. After being damn near unhittable over 50 innings of regular and postseason play last year, the Blood Diamond of the Brave’s VanDeKapp pitching quarry looked every bit the part. So far this season, he is missing bats and still looks unhittable, but only with one pitch at a time. He hasn’t been able to control more than one of his three great offerings in any of his starts. If you own Anderson, he hasn’t returned what you paid for yet, but do not fret. All of his peripherals are in a good spot, he just needs to settle in and get everything clicking at the same time. He has a tough matchup at the Yankees this week so don’t panic if it doesn’t happen there, but be patient with the 22 year old, because he can still pitch like a grown-ass man. -MR
Red Lights
Corey Kluber:
I wanted to put Kluber as a yellow, because he is always terrible in April, and finds a way to turn it around and be a top 10 pitcher. Then, I looked into when the last time he actually was good was. It was 2018. Both of the past 2 seasons, Kluber has gotten hurt before getting out of the first chunk of the season. He looks very bad this year (6.10 ERA/2.23 WHIP), while being in the worst park of his career, and in a very offensive division. I love the Klubot and will be looking for any signs of a turnaround to scoop him up, but for now, time to let him go until he has successfully rebooted. -MR
Drew Smyly:
Drew Smyly started his career as a highly regarded prospect for the Tigers in 2012. He pitched well through four seasons before he ran into the injury buzzsaw that forced him to miss all of 2017 and 2018 seasons. He came back in 2019 and looked very bad. Then he followed that up with the short 2020 season where he looked pretty good. Now in the young 2021 season he has looked very bad, and is now dealing with a forearm strain that we all know is one of the early indicators that Tommy John’s is on the way. He isn’t worth the stash unless everyone on your team is healthy, and we all know that isn’t the case. -CB
Zach Davies:
Davies is a player that I have gone in and out on throughout the years. When he is good, I don’t have him and when he is bad I have him everywhere. You can probably guess from that that I have Zach Davies everywhere and I loved him this preseason. He has been unownable. He has been so bad I am just waiting for the Cubs to tell us he is injured. Don’t wait for that to happen. Just drop him now and be done with it. Even if he turns it around, his ceiling is so low that your leaguemates won’t think it was dumb of you to drop him. -CB
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