Opening Day Winners and Losers

03/31/2025

Finally, March is here, which means baseball is here as well. With that comes Opening Day, as well as our one year anniversary of being a website. Yep, that's right, officially one year of Strictly Fantasy. But, let's get back into it. We are going to go through three Opening Day winners and three Opening Day losers. So, we are going to start with the winners then get onto the losers next.

Wilyer Abreu

Wilyer Abreu had the best Opening Day of anyone. He went 3/3 with two home runs, four RBI's and three runs scored. Abreu had one of the greatest Opening Days of all time, and his fantasy value has skyrocketed because of it. Before the seasons started, he was rostered in about 6% of leagues. After this opening series, he is now rostered in nearly 60% of leagues, which is just insane. So, don't be surprised if you see Wilyer Abreu in the next Waiver Wire pickups article.

Adley Rutschman

Adley Rutschman is showing why he was the second catcher off the board in fantasy drafts this year. On Opening Day, he went 3/5 with two home runs, three RBI's and three runs. Rutschman has been playing this good for practically his entire career with the Orioles, and he is a huge part of this young core that they have right now. Rutschman, on the contrary to Abreu, is not going to be on waiver wires right now, so try and trade for him if you can.

Kyle Manzardo

Kyle Manzardo is probably a name that you haven't heard at all. That's because he is the Cleveland Guardians DH. But on Opening Day against the Kansas City Royals, he went 3/4 with a home run, four RBIs and two runs. Just like Wilyer Abreu, he was also rostered in 6% of leagues, and now he is rostered in 20% of leagues.

Jackson Chourio

Jackson Chourio is the first of the big losers of Opening Day. The Brewers star went 0/5 with five strikeouts against the New York Yankees. Chourio thought he was 2010 Lebron with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five strikeouts on Opening Day. Chourio has had a bad start to the season, but we expect that he will start to get back onto the right track here soon.

Brent Rooker

Second on the Opening Day big loser list in A's star Brent Rooker. After a big breakout season last year, Rooker was a huge disappointment on Opening Day. Doing his best Jackson Chourio impression, he went 0/4 with four strikeouts for a grand total of -8 fantasy points. Rooker got right back on track though, as he went 2/5 with a home run the next day. For some reason he's not rostered in 14% of leagues, so just double check to see if you can grab him before it's too late.

Rafael Devers

Rafael Devers might be having the slowest start to the season that any star might have ever had. Not just Opening Day, either. He has had 15 strikeouts over the course of five games, with a horrendous Opening Day game. He went 0/4 with three strikeouts, and unlike these other players mentioned, we don't know if he will come back to his true self. We can only hope that Devers can come back to his MVP caliber self soon.