I woke up this morning to a very interesting email. On Monday, I wrote about potential waiver regrets and listed A’s first baseman Yonder Alonso as someone you may not want to blow your entire FAAB budget on. I questioned the lasting success of the change in his swing, compared his career batted ball numbers and wondered why, if this was all it took to get him to hit for power, why wasn’t this change made years ago and is it truly sustainable?

Despite what I wrote, I played Alonso in DFS Monday night. After all, the guy was hot, having hit safely in three-straight with three home runs in his last two games. Why wouldn’t I give it a ride?

Obviously that didn’t work out too well for me. Despite a positive match-up, Alonso went 0-for-4 and produced a big, fat zero in daily. I laughed it off and may have even said to myself, “changed swing, my ass.” I didn’t give it another thought until I sat and watched the A’s game last night and watched Alonso crank out two more home runs, giving him five in his last four games and a career-high of 11 on the very short year. I shrugged it off, scratched my head and thought about watching Alonso’s at-bats a little more closely moving forward.

Then I got an email this morning from a reader asking if I still thought Alonso’s newfound home run swing was still bogus. Now I don’t remember actually saying the new swing was bogus, per se, but I definitely questioned its sustainability and again, why it took until his age-30 season to make this change. What exactly did Oakland hitting coach Darren Bush do that other hitting coaches in San Diego and Cincinnati couldn’t? A bit of a head-scratcher, right?

I watched a number of videos of Alonso at the plate, both this year and in years past to see how noticeable the changes were. I then looked a little deeper into the numbers and to what was being said throughout the spring and frankly, there’s still not a whole lot there in the data. His swing rates, both inside and outside the zone, are down which means he’s being more selective at the plate. Both Alonso and Bush talked about pitch selection and how he [Alonso] spent the offseason working on it, so there is some sense to make of it here. He’s seeing more breaking stuff this season than he has in years past and his improved selectivity has enabled him to cut back on chasing pitches outside the zone. That has obviously helped him see more pitches per plate appearance, stay ahead in the count and wait on more fastballs.

And while his overall contact rates are down, the contact he is making has been a lot more solid. His hard contact rate has jumped from a 32.3-percent mark last year to a 41.1-percent this season. His medium contact has hovered closer to the 50-percent mark which means he’s definitely getting the barrel of the bat on the ball more cleanly and his adjustment to get more lift has been a huge plus. Now I’m still not saying this is totally sustainable as a lot will come down to adjustments pitchers make moving forward as well as the adjustments he makes in return, but for right now, things are looking good both for him and his fantasy owners. I always say that you need to ride the wave until it breaks, so if there’s a chance to use Alonso in your lineup, you have to take it, sustainable or not.

But all of that got me to thinking even more about fantasy pundits and their quick dismissal of hot starts. Granted, some of them have to be kept within the boundaries of reality. Neither Eric Thames nor Aaron Judge will hit 80 home runs this year. We must accept that. It doesn’t mean they can’t reach the 40-homer plateau, but at least it helps us keep perspective when people are asking about trading either for a perennial superstar like Mike Trout or Miguel Cabrera. But the bottom line is that we aren’t always right. Even when we research things like batted ball data, pitch mix and other statistical data. Sometimes it takes more of an effort and a greater sample size to properly break down and analyze a player.

It’s the same with analyzing cold starts and whether a player is really done being a fantasy superhero. I’ll happily stand by my assessment that I want nothing more to do with players like Carlos Gonzalez, Jake Arrieta and even Julio Teheran as there was more to it than just statistical anomalies. CarGo could have playing time issues when David Dahl returns if he doesn’t turn it on soon. He is also at risk of being traded out of Colorado. Teheran is dealing with a much more hitter-friendly ballpark that favors left-handed hitters and Arrieta has been in decline for well over a year while also losing velocity and movement.

But when looking at struggling stars people seem to be getting antsy about such as Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, Jose Bautista, Mark Trumbo and Kyle Seager, there just isn’t enough out there to say whether they were a wasted pick or not. There are intangibles all over the place and we are not privy to inside information between coaches and players. We can make our best guess which is probably steeped in a lot more research and analysis than that of the casual fantasy player, but we are not the final authority. The best we can do is offer our own personal analysis and help guide you in your decisions with regard to your roster construction and waiver selections.

I’m not saying this as a way to hedge my bets or offer up excuses for questioning a player’s mechanical adjustments. I’m saying this to remind you that we are not the final word regarding player performance. I can give you my assessment of CarGo and tell you what I would do with him if I was an owner, but I cannot say with 100-percent accuracy that he will snap out of it. Or that he won’t. Right now, based on the information I have, I wouldn’t want to own him, but maybe the coaches in Colorado work some Alonso-like magic and get him back on track.

Head-scratchers are simply a part of this fantasy game. If we knew exactly what would happen, we’d all be billionaires, right? I’d be writing articles and broadcasting from my yacht somewhere in the Caribbean. The trick is to not dismiss anything without further investigation and sometimes that requires more than just crunching numbers from a desk. I can’t promise you that I will be right all the time, but I can promise you extensive research and solid strategy advice no matter which way the player goes.