Players to Avoid in Your Fantasy Draft

If you haven’t already had your Fantasy Baseball draft this season you may want to read this first as I introduce some players that I think you should avoid this season. Most of these players had career years in 2014 and will be picked up a lot higher than they should be, in my opinion, in 2015.

Nobody better to start off with then the Astros Jose Altuve who won the American League batting title in 2014. Altuve isn’t going to hit .341 again and the offense around him is not significantly better that it will improve his runs, stolen bases or RBI total. The same can be said for the Twins Phil Hughes who walked a total of 0.69 batters per nine innings in 2014. Hughes dialed up his velocity in Minnesota but was still prone to the fly ball and to being hit hard, which he was even in his career season in 2014, so I expect his ERA and peripherals to rise. He’s still worth taking, just not in the first few rounds.

Yoenis Cespedes will be hurt from a change in his home park. Cespedes has played in the Oakland Coliseum but Comerica Park is no friendlier than his stadium was in Oakland. He should get plenty of pitches to hit with Victor Martinez and Miguel Cabrera in the lineup but his average is dropping and so are his home run and RBI totals. He doesn’t take walks and he doesn’t steal bases. Unless he’s a no brainer kind of late in the draft I say you pass. The same can be said for Nelson Cruz as he moves from one of the most beautiful stadiums in Major League Baseball to Safeco Field in Seattle. I think Cruz peaked and had a chip on his shoulder in 2014, the same will not be said in 2015 with a much bigger salary and only Robinson Cano protecting him in the lineup.

We finish with Masahiro Tanaka as the ultimate high risk high reward type player in fantasy. If he’s healthy and he’s on he is as dominant as anyone else on the field and in fantasy. If the elbow pops, and it could at any second of any day and ultimately it probably will before his pitching career is over, then you ultimately wasted a first or second round pick on a guy that will end up on waivers and in the free agency bin for the next two seasons more than likely.