Steven Souza Dealing With a Pectoral Strain: Fantasy Impact

The Diamondbacks and fantasy owners will be without outfielder Steven Souza to start the season. How does this impact fantasy?

The injuries are starting already. The Arizona Diamondbacks made a couple of moves in order to compete in the NL West. Unfortunately, one of those additions will miss the start of the season. Outfielder Steven Souza suffered a right pec strain and will start the season on the disabled list.

Souza left Wednesday’s game after diving for a ball in the outfield. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said the injury will keep him out of the lineup for, “a couple of weeks, at least.” DL stints don’t take effect until the first day of baseball, so with the 10-day minimum, Souza should be back the second week of April.

However, the wording Lovullo used, “at least,” makes me a little less optimistic. He said, “We’re going to give this injury time to define itself.” That means they are going to give Souza some rest, see how well or poorly he can move his arm and assess from there.

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Souza, according to FantasyPros, has an ADP of 170.0, a 15th round pick in 12-team leagues. While this doesn’t sound like a serious injury, he could miss close to a month of action. I would drop him a couple of rounds in my rankings. He’s worth stashing on your DL or bench until he’s healthy.

Souza produced the best power-hitting season of his career last season. Despite hitting .239, he crushed 30 home runs with 78 RBIs, 78 runs and a .351 on-base percentage with Tampa Bay. His value was hindered by his 179 strikeouts but his 84 walks helped the OBP.

With the installation of the humidor in Chase Field, I wasn’t expecting another 30-home run season from Souza. Something like 20-23 with a .245 average is a good projection given the expected time missed. That isn’t a bad stat line from your OF5.

The Diamondbacks lineup will look a little different for the time being. David Peralta and AJ Pollock will man right and center field, respectively. Jarrod Dyson now gets playing time with Souza’s absence in left field. He’s fast and can get on base enough times to help the hitters ahead of him. I wouldn’t draft him in mixed leagues but he’s serviceable for cheap speed in NL-only leagues.

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Souza said he was told the injury was largely a Grade 1 strain of the right pectoral, “with a little bit of Grade 2 in there.” Once the trainers test it out, we will get a clearer definition of the severity and how long he will be out. Until then, I would draft Souza no earlier than Round 20. He is a low-average, medium-power hitter, something fantasy baseball has a lot of in the later rounds.

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