| | | | Wednesday, April 16, 2025 | | How is Tyler Mahle getting away with this? Actually, forget "getting away with this" – how is Tyler Mahle dominating like this? | | Mahle struck out nine against the Angels Tuesday night, and he did it while averaging just 92 mph with his four-seam fastball, up from his season average, slightly, but still well below the league average. Now, of course, succeeding with limited fastball velocity isn't that weird, but usually, pitchers who do have some other exceptional pitch they can lean on – Shota Imanaga 's splitter, say, or Sean Manaea's slider. | | Not Mahle. He generated 11 of his 18 swinging strikes Tuesday with that four-seamer, and for the season he is now sitting on a 41% whiff rate with his four-seamer, a mark only one pitcher who threw at least 100 four-seamers last season bested – and that was Mason Montgomery, a reliever who only threw 9.2 innings last season, and he averaged 97.3 mph with his four-seamer. Again, Mahle is sitting right around 92 mph this season. | | How much of an outlier is this? Well, among all major-league pitchers this season, the average whiff rate on four-seamers between 91 and 93 mph is 20.8%. Last season, among 11 starters who averaged between 91 and 93 mph on their four-seamers, the average whiff rate was 23.6%, with a high of 28.7% from Lance Lynn . Mahle is getting better results from his four-seamer than just about any pitcher in baseball right now, and he's doing so while ranking 121st in four-seamer velocity among pitchers with at least 10 innings pitched. And that four-seamer is his only pitch with a whiff rate over 20% that he has thrown more than 10% of the time. | | | | So, it's a fluke, right? | | In all likelihood yes, though more because Mahle has shown next to zero ability to stay healthy in recent years than with concerns about his performance. I don't think he'll sustain anything like a 40% whiff rate on his four-seamer, but it should continue to be a very good pitch – he gets a ton of vertical movement on the pitch, which helps it play up better than the velocity would make you think, and he managed a very solid 26% whiff rate with the pitch in his limited time last season. | | And it's not like he's a one-pitch pitcher. The rest of his arsenal hasn't been great in his first few starts, but he did have five whiffs with his splitter Tuesday, and that pitch had a 28% whiff rate last season. I don't think Mahle is likely to remain an elite strikeout pitcher like he was Monday, and the injury track record means there's a pretty good chance things go sideways at some point either way. | | But coming off a start like Tuesday's – which followed up 12 one-run innings in his previous two starts, though with just nine combined strikeouts – I do think it's worth viewing Mahle as a high-priority waiver-wire add in any of the 43% of CBS Fantasy leagues where he's currently available, especially at a time when not many pitchers seem to be emerging otherwise. Remember, Mahle did have a 210-strikeout season back in 2021, so if he can tap into anything like that upside again, he's going to be very useful. | | Mahle is one of the top waiver-wire targets out there right now. Let's see who else we're adding from Tuesday's action: | | | | Wednesday's top waiver-wire targets | | | | Nick Kurtz, 1B, Athletics (56%) – I'm just kind of reading the tea leaves here because, despite a lot of chatter, I'm not sure there's smoke here. Kurtz was the No. 4 pick in last year's draft, and he's already looking like there isn't much left for him to learn down on the farm. Kurtz has homered seven times in his first 14 games while sporting a 94.9 mph average exit velocity, and he's doing that after playing just 12 games in the minors last season. And if you're thinking that there's nowhere for him to play for the Athletics, that may be short-sighted. Brent Rooker made his second appearance in the outfield Tuesday, with his first coming just a few days ago. If Rooker can handle an outfield corner more or less full time that would make for a seamless transition for Kurtz, who could either slide into the DH spot or play his natural first base, moving Tyler Soderstrom to DH. But here's another sign that the A's are seriously considering promoting Kurtz – according to an MLB.com report Tuesday, the A's front office is considering the possibility of having Soderstrom play third base. That would seem to be a less-than-ideal move for the former catcher, but that they are even considering it suggests the A's really think Kurtz can be an impact bat from day one. He's gotta be the top minor-league stash right now. | | Austin Hays, OF, Reds (17%) – Hays made his return from the IL Tuesday and wasted no time in providing a boost for the Reds lineup, homering off Luis Castillo and adding another 105.5 mph single. Hays was an above-average hitter from 2021 through 2023 – Camden Yards' deep left field might have made you miss it – and his struggles last seem likely to have been, at least in part, due to an infection he dealt with. Reds is probably a must-roster player in any five-outfielder league, making him one of the most under-rostered players in Fantasy right now. | | Griffin Conine, OF, Marlins (6%) – The hardest-hit ball of the season in the majors now belongs to Conine, who hit a double 117.4 mph Tuesday, one of two doubles and three hard-hit balls in the game. He's up to a .320/.393/.480 line for the season, and it might not even be a fluke – his .367 wOBA is backed up by a very solid .344 expected mark, and he's striking out just 25% of the time in the early going. Conine has always had