| | | | Thursday, June 13, 2024 | | Before we get into the heart of today's newsletter, can we just take a moment to appreciate what Royce Lewis is doing? He homered yet again Wednesday, giving him five in nine games this season – and he's done that despite missing two months after suffering a significant quad injury in his first game of the season. | | Overall in his MLB career, Lewis now has 22 homers in 79 games, a 45-homer pace over a full season, while hitting .309/.364/.575, and he's done that despite missing nearly 80% of the Twins games since making his debut. But even that doesn't tell the whole story, because Lewis' minor-league career was also full of significant roadblocks to overcome. He was the No. 1 pick in the 2017 draft and then mostly stayed healthy in his first three professional seasons without doing much of note, and then he lost the 2020 season – as all minor leagues did – to the COVID-19 pandemic. | | Then he tore his ACL before the 2021 season, meaning he went into 2022 having missed two straight years of organized ball during the key point in his development. He still made his MLB debut early in May of 2022, after just 67 games across Double-A and Triple-A … and then tore his ACL again. He was dominant down the stretch in 2023 after coming back, only to end his regular season early yet again – though this time Lewis came back for the playoffs and had another incredible run, homering four times in six games. | | In total, Lewis has played just 132 games since his age-20 season and has somehow managed to establish himself as one of the game's best young players. Lewis has been unbelievable so far in his MLB career, but it's the degree of difficulty that makes me even more inclined to buy in. What he's had to overcome over the past half-decade speaks volumes about his skill set and makeup, and makes it a lot easier to believe in him as a superstar-caliber player moving forward if he can just stay healthy. | | Maybe he won't be able to. History suggests that's going to remain a problem. But I'll tell you one thing: There might not be a player in baseball I'm rooting for more right now. | | And now, let's get to the rest of what you need to know from Wednesday's action, starting with the top waiver-wire targets: | | | | Thursday's top waiver targets | | | | Jake Irvin, SP, Nationals (65%) – I, of course, understand why Seth Lugo is considered a must-start Fantasy pitcher while Irvin is 65% rostered, but I'm not actually sure there's much difference between the two at this point. Irvin actually has a slightly higher strikeout rate (21.3% to 20.4% for Lugo) and slightly lower walk rate (4.6% to 5.5%), with similar batted-ball profiles. The biggest gaps right now are wins (Lugo has nine, Irvin has five) and innings (Lugo has thrown 10 more in the same number of starts), and I do think those could be a consistent edge for Lugo moving forward. But I'm not sure it's enough to justify the gap between how they are perceived these days. Lugo probably won't be a must-start pitcher moving forward, but Irvin is also probably just a little underrated right now, too. | | Cade Povich, SP, Orioles (20%) – Now that's more like it. Look, the Braves are not exactly striking fear in pitchers' hearts right now, but Wednesday was still a significant improvement from Povich's first start. He struck out six over six innings of work with 14 swinging strikes, and he showed off the entire arsenal, getting at least one whiff on all five of his pitches while throwing them all at least seven times. I'm still not sure Povich has a ton of upside, but at least he showed us some this time around. I would still be prioritizing Hurston Waldrep ahead of Povich on waivers, but I might be inclined to put Povich ahead of Drew Thorpe based on this start – Povich's team context is just so much better if he sticks around. You've gotta think he will after this one. | | | | Jackson Merrill, OF, Padres (80%) – For a guy who was 20 on Opening Day and had played just 46 games above High-A, Merrill is having a pretty strong rookie season, hitting at a roughly league-average level in an incredibly difficult offensive environment. But you don't get extra points for degree of difficulty in Fantasy, and on the whole, he's been a pretty mediocre Fantasy option. But his quality of contact has been a lot stronger than his actual numbers (.296 wOBA vs. .342 expected wOBA entering play Wednesday) and his plate discipline has been excellent, so it's not unreasonable to think there has been more upside here than he has shown. If Wednesday's two homers were the start of that, I wouldn't be at all surprised. | | Spencer Horwitz, 2B, Blue Jays (6%) – Horwitz didn't come to the majors with much fanfare, but it's been a pretty awesome start to his career. He has multiple hits in three straight games and has hit leadoff in three of five games overall since being called up. Horwitz's profile is kind of a strange one, I'll admit – he consistently posted huge batting averages in the minors, but without much in the way of over-the-fence pop or speed, and he's not exactly a Luis Arraez/Steven Kwan-level contact hitter (16.3% strikeout rate at Triple-A). Still, he's been super productive in the early going and has already earned a valuable role at the top of a Blue Jays lineup that is absolutely desperate | | Tobias Myers, SP, Brewers (8%) – That's two pretty excellent starts in a row for Myers, who limited the Blue Jays to just one run over six innings of work Wednesday, one start after he threw eight one-hit, shutout innings against the Tigers. Those aren't exactly the toughest matchups in the majors, and Myers has done it with just nine strikeouts in 14 innings, so I'm not sure how much upside there is here. But he's