Red Sox: Andrew Benintendi Gets the Call
By Billy Heyen
The Red Sox called up outfield phenom Andrew Benintendi. You can bet this youngster will have a big bearing on your fantasy title race.
Following the shake ups that occur at the trade deadline, teams are able to see how the rest of their season may shake out. Maybe they didn’t get quite the guy they wanted, or want to build for the future, or a little bit of both. The little bit of both scenario applies to the Boston Red Sox.
The team called up their top outfield prospect Andrew Benintendi from Double-A Portland. He was a top-10 pick in the 2015 MLB Draft from the University of Arkansas, and although he only measures in at about 5’10” and is a year out of college, you’ll want to make sure you have him on your fantasy team.
Ever since he stepped onto a professional baseball diamond, Benintendi has done one thing better than pretty much everyone around him: raked. For the laymen out there, I mean that he can absolutely hit the ball. With a naturally smooth lefty stroke, he projects as a 20 HR bat, and he’s got the fast twitch leg muscles enough to steal 20 bags as well in a full season.
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I’m sure if you are in a keeper league, you long ago heard of Benintendi and he surely was owned before this highly anticipated call-up.
However, in a redraft league, Benintendi may have flown under the radar. If you’re reading this, stop, go pick him up for your worst outfielder. Okay, now that you own him, I’ll tell you what you’ve gotten. Benintendi is going to start every game in left field for the Red Sox this year that they face a right hander, and I’d venture a guess that he’ll get some starts against left-handed pitching as well.
That will give him between 50 to 60 games to put up numbers, and in the time frame I’d guess he’ll hit six to 10 HR with six to 10 steals and a .290 batting average. All it will take is a little hot stretch for those power numbers to look even better.
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The reason Benintendi is such a no-brainer pickup is that he is so polished; I have no doubts that the bright lights will mean nothing to him as he just goes about his business. Let’s have him going about his business on our side in our championship matchup, not on the other.