2021 fantasy baseball busts

Finding the key sleepers and breakouts in your fantasy baseball draft is important, but at least as crucial, if not moreso, is avoiding the busts, the landmines who will hurt you more than your great picks help. I’ve got my buckets of cold water today, and I’m ready to dash some hopes and dreams. Regardless of draft position or round, there are always potential player busts.

Of course, this can come in different forms and injuries aren’t technically busts. However, if a player is injury-prone coming in, that needs to be part of the pre-draft calculus. I often consider those players a fade and bear the risk of a healthy season. This risk-averse strategy applies particularly to the early rounds; I always tread very carefully. With that out of the way, here we go — a player bust or fade in every round by ADP (last 30 days per NFBC — with a very cool new ADP display by the way). 

While I have you, I hope you’re enjoying the fount of content we’ve been providing here at FTN Fantasy as we head toward the season. I genuinely appreciate you spending your time reading my work. If you missed it, last time in this space I provided a list of my favorite sleepers for the 2021 MLB season. I started way back at ADP 300 and provided an entire NFBC team of viable players.

Now, to today’s advice — the busts. Here’s a snapshot of the ADP board we will referencing, per NFBC.

(Click to enlarge and visit full draft page.)

Round 1: Christian Yelich, OF, Milwaukee Brewers

This is a health-based fade. Back problems don’t get better; they get worse. Yelich has MVP upside but there’s a reason with his skillset he’s falling late into the first. Drafting Yelich means starting your draft with the most risk of any player in the first round. Pass.

Round 2: Adalberto Mondesi, SS, Kansas City Royals

Mondesi is perhaps the lowest-hanging fruit of the bunch, but the below-average hit tool provides too easy a path to demotion (whether down the lineup or to the minors). He certainly has a place in leagues with an overall component, but I won’t pass on the elite talent available where he’s going in a standalone league.

Round 3: DJ LeMahieu, 1B/2B/3B, New York Yankees

LeMahieu will need everything to go right in both the power and speed department to return a profit at the cost. The problem is, he’s neither a power hitter nor a speedster. His swing may be tailor-made for Yankee Stadium, but power expectations should still be tempered given the track record. In terms of speed, LeMahieu is entering his age-32 season, when I begin to expect fewer steals, not more. If he does revert in those two categories, he will more closely represent a $15 player, which is good, but not worthy of a third-round pick.

Round 4: J.T. Realmuto, C, Philadelphia Phillies

Realmuto may be on pace to make it back into the lineup for Opening Day, but this is still an injury-based fade. As good as he is, that draft cost is justified by the expectation for steals. Let’s say he is somehow 100% healthy for the first game — do you really think the Phillies front office is going to risk reinjury? Will they sacrifice over $100 million for that base? If so, you’re free to make that choice. This isn’t to disparage drafting catchers early; I went into some more detail concerning catcher draft strategy earlier this offseason. I would just rather forego the expectations of those steals and target one of the other catching options later on.

Round 5: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1B/3B, Toronto Blue Jays

In my opinion, public perception is driving this price rather than reality. In his 757 career plate appearances, Vladito has a 51% ground ball rate, a 17% line drive rate and a 7.7% barrel rate. Without seeing some actionable change (aside from a strict diet), I can’t project 30-plus homers on those types of underlying metrics. That’s enough to tip the scales. Give me the vanilla veteran again. Anthony Rizzo is going nearly 60 picks later than Guerrero. and has an identical dollar valuation according to THE BAT.

Round 6: Cavan Biggio, 2B/3B/OF, Toronto Blue Jays

Biggio’s stock started to drop a bit for me with the addition of George Springer, and then it gapped down further when the Jays acquired Marcus Semien. The front office didn’t pay top dollar for those big free agents to hit late in the order, so Biggio will pay the price. The drop in lineup placement immediately affects plate appearances that were already tied to a potential batting average sinkhole. In the sixth round, we need to be drafting players hitting at the top of lineups. You can draft Mike Moustakas or Jean Segura later, both with a better lineup spot and higher projected valuations than Biggio.

Round 7: Javier Báez, SS, Chicago Cubs

Báez had always produced for roto players despite the exceptionally poor discipline until 2020. I don’t think he’ll be nearly as bad in 2021 as he was last year, but I will say this: Having extremely poor disciplinary and contact skills will always open a door to a rock-bottom outcome. It’s easy for me to fade a profile consistently in the bottom-10th percentile in BB percentage, chase percentage, in-zone contact rate and swinging strike rate. 

Round 8: Dinelson Lamet, SP, San Diego Padres

Considering the price and the surrounding available talent, there’s no way I’m drafting Lamet. More like lament, amirite? Dinelson already had Tommy John surgery in 2018 and then had to be shut down for arm discomfort late in 2020. I’d rather have Ian Anderson, Chris Paddack or Zach Wheeler at the same spot.

Round 9: Alec Bohm, 1B/3B, Philadelphia Phillies

This feels similar to Guerrero in terms of a public perception pushing price beyond reason. Bohm is a fine player with a bright future, but he has to meet every aspect of his highest projections to be a $9 player. If he ends up closer to THE BAT’s projections, he’s a $2 player and the 17th third baseman by dollar value. Hear me out before unleashing any vitriol: I don’t think Bohm is a bad baseball player. I do think you’re paying for his ceiling in the ninth round and are likely a year early on the big breakout. 

Round 10: Dominic Smith, 1B/OF, New York Mets

Smith has two current red flags that need to be rectified before I can draft him in the 10th. The first is the Mets having three left-handed hitters in the top half of the lineup, so Smith’s lineup placement will not be ideal. I think I was OK with that, except it seems we have lost the DH in the National League this year, and that hits Smith especially hard. I do think he’ll start most days, but I also think he stands to lose a lot of late ABs to Kevin Pillar. The Mets are making a very real push to win this season, and tightening up the late-game defense is a part of that plan. If MLB does re-institute the universal DH, you can discard this, but until then, there are several first basemen I’d rather have (check out my thoughts on first base fantasy strategy for more).

Round 11: Carlos Correa, SS, Houston Astros

This is more of a fade than a full bust for me, but there’s too much downside when you combine performance and injury risk. I detailed my overarching thoughts on shortstops for fantasy baseball last month, but long story short, it’s a priority for me early, and I’m getting one before Dansby Swanson. Back to Correa: yes, he was healthy for the “full” season that was 2020. However, it was still only 58 games and frankly, he wasn’t that good. The 98 wRC+ in 2020 isn’t the reason I’m fading him, but it is more evidence of the erratic nature of his outcomes. Per THE BAT projections, Correa is SS15, right in line with players like Didi Gregorius and Marcus Semien who are both being drafted later by ADP.

Round 12: Patrick Corbin, SP, Washington Nationals

If you follow my work, you’re probably surprised I didn’t pick Travis d’Arnaud. I wanted to surprise you by not selecting the catcher who is an obvious bust and a fade all at once. We waited all offseason for Corbin to throw so we could see his fastball velocity. He pitched Monday, and it was down near that alarming 90 mph mark. Until we see him bump up those radar gun readings, Corbin’s a fade. His struggles and their correlation to his velocity are well documented. He’s going to need his best stuff to compete at a high level in that division against the Mets and the Braves.

Thanks for reading and following along. As always, I welcome any feedback, positive or negative, on Twitter @MLBMovingAvg.