In dynasty baseball leagues, timing is everything. There is nothing worse than getting excited about acquiring a player only to watch him immediately go into a slump or never return to the highs that he had before you acquired him. On the flip side, there is nothing better than acquiring a player for a cheap price only for his stock to skyrocket immediately after. The other side of trading maybe even more rewarding or pain-inducing – shipping off a player at the right or wrong time is something that can cause you to lose sleep at night.
The most important thing to note is that nobody bats 1.000 here. Everybody that plays dynasty sports, and everybody in your league, is going to win some trades and lose some trades. The best you can hope to do is come out on the better side of that ledger more times than not. Be ok with losing some trades – if you’re not, you may become too hesitant to make them at all.
The first few weeks of the season may be the most difficult time to make trades. Everybody is fighting their best instincts to overreact, but it’s also human nature. What’s real? What’s small sample size noise? As with all trades, it’s best to try to have as much information as possible when buying or selling, even if we are only a handful of games into the season. Let’s do our best to pin down some buys and some sells after a handful of games to start the year.
DYNASTY BUYS
Otto Lopez, 2B, MIA – Lopez has been a trendy pick up throughout the first week of the season and it’s not difficult to figure out why. The Marlins’ second baseman is off to a hot start, hitting .345 with two home runs and a steal across his first seven contests. Obviously, there is a long way to go in 2025, but what we saw from Lopez in 2024 should have been a buy signal heading into this season.
Last year with Miami, the former Toronto Blue Jay appeared in 117 games, hitting .270 with six home runs and 20 steals. It’s easy to see the six home runs and want to move on, but a full season’s worth of games would have put Lopez around 10 home runs and 25 steals. That’s more than sufficient from what was essentially a rookie season. Lopez’s expected stats were pretty spot on with what we saw produced on the field, too, and if anything he was a tad unlucky – Lopez clocked a .270 batting average compared to a .274 xBA and a .377 SLG compared to a .394 xSLG.
The floor with Lopez feels pretty safe – he is an elite defender, and even though he is not a superstar at the plate, he’s one of the best hitters on a bad team. That combination of factors will allow for Lopez to be an everyday player, and one hits in the top third of the lineup. Again, that’s not a good lineup, but it’s plenty of opportunities for Lopez. All that being said, a full season of Lopez should net a bunch of steals, a good batting average, and maybe double-digit home runs.
Lopez can take a leap if the power breakout we are seeing early on is real. It may just be small sample size noise, but Lopez already hit a ball harder this season (109.9 MPH) than he did all of last season. His launch angle has also ticked up. You can squint and see a 15/30 season here, and at just 26 years old, that’s a player worth buying, even if the price to acquire is higher than it was a week ago.
Ha-Seong Kim, SS, TBR – Let’s go in a little bit of a different direction with this one and discuss a player who hasn’t appeared in an MLB game this season, and likely won’t until the end of May or early June. Kim is on the IL with a shoulder injury, one which caused his 2024 season to come to a close in the middle of August. Overall, he had a down season in 2024, triple-slashing .233/.330/.370 with 11 home runs and 22 steals in 121 games for San Diego. But we don’t have to go too far back to find a productive campaign from Kim – in 2023, the shortstop triple slashed .260/.351/.398 with 17 home runs and 38 steals in 150 games. A hitter that is somewhere between the 2024 and 2025 versions of Kim is a fantasy-friendly one, especially given Kim’s ability to take a walk.
This offseason, Kim signed a two-year deal with Tampa Bay. The fact that Tampa Bay, a team that is notoriously strict with how they issue contracts, was willing to open up the wallet for Kim reinforces the belief that he should have a bounce-back season once he’s back on the field.
It’s likely dynasty managers are willing or even eager to move on from Kim after a down season in 2024 and the IL-stint to start the year in 2025. He’s still several weeks away from returning to MLB action, but close enough to returning that you can see the potential 2025 impact. The window to buy is right now – the closer that Kim gets to returning, the less likely the current manager will be willing to move him.
DYNASTY SELLS
Cedric Mullins, OF, BAL – Mullins is a strong short-term buy, which makes him the perfect dynasty sell.
We’ve seen Mullins put up borderline elite fantasy numbers in the past. In 2021, the outfielder hit .291 with 30 home runs and 30 steals. There aren’t many hitters in the major league that have that type of ceiling, and because of that potential ceiling, it’s always been difficult to value Mullins given the seasons that followed.
Across the next three seasons, Mullins appeared in 419 games, triple slashing .244/.311/.407 with 49 home runs and 85 steals. That’s still a fantasy-friendly profile, but not close to the ceiling we saw in 2021. The last two seasons he’s hit .233 and .234, respectively, while still providing some power and speed. He was still a near everyday player, but fell in the batting order and also lost some playing time to a crowded Baltimore lineup.
Right now, there is an opportunity for Mullins to be an everyday player. Colton Cowser fractured his thumb and is out for roughly two months. That opens up playing time in the outfield, and the current outfielders on the roster feature Mullins, Tyler O’Neill, Heston Kjerstad, Ramón Laureano, Dylan Carlson, and utility man Jorge Mateo. While that’s a good amount of dudes, every single one of them has question marks. O’Neill has a laundry list of injuries, Kjerstad has limited MLB experience, Laureano and Mateo are valuable bench players but not guys you want in your everyday lineup, and Carlson has never quite lived up to his potential. So far, he is off to a nice start, too, hitting .308 with three home runs and two steals in his first six games. All of that is to say that Mullins should have a fairly long leash as an everyday player for the next two months, which makes him a strong short-term buy, and a player that win-now managers or managers in redraft leagues should consider targeting.
But because he is such a strong short-term buy candidate, managers looking toward the future should capitalize on this opportunity to move him. Those who have rostered Mullins the last few years have most likely had difficulty moving him for the value that feels worth his ceiling. His current opportunity should be yours, too, especially if he continues to flash his previously realized upside for a short period of time. The reality is that Mullins’ production has dipped the last few seasons, and his performance against left-handed pitchers hit rock bottom in 2024, as he hit under .200 in those situations. His contract is up at the end of this season and it’s unclear how MLB teams will view him in the offseason. It’s possible he lands a starting gig elsewhere, but it’s also possible that he signs with a team as a luxury fourth outfielder.
The bottom line is that Mullins can still be a contributing fantasy asset, especially for the next two months, but those waiting for a sell opportunity finally have one.
DYNASTY HOLDS
Rafael Devers, 3B, BOS – I mean where to begin? If you’re into fantasy baseball enough to be reading this article, you’re already well aware of Devers’ struggles to start the season. It’s only been seven games, but he has just three hits and has struck out 16 times. He has been better in the last two games, collecting all three of those hits and just striking out once.
The scary thing? We can’t ignore Devers’ finish in 2024. He hit just .188 in September with only one extra-base hit and a 28% strikeout rate across 75 plate appearances before being shut down at the end of the season due to a shoulder injury. It’s very possible that the shoulder injury is still lingering and impacting his performance, or lack thereof, this season. Of course, this is all just speculation but if that’s the case, is that a good thing? It means we are probably looking at a shutdown and/or surgery for Devers, which would mean a lost 2025 season. If his performance is not injury-related, that could be even more concerning for Devers’ long-term potential – but it’s difficult to imagine a hitter that was this good becoming this bad this quickly.
All that is to say that Devers’ value right now is incredibly difficult to get a pulse on. News about his historic bad start is everywhere, so it’s very likely that if you are trading Devers away, it’s not going to be for good value. That means he’s a hold for now, and a borderline buy low, but the potential injury concerns and likely UT-only profile starting next year give some pause to running out and acquiring him.
