It is fantasy baseball season! Here, we’re flagging three fantasy baseball busts you’ll want to avoid on draft day.
The term “bust” can be used to mean many different things in fantasy baseball and all fantasy roster managers will have their own personal threshold for what qualifies as a bust. For our purposes, we’ll apply it to players who won’t live up to their average draft position (ADP), and we’ll look at three different players from varying tiers of the draft.
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3 fantasy baseball busts to avoid
Cleveland Indians SP Shane Bieber
The reigning American League Cy Young winner isn’t on here to be needlessly bold.
Bieber’s accolades from the shortened 2020 season have him going as the No. 9 overall pick and No. 3 starting pitcher in drafts by ADP. With the 2021 schedule reverting back to a full 162 games and expanding away from the regionally-based 2020 format, Bieber’s set up for a disappointing follow-up campaign.
His breakout season was helped by playing a considerable portion of his schedule against the AL Central rival Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals, and mixing in some interleague games against the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates. In all, 37 2/3 of his innings came against teams with sub-.500 records.
The Indians’ loss of SS Francisco Lindor and his 1.0 oWAR and 0.6 dWAR will also have an impact on both Bieber’s ERA and win total.
New York Mets OF Michael Conforto
Conforto’s expected to hit third in an improved Mets lineup, and he’ll serve as the everyday right fielder after playing 54 of 60 games and slashing .322/.412/.515 last season. All but the .515 slugging percentage were career highs.
The line was greatly helped out by a career-best .412 BABIP. Conforto’s career average is just .305, and he posted a .290 BABIP over 151 games in 2019.
He’s being drafted as the 18th outfielder in the middle of the sixth round. That’s a little too steep after both his walk and strikeout rates went in the wrong direction in 2020.
Atlanta Braves C/1B Travis d’Arnaud
The catcher position is one of the most difficult to draft every year. The 2021 season seems no different, as the position is led by J.T. Realmuto (Philadelphia Phillies) and Salvador Perez (Kansas City Royals) but drops off quickly. Those are the only two catchers with a sub-100 ADP.
D’Arnaud is in the middle of a group of eight catchers going between picks 104 and 194. He’ll hit in an unimpressive bottom-third of the Braves’ lineup. His career-best .321/.386/.533 slash line last season was buoyed by an inflated .411 BABIP as his strikeout rate jumped to 27.2%.
If you’ve waited this long for a catcher, keep waiting.
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