With the first full week almost in the books, most Major League Baseball teams have turned over their pitching rotation each once. For fantasy baseball purposes, this means we’ve found guys in the mid-to-end of the rotation who can help us out. Several pitchers already stated their case this week that they need a spot on your roster. As usual, the cutoff for this pieces is 50% ownership for the first two slots and 10% ownership max for the third. Ownership figures come from Yahoo! Leagues.
[Jeff]
Dylan Bundy, Baltimore (49% owned)
Dylan Bundy bounced between Baltimore’s bullpen and starting rotation last season. There were many question marks surrounding Bundy coming into the year, but he answered them this week in his first start. First, he figured out his curveball, and it is filthy.
Start your night off with a nasty Dylan Bundy curveball #Orioles pic.twitter.com/s6Cs75rmMl
— Sung Min Kim (@sung_minkim) April 5, 2017
That is a nice curveball. That is a great curveball. That type of curveball turns someone from a good pitcher to a great pitcher. Bundy should be owned in over 80% of leagues, and make sure if you’re in one of the 51% of leagues where he isn’t owned that you go out and fix that immediately.
Brandon Finnegan, Cincinnati (41% owned)
Finnegan was a trendy sleeper candidate going into the season, and so far, so good. He struck out nine Phillies, yielding just one hit and one walk. He has a 95 MPH fastball (though speed data is all screwy so far this year). He’ll play half his games in Citizen Bank Bandbox Park, so that’ll be over his head, but he’s worth snagging in this season as a lottery ticket. He has the pedigree, and the hype didn’t come out of anywhere.
Alex Wood, Dodgers (3% owned)
The Dodgers’ injury woes continue, with Rich Hill landing on the 10-day DL. Luckily for the Boys in Blue, they have approximately 700 starting pitchers in reserve. Wood was a middle reliever to start the season, so his low ownership numbers make sense. Hill missed exactly a month with a blister last season (and was placed on the 15-day DL twice during the span, once by the A’s and once by the Dodgers). He then was day-to-day and missed another start with a blister. What I’m saying is Wood might be around a while. After giving up five runs twice in his first four starts, Wood posted 39.1 innings of 2.52 ERA baseball. Though it should be noted: he didn’t pitch from May 30 to September 21… thanks to injury.