legitimate power, but an inability to make consistent contact has doomed him to Quad-A status. If the contact gains are at all real, there could actually be something here with Conine, at least for deeper leagues. | | Logan Henderson, SP, Brewers (6%) – The Brewers recalled Henderson from Triple-A Tuesday, with the expectation he'll join the club's rotation at some point in the coming days. He's not a can't-miss prospect – he ranked 88th in FanGraphs.com's top-100 entering the season, which was one of the more bullish rankings out there – but there's a lot to like about him. He has a very good fastball/changeup combo, with a cutter and new curveball mixed in this season, and that led to a 3.32 ERA and 32.8% strikeout rate across three levels of the minors last season. The Brewers are desperate for pitching help, and they're trying to catch lightning in a bottle with Henderson, who is worth a look in deeper leagues. | | Bobby Miller, SP, Dodgers (14) – Let's keep the trend rolling with Miller, a former top prospect who has fallen on incredibly hard times over the past year. He is expected to be called up to start Wednesday's game against the Rockies, as the Dodgers continue to cycle through pitching prospects on a seemingly daily basis. Miller was a disaster last season while pitching through shoulder issues, and he's walked 11 over his first 12 innings at Triple-A this season, so my expectations are pretty low here. But he was basically everyone's favorite breakout pick at pitcher last season, so the talent is obvious. Maybe something clicks this time and he forces the Dodgers to keep him around. I'm not betting on it, but I could see it. | | | | Tuesday's standouts | | Spencer Schwellenbach, Braves vs. TOR: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 3 K – Do we care that the strikeouts have only been there in one of Schwellenbach's starts when he faced the Marlins and fanned 10 over eight innings? Take that one out and it's just 12 strikeouts in 16.2 innings of work. Seeing as this was his first outing with more than one earned run allowed, I think we don't care very much, especially when he's still generating solid whiff rates on every single one of his six pitches. This feels like a bump in the road, nothing more. | | Luis Castillo, Mariners @CIN: 4.1 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 4 BB, 3 K – Castillo's first start away from T-Mobile Field was … not great! He got just eight swinging strikes on 95 pitches and gave up a 90.3 mph average exit velocity on 17 balls in play, which is just totally untenable. I'm not saying Castillo is doomed, or even that you can't use him away from home. But he's also clearly not the same guy he used to be, and unless he adds another tick or two to the fastball (or rediscovers his once-elite changeup), I don't think he's going to be a must-start pitcher this season. | | Jesus Luzardo, Phillies vs. SF: 5.1 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – It's not as simple as, "When Luzardo's fastball averages 96-plus, he's good," but … it's not far off. Because Luzardo gets less extension with his delivery than basically any other pitcher in baseball, his fastball has always played lower than its velocity. It's still viable when he's sitting in the upper-90s, but it gets more and more hittable the closer he gets to the mid-90s, and he was sitting at 95.8 today, down 0.6 mph from his season-long average. He still had 15 swinging strikes, so I don't want to hit the panic button here, but this is why I've been a little hesitant to buy into his hot start as fully as I want. His margin for error is just a lot slimmer than a lot of other pitchers with similar talent. | | Kevin Gausman, Blue Jays vs. ATL: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K – Yeah, I dunno. Honestly, I'm at a loss for what to do with Gausman. At least his splitter showed up today, generating five swinging strikes on 17 swings – not near what it's like at his best, but better than we've seen in any of his previous starts this season. I'm still inclined to view Gausman as a sell-high candidate, but if his splitter shows up again in his next outing, I could reverse course. | | Nick Lodolo , Reds vs. SEA: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 6 K – On the FBT podcast, I know listeners tend to get annoyed when we downplay pitchers who are having success without getting a lot of strikeouts or whiffs, but there's a reason we express that skepticism. Lodolo allowed just two runs in his first three starts, stringing together three quality starts in a row to open the season, but he had just eight strikeouts in 18.2 innings to show for it, so a start like this always felt kind of inevitable. In fairness, he did get more swings and misses and strikeouts in this one, but his curveball still doesn't have the same horizontal break it did last season, which is probably the primary explanation for the subpar strikeout rates. I haven't seen any quotes from Lodolo about changing his curveball, but it hasn't been the same pitch for him since his finger injury last summer, and I have trouble seeing him getting back to being a big-time strikeout pitcher without it. | | Ryan Pepiot, Rays vs. BOS: 6 IP, 9 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 8 K – That's six homers in his past three games, all at the Rays' new home at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, which was the concern we had coming into the season. Pepiot did a good job missing bats in this one, but when he wasn't missing bats, he was getting absolutely crushed – he had a 97.5 mph average exit velocity on 19 