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Elbow injuries to Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin may have had fantasy owners down on the Oakland Athletics‘ starting rotation entering the season, but Jesse Chavez’s excellent start has become worth some attention. After holding the Los Angeles Angels to two runs (one earned) on four hits Monday night, Chavez now has a 1.35 ERA with 22 strikeouts and just two walks over three starts (20 innings) this season.
Should fantasy baseball owners view Chavez as a top waiver wire addition?
Chavez has had fairly favorable matchups in each of his first three starts, facing the Seattle Mariners and Minnesota Twins prior to the Angels. That trend will continue when he faces the Houston Astros in his next scheduled start on Easter Sunday, but there’s a fine line between having favorable matchups and taking advantage of them and Chavez has done that to this point.
Chavez only had two major league starts under his belt prior to this season, so there’s some risk that his innings will be limited late in the season regardless of any success he is having. That would obviously be bad news for fantasy owners as league titles are being decided in August and September, but in the overall context of Chavez’s fantasy value from here it should not be blown out of proportion.
Chavez is currently available in 68 percent of Yahoo! leagues, and he’s likely available fairly widely right now no matter what league host you use. But that may change quickly with pitchers going down like flies on seemingly a daily basis, so Chavez is a top addition in AL-only leagues and mixed league owners should at least have him on their radar.
Brad Berreman is a Senior Writer at Rant Sports.com. Follow him on Twitter or connect on Google +.
