Closing Time: Span, Santana, Cesar and Story shine on opening day

For the uninitiated, Closing Time is our short-and-sweet daily review of actionable fantasy news items — key word, actionable. As in, you can act on the info we discuss around here. This is not a place where we'll ever spend much time on Clayton Kershaw, no matter how severely he embarrasses the Padres. CT is focused strictly on under-owned fantasy commodities.

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Thousands of you are still attempting to manage around the loss of A.J. Pollock (elbow surgery on Tuesday), perhaps feeling as if your fantasy baseball seasons were lost before they began. For your benefit, let's begin the season's first Closing Time of 2016 with a sweep of widely available outfielders who made noise on opening day. We begin with a veteran lead-off hitter who feasted against Milwaukee's mostly horrendous pitching staff:

Denard Span, SF, 53 percent owned – Span went 2-for-4 with a homer, five RBIs and two runs-scored in the Giants' win against Wily Peralta & Co. He's a top-of-the-lineup batter with legit speed on a very good team, and he's hit better than .300 in back-to-back seasons. Thus, his current ownership percentage seems absolutely ridiculous. Injuries were an issue last year, but we can say with a high degree of certainty that he'll deliver useful stats across multiple categories as long as he remains healthy-ish this season. So far, so good. Power isn't usually Span's thing, but he's clearly capable of a 90-5-50-25-.300 fantasy line. He should be owned by someone in any mixed league of standard size.

Domingo Santana

, Mil, 38 percent – Same game as Span, different side. Santana went 2-for-5 in the opener, scoring a run from the lead-off spot. Santana slashed .333/.426/.573 in 95 games at Triple-A last season, clearing the fence 18 times, and he added eight homers in the big leagues, too. His career minor league OBP is .373, so he has a good shot to stick at the top of the order. There's a wide range of potential outcomes for Santana, and the high-end is awfully appealing for fantasy purposes. He gets a full Closing Time endorsement. Just don't do anything too crazy, add/drop-wise (see below).

Michael Saunders, Tor, 7 percent – With two games in the books for the Blue Jays, Saunders is 2-for-8 with one homer, one double, and a pair of RBIs. He bats in the bottom-third of the order, true, but that's not much of a worry in the DH-league — and it's really not a worry in Toronto, because that team is gonna score a zillion runs. Saunders is a well-known fantasy asset, a guy who can deliver respectable power/speed totals, along with counting stats. Batting average could be a small problem, but you aren't going to find any five-category stars in your league's free agent pool.

Adonis Garcia, Atl, 3 percent – Atlanta's lineup is not exactly loaded with big-name maulers, but Garcia had the clean-up spot on Monday and he delivered a home run in a degree-of-difficulty match-up with Max Scherzer. Hitting behind Inciarte, Aybar and Freeman, Garcia should continue to see a decent number of RBI opportunities. He'll provide acceptable pop and batting average, plus he offers 3B-eligibility.

Desmond Jennings, TB, 3 percent – Yeah, this is probably a lousy idea. But I have never been able to successfully quit Jennings. Sorry. The injury risk is elevated here, but he's given us four double-digit power/speed seasons and he swiped 31 bags back in 2012. Jennings somehow isn't yet 30, even though it feels like he was part of the original Rays lineup, back in the McGriff-Boggs-McCracken era. Desmond has hit safely in each of his first two games this year, going 3-for-8 with two runs and one steal.

When you lose a player with Pollock's multi-category excellence, the key thing to remember is that you probably can't replace everything he does via free agency. Instead, you need to limit the damage, focusing on the categories in which he was most helpful to your team. With Pollock, those cats are most likely runs (111 last season) and steals (39). The guys above can help, at least to some extent.

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Dalier Hinojosa, not David Hernandez, was in line to work the ninth for Philadelphia on Monday, before things took a bad turn against Cincinnati. Hernandez actually took the loss, allowing three base-runners in the eighth, retiring no one. If that guy isn't closing games, he's basically a ticking fantasy bomb. No way should he remain an active member of any fantasy roster. Hinojosa is the obvious add.

• Sticking with that Phils-Reds contest, you'll note that lead-off batters Cesar Hernandez and Zack Cozart combined to go 5-for-7. Both players can fill middle-infield slots for fantasy owners — Hernandez is actually eligible at 2B, SS and 3B — and they'll occupy favorable lineup positions. Hernandez is a decent bet for 30 steals, while Cozart has respectable pop for his position (two doubles on Monday).

• Nate Jones' stuff is weapons-grade filthy, you guys. When he's right, he's pure evil. Jones is one of those high-K middle relievers who needs to be owned, even in a non-closing role. In a K/9 league, he's a priority add.

• I'm pretty sure fans are going to crush Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez for using Jason Grilli in the ninth and Arodys Vizcaino in the eighth on Monday, but the better pitcher (Vizcaino) drew the much tougher assignment. Arodys dispatched the Rendon-Harper-Zimmerman-Murphy portion of the Nats' lineup, allowing no hits or runs, leaving the bottom of the order for Grilli ... who struggled, naturally. Blown save, facing the bottom of the order. But here's the good news:

We're going to see Vizcaino in critical situations, often in the ninth. He very clearly has the best arm in that 'pen.

• If you're a Trevor Story investor, this is a good day — possibly a first-place day. Story launched a pair of homers on Monday, both off Zack Greinke, driving in four runs in Colorado's win at Arizona. As most of you already know, Story won the early-season shortstop role for the Rockies following an excellent spring; he'll likely receive an extended audition, as Jose Reyes is facing an as-yet-undetermined suspension. Story, 23, offers significant pop by the standards of his position — 20 HR in the minors last year, 70 XBHs — but he figures to be a batting average liability. Coors Field gives him a decent safety net, however.

I would assume that after Monday's binge, there now exists a level of enthusiasm for Story that does not sync with reasonable expectations. So this would be a good day to get a price check on Story, maybe explore the trade market. This time of year, every league has a fantasy manager (or three or five) who will overreact to ludicrously small samples. Which brings us to our final bullet...

• You guys, stop doing stuff like this...

Seriously, stop it. If you find yourself even slightly tempted to drop a top-of-draft star before he's even played a game, just please walk away. Give yourself a timeout. Maybe break from all technology for a few days. Please do not — repeat: DO NOT — drop your no-doubt great players (Springer) because you're intrigued by a lottery ticket (Santana).

And yes, that image above is a real transaction that occurred in a real league. Some dude dropped George Springer for Domingo Santana. Brutal move, Pudu. (Photo cred to Matt.) I mean, it might accidentally work out, but it's terrible. You might have at least explored the trade market for Springer, what with him being a consenses top-35 fantasy asset.

I am just ill, looking at that add/drop. AAARRRGH. 

However, it's a good reminder that there are 2-3 owners in most leagues who, over the next few days, will make a bunch of completely insane transactions. Let's make sure to take full advantage of these people today, right now, because they're going to fade out in May and June, when all is lost.