Which play-ahs are we avoiding this year, and why?  Are they ove-ah-valued, playing in a difficult environment, or on the precipice of a steep decline?  Whateve-ah the reason, the Dynasty Guru writers have identified a few play-ahs whom we are avoiding.

MARCELO “MAY-AH” MAYER

BOSTON RED SOX

This coming season was supposed to be a wicked pissa for me and my Red So-ux. Everything pointed towards us recapturing the AL East.

But, you’re tellin’ me a couple weeks ago, we let Alex Bregman, a clubhouse lead-ah and proven winn-ah, walk right out The Hub and sign with the Cubbies?  

And now you’re tellin’ me that we can’t make a deal to get a guy like Brendan Donovan. Because we don’t want to deal with Chaim F’n Bloom again. Well, I get that. It’s not like he is gonna do us any freakin’ favors. He knows we are hammah-ed so he’ll probably ask for Roman Anthony and all the chowd-ah in Boston to make any deal with us.  Forget it.

So now what’s the play for my So-ux and your fantasy team at the hot corn-ah? 

Wait. Don’t tell me you just gonna slide that kid, Marcelo May-ah over there. 

Look, I like Marcelo May-ah, okay? The kid’s got a glove like vacuum and is a good ballplayer but c’mon! You think your fantasy team and my So-ux can really rely on him and his bat? After that cup of coffee he had last yea-uh?

Yeah, yeah… I get the excuses… The kid was pressin’ a bit. It was his first time in the show. But you can’t ignore these kinds of numbers. He struck out 41 times in 136 plate appearances. That’s a 30.1% clip and on top of that he had a 28.6% Whiff Rate. When you watch the tape it looked like the kid was freakin’ mesmerized in the batters box by anything that was not a fastball. What? You don’t think other teams didn’t take notice of his .690 OPS against anything that wasn’t a fastball in MiLB. And to top that off, he didn’t help his cause when he put up a 29.7% Chase Rate against anything that was a breaking pitch in the show last yea-uh. I mean… the kid leaves the door open for anything below the zone! 

And forget about him doing any damage against any southpaws. He proved that out in Double-A Portland where he had a .674 OPS against lefties. Cora will have to go with a platoon unless he don’t care that the kid gets carved up. Either way, that isn’t going to help you-ah fantasy team.

The Boston higher-ups think he has 20/20 potential but I don’t see that happening with the hitting mechanics he has had since being drafted with that steep swing path of his. The numb-ahs don’t lie. A groundball rate of 49.4% when he had his cup of Dunkin’ and a 47.4% GB% in the min-ahs the year before is not ideal for power numb-ahs. 

Also, for a kid that is supposed to have some pop in his bat, the HR/FB clip of 11.1% in ‘23 and 12.9% in ‘24 out in Hadlock Field that has a 113 HR factor is not a good sign. And we all can forget about the idea of him stealing 20 bases in the majors. Since being drafted, his attempts and success rate have been going lower and lower. Last yea-uh, in 87 games between Triple-A Woo-stah and the So-ux, he attempted four stolen bases… the two times he tried to steal a base in the show, he got caught.

Don’t get me wrong… May-ah is wicked talented and made improvements in his plate discipline and power numbers during his time in Triple-A Worcester. But, that doesn’t change the biggest chink in his ah-mah. Availability. 

The most games this kid played in a season was 91 and that was back in 2022. We can go over the litany of injuries… His 2023 season ended with a shoulder injury, 2024 with a lumbar strain, and 2025 with wrist surgery. The kid isn’t soft by any stretch of the word but some guys just have some bad luck throughout their careers. Hopefully, I’m wrong about that. Recent reports are that he put on ten pounds of muscle and is fully healthy coming into this season. 

I don’t know about you but with his numb-ahs, a probable platoon, and sketchy injury history. I’m just sayin’ if May-ah was at the hot corn-ah for my fantasy team. I’d go to the packie and get myself a 30 rack of ‘Gansett right now because it’s probably going to be a wicked long season.

(Ryan Felix Fernandes)