Fantasy Sports: Which Pirates player may heat up? Early NHL, NBA trends. Warnings about Rob Gronkowski?
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Fantasy sports aren’t all about regular-season baseball and football.
Jeff Erickson and I start this week’s fantasy sports podcast talking about results in the two “bubble sports,” as the NBA and NHL are underway in Orlando, Toronto, and Edmonton.
In the hockey playoffs, Evgeni Malkin is off to a slow start. But other noteworthy players such as Connor McDavid, Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov are filling up the nets. Not to mention two goals by Sidney Crosby.
We also bring up the loss of Mark Scheifele from the Winnipeg Jets roster and some of the wild scores in NBA games. Erickson seems to believe that motivation is playing an even bigger role than normal in the NBA outcomes.
I think he’s right. We investigate that fantasy impact.
On the baseball front, a slow start for the Pirates has carried over to the fantasy world. The few Pirates who appeared to be worthy draftable candidates are struggling at the plate. Specifically, that’s Bryan Reynolds, Josh Bell and Kevin Newman.
On the mound, those who had faith in Joe Musgrove by drafting him are getting frustrated as well. Erickson sees one of those guys turning it around soon, however. He’ll tell you which player.
Some ex-Pirates in the American League East are catching my attention this week. Gerrit Cole’s start with the Yankees has been good. He’ll square off against Tampa Bay’s Tyler Glasnow Saturday.
Two other key Rays players nabbed from Pittsburgh were standouts Tuesday night. Austin Meadows had his debut game against the Red Sox following a battle with covid-19. He went 2 for 4 in a 5-1 win for pitcher Charlie Morton. Erickson has some views about what that means for the future of the Rays.
The coronavirus cancellations are denting every corner of fantasy results. Erickson reveals where fantasy owners are dealing with the most fallout.
Finally, there are quite a few topics in the NFL as fantasy drafts approach: Ben Roethlisberger is throwing again;how viable is Rob Gronkowski as a high-round tight end draft choice; and the threat of more NFL opt-outs loom.
The opt-out issue isn’t restricted to the NFL. Micah Parsons is reportedly staying away from college football at Penn State for his junior year. So what does that mean for the outlook of the 2021 draft?
We hash out all those topics and more in this week’s podcast.