Fantasy Baseball Stats: Daily All-Stars from April 17
Wainwright has been dealing all year, but Thursday was his best outing. Photo Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports
As was the case on Wednesday, Thursday’s top fantasy baseball stats largely belonged to the pitchers. Unlike Wednesday, one position player did hit well enough on Thursday to earn a spot in today’s list.
But, we start with one of the game’s top pitchers.
Daily Fantasy Baseball MVP
Adam Wainwright — St. Louis Cardinals
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Ideally, we wouldn’t get three walks in nine innings, especially since Wainwright was staked a big lead early on. But when you only allow two hits and don’t allow a single run (earned or otherwise), three walks is much easier to forgive.
He’s one of many top pitchers off to a great start and with the extended absence of Clayton Kershaw, and NL Cy Young Award could well be in Wainwright’s future.
Daily Honorable Mentions
1. James Shields — Kansas City Royals
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This is definitely what should happen when a pitcher like Shields faces the Astros, but Shields definitely didn’t let fantasy owners down today. There were a ton of great pitching performances today but with the exception of Wainwright, Shields had the best, most complete overall game of the bunch.
Shields hadn’t been bad this year, but this was far and away his best start in the early season.
2. Brian Dozier — Detroit Tigers
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The top two offensive performers were Dozier and fellow second baseman Ian Kinsler.
They had similar days (Kinsler: 2/5 1 run, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 1 SB) and Dozier had a bit of an advantage, playing a double-header. Ultimately, the runs and RBI pretty much offset each other, but the extra steal for Dozier slightly outweighs the better batting average for Kinsler.
Definitely a nice game for Dozier’s fantasy owners who gambled on him. His counted numbers have been nice, but 3/8 over a few games will help get him over the Mendoza line.
3. Jon Lester — Boston Red Sox
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Close between Lester and his opponent, Chris Sale, but Lester was just a bit better overall. The seven hits was impressive, is that all seven came after one was out in the sixth and he still allowed only one run.
Lester’s a good fantasy pitcher and is clearly very valuable for the Red Sox, I’ve just never been convinced that he’s a great fantasy arm. Still, he is off to a strong start this year, and hasn’t faced bad offenses either.