Fantasy Baseball: 3 Early-Round Bust Candidates
Francisco Lindor, SS, Cleveland Indians
NFBC ADP: 9
Despite the fact that Francisco Lindor will miss up to nine weeks with a calf injury, the Cleveland Indians' superstar shortstop still remains a first round draft pick in leagues. It's worth noting that he is down to 13th since news of the injury broke, but even in a league of industry experts, Lindor remained in the first round.
Besides the obvious injury concerns, the 38-homer, 25-steal shortstop is seeing his value drop, and that's where his value becomes questionable:
| Source | PAs | Runs | HR | RBI | SB | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE BAT | 630 | 90 | 29 | 93 | 17 | .300 |
| Steamer | 662 | 101 | 30 | 89 | 20 | .292 |
And keep in mind, Lindor maxed out his playing time the last two years with 700-plus plate appearances in 2017 and 2018, so both of these are assuming that he misses some time, or -- at the least -- the Indians manage his workload early. That certainly will depress his counting statistics a bit.
Furthermore, his strikeouts were up over 100 a year ago. The 25-year-old saw his strikeout rate increase by 1.4% while his contact rate fell to 84.1% on a chase rate (O-Swing %) of 32.7%, per FanGraphs.
In addition, we are assuming he hits the ground running on that early timetable, and that certainly is risky, too. Lindor is absolutely a stud, but buying a player that we already know is injured could be dicey.
