Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings – Week 2

Have you ever had a really good week? Things just seem to be working out in your favor for whatever reason, and the universe is smiling upon you. It feels like you can do no wrong, and whatever you touch turns to gold. You wish you could bottle up that mojo forever. But alas, you realize that your good fortune may be fleeting. Conversely, there are weeks when you feel like you are just stuck in the mud. Perhaps there is a stressor weighing on your mind or a feeling you cannot shake. You know there will be better days ahead, but it is difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. All of these ebbs and flows are part of the human experience. Everyone has good days and bad.

I bring this up because, much to our chagrin at times, baseball players are indeed human. There are times when the baseball looks like a beach ball to a batter, and others when it looks like a golf ball. So I do not want to make any wild declarations based on roughly a week of data. Making rash decisions early on in the season is impractical, and is often akin to throwing good money after bad. Because of that, I will try not to deviate too far from where I landed on most players before Opening Day. At the same time, you don’t want to get left holding the bag. This is a delicate balance to try to navigate.

We all love shiny new toys, and we all want to be first. There are few feelings in fantasy that are better than calling your shot on a player and having it work out. For example, if you picked up Adolis Garcia last April, you were likely loving life for the rest of the spring. I know I was when I grabbed him off the waiver wire in my TGFBI league. But did you feel that same rush when he hit .219 with 11 home runs from July 1 on? Probably not. On the flip side, I dropped Joey Votto in that same league on Memorial Day. It made sense at the time. He was batting .226 with five home runs and dealing with an injury. All he did from June 1 forward was hit .278 with 31 bombs. I lost the league by one point. But enough about me. Besides, I know you just want to know where I rank Steven Kwan and Seiya Suzuki.

Sensational Starts for Steven and Seiya

I will concede that I moved both of them up quite a bit from where I had them a couple of weeks ago. Currently, Kwan remains outside my overall top-300. I know, I know… I am going to be the guy who ranks him “too low” for the foreseeable future. If he beats me, so be it. I just want to see him perform at this level just a little bit longer. Besides, he has a bottom-10 percentile ranking in both hard-hit percentage and average exit velocity. I understand those metrics are not as important to a player who makes contact at the rate the way that Kwan does. But Kwan will need to provide some pop (unlikely) or speed (to be determined) before I consider him a must-start every week.

I am much higher on Suzuki than Kwan, as was the case in the preseason. I had Suzuki ranked at 156 overall before the season began. But so far he has exceeded my expectations, and there are certainly reasons to buy in. Again, small sample size alert, but Suzuki ranks in the top-10 percentile in both barrel percentage and chase rate. That is quite a combination. Suzuki even has a higher sprint speed than Kwan for the record. If he can throw in double-digit steals on top of his plus-power, Suzuki should easily be a top-100 hitter moving forward, with the potential for an even greater return.

Below are my rest of season fantasy baseball rankings based on how I expect players to perform from Week 2 through the remainder of the season. I tried to incorporate a wide number of players since waiver wire adds are usually fast and furious this time of year. I will update these rankings every weekend, so be on the lookout.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings