Fantasy Baseball Week 6 Drops: Daulton Varsho, Alex Bregman, Michael Busch and Jonah Heim
Discussing four of the most-dropped fantasy hitters in the sixth week of the MLB season.
I’ve written up multiple fantasy baseball waiver wire stories during each week of the season so far. It’s great to know which players are trending up, but unless you have injured players, it might be hard to determine which players to drop in corresponding moves.
Let’s take a look at the most dropped players in the sixth week of the fantasy season. We’ll focus on position players, as most of the pitchers on the list are there after serving as streaming options.
The list of dropped players I use in this story are taken from FantasySP’s Waiver Trends, which can be found near the bottom of the webpage when pursuing FSP. That’s where the top waiver wire adds can also be found. These numbers shift all the time, and can help you determine the best additions and subtractions throughout the fantasy baseball season.
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Daulton Varsho Fantasy Outlook
Varsho is one of players in this story that have appeared in waiver wire add stories already this season.
Across 30 games this season, Varsho has a .233 average and .324 on-base percentage. He’s homered and doubled six times among his 21 total hits, driven in 14 runs and scored 17 times. Varsho has stolen three bases, walked 12 times and struck out on 26 occasions.
Varsho is your typical power hitter, doing most of his damage with extra-base hits and RBIs, but also striking out a bunch. He got hot for several games, but has just two knocks over his past five games.
He’s a career .229 hitter, with a .300 OBP, so his average is about what it usually is, while he’s getting on base a little bit more than in the past. He played pretty much every day, which is good for a fantasy baseball player, but if he’s not hitting consistently, I can understand why fantasy owners want to look elsewhere for help.
I’ve never been a huge fan of rostering “power-only” fantasy options, so I’d be for dropping Varsho. Take a look at yesterday’s waiver wire add story to find some possible replacements.
Alex Bregman Fantasy Outlook
Bregman is by far the biggest name in this week’s story. He’s gotten off to a rough start at the plate.
Across his first 25 games, Bregman has just a .216 average and .287 OBP. He’s doubled five times and still is without a home run among his 21 total hits. Bregman has seven RBIs and just four runs scored, one stolen base, 10 walks and 13 strikeouts.
His average and OBP are rough, but it’s good to see that he has a relatively low strikeout number. That means he’s at least putting the ball in play. Still, we’re talking about a player that had an Average Draft Position of around 41, so this is not great production.
Bregman is a career .273 hitter, but hit .259 and .262 the past two seasons. His career OBP is .371 - he had marks of .366 and .363 the past two years. This simply looks like a slow first month to the season to me.
Because Bregman was a top-50 pick in most leagues, I’d say it’s far too early to move on from him. He plays just about everyday and produces really strong fantasy seasons with what we’d call his average seasons. He might not be able to match the past couple seasons after the slow start, but this is still a good option to plug into a starting spot on your team most days. At the very worst, he's a great backup infielder.
Another thing with Bregman is that he has five hits over the past four games. They’ve all been singles, but it shows that even in a down season at the plate, he can avoid negative numbers and still provide you with a little value.
If anything, I’d try to trade Bregman away instead of just outright dropping him. There’s got to be a fantasy owner out there that would buy low on Bregman, and that way you could get something of decent value in return. Always try to avoid dropping your early fantasy picks, unless of course a long-term injury is in play.
Michael Busch Fantasy Outlook
Busch was a popular waiver wire add just a couple weeks ago, but has cooled off at the plate since then.
In his first 27 games this season, Busch had a .269 average and .336 on-base percentage. He’s homered six times and doubled four times among his 25 total hits, driven in 17 runs and scored 15 times. Busch has 10 walks and 35 strikeouts.
This season is the first one in which Busch has a true starting role, and he’s putting up pretty good numbers so far, minus the high strikeout total. Across his past five games though, Busch has just four hits (with three coming in one game) and one RBI, while striking out seven times.
Busch has cooled off a good bit, but I wouldn’t be quite ready to drop him if I rostered him. I get he was a waiver wire add and that makes it easier to drop him, but I envision a few more hot stretches this season, so I’d much rather stash him on the bench for the time being.
He was one of the best fantasy hitters in the game when he was hot, and I wouldn’t want to risk any league members getting him when he heats back up. The only way I’d understand dropping him is if you had no other viable options at his position(s) and needed that roster spot to add someone of value right now.
Jonah Heim Fantasy Outlook
Heim is a player that I’m not sure I truly understand for being dropped right now. He plays quite a bit and is producing pretty well so far.
Heim has played in 24 games so far this season and he sits with a .261 average and .286 OBP. Heim has three doubles and home runs among his 23 total hits. He’s driven in 16 runs and scored eight times. Heim even has a stolen base, along with two walks and 20 strikeouts.
Heim is a career .234 hitter, but also is coming off a 2023 season in which he hit .258. He’s got a career .291 OBP and had a .317 mark in 2023. As you can probably tell, 2023 was a career year for Heim, and that’s another reason why I don’t understand him being dropped.
We’re about a month into the season, so that’s enough time to get a decent idea on how players are performing. But at the same time, there’s a lot of season to go, and at a weak catcher position, I wouldn’t want to move off a guy like Heim, especially because I think he can keep up this level of production.
His ADP of 173 is making him easier to move, but again at the very least, I’d try to trade Heim away. I’d say Heim is a borderline top-10 fantasy catcher right now, and that means someone will find value in him. See if you can get a little value in return instead of simply dropping Heim.
#drops #2024-fantasy-baseball
