It hasn’t been the best start for my dynasty league fantasy baseball team. Before the draft, the season was full of promise. Having both Trea Turner and Andrew Benintendi on inexpensive, long term deals, and Alex Reyes and Vlad Guerrero Jr. waiting in the wings in the minors gives me a promising young core. The potential feels huge. But, Turner and Benny have both had slow starts to the season. Turner is only hitting .195 and Benny is currently batting .206.
The rest of my team, with a few exceptions, can’t seem to get started this season. J.D. Martinez is hitting .222 with only one home run, Alex Bregman is sitting at .186 and can’t buy a base hit, and Yonder Alonso, who remains my sleeper pick, is STILL ASLEEP only hitting .167 with two home runs.
I also have Justin Turner sitting on the DL before the season got started. Which isn’t a huge blow to my team, YET. But as the first two weeks of the season wore on, the injuries started to mount.
First, Corey Knebel, my top (and only legitimate active closer) goes down with a hamstring injury. I blame the cold start to the season. Why can’t all teams start the season in stadiums on the west coast? Then, Ryon Healy (my replacement for Justin Turner) sprains his right ankle. Then, Johnny Cueto, my de facto ace, goes and sprains his ankle as well! What’s with the Bay Area ankle injuries?
While none of the DL stints will be too long, except for Knebel, I should note that I also drafted Zach Britton to my team, who is currently on the shelf until the end of May. This leaves me with about ⅙ of my team on the disabled list only two weeks into the season. Not to mention that I also keep Matt Moore on my bench for an unknown reason.
There have been a few bright spots, though. I don’t want you to think that I’m only here to complain. Matt Chapman is killing it so far this season, hitting .349 with nine runs, three homers, and 8 RBI. Cueto (before the ankle injury), Gio Gonzalez, Charlie Morton, and Blake Snell have all been holding their own on the pitching side of things, combining for 5 wins and keeping me near the top of the league’s ERA category.
My team currently sits in 10th place. I have hopes for a top 5 finish this year, but I’ll need to snag a few surprises on the waiver wire and hopefully avoid the injury bug for the remainder of the year.
The Shorts 