Rockies’ Kris Bryant highlights fantasy baseball risers, fallers
Yahoo Sports' Scott Pianowski and Dalton Del Don discuss a few players who's fantasy stock could be rising and falling in 2022.
Video Transcript
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SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Fantasy baseball is back and it's glorious. There's been an agreement, there's been all sorts of player movement, and you need to know who's moving up, who's moving down. Dalton Del Don, who is a player moving up for you over the last couple of weeks?
DALTON DEL DON: Give me a recent signing-- Tommy Pham. Coming off a down season that can at least partially be blamed on an offseason stabbing in which he nearly died, still went nearly 15-15 in fewer than 500 at-bats while playing in Petco Park. He was saddled in Tampa Bay before that, but now his fantasy value gets a nice boost signing with the Reds. Not only will he be a clear full-time player in the rebuilding Cincinnati, but he goes from calling one of the most extreme pitcher's park home to benefiting from a pitcher's paradise in Cincinnati. Only Coors Field has increased run scoring more than Cincinnati over the last three seasons and it's also among the league leaders in helping righty power. Pham basically could not have found a better landing spot and he might even be healthy this year.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Looks like some good, cheap category juice there. And he's not that far removed from a 300, 400, 500 slash line--
DALTON DEL DON: Right.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --in his breakout season. So I think Pham offering tremendous value. You mentioned Coors Field. And look, it's the most obvious thing in the world. We want our batters to go to Coors Field. When Kris Bryant was a free agent I was nervous. I looked at some of his historical comps, right? Hank Blaylock, Richard Hidalgo, Yanez Cespdes-- guys who all lost in the middle of their careers and weren't good in their 30s. I was worried that maybe Bryant would be that type of player.
Signs with the Rockies. We can exhale. Qualifies at two positions. The thin air will do him well. He'll have to deal with life on the road for Colorado hitters which can be kind of sketchy. And I want to tie-in Trevor Story here. Really excited he goes to Boston, OK? Now he was somebody who did great work, generally, in Coors. He was hurt most of last year. We know that they have to deal with the extra spin when they go on the road, so don't get fooled by looking at Trevor Story's road stats and think that's who he is.
He went to a perfect park, he went to a perfect lineup. He'll have dual position eligibility. He'll start off as a shortstop, he's going to play second base this year, and I think he might steal another 20 bases. He's got elite sprint speed, so Trevor Story approved for all fantasy audiences. Dalton, give me somebody who's moved down on your board in the last few weeks with all these transactions.
DALTON DEL DON: Now I'm going to talk about someone leaving Cincinnati. It's Jesse Winker. You know, he hit 305, 24 homers in just 110 games last year, just entering his prime. I loved him. Drafted him in multiple teams. He was a strong hitter on the road last season as well, but the trade to Seattle just absolutely hurts his fantasy value. There's no way around it. I'm learning a new set of pitchers isn't ideal, but the real problem here is the change in parks. As stated, Cincinnati has been paradise there. It's boosted homers for lefties by a whopping 37% over the last three seasons. Seattle decreases run scoring and lefty power. In fact, no park has hurt batting average more than Seattle over the last three years. Projection systems have hit Winker's batting average by upwards of 20 points with the move. Without question, the trade was a big downgrade for Winker's fantasy value, unfortunately.
SCOTT PIANOWSKI: One thing to keep in mind. If you do roster Winker this year, really heavy platoon splits. Doesn't hit left handers very well. So if you're in a daily format league, maybe you can skew him against the right-handed pitching. But I agree, those are some legitimate concerns. I'm going to give you an ancillary downgrade, OK? I'm a Nick Castellanos guy and I think he's going to be part of a really fun Philadelphia lineup. I think Kyle Schwarber was an interesting addition, ostensibly, as the DH. But this defense looks horrendous.
It was bad to begin with. They still have a problem with shortstop, they have a problem in the outfield, and so that means Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suarez, these are guys-- even Kyle Gibson-- these are guys I was really open to drafting maybe a month or two ago. Now I'm thinking any ball put in play is going to be a carnival show. And we've seen that pitching staff underperform their peripherals. That's the defense talking. With opening day set for April 7th, still plenty of time to get in the game over Yahoo Fantasy Baseball. Join a league, set up a league, get the band back together. We're going to be playing roto and talking roto all summer long. We want you with us. Yahoo Fantasy Baseball. Join today.