Fantasy sports managers always ask the same question. How can I make my team better? It has been a couple weeks since fantasy baseball (and real baseball season) started.

When we draft players, we have expectations. We want early round picks to carry the team and late round picks to be sleepers. To be honest, anybody can be sleepers. If you type a baseball player’s name and a sleeper as your keywords, somebody wrote about the player somewhere.

Most articles have good reasons for labelling someone a sleeper. Perhaps that player performed well in spring training or played well last year. Sometimes reverse psychology kicks in as somebody who underperformed last year becomes a sleeper pick for this year.

Some fantasy managers start to question their draft picks early in the season. Some drop their drafted players right away and pick up some hot hands. This can work at times, but may not work other times.

So how do you know when to pick and drop somebody? The answer is nobody knows. I have seen some players with a bad start to the season end up being great, while some players with hot start ended up going back to minor leagues. The choice is each fantasy sports manager’s decision.

Catcher

Carson Kelly – Kelly has been on fire lately with three home runs in the last four games. He hit 18 home runs in 2019 with just 314 at bats, so he has a power potential. It is still a small sample size, but if you need a catcher, ride with this hot hand for now.

First Base

Colin Moran – Remember Jared Walsh from the last week? Yah, now most people picked him up already. Anyway, Moran has shown some power with two home runs in the last three games while collecting six RBIs. Hitting fourth in the lineup, he has had plenty of opportunities with three players before him on base frequently – almost .400 on-base percentage.

Second Base

Jazz Chrisholm Jr – He has already surpassed his home runs and stolen base totals from the last year with three home runs and three stolen bases. Based on his performance in the minor leagues, he has both power and speed. He can be a great pickup this season.

Third baseman

Travis Shaw – Remember when he was hitting 30+ home runs when he was with the Brewers? He is back after a struggling season with the Toronto Blue Jays last year and has showed some promise; his slugging percentage this year is 0.480, the same as it was in 2018. What happened back then? He had 32 home runs.

Shortstop

Joey Wendle – He is currently eligible for third base, second base, and shortstop. I chose a shortstop position out of the three because it may be the toughest spot to fill compared to the other two positions. He is on six game hitting streak with a two-game home run streak.

Outfielders

Avisail Garcia – Another Brewers player! He has had a much better batting average every other year since 2016 (0.245, 0.330, 0.236, 0.282, 0.238, and this year – 0.269). Supposedly, the should have a good average this year.

Pitchers

Yimi Garcia – I was so sad to see my suggestion Julian Merryweather get hurt. In the meantime, there is a new closer for the Miami Dolphins who is basically untouchable at the moment, with a 0.96 earned run average and 0.86 walks and hits per inning pitched.

JT Brubaker – Another hot hand with 1.76 ERA and 1.04 WHIP so far, which is much better than his last year’s performance, 4.94 ERA and 1.37. However, three consecutive strong performances are just too good to ignore right now.