The can’t all be winners, can they? Of course not. It just doesn’t work that way. As Crash Davis once opined to Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh, “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. And sometimes, it rains.” Well the same goes for your fantasy baseball drafts.

If you’re new to the fantasy baseball world, any seasoned veteran can tell you that, no matter how much research you do, some players just don’t pan out the way you hoped. Maybe there was an injury you didn’t see coming or a free agent who just never took to his change of scenery, we’ve all seen our fair share of fantasy baseball busts. However, “bust” is a relative term when it comes to fantasy.

Labeling a player as a bust doesn’t mean he was a complete disaster. It simply means he did not return the value expected from where he was drafted. If your first-round pick stays healthy all season and fails to return anything more than sixth or seventh-round value, he’s a bust. If your first-round pick tears his ACL in April, it’s more an unfortunate occurrence. Yes, his end-of-season stats are falling way short of expectations, but injuries happen and labeling such a player as a bust is a mistake.

Would you really label Indians starting pitcher Mike Clevinger a bust in 2019? His 13 wins and 169 strikeouts fell far below his preseason expectations, but due to a back injury, the hurler was on the shelf for almost the entire first half of the season. If you prorate his numbers to a 200-inning season, you have a Cy Young candidate, but for those who invested in him on Draft Day, it was a colossal disappointment. But to call him a bust would be inaccurate.

While you may see a few injury-prone players listed in the Top 20 Busts of 2020, the majority of them are being listed as players we expect will fail to live up to their expected draft position.

Gerrit Cole , SP NYY – Oh yeah. It’s on. Are we really going to start off with the $324 million-dollar man as one of our busts of 2020? Yes, we are. Cole is an incredibly talented pitcher who is still within his physical prime years and should post strong totals this season, but will he provide first-round value? That is where we expect him to go in most drafts and while his numbers over the last three years should be enough of a reason for him to be one of the top hurlers drafted, people will elevate him even more simply because he is on the Yankees. Forget that Houston has been a more dominant team in recent seasons, casual fantasy owners will immediately elevate a player going to the storied franchise with expectations of more wins to go with sustained peripherals. Unfortunately, they fail to take into consideration things like divisional ballpark factors, for example. Minute Maid Park and Yankee Stadium are both considered hitter-friendly, but save for Tropicana Field, so is every other AL East park. Cole was throwing more strikes last year, but he was also serving up more home runs and some of the dimensions of the parks in which he will pitch can be pretty unforgiving. There is also the pressure of pitching in New York with a contract that big. Some guys put on the pinstripes and take the mound at Yankee Stadium for the first time and fail miserably. We’re not saying Cole will fail, but before you take him off the board in the first half of the first round, understand what he needs to produce statistically to return that value.

Pete Alonso , 1B NYM – What? Come on. What kind of garbage article is this? First Cole and now the reigning NL Rookie of the Year? Sorry, but he’s not hitting 50-plus home runs again and that is what people will expect from him after making him one of earliest first-basemen taken off the board. Alonso did a nice job of reading pitchers last season and not only crushed it when he turned on inside fastballs, but he also did a nice job of mashing breaking pitches low -and away. Big league hurlers will make the necessary adjustments towards leaving the ball in his cold zones and it will be up to Alonso to make the right counter-adjustments. There is no reason to think he can’t hit 35-40 homers given the likelihood we open the season with juiced baseballs again, but with a 26.4% strikeout rate and the pressure of repeating last season’s totals, we could see that 12.4% swinging-strike rate spike which will, in turn, drop that .260 average.

Adalberto Mondesi , 2B/SS KC – Last season, stolen base totals were at the lowest we’ve seen this century. That means fantasy owners will, once again, overvalue speed guys and start taking them earlier and earlier in drafts. Mondesi was second in steals in 2019 with 43 and while he’s only 24-years old and the speed isn’t in decline, the near-30% strikeout rate and .291 OBP are going to need a major overhaul if he is going to repeat those speed totals. We’re not yet ready to compare him to Billy Hamilton and use the old adage of “you can’t steal first base,” we’re also not ready to take a guy who only steals bases in the late second round. To take him there not only means you are expecting a repeat of 40-plus steals, but also an across-the-board increase in his other counting stats and peripherals.

Chris Sale , SP BOS – Nothing that Sale did last season was unexpected. For years, we’ve discussed potential arm issues and have now watched his innings-pitched decline over the last three seasons. The dramatic drop-off from being a 200-inning guy to one who throws between 140 and 160 innings cannot go unnoticed and while his strikeout rate hasn’t dipped, his walk-rate, HR/9, ERA and FIP are all on the rise. Still, he is being treated as a Top-10 hurler and will likely be off the board by the early third round. No one wants to be left holding the bag when the breakdown finally arrives, but if you’re drafting Sale based on name recognition and the anticipation of a rebound, you could be the one standing without a chair when the music stops.

Javier Báez , 2B/SS CHC – While you may be able to blame his 2019 statistical decline on the thumb injury, it still looks like 2018 was the peak season which may now be unattainable. There were times he tried to show a little more discipline at the plate, but Baez is still very much the free-swinger who saw his contact rates regress last year with an increase in the number of pitches he swung through. It seems highly unlikely we will see a return to the 20-steal level and while we don’t want to label someone a bust due to injuries, he has failed to reach 150 games in three of his last four seasons. Can he offer power at the middle infield? Sure. But is his power giving you that much of an advantage that you need to reach for him in the third? Probably not.

Jonathan Villar , 2B/SS MIA – Some of the best advice we can give you this season is to remember what happened to everyone who reached for Villar in 2017. After platooning in Houston for a few years, Villar landed in Milwaukee with his first full-time starting role and swiped 62 bases while smacking 19 homers and posting a .285 average. The following season, he hit .241 with 11 home runs and just 23 steals. He turned back into more of a platoon player and the Brewers sent him packing to Baltimore where he saw a slight resurgence and in 2019 he hit a career-best 24 home runs while stealing 40 bases. This season, Villar will play for the Marlins. He goes from playing in some of the most hitter-friendly parks in Camden yards and Miller Park to a still cavernous Marlins Park, despite the fences being moved in. The power will decline. But to make matters worse, the Marlins 85 stolen base attempts last year ranked in the bottom 10 of the league. Don Mattingly was retained as the manager and he is not one to give the green light freely. Villar is fine if you’re just looking for speed potential, but drafting him in the first four or five rounds will be dangerous.

Clayton Kershaw , SP LAD – The descent is real and so are the back problems. How many times are we going to go back to this well with expectations of a rebound? The guy hasn’t thrown 200 innings since 2015 and the peripherals have all been in some form of a decline in the subsequent years. It’s hard to knock a guy who can keep the ratios down and still strike out more than a batter per inning, but we are getting dangerously close to Rich Hill level where we are conditioned to say, “yeah, he spends a lot of time on the IL, but when he pitches he looks great.” Is that the direction you want to take with your staff ace? We don’t.

Ketel Marte , 2B/SS – How does a guy go from averaging a .160 ISO to suddenly mashing with a .264 mark? Come on. A juiced ball certainly helps, but the leap forward seems unsustainable. There were zero indicators of this type of power and it would be a HUGE surprise to see him come close to the 32 homers he smacked last season, even if he is in his physical prime. When you see this kind of a statistical jump, your instincts should tell you to fade rather than invest. Let someone else reach for last year’s numbers while you look to find this year’s breakout instead.

Anthony Rizzo , 1B CHC – The position appears to be thinner than ever, but are we still ready to invest a fifth-round pick in a guy whose power is in decline? As a 30-home run hitter, we were happy to draft him as a top first baseman, but his failure to reach that plateau over the last two seasons, coupled with the rise in power everywhere else, makes Rizzo a rather pedestrian player. He ranked 15th in home runs among qualified first basemen, 10th in RBI and there were half a dozen other guys who hit for better power and a comparable average. A marquee name only gets you so far in the fantasy community.

DJ LeMahieu , 2B NYY – Similar to Ketel Marte , LeMahieu saw an unexplained statistical jump to career-best numbers. He was a little more aggressive at the plate last season and will likely take that approach again this year as he tries to duplicate his totals from 2019, but again, how does a guy go from a .140 ISO in Colorado to a .191 mark in New York? Maintaining a strong OBP and racking up a ton of runs scored doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility this season, but it’s going to be very tough to expect that kind of power from him again. And in the fifth or sixth round? Well now that just seems a little too pricey.

Brad Hand , RP CLE – It happens every year, right? A top closer goes off the board early and ends up in the tank by year end. Kirby Yates , Aroldis Chapman and even Roberto Osuna could fit the bill, but Hand stands out like a turd in a punch bowl after watching him fade down the stretch last year. In fact, his usage in the second half was ridiculously low and the results weren’t even close to being there. There was a reason the Tribe insisted on getting Emmanuel Clase back from the Rangers in the Corey Kluber deal and it wasn’t so they could have him as a primary set-up man all year.

Yasiel Puig , OF CLE – Can we please stop drafting this guy based on expectations we had back in 2013? We’re seven seasons down the road and he has never hit 30 home runs nor has he ever swiped 20 bases, yet we still draft him as if we’re still expecting some sort of breakout campaign. The move from Los Angeles to Cleveland last year did absolutely nothing for him statistically, hitting just four home runs after the All-Star Break, and yet he’s still being drafted as a top-30 outfielder. Maybe it’s the stolen bases that have us hanging on for dear life, but without a single 20-20 season to his credit, it seems like we’re just continuously barking up the wrong tree.

Zack Wheeler , SP PHI – He gets to stay in the NL East and gets to face some weak lineups still, but this move to Citizens Bank Park does not seem to be one that will agree with him. Not with a declining ground-ball rate, an increasing HR/FB mark, a rise in other peripherals such as his FIP and xFIP and an increase in contact given up. He was a highly-coveted free agent who saw a lot of attention and received a ton of money. Seems like an awful lot to live up to right now.

Garrett Hampson , 2B COL – His ability to play both the infield and outfield should help his cause for playing time in Colorado, but people are drafting him as if he is going to be an everyday player on the verge of a breakout. He still strikes out too much and he certainly doesn’t hit for enough power or average for the Rockies to lock him in every day. If he doesn’t hone that plate discipline, it could be a long season for his fantasy owners.

Byron Buxton , OF MIN – While you don’t want to say it’s never going to happen, the idea that Buxton will ever be as good in fantasy as he can be in reality seems a little far-fetched. Especially when we only praise him in reality for his defensive prowess. That doesn’t play in the fantasy realm. We want at-bats and we want production in the counting stats. Buxton gives us neither. Massively injury-prone and wildly inconsistent at the plate, he is someone you just need to let go.

Danny Santana , 1B TEX – The age-28 breakout has you thinking either late-bloomer or one-hit wonder. With a near-30% strikeout rate and absolutely zero indication this power level is even remotely sustainable should have you leaving him be in drafts and allowing your opponents to take a stab at him. You’re better than that.

German Márquez , SP COL – It was amazing how many people bought into Marquez’ 2018 season and championed the “he’s figured out Coors” belief. Did he? No. Not even close. On the road, he posted a 3.67 ERA and allowed a .273 wOBA. At home, those numbers were 6.26 and .356. Maybe if he drops to some of the later rounds, you can draft him in a league with daily roster moves, but how do you invest a pick in a guy you can’t start at home?

Kyle Seager , 3B SEA – Age is catching up to Seager and while his power numbers last year look like they may be on the robust side, he is just not someone you want as your third baseman or corner infielder this season. The strikeout rate will ascend above 20%, the power will start to taper off and you could see the Mariners start looking towards more of a youth movement. They actually tried to shop him last year and couldn’t find any takers. What’s that tell you?

Mike Yastrzemski , OF SF – Here’s another one…late-bloomer or one-hit wonder? At 29 years of age, we’re going to err on the side of caution and say it’s the latter. He may have popped 21 homers in just 411 plate appearances, but after years of struggling in the minors, the only reason he received a call-up was because the Giants were decimated by injuries and literally had no one else. He doesn’t even rate an opportunity with most clubs and should be nowhere near your fantasy roster.

Miguel Cabrera , 1B DET – In the immortal words of Hawk Harrelson, “He gone!” ‘Nuff said.