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| Like most 30 year old rookies, there is a reason Sam Fuld has not been able to stick in the Big Leagues. |
On the morning of April 24, life was pretty good for Rays outfielder Sam Fuld. He woke up that day hitting a cool .365, had been on base more than 40% of the time, and was the most added player in both ESPN and Yahoo fantasy leagues. The Twitter world had taken notice and #TheLegendofSamFuld was born, which had Sammy doing everything from slaying dragons before breakfast to stealing bases from Chuck Norris.
But, oh what a difference a few weeks can make. Today, Sam woke up with his average over 100 points lower, only one run scored in the month of May and just a single stolen base since that April morning. Owned in nearly 90% of all leagues at the end of April, only 39% of them have owners that still have faith in the legend. His OBP has dropped nearly 50 points and Twitter has a new favorite hero, #TheWizardofHoz in Kansas City.
So what does this tell us, other than it’s really, really hard to hit a baseball? Fuld made his first big league appearance in 2007 with the Cubs, and was shipped to Tampa over the winter as part of the Matt Garza deal. Today his batting average is sitting at exactly his career mark, a very un-legendary .252. I can’t remember a player in the last few seasons that the fantasy fates have abandoned so swiftly.
That’s the problem with these flavor of the week guys, and the problem for owners who get caught up in the hype. It’s rare enough for a rookie to come up to the bigs and start to rake, even rarer for a career .250 hitter to suddenly come up and figure things out. Sure, there’s the odd case of a guy thriving once he gets a chance to play, but unless your name is Roy Hobbes or you’re on more steroids than Jose Bautista, it’s hard for fantasy studs to appear out of thin air.
Now, every owner wants to be ahead of the curve when it comes to picking up “The It” guy, like Fuld. I for one picked up Mike Leake over Kyle Lohse because, as I told the Guru, “They both stink, but if they do well, I’ll look smarter for picking up Leake.” Well, Leake is back in the bus leagues, Lohse is 4-2 with a sub-one WHIP, and I didn’t even get a couple of steals in the roto stats when Leake got caught shoplifting.
Don’t go casting off a struggling player you drafted for some rook on the waiver wire. Fantasy, like real baseball, is a marathon not a sprint, and the numbers for consistent contributors will be there when the season is over. If you are gonna take a flyer on a guy, like I did with Eric Hosmer a few days ago, make sure you have space for him. Don’t go nuts and drop a player that will be raking long after Fuld has gone back to New Hampshire to sell insurance. You don’t want to be stuck with the legend of Sam Fuld when guys like Jayson Werth and Shin-Soo Choo get into midseason form.
I can’t believe I just admitted that I think Shin-Soo Choo is good at baseball. I really am living in a fantasy land.
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