The first month of the fantasy baseball season can be one of the most critical as you embark on your quest for a championship.
It’s not so much about where you are today in the rankings as it is about how you position yourself and build your squad for the coming months.
You need to study the statistical trends that are happening now and find ways to capitalize on what’s happening before your opponents even realize what you’re doing.
Stolen bases, once again, seem to be the best place to act.
Last season, stolen bases reached an all-time high.
By the end of April 2023, 566 bases had been stolen.
As of Friday, there were a total of 402 interceptions, meaning the league is surprisingly on pace to beat last year’s totals in the first month. Funny enough, people still believe that thefts are down.
There’s no one with a double-digit stolen base total and the top burners we expected to see at the top of the leaderboard are nowhere to be found.
This is where you can take action.
While Brice Turang and Lane Thomas led the league in interceptions on Friday, Nico Hoerner and Esteury Ruiz only have two interceptions between them.
Both players have been short this season because teams that took power and pitched early in drafts wanted to make sure they covered their stolen bases after last year’s blowout.
Hoerner was a fifth-round pick while Ruiz, a one-class contributor, was pushed up to the sixth round.
Neither raced and their fantasy owners are growing more frustrated by the day.
But their frustration is with the player as a whole, not his place in the stolen base category, as they’ve found contributions from unexpected sources.
Players like Turang, Thomas, Will Benson and Jose Caballero keep them in contention within the class, providing a false sense of security that they will do just fine in steals.
But eventually the water finds its own level and these players won’t be enough, so now is the time to come up with these cheap buy deals.
Betting on baseball?
Hoerner may not have stolen bases yet, but his .380 on-base percentage tells us his opportunities are on the way.
Ruiz, demoted for reasons unrelated to his on-field performance, may not be a full-time player at the moment, but his level of play forced the team to bring him back and he too will start to steal around the base trails. These players totaled 110 interceptions last season.
Don’t miss the opportunity to redeem one now and dominate the category before the end of the first half.
Howard Bender is the Content Manager at FantasyAlarm.com. Follow him on @rotobuzzguy and find him on the award-winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Channel weekdays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy baseball news and advice.
New York Post
