Good for starting pitchers Zac Gallen and Madison Bumgarner of the Arizona Diamondbacks for their respective feats in Atlanta on Sunday. Gallen started the first game of the doubleheader with seven excellent innings of one-hit ball, striking out six, and earning credit for his first victory of the young season. It was also his first career shutout, since under the league's rules since the start of last season doubleheaders are seven innings each. Gallen is awesome, of course, and a top-20 starter in fantasy baseball. We did not need him to prove it on Sunday.
Bumgarner, however, entered the second game of the proceedings with an ugly 8.68 ERA and a 1.77 WHIP, in obvious career decline. While he had showed improvement in his most recent outing earlier in the week, besting the Washington Nationals, we should say expectations were low for Sunday. Instead, Bumgarner actually eclipsed Gallen's feat by permitting nary a base hit over his seven near-perfect innings, keeping Atlanta hitters generally off balance with off-speed stuff, and -- he admitted this much -- enjoying the aid of tricky stadium shadows. The only baserunner came via a Nick Ahmed error.
My initial thoughts when I saw Bumgarner's performance:
First, even though no Atlanta hitter reached base as a result of a hit, which tends to define what a no-hitter is, MLB will not recognize this effort as such because the game did not go nine innings. Even though, well, yes, the other team did not get a hit and the game ended that way. Even though, like Gallen in the opener, Bumgarner does get credit for a complete game and a shutout. Why? Because baseball. Still, we know it occurred. We also know that no-hitters are hardly a precursor of more no-hitters, at least since legendary Johnny Vander Meer patrolled the NL in the 1940s. Joe Musgrove and Carlos Rodon have no-hitters this season, and in their subsequent outings, they combined to allow seven hits and seven walks in nine innings total.
Second, this outing does not make me want to rush out and add Bumgarner in my leagues, though my interest in a deep format with a bench is just a little bit piqued. I guess I am an apologist. He is on the schedule to pitch at home this week versus the Colorado Rockies and then at the New York Mets and Miami Marlins. That could work. Bumgarner does not throw particularly hard for this era, but he never did, really, nor does he induce many ground balls. On Sunday night. he was rostered in 16.6% of ESPN standard leagues and that is about to go way up. Just be ready to run away, too.
Third (and perhaps most importantly in our world), what is up with that Atlanta offense? Was this just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, to quote a popular children's book, or is something really amiss here? Looking at their lineup, and our most-dropped list, there is impatience everywhere.
Are you Brave enough to roster Atlanta's hitters?
Atlanta's offense got just one base hit in 44 plate appearances on Sunday. That should be the fantasy takeaway from this weekend. Freddie Freeman stroked a sharp, sixth-inning hit off Gallen and the right-hander walked a pair, while Ahmed's gaffe allowed the only base runner in the Bumgarner game. The Braves entered Sunday ranked ninth overall in runs and sixth in OPS. However, if you remove Freeman and Ronald Acuna Jr. from this equation, things sure look a lot different.
Outfielder Marcell Ozuna, catcher Travis d'Arnaud and middle infielders Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson are each rostered in at least 80% of ESPN standard leagues -- and for good reason. Last season this quartet greatly aided fantasy managers. Ozuna led the National League in home runs and RBI and hit .338, while d'Arnaud was also easily top 10 at his position, hitting .321 with nine home runs. Albies missed half the season, but hit just fine when active. Meanwhile, Swanson seemed to emerge -- finally -- as a legitimate fantasy option for 10-team formats.
Swanson concerns me the most of this crew, because his nice 2020 season may have been a mirage, with only modest hard-hit rates, a rising strikeout rate, and a generous BABIP. He scored 49 runs because of his No. 2 lineup spot, and that is where he added the most fantasy value. He no longer bats second in the lineup and, while Swanson stole five bases in as many attempts in 2020, few expect generous SB totals this time around. Swanson had one hit last week. He is slugging .293. Yeah, I would drop him for Jed Lowrie, Enrique Hernandez and Jurickson Profar.
Albies is the better fantasy option and I continue to believe his best season is still to come. His current numbers seem depressed by bad luck -- most notably a .148 BABIP, which is last in baseball among qualifiers. His exit velocity looks fine, and he has eight extra-base hits, so this is not a case of more ground balls, either. His strikeout rate is down. Albies may be overrated, too. I doubt we can presume he will hit .300 over a six-month season ... or annually eclipse 20 home runs ... or surpass 20 stolen bases. However, he should be one of the top-10 second basemen in fantasy, and a five-category provider. Stick with him.
The reason to swap out d'Arnaud for someone such as Arizona's Carson Kelly or Milwaukee's Omar Narvaez would be to stream the position in a one-catcher format, as is the norm for ESPN standard leagues. Even there, though, I would stick with d'Arnaud. A right-handed hitter, he did much of his 2020 damage versus right-handed pitching, and catchers often develop late at the plate. I still regard him as a top-10 catcher.
Ozuna was a Statcast darling last season and I find it hard to believe signing his (likely) final long-term contract is the impetus for his new struggles, as some believe. Is he really a .338 hitter? Let's not forget that Ozuna hit just .241 in 2019 with the St. Louis Cardinals, albeit with power and nearly half of his career stolen base total. His batting averages have wildly fluctuated annually. Ozuna is probably more of a .275 hitter who enjoyed a monstrous two-month sample in 2020. He has reached 30 home runs in only one season, and that was the only time (2017, with the Marlins) he knocked in 90 runs, too. He is also, ahem, not a good outfielder. Still, now seems a wise time to trade for Ozuna. Just don't treat him as if he is a top-50 player.
All in all, the Braves are quite an interesting team, and one we can all catch on ESPN tonight versus Zach Davies and the Chicago Cubs. Center fielder Cristian Pache is healthy but in the minors, and Ender Inciarte is hurt. The starting rotation lacks depth after Charlie Morton and Ian Anderson, and it could be a while before we see Mike Soroka. Finally, as we saw Sunday, the offense is struggling. It probably will not do so for long, though so try to be patient.