Randal Grichuk had an ADP at the NFBC of 151 entering the season, 39th in the outfield.

Over at Fantasy Pros the marks were 123 and 40th in the outfield.

In the Fantasy Alarm 2016 MLB Draft Guide Grichuk was ranked 45th in the outfield.

A week into the 2016 MLB season I’m receiving question after question about whether or not it’s too early to drop Grichuk (usually I start out articles like this with an email or Twitter question, but to avoid embarrassing the folks who are asking this question I’m simply going to say that I get the question 10 times a day, but I’m not going to brand anyone who is asking the question with The Scarlet Letter).

Grichuk is 1-for-15 to start the season.

I don’t care.

Why do you?

‘But Ray, he’s striking out a ton,’

Did you not see what he did last season when he struck out 110 times in just 323 at-bats?

Let’s be smart about this folks.

Over his last 337 at-bats Grichuk has hit 17 home runs. Give him 550 at-bats at that pace and we’d be talking about 28 homers. Nothing wrong with that is there?

How many homers a week would it be for a guy who hits 28 homers in a season? The season is 26 weeks long so a 28 homer bat would record 1.08 homers a week. That’s it. Tiny amount on a per week basis. So instead of hitting 1.08 homers in Week 1 Randal hit zero. Wow, big difference.

I just don’t get it.

You drafted Grichuk to be your 4th outfielder. Every fantasy source said you were fine to do that. Six games into the season you want to drop Grichuk? I’m being 100 percent honest here. If you play fantasy baseball with a fuse that short you will lose. Every time. The season is 162 games long. It’s a marathon. The lunacy out there – Jeremy Hellickson is going to post 15 wins and a 3.00 ERA or Trevor Story is going to hit 40 homers – is mind numbing. Don’t fall into that group. I’m not sitting here telling you that Grichuk is going to be a star this season. I am telling you that it’s bananas time if you are dropping Grichuk after a week. Furthermore, it’s patently stupid to be dropping a guy you drafted three weeks ago to be a starter on your team merely because the player started slowly in Week 1.

Maybe this parallel will help.

We’re one week down of a 26-week season. Obviously that’s 1/26th of a season. In football there are 16 games. What is 1/26th of a football season? Try 2.5 quarters of one game. If your second running back ran for 19 yards through 2.5 quarters of the first game would you drop him? Of course you wouldn’t.

Show some patience.

Let things breath.

One week simply isn’t a big enough sample size to prove anything. 

One week simply isn’t a big enough sample size to prove anything.

  • Final note. Don’t think that Grichuk is losing his starting spot to Jeremy Hazelbaker. The 28 year old has 18 big league plate appearances under his belt. His talent is about 65 percent of Grichuk’s. Jeremy hit .264 with a .775 OPS over 751 minor league games. The only thing he does better than Grichuk is run. He’s not a real threat. 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).