TCB Fantasy Report Week 2

Week 2 of the baseball season is over, and the Astros' Fantasy Performance has been thin. As is often the case when looking at small sample sizes, the two Astros players who have contributed the most Fantasy impact are not the club's biggest stars.

Looking Back

Over the past week, Jordan Schafer and J.D. Martinez have been the 17th and 18th best players in Fantasy Baseball (using the format of the three official Crawfish Boxes Yahoo! fantasy leagues). Schafer's rank has come on the strength of his 7 runs and 5 stolen bases, and here's hoping he can continue that pace all year! Martinez has been one of the top sluggers of the past week, hitting .391 with a 1.220 OPS.

Jose Altuve, Carlos Lee and Chris Johnson have been serviceable in the Batting Average categories, and not much else. Beyond those hitters, the Astros had a forgettable week.

The Astros' most valuable pitching asset of the last week has been Rhiner Cruz. Go ahead and read that sentence again. Yes, the Astros' Rule 5 draft pick who people doubted would make the team. Other strong contributors in the past week were Myers with his one Save and J.A. Happ with a Win, low WHIP, and a shockingly high number of strikeouts.

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead, the Astros have matchups at Washington and home against Los Angeles. This could be tough on the hitters, as both clubs feature power starters, and the Astros' lineup is notoriously free-swining. On the flip side, outside of a few really spectacular position players on those two opponents' clubs, the Astros pitchers should have a moderately successful chance of putting up some Fantasy stats.

Norris has struggled to start the season, so I would be inclined to bench him in Fantasy leagues while pitching at Washington, but I would pitch him at home against the Dodgers. Wandy Rodriguez should start against the Dodgers, and against the Nationals only if the rest of your Fantasy pitching staff needs the innings. Happ starts Friday against the Dodgers, and I would give him another go because of his early success.

If you have positional replacements, I would sit all Astros against Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg, but feel comfortable playing Martinez, Lee, Altuve, Schafer, and Lowrie against all other starters.

The Crawfish Boxes Fantasy League Notes:

• In The Crawfish Boxes, blowouts put me in the lead with El Ca-buyout in 2nd. In full disclosure, my opponent, Juvenile Court Clerk is suffering a curse from drafting Albert Pujols, who was one of the worst everyday hitters in the majors last week, as well as uncertainty around David Wright's hand injury. Cocamos, El Ca-buyout's opponent, did not meet the inning requirements and doesn't appear to be participating at all. These things happen, and I don't expect either of us to remain unchallenged for long.
• In TCB Baseball Madness, AlwaysSunnyInSeattle leads because Joe Morgan's a Fool did not meet inning requirements and so lost 4-8. Best performer of the week was Razor's Edge who won 9-3 behind strong pitching and heroics from Curtis Granderson
• In Boxes O' Crawfish, Rock Flag and Eagle sits in first place after a 10-2 win over Cavemen, who just got beat fair and square by Matt Kemp and Mark Trumbo almost single-handedly. Or double-handedly.