USATSI

You don’t want to overreact. And you definitely don’t want to underreact. There’s a little grey area in there, and that’s where we want to operate early in the Fantasy Baseball season. 

Got it?

No?

Okay, fine, I’ll give some examples, using actual players who played this week and who are actually on your roster. Today, we’ll take a look at three pitchers: One I’m already fine dropping, one I’m worried about but still want to keep around for a while, and one I wouldn’t even think about dropping for at least a month: 

• Walker Buehler, Red Sox @TEX: 4.1 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 0 BB, 3 K – This is a tough lineup, but I still think the best thing I can say here is, “At least he didn’t get bombed.” We saw very little of Buehler this spring in front of the Statcast cameras, and we really don’t have much positive to take from this one. He throws a deep arsenal but his command seems a grade down from when he was at his best – and his stuff might be multiple grades lower. Whatever he found in reserve in the postseason wasn’t there this time out, and he looked too much like the version of himself that got rocked last regular season. If there’s any pitcher with upside on the waiver wire – from Jeffrey Springs to Jack Leiter to Max Meyer – I’d be willing to drop Buehler already. I was willing to give him a turn or two in the rotation to see if he could turn the clocks back, but after seeing him look more or less exactly like he did last season, I don’t see much reason to wait it out. 
• Reynaldo Lopez, Braves @SD: 5 IP, 9 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K – Well, the velocity was there, answering one question from the spring. Unfortunately, the results really weren’t, as he generated just three swinging strikes on 94 pitches. He didn’t command his secondaries well at all, throwing just 19% of his sliders and curveballs in the strike zone. The Padres tend to be a very disciplined lineup, so that might explain much of his inability to generate whiffs in this one – but I’ll admit, that’s me looking for reasons to not be as pessimistic as I want to be. I was out on Lopez in most leagues this spring, and he’ll need to show me a lot in the next few starts or I will be talking about dropping him. 
• Bailey Ober, Twins @STL: 2.2 IP, 8 H, 8 ER, 3 BB, 3 K – Okay, maybe we just don’t start Bailey Ober in his first start of the season anymore. At least he got out of the second inning this time, something we couldn’t say in his debut a year ago! I dunno, I don’t want to overreact, but I’ve been a little iffy on Ober since the spring, and his velocity has remained since the spring. Because he’s so tall, he gets excellent extension, allowing low-90s velocity to play up, but it’s still not ideal for a modern MLB starter to be sitting around 90 mph more often than not. And the iffy stuff might just leave him prone to these kinds of starts, something we saw on multiple occasions last season, leading to an inflated ERA. You’re not dropping him, and you’re probably starting him against the Astros the next time around, even, but I don’t feel great about Ober right now. 

Got it? At the risk of oversimplifying: I wouldn’t consider dropping a top-100 pick until May no matter how bad they were and I’m certainly not ready to drop anyone from the 150 range right now, but I’m open to moving on from a late-round pick already if there are more interesting options around. 

What about someone like Rafael Devers, you might be asking? 12 strikeouts in 16 plate appearances after a delayed start to spring training due to shoulder issues is pretty concerning, isn’t it?

Good question and the answer is: Yes, of course it’s concerning. We’ve been concerned for a while, ever since he showed up for Spring Training still dealing with the shoulder injuries that ended last season early for him. Devers’ play was clearly impacted by those injuries, and though the team said there was no structural damage, the fact that a five-month offseason wasn’t enough to get him past the injuries is obviously concerning! 

And his bat speed is still down in the early going. Devers was in the 60th percentile in bat speed in 2024, down from 69th percentile the previous season, likely as a result of the late-season collapse in his swing. So far he’s in the 19th percentile. Yeah, that’s concerning. 

But let me ask you a question: What are you gonna do about it? If you can trade him for a third-round caliber player like Manny Machado, I’d be fine with that, of course; you’re not losing any draft capital in that deal, but you’re getting a player with a similar ceiling and fewer questions. But you’re probably not getting that in return for Devers right now, and I’m not selling him for a huge discount – getting someone like Eugenio Suarez for him just wouldn’t make any sense, given Suarez’s own performance concerns. 

You’re probably stuck with Devers. That might work out poorly if his shoulders never get right. But if it turns out that he just needed a couple of weeks to find his swing and you get 5.5 months of normal Rafael Devers production, hanging on to him will go a long way toward helping you win your league. Short of getting a player with similar upside, I’m hanging on to Devers.

It’s not really a grey area, then. It’s pretty clean and simple: I’m not even thinking about dropping anyone I drafted in the first 10 rounds until May at the earliest, and even longer for my true early-round picks. And I’d prefer not to even think about trading an early-round pick for any reason when they’re off to a slow start. Baseball’s a long season, and a bad weekend can happen to anyone. 

It should go without saying, but: Don’t overreact. You’re much better off underreacting at this point, even.