5 Players You Can Safely Drop From Your Fantasy Team

The MLB season is a few weeks old, so it's safe to start drawing some conclusions, and having real  opinions. Injuries are mounting early for lots of teams, and owners could be struggling with figuring out what players to drop. It's not easy to cut bait on players whom you thought had potential, but here are five guys I'll assure you are safe to dump.

Taijuan Walker, SP, Diamondbacks

Walker is only 25, and he finally has his ERA under 4.00 (3.94), but I’m still going to say you can feel okay letting him go. Despite a major factor in his favor – a FIP (3.16) well below his ERA – there’s plenty to dislike about Walker going forward. First, he’s walking 2.91 batters per nine, which is up from the previous two seasons. Second, his xFIP --  an advanced metric I usually don’t rely on – is at 3.82, which wildly disagrees with his actual FIP. There’s more guesswork involved with xFIP, which is why I’m often skeptical of it, but in Walker’s case it’s more in line with what we’ve seen over the course of his career.

Third, he’s failing to log innings. Walker didn’t make it more than six innings in three of his four starts. Finally, his WHIP sucks. He’s put up a 1.38 WHIP so far, and has not posted a WHIP lower than 1.20 since 2013, when he logged a whopping 15 innings. Overall, Walker hasn’t shown that he’s more than an average pitcher capable of stringing together a few decent starts here and there. In Arizona, he’s in a far worse park, and pitching for a worse team. If you need the space, you can drop him.

Byron Buxton, OF, Twins

Buxton was once the premier prospect in all of baseball, but he’s rapidly looking more like Jurickson Profar than Mike Trout. At the MLB level, he’s proven next to nothing; his career slashline is a less-than-robust .207/.261/.371 over 519 plate appearances. That’s a goddam horror movie. In 50 plate appearances this year he’s struck out in 46 percent of his at-bats. Not a typo…46 PERCENT. He’s batting .085, meaning he isn’t getting hits. His OBP is sitting at a cool .140, which means he’s not even taking walks. He has no home runs, just two doubles, and four hits in total.

And in case you were going to say something like, “But what about his 2016 second half?” He didn’t have a good second half. His second half slash line read .238/.315/.497 with nine home runs, all of which came in September/October. He had a nice 30 games, which many players in MLB history can claim.

Buxton looks the part, and posted a lot of gaudy stolen base and batting average numbers in the minors, but he’s been a bum in just about ever MLB opportunity. If you want to make a pickup but you can’t figure out who to drop, and you own Buxton, do yourself a favor.

Zack Wheeler, SP, Mets

Wheeler was once a hyped future superstar expected to lead the next great Mets rotation. The expectations have fallen since then, but he’s still considered a key cog for the Mets’ championship hopes. I don’t get it. Wheeler showed control issues throughout his minor league career, consistently walking between 3.5 and 4.5 batters per nine while posting good strikeout numbers. That led to ERA figures that are far from stellar for a pitcher his caliber in Triple A.

In the majors, that hasn’t changed. Wheeler still walks too many guys, and he missed two whole seasons before clawing back into the Amazins’ rotation. Many people drafted him a little too high in hopes of sneakily landing an ace. They didn’t. They got a pitcher who might be able to boost strikeout totals, but who will walk too many hitters, give up a frustrating amount of home runs, and see a short leash due to the Mets managing his innings. If you cut bait on Wheeler, it’s unlikely you’ll be pissed off down the road.

Eric Hosmer, 1B, Royals

Possibly the most controversial player on this list, Hosmer has inexplicably developed this reputation as a safe-but-unexciting fantasy option. In fact, he just stinks. Hosmer doesn’t hit for much power, topping out at 25 home runs last season, which isn’t an impressive total for a first-sacker. He doesn’t really make up for the meager power output with batting average, peaking in 2015 when he hit .297 but typically hovering in the .260s and .270s. Again, decent for the position, but where power is king, he excels nowhere. Early in his career he was good for double-digit steals, but that’s gone now; Hosmer hasn’t swiped more than seven bases since 2014.

This year he’s been flat-out atrocious, and while I do attribute that to his terribly unlucky .227 BABIP, the positive regression you’d expect really isn’t going to amount to much. Travis Shaw (MIL), Ryan Zimmerman (WAS), and Jedd Gyorko (STL) are all owned in fewer than 50 percent of leagues, and are absolutely more useful options.

Trevor Bauer, SP, Indians

Bauer is similar to Walker in that he comes with big-time pedigree, and gets a ton of rope from fantasy owners, but constantly fails to deliver the goods. He was drafted with the reputation of an elite strikeout pitcher; in the majors, he’s been a mostly good strikeout pitcher, but not quite elite. And his solid strikeout numbers – career 8.34 per nine innings –come with a high cost in walks. Bauer’s career BB/9 is approaching four. He has never posted a sub-1.31 WHIP, and his career-best FIP is 3.99.

This season, the news is getting worse. He’s posting a career-best 1.69 BB/9 over his first two starts, and a 10.67 K/9. Yet, his ERA is a brutal 8.44, and his FIP is sitting at 4.70. At this point, we have no reason to believe Bauer is a useful MLB pitcher, so even though his ownership percentage (34% on Yahoo) isn’t very high anymore, he should barely be owned at all.