Patience, people, PATIENCE!!!
It's a lesson I -- nay, we, most every fantasy analyst -- impart upon you year after year, yet every mid-April, here's where we are, needing to repeat the line. I'm not sure the reason, be it the excitement of a new season, the stage of year affording us singular focus on baseball, or perhaps the rapid changes in year-to-date statistics due to April's precariously small samples, but every year, we seem to be back here.
So I'll put it this way: Don't race to cut the core of your fantasy baseball team (without some extremely compelling reason to do so) in April, because there's no better way to gift a sizable chunk of value to your competition. This game, in a general sense, has a way of evening out over 162 team games and 182 calendar days. Just to cherry-pick two such examples from 2021:
Max Fried, the No. 72 overall pick and No. 22 starting pitcher selected on average last season, was hammered for an 11.45 ERA through three starts in the season's first 13 days, landing on the injured list with a hamstring injury in the third such start. From Day 14 forward, he was 19-of-25 in quality starts with a 2.44 ERA and 0.98 WHIP.
Brandon Lowe, the No. 63 overall pick and No. 5 second baseman selected on average, batted .194/.326/.250 with only two extra-base hits, both doubles, in the first 13 days, which came on the heels of a postseason during which he batted .118/.183/.276 and struck out in 34.1% of his plate appearances. From Day 14 forward, he batted .251/.341/.543 with a sixth-best-in-baseball 39 home runs.
Expanding 2021 results, 48 of the top 125 players selected on average in ESPN leagues returned negative value -- meaning a Player Rater number outside the top 250 overall -- through the season's first 13 days. Fourteen of those rebounded, from Day 14 forward, to earn at least as much value as their preseason ADP indicated, an additional three finished within 50 rankings spot of their ADP and eight more were positive earners (top-250 performers) even if returning value more than 50 ranking spots beneath their ADPs. Of the other 21 early underperformers, 14 remained so in large part due to an injury that cost them at least a month's time from that point forward, meaning there was at least a rational, actionable explanation for it -- as in, you'd either IL or cut the injured player, move on and perhaps recoup value on the pickup.
In other words, unless there's a clear reason to, you shouldn't be moving on from your premium draft picks, because the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of the most talented players exhibiting their best talents over the full 162.
That's not to say there is no exception to this rule, as among the 2021-as-a-whole disappointments, from that same top 125 in ADP, were Luis Castillo, Kyle Hendricks, Keston Hiura, Jesus Luzardo and Blake Snell. Can we extract 2022's similar examples from the list of slow starters? Perhaps. Certainly I'll try.
We'll start with the nine players below, specifically selected for their significant level of underperformance relative to ADP, but also because each of these players, remarkably, has been cut in at least 1% of ESPN leagues. In other words, this is a list of players with whom fantasy managers have been least patient. Are they right? Each includes my verdict on his slow start.