balls in play! Pepiot was very good at limiting damage on contact last season, but that hasn't been the case in the early going, and with that home park, that problem is just going to be exacerbated. Pepiot also isn't generating whiffs with his four-seamer the way he did a year ago, | | Jeffrey Springs, Athletics @CHW: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – I think Springs might just be a source of frustration all season because of how dependent he is on his changeup to have success. When that pitch is working well, he can dominate; when he isn't spotting it well, he's going to be pretty fringe-y, even against an easy matchup like the White Sox . I don't think he needs to be dropped in all leagues, but he's not a must-roster pitcher, either. | | Justin Verlander, Giants @PHI: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 1 K – I held out some hope for a bounce-back season from Verlander, but there just really hasn't been anything to get excited about here. Considering that he's 42, the fact that Verlander is even still pitching is a monumental achievement in its own right, but I think we're done with him as a viable Fantasy option, sadly. | | Walker Buehler, Red Sox vs. TB: 5 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K – I think we're also done with Buehler as anything more than a streamer. There's a whole class of pitchers who will have good starts, maybe even whole months where they are useful but aren't consistently, predictably reliable, and I think that's where Buehler is. It's a big fall from grace, but I just haven't seen anything from him over the past year to suggest there's much upside left here. | | Merrill Kelly, Diamondbacks @MIA: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K – Kelly is in that class of pitchers, and he took care of business against one of the most exploitable matchups in the league. That's great for him, but I really don't want to start him against the Cubs or Braves in his next two starts, and then he gets either the Mets or Phillies and then the Dodgers in his two starts after that. Yeah, we might just be dropping Kelly for the next three weeks. | | Jake Irvin, Nationals @PIT: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K – Irvin is another one in that class, and like Kelly, he took advantage of a good matchup. He was pretty useful for the first half of last season but fell apart after the All-Star break, and his overall 4.41 ERA looks more or less like what you should expect moving forward. And Irvin's next start is in Colorado, followed by a matchup with the Mets, and then likely a road start in Cincinnati, so we're probably not leaning on Irvin for the next few weeks, either. | | Charlie Morton, Orioles vs. CLE: 5 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 2 K – Morton's stuff still looks okay, but his command has been horrible in pretty much every start. Coming off a season where he had a 4.19 ERA and 1.32 WHIP, I'm not sure why Morton is 57% rostered at this point – that might be around 40% too high, honestly. I wouldn't roster Morton in any 12-team league at this point – so watch him go out and dominate the Reds in his next outing. | | News and notes | | Matt Shaw was optioned to Triple-A after hitting .172 with 1 HR over his first 18 games. He looked overmatched in his first taste of the majors, struggling to make the right swing decisions, which is no surprise – most top prospects in the past few seasons have needed some time to get up to speed in the majors. Shaw should be back this summer, and I'll be excited to add him again whenever he is. | | Ronald Acuña was cleared to ramp up activity and begin progressing toward a rehab assignment, and I'm still expecting him back within the next month. | | Ketel Marte took live batting practice Tuesday. He's on the IL with that hamstring strain. | | Wyatt Langford swung a bat Tuesday for the first time since being placed on the IL last week. He's currently out with a right oblique strain. | | The Reds activated Matt McLain, Austin Hays, and Alexis Diaz Tuesday. Terry Francona said Emilio Pagan will continue to serve as the team's primary closer for now, but I would guess Diaz will figure into the role at some point if he gets back on track. | | Carlos Correa was removed Tuesday night with left wrist soreness. | | Zach Eflin's right lat strain is very mild and his return is measured more in weeks than months. | | Tyler Stephenson could begin a rehab assignment in one week. He's on the IL with a left oblique strain. | | Ryan Weathers threw a bullpen Tuesday. He's on the IL with that flexor strain and I'm hoping we see him by mid-May at this point. | | Trevor Megill was available to pitch Tuesday despite the concerns over his knee. | | Seiya Suzuki has now missed three straight with a right wrist issue. | | Brenton Doyle has missed five in a row with a sore left quad. | | Lane Thomas has missed six straight with a bruised right wrist. | | George Springer has missed two in a row with a wrist injury. | | Endy Rodriguez was placed on the IL with a right index finger laceration. With Joey Bart also banged up, there's a chance for Henry Davis to get some run, though he needs to prove himself before we buy in again for Fantasy. | | Griffin Canning was scratched from Wednesday's start due to an illness. | | | | | | | | UEFA Champions League | | Golazo Network | The UEFA Champions League Quarterfinals continue tomorrow with a decisive second leg that will send two clubs to the Semifinals. Coverage starts at 2 PM ET, streaming exclusively on Paramount+!
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