2014 Fantasy Baseball: 5 Strong Early Perfromances You Should Not Be Buying

Fantasy Baseball: 5 Early Strong 2014 Performances You Should Not Be Buying

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Every season, there are players who start off hot. Some of these players go on to have career-best seasons while most of them regress to their career averages. Here are five players who have gotten off to smokin' hot starts in 2014 and are all due for some serious regression.

5. Alexei Ramirez

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5. Alexei Ramirez

alexei ramirez chicago white sox
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According to Yahoo!, Alexei Ramirez is currently the No. 1 player in all of fantasy baseball, but I urge owners to not sell their entire team to acquire his services. Ramirez is currently hitting .420 to go with 11 runs, three home runs, 12 RBIs and three steals, but I expect all of those numbers to regress, and soon. Ramirez is currently boosted by an unsustainable .409 BABIP and when that comes back to earth, the surface statistics will too.

4. Charlie Blackmon

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4. Charlie Blackmon

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Want to talk about BABIP regression? Charlie Blackmon is currently hitting .478 to go with one home run, nine runs, nine RBIs and three steals, but can attribute most of that to a jaw-dropping .477 BABIP. If you can sell Blackmon for anything useful, pounce all over that opportunity because he's going to fade into fantasy baseball irrelevance before the calendar flips to May.

3. Emilio Bonifacio

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3. Emilio Bonifacio

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And the BABIP regression police strike a third time. Bonifacio should be a good source of steals all season, but he should also provide negative value in the other four standard categories. He's hitting .392 at the moment, but his BABIP sits at an unsustainable .455 which means regression is in his future. Speed is always available in free agency; don't overpay for Bonifacio and the illusion that he may provide help in more than one category.

2. Mark Buehrle

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2. Mark Buehrle

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Buehrle has been fantastic for fantasy owners through three starts, posting a 0.86 ERA to go with a 0.90 WHIP and 16 strikeouts over 21 innings, but there are plenty of warning signs that scream regression. Hitters have a .270 BABIP against him and that should begin to regress toward .300; he has a very unsustainable strand rate of 90 percent and he hasn't allowed a HR yet. When those begin to normalize, it's bye-bye elite fantasy production.

1. Aaron Harang

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1. Aaron Harang

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Harang has a 0.96 ERA and 0.80 WHIP through three starts, but he's done it with smoke and mirrors. I wouldn't advise you to invest. The same numbers that scare me away from Buehrle are the same ones keeping me away from Harang, except his regression should be even worse. Harang is currently benefiting from a .191 BABIP; he's stranding 86.7 percent of the runners who reach base and he's yet to give up a HR, despite a 52.3 percent fly-ball rate.


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