Fantasy Baseball: By the Numbers, April 7-13

Week one: where people are either counting their money or running through the streets panicking.

How can Mark Teixeira only have three hits?!? Boy, that Garrett Jones is going to go off this season! Is Stephen Strasburg here yet?

Stop it. Remember that you drafted most of the guys on your roster for a reason, which in baseball does not always materialize by week two, or even the first month.

Some guys are still getting their bats warm, some pitchers still fine-tuning that slider, but if they are as good as you think they are, things will get better.

Same goes for hot starters. There’s a reason Garrett Jones went mostly undrafted despite hitting an impressive 21 homers in only 314 at-bats last season. There’s a reason Alex Gonzalez hasn’t been given 500 plate appearances since 2004.

By all means, if you have the roster spot, enjoy the ride, but these guys should be involved in trades for more established players and/or easily dropped if something better comes along.

Keep your focus, people. It’s a long season, and we’ve only just begun.

Here are some numbers for you from this traditionally most chaotic of fantasy weeks.

Quick first note: As I’m writing this at 8:30 EST Tuesday, Ricky Romero has 10 Ks in five innings with one walk, no earned runs. Stop reading and go drop your worst player for him now.

ERA for Javier Vazquez after his first start for the Yankees, giving up eight runs in 5.2 innings. For those of you that drafted him, I’m sorry. I failed you by not warning you sooner.

Obviously one start isn’t something to panic over, but those of you expecting a strong follow-up to his career year in ’09 are going to be very disappointed. This is about career numbers here, people. He’d never posted a sub-3.00 ERA and averaged only 183 K’s per season before mowing down 238 batters last season.

His 11-year career has been mediocre at best, but a move to the NL suddenly brought out the best in him, as it so often does for pitchers. Now he’s back in the AL in a hitter-friendly ballpark. Good luck with that—we’ll see how he does today against the Halos at home.

Nine

Total strikeouts for Justin Verlander in his first two starts this season. The real problem is that’s also his ERA right now, having given up 10 runs in 10 innings. Unlike Vazquez, I’m not concerned about Verlander; frustrated, definitely, but not concerned.

He’s not hitting the strike zone like he did last season just yet, but other than that, things are looking up. His FIP is at 4.94, which still isn’t good, but it's much better than nine, and his HR/FB ratio has suddenly skyrocketed eight percent for no reason. Once that straightens out and he gets into optimal form, he’ll be the staff anchor you drafted.

See what else stuck out last week.