MLB

Fantasy Baseball Mailbag: Tuesday 5/31/16

Jim Sannes  —  @JimSannes May 31st, 2016
It may feel like you're buying high on Yu Darvish after his superb season debut, but he's worth the price.

We're starting a new little diddy here on numberFire to try to help you navigate the ever-changing landscape that is fantasy baseball. It's not easy to keep up with all of the day-to-day fluctuations, so it can help to have someone to bounce ideas off of. That's what our daily mailbag will look to do.

Feel free to shoot us any questions you may have throughout the day on Twitter, and then we'll try to answer as many as we can in the form of a post. If you prefer, you can also send an email to Jim.Sannes@FanDuel.com. These questions can be anything fantasy baseball related. That means daily fantasy baseball, season-long, dynasty, and everything else are all in play.

Obviously, we won't be able to get to all questions because there's a lot to cover. For additional questions, be sure to check out our new MLB DFS tools along with our daily and season-long projections, which should help out more times than not.

Now, enough of that. Let's dig into today's mailbag and see what's popping in the world of fantasy baseball.


I love the line of thinking on this trade. People may believe they're selling high on Yu Darvish after his season debut, but it'd be smart to acquire him now if the compensation is Cole Hamels and Cameron Maybin.

Darvish wasn't just good in his debut; he was electric. His average fastball velocity was 94 miles per hour, the highest total he has produced since July 27th... of 2013. For a guy coming off of Tommy John surgery, that should raise some eyebrows.

It's still too soon to say that Darvish is officially his old self, but he came about as close as you can to declaring that in one start. If he can be the old Yu, you're going to want him.

Darvish's career skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) is 3.09 with a 30.1% strikeout rate. Among the pitchers who have thrown 500 innings since the start of the 2012 season, that's the eighth-best SIERA and the best strikeout rate. That's the ceiling for this guy, and he's still only 29 years old, so he's an elite dynasty asset despite the slight injury concerns. This is less a condemnation of Hamels, who is also good, than it is an endorsement of one of the game's more underrated pitchers.

It may feel like you're buying high to acquire Darvish now in either re-draft or dynasty. But buying high isn't always a bad thing if the peripherals indicate that the dominance is sustainable, and that's exactly what we've got with Darvish. If I were you, I'd do that trade in a second and let Darvish flourish on my roster.


This basically depends on what you're looking for. As a real-world hitter, Adam Duvall's combination of a 29.1% strikeout rate and 3.6% walk rate make him a largely undesirable asset. However, for non-on-base-percentage fantasy leagues, dude's likely going to keep raking. If you were able to snag him, you may have gotten yourself a gem.

If you're going to have the abysmal plate-discipline stats that Duvall has had in the majors, you had better be absolutely knocking the poo out of the baseball. Thankfully, Duvall has been doing exactly that.

His hard-hit rate this year is up to 38.9% with a 46.3% fly-ball rate. Those are both in line with his career numbers entering this year, and with how quickly those stats normalize, they aren't fluky by any means. They're the marks of a legit power hitter who will do some damage pretty much whenever he makes contact.

On top of that, Duvall's situation is sniffing perfection. He bats in a premium spot in the order to drive in runs, and Great American Ballpark is an ideal spot for big boppers. The home runs are going to keep on coming as long as he's able to make enough contact to stay in the order.

If you need a comp for Duvall going forward, he's a more extreme version of Mark Trumbo on a worse offense. Both guys have plate-discipline issues, but they play in great parks and have quality situations for fantasy output, and Duvall shouldn't be on waivers in almost any league.

A guy like Duvall is going to have cold streaks with his grotesque strikeout numbers. If you're willing to wait those out, though, and hold on to him until the hits start to come again, it should likely pay off with some tasty power numbers to pad your stats in a few categories.

Want to have your questions answered in our mailbox? Submit your questions by tweeting @numberFire, or send an email to Jim.Sannes@FanDuel.com.