Minnesota Twins Fantasy Plays for the Week of April 17
By Nate Palmer
Taking a look at the best and worst Minnesota Twins’ fantasy options for the upcoming set of games against the Indians and Tigers.
In the coming week, the Minnesota Twins have two pivotal AL central matches as they face the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers. The result of these two series will point the team’s trajectory to continued competitiveness, or well… where we have seen the team the last several seasons.
Maybe more importantly you are looking for a boost in your Fantasy squad’s matchup. Fantasy baseball line-ups can be difficult to manage, considering teams are changing their line-up and rotation constantly.
We are here to help. We’ll take a look at what pitchers the Minnesota Twins will be going up against and what players you should play and shouldn’t play. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the players you should play and the players you should pine for the Twins upcoming games.
Upcoming Probable Starters
Cleveland Indians:
Detroit Tigers:
Play Them:
Joe Mauer: This is likely a hard pill to swallow. He is the overpaid and under-producing franchise player. His stats against probable starters upcoming have been solid as a whole. So going by the numbers, start him this week.
His average sits at above .300 and OBP above .400 for the trio outside of Kluber. And in 52 plate appearances Mauer’s slash line sits at .298/.365/.553 against Kluber. And similarly with Verlander his slash is .333/.432/.560 in 88 plate appearances.
Max Kepler: Small sample size, but he has also shown success with the upcoming pitchers. This is headlined by 3 hits in 4 plate appearances vs. Danny Salazar and a homerun on Corey Kluber.
He has simply been swinging a hot bat lately. As a fantasy owner, he’s a smart play while he’s on this hot streak.
Jorge Polanco: This is a Wild Card pick. Miguel Sano would have been the easy pick, but he’s starting in over 98% of leagues anyways. Polanco has very small sample sizes with much of the upcoming starters.
His plate approach is drawing the eye of Paul Molitor as he was moved into the 4 spot for Saturday’s game. Jorge Polanco is on the rise and he may be available as a free agent in many leagues. Look to pick him up and give him the start this week.
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Pine Them:
Byron Buxton: Let’s be honest, this one was pretty obvious. As you can imagine, the numbers don’t look good here with Buxton and fantasy owners would like to see some consistency before starting him.
Although his double Saturday did look good, his batting average is still floating around .100. He’s a far stretch as a play here, so it’s best to leave him on the pine unless you’re in absolute need of an outfielder.
Robbie Grossman: He is a tempting OPS play overall, but there is not a real strong track record for this coming week. If you roster Grossman, the only day his stats look promising is against Detroit’s Matt Boyd.
He sports a .556/.692/1.333 slash line and a OPS of 2.026. Other than that, Grossman seems like a shaky play in fantasy. Although he has been swinging a hot bat, his past meetings with the upcoming pitchers he’ll be facing don’t show a lot of upside.
Eddie Rosario: Eddie just seems like a temptress sometimes. From a game to game basis you just wonder if he may be sitting on a big game or some more World Baseball Classic heroics.
With the amount of quality arms coming at the Twins this week, it’s safe to assume that the free swinging nature of Rosario won’t bode well for him. Keep a close eye on whether or not he’s in the starting lineup for the Twins. If he is, he may be a decent play if one is in need of an outfielder.