Didi Gregorius, Top 100 Hitters, 2018 Fantasy Baseball

Week 2 of Razzball’s top 100 hitters is here! Now with actual baseball being played! This list is not going to be overly reactionary after nine days of rainy, snowy baseball. Barring injury you won’t see too many shake-ups among the top hitters. Yes, I see Paul Goldschmidt, Joey Votto, and Anthony Rizzo’s batting averages and I’m not going to freak out and you probably aren’t either. Should you try to buy low on them if someone’s entire team is really under-performing: of course you should. In the same vein, if you saw in the comments last week everyone was calling for Jose Martinez to be on the list, but he has just as many multi-hit games as 0-fer games. If he can even that out a little bit he’ll find himself climbing this list faster than the yodeler in a game of Cliffhangers on Price is Right after some fool says that a bag of rice-a-roni costs 10 bucks. Get a grip Suzanne! Shohei Ohtani on the other hand — after the sloppiest of sloppy springs he is now starting to live up to the Japanese Babe Ruth moniker with HRs in three straight games. He’s not in the top 100 proper just yet — but should he keep this up he’ll be rising up.

Falling:

Andrew McCutchen, SF (down 15 spots): I wasn’t high on Cutch going into this season after his move to San Fran, but 2 for 24 in his first 6 games? Yikes. He’s a much better hitter than this obviously, but I never thought his declining power was going to play all that well in AT&T Park anyway.
Mike Moustakas, KC (down 8 spots): No one liked Moustakas returning to KC with no one but weatherman Whit Merrifield in the line-up around him, but Moustakas is 2 for his last 18. Plenty of time to turn it around (duh — it’s not even tax day yet) but it isn’t a good look so far.

Rising:

Didi Gregorius, NYY (up 9 spots): Everyone was predicting Greg Bird would be the biggest beneficiary of the Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez trio hitting near in each other in the line-up, but turns out it was The Gregorius One all along. He’s hit clean-up most often for the Yankees so far and is quickly making everyone in New York refer to Derek Jeter as “that guy who runs the Marlins” instead of The Captain. He’s tied for second in all of baseball with 10 RBI so far.
Justin Smoak, TOR (up 5 spots): Only 2 HRs so far, but he’s hit safely in 6 of the Jays’ 8 games–3 of those being multi-hit games. Many of us were non-believers of Smoak going into 2018 (myself included) but he’s really shutting us all up so far. If he can change, you can change, everybody can change!

Alright, enough banter, making this list is never easy, but let’s get into it:

Rank	Name	Team	Position
1	Mike Trout	LAA	OF
2	Jose Altuve	HOU	2B
3	Nolan Arenado	COL	3B
4	Bryce Harper	WAS	OF
5	Mookie Betts	BOS	OF
6	Giancarlo Stanton	NYY	OF
7	Trea Turner	WAS	SS
8	Charlie Blackmon	COL	OF
9	Paul Goldschmidt	ARI	1B
10	Carlos Correa	HOU	SS
11	Kris Bryant	CHC	3B
12	Manny Machado	BAL	3B
13	Joey Votto	CIN	1B
14	Aaron Judge	NYY	OF
15	Francisco Lindor	CLE	SS
16	Anthony Rizzo	CHC	1B
17	Freddie Freeman	ATL	1B
18	J.D. Martinez	BOS	OF
19	Jose Ramirez	CLE	2B/3B
20	George Springer	HOU	OF
21	Cody Bellinger	LAD	1B/OF
22	Josh Donaldson	TOR	3B
23	Brian Dozier	MIN	2B
24	Jose Abreu	CHW	1B
25	Dee Gordon	SEA	2B
26	Gary Sanchez	NYY	C
27	Corey Seager	LAD	SS
28	Justin Upton	ARI	OF
29	Christian yelich	MIL	OF
30	Alex Bregman	HOU	SS/3B
31	Edwin Encarnacion	CLE	1B
32	Anthony Rendon	WAS	3B
33	Marcell Ozuna	STL	OF
34	Andrew Benintendi	BOS	OF
35	Rhys Hoskins	PHI	1B/OF
36	Buster Posey	SF	C/1B
37	Starling Marte	PIT	OF
38	Elvis Andrus	TEX	SS
39	Robinson Cano	SEA	2B
40	Wil Myers	SD	1B
41	Jonathan Schoop	BAL	2B
42	Byron Buxton	MIN	OF
43	Khris Davis	OAK	OF
44	Yoenis Cespedes	NYM	OF
45	Eric Hosmer	SD	1B
46	Nelson Cruz	SEA	DH
47	Tommy Pham	STL	OF
48	A.J. Pollock	ARI	OF
49	Xander Bogaerts	BOS	SS
50	Miguel Sano	MIN	3B
51	Willson Contreras	CHC	C
52	D.J. LeMahieu	COL	2B
53	Billy Hamilton	CIN	OF
54	Jean Segura	SEA	SS
55	Lorenzo Cain	MIL	OF
56	Nicholas Castellanos	DET	3B/OF
57	Whit Merrifield	KC	2B
58	Joey Gallo	TEX	3B/1B
59	Trevor Story	COL	SS
60	Yasiel Puig	LAD	OF
61	Rougned Odor	TEX	2B
62	Didi Gregorious	NYY	SS
63	Domingo Santana	MIL	OF
64	Ender Inciarte	ATL	OF
65	Ian Desmond	COL	1B/OF
66	Carlos Santana	CLE	1B
67	Travis Shaw	MIL	3B
68	Andrew McCutchen	SF	OF
69	Adam Jones	BAL	OF
70	Kyle Seager	SEA	3B
71	Mike Moustakas	KC	3B
72	Manuel Margot	SD	OF
73	Rafael Devers	BOS	3B
74	Matt Carpenter	STL	1B
75	Justin Smoak	TOR	1B
76	Matt Olson	OAK	1B
77	Ryan Braun	MIL	OF
78	Miguel Cabrera	DET	1B
79	Javier Baez	CHC	SS/2B
80	Eduardo Nunez	BOS	2B/3B/OF
81	Eddie Rosario	MIN	OF
82	Adrian Beltre	TEX	3B
83	Marwin Gonzalez	HOU	SS/1B/2B/OF
84	Gregory Polanco	PIT	OF
85	Adam Eaton	WAS	OF
86	Nomar Mazara	TEX	OF
87	Jay Bruce	NYM	OF
88	Brett Gardner	NYY	OF
89	Jose Martinez	STL	1B
90	Evan Gattis	HOU	C
91	Chris Taylor	LAD	2B/OF
92	Paul DeJong	STL	SS/2B
93	Ozzie Albies	ATL	OF
94	Josh Bell	PIT	2B
95	Yadier Molina	STL	C
96	Kyle Schwarber	CHC	OF
97	Yoan Moncada	CHW	2B
98	Mitch Haniger	SEA	OF
99	Tim Anderson	CWS	SS
100	Matt Chapman	OAK	3B

On the radar:

Michael Conforto	NYM	OF
Preston Tucker	ATL	OF
Shohei Ohtani	LAA	DH
Josh Reddick	HOU	OF
Josh Harrison	PIT	2B/3B

Off the radar:

Jake Lamb	ARI	3B
Kevin Kiermaier	TB	OF
Justin Bour	MIA	1B
Ryan Zimmerman	WAS	1B
Ian Happ	CHC	2B/OF

Your rankings are probably completely different than mine — that’s the best thing about fantasy baseball: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Leave a comment below if you think my list is beautiful or hideous.