Early pick could be hard Correa mistake
NEARLY 20 years ago, the middle infield was a goldmine for fantasy baseball players. You had Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Miguel Tejada tearing it up at shortstop while players like Jeff Kent and Craig Biggio dominated at second base. Then it all started to fade away and as these greats’ careers tapered off, the new crop of middle infielders turned out to be much less exciting. As a result, shortstop and second base were positions you could wait on.
But over the past two years — with the emergence of Carlos Correa, Corey Seager and now Trea Turner — there suddenly is a renaissance. The quality at these two positions increased significantly, and with it the excitement has grown. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm has some of these young infielders flying up draft boards, and the inherent fantasy value they possess is being diminished by hype and exuberance.
Last season, Correa was one of the most overhyped rookies in the game. His 2015 was outstanding, and fantasy owners had visions of him banging 35 homers and stealing 25 bases. Analysts begged them to slow their roll, but to no avail. In 2016, Correa was taken in the first round of nearly every fantasy draft and ultimately became a major disappointment.
Correa’s 2016 was great. A .274 average with 20 home runs and 13 steals is fantastic for a young shortstop. But it wasn’t first-round material. Not even close. And though you would like to think the lesson was learned, the fact Turner is now being drafted in the first round and amateurishly projected to steal 70 bases, after just 307 bigleague at-bats, means it hasn’t.
Of course Turner is a great talent, but just doubling his total because he will get twice the atbats this year is not the proper way to project. It didn’t work with Correa last year, and it’s not going to work with Turner now.
Don’t let hype or overzealous projections push you into taking a middle infielder too early. Shortstop and second base are deeper now than they’ve been in at least 10 years. But still use your early picks on established studs.
Howard Bender is the managing editor at FantasyAlarm. com and host of “Fantasy Sports Tonight” on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Saturdays at 2 p.m. and Sundays at 8 p.m.). Follow him on Twitter @rotobuzzguy.