Opening Day Double Bops and Flops

On Opening Day this year, Jim Thome and Xavier Nady each hit 2 home runs in their teams first game. Today, Xavier Nady is the 7th most added player in ESPN Fantasy Baseball but is still unowned in 92% of leagues. The two home runs haven't provoked too many people to pick him up on their fantasy baseball team, suggesting that owners aren't confident it's a sign of things to come.

This got me thinking:

Of those players who hit two home runs on Opening Day, how many actually had a good season in fantasy baseball terms?

In the past ten Opening Days, there have been 27 occurrences of a player hitting two home runs. The table below lists those who did and their final 5x5 Rotisserie fantasy baseball statistics.

Xavier Nady has done this before. In 2005, he ended up hitting only 11 more home runs in the next 123 games after hitting two dingers in his team's first game. In 2006, he boosted his HR total to 17 and last year, he hit 20. His year-to-year power numbers have been improving so we'll have to see if it continues.

Of the 27 instances, 9 of them produced seasons with at least 100 Runs, 12 of them produced seasons with at least 30 home runs, 12 with at least 100 RBIs, and 12 with at least .300 batting average.

There were some memorable flops. Most recently, Chris Shelton hit 10 home runs in his first 23 games of the season but only hit 6 over his next 92 games. He eventually was sent down to the minor leagues, despite is torrid start. He hasn't played in the majors since that 2006 season.

Bernard Gilkey was a post-Opening Day disappointment too. In the next 93 games, he only hit 6 home runs after hitting 2 in the first one. At one point, he hadn't hit a home run in 42 games.

Overall, there were certainly more excellent seasons than bad. However, hitting two home runs on Opening Day does not guarantee that you'll be a valuable asset to a fantasy baseball team.