Gary Sanchez, New York Yankees - That sound you heard this afternoon was every person in fantasy collectively inhaling and holding their breaths as Gary Sanchez came up grimacing after a swing. The sound you then heard was those same owners screaming after he tried a practice swing and dropped his right arm down immediately. Luckily (?) what looked like a wrist injury ended up just being a bicep strain, but he's already been placed on the 10 day DL. The Yankees are calling up catcher Kyle Higashioka to take Sanchez's spot on the roster but he should serve as the backup to Austin Romine. Romine provides a little pop at the position a pair of catchers off to decent starts that are owned in less than 50% of mixed leagues are Stephen Vogt (Oakland) and Sandy Leon (Boston). The A's face righties in 4 of their 6 games next week (Vogt career 110 wRC+ against RHP) and Leon is hitting .417 with a homer early in the season.
Avisail Garcia, Chicago White Sox - Avisail Garcia continued his torrid start to the season going 3-for-4 with his first dinger of the season and driving in three runs. He's hitting a crisp .500 on the season through 17 ABs but still has his classic K% well over his BB%. And by well over I mean by almost 20% over. Garcia has shown flashes at time in the majors but his chase% has always been massive at 41.5% for his career and his contact on those pitches is 51.5%. His swinging strike rate also causes some worry at 17% for his career. You can ride the hot streak while it lasts, but unfortunately Garcia hasn't shown me enough in his career to jump on the hype train quite yet.
Trevor Bauer, Cleveland Indians - Trevor Bauer had a mixed bag of results in his first start of the season, throwing 5.2 innings with seven hits allowed and four earned runs. None of the is great, but Bauer did strike out 7 while walking none which has been extremely intrigued. The 11.12 K/9 is far closer to the numbers he showed in the minor leagues when he flew through the D'Backs system but he's never come close to reaching that with the Indians. The zero walks over five and two-thirds is also extremely impressive as his career BB/9 is just under 4.00. One game sample size sure thing, but we're talking about a pitcher who was once one of the elite minor league arms and is still just 26 years old.
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers - Maybe the last player on the planet besides Mike Trout that you'd expect to be hitless through his first 16 at bats is Miguel Cabrera, but here we are. Cabrera has fallen victim to strikeouts for the first time ever and is fanning in almost 40% of his PAs. The only things in his plate discipline charts that are interesting is that he's swinging at fewer pitches in the zone, but is "chasing" pitches out of the zone at his normal rate. HOWEVER! He's contact% on those pitches out of the zone is nearly 10% lower than his career average and 14% below what he was last year. Miggy was likely a second round pick in your league (at the latest) so if he went to a panicky owner shoot over some sort of offer for him, it's not like one of the greatest right handed hitters ever has just forgotten how to hit.
Lance McCullers Jr, Houston Astros - Lance McCullers has become a trendy Cy Young sleeper pick as every time he's been healthy on a pitcher's mound he's dominated. His first game of the year game against Seattle and he allowed one run over 6.0 innings while striking out seven with a 88.9% GB rate. When you're striking out almost 11 per nine and getting ground balls at a 90% in a single start it's darn near impossible to get anything going. The Royals early on have posted just a 71 wRC+ against righties which ranks them 25th in baseball. He's the 6th most expensive pitcher on Fanduel Sunday at $8,400.
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