likely to stay in the Brewers rotation, and we'll see if he can keep it up. This one is for deeper leagues only. | | | | News and Notes | | The Astros announced that Kyle Tucker isn't expected to be ready to return from the IL on Friday. It's not clear if this is more than just a setback for a couple of days, so we'll keep our eyes peeled heading into the weekend for any additional details. | | Gerrit Cole will make his next rehab start Friday at Triple-A. When Aaron Boone was asked if this would be Cole's final rehab start, he said, "We'll see." He's getting close. | | Yoshinobu Yamamoto's next start will be pushed back from Thursday to Saturday against the Royals. | | Corey Seager returned to the Rangers lineup after missing four straight with that left hamstring injury and immediately homered off Walker Buehler. | | Edwin Diaz will immediately become the Mets closer upon his activation Thursday. | | Jack Flaherty said he's feeling better and has been cleared to start Saturday against the Astros. | | Andres Muñoz had an MRI and bone scan on his back come back clean, but he received an injection to address the lingering soreness. | | Bryan Woo's MRI came back perfectly clean and he could be re-inserted into the Mariners ' rotation as early as next week. This feels very precarious, but he continues to receive tests that show no signs of damage, so I guess we'll keep riding him until something goes wrong. If I could trade Woo for basically anything of value moving forward, I'd be trying to do so, given his low strikeout rate and all of the injury concerns. | | Kodai Senga will throw two more bullpen sessions before progressing to face hitters. We shouldn't expect him until after the All-Star break. | | Randy Arozarena has missed two straight with right hamstring tightness. | | Astros manager Joe Espada expects Yainer Diaz to be available to return to the lineup on Friday. He's been out with a finger injury. | | Joey Ortiz has missed two straight with a right hamstring issue. | | Jasson Dominguez was reinstated from the 60-day IL but optioned to Triple-A, as expected. | | The Dodgers acquired Cavan Biggio from the Blue Jays and threw him right in the lineup at third base on Wednesday. Miguel Vargas was optioned back to Triple-A. | | Wednesday's standouts | | Nick Lodolo, Reds vs. CLE: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 6 K – Lodolo's results have still mostly been really solid, but he hasn't been quite as sharp since coming back from his groin injury, with 19 strikeouts in 23.1 innings of work, and the curveball may be the reason why. He's lost a few inches of both horizontal and vertical movement on the pitch, and while he was still able to generate a solid five whiffs with it Wednesday, he also gave up some hard contact with it in this one, too. I think he'll be fine, but I'd like to see a sharper version of Lodolo the next time out. | | Bryce Miller , Mariners vs. CHW: 7 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K – Miller is a super-talented pitcher, but he remains incredibly limited. He throws six pitches now and deserves credit for the work he has put in to develop the rest of his repertoire, it just hasn't really been enough to change Miller's outlook. When his fastball is working like it was Wednesday, with 11 whiffs on 33 swings, he can be dominant. But he had just one whiff with the rest of his arsenal Wednesday, and it still remains true that, when he doesn't have the fastball working as well, he's extremely vulnerable. I think Miller is going to remain inconsistent moving forward, and if you have a chance to move him for someone a bit more projectable, I'd take it. | | Michael King, Padres vs. OAK: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 12 K – As bad as King was early in the season, that's how good he's been lately, with just four runs allowed in his past four starts and 28 strikeouts in 22 innings in that span. He's still not pitching consistently deep into games, and consistency has been an issue when it comes to strikeouts, but where King looked downright droppable early in the season, I think you can view him as a viable starter at this point. | | Walker Buehler, Dodgers vs. TEX: 5 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K – Buehler dropped his four-seamer usage Wednesday because he just doesn't have the feel for the pitch right now. Or, as he put it, colorfully after the game when he noted that, though the velocity and movement profile of the pitcher mostly looks like it did before his second Tommy John surgery, "It doesn't have that [redacted] you behind it." I don't want to drop Buehler, but there's certainly no way I can start him right now with a 4.64 ERA and just 29 strikeouts in 33 innings of work. | | Reese Olson , Tigers vs. WAS: 5.1 IP, 10 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 3 K – For someone with a terrific swing-and-miss slider and changeup combo (both have whiff rates over 40%), Olson just doesn't get very many strikeouts. Part of the problem is his fastballs just aren't very good, and he also just doesn't get himself into many two-strike counts where he can put hitters away with those great secondaries (he ranks 67th out of 129 pitchers with at least 200 batters faced in two-strike counts). Olson has done a good job of missing barrels which has kept him relevant despite middling strikeout numbers, but there's a very narrow margin for error with that kind of approach, and the past couple of starts have shown the downsides. I'd prefer to not cut Olson, but I'm also not sure there's enough upside to say he's must-roster, either. | | Jose Soriano, Angels @ARI: 8 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K – Soriano is kind of doing some interesting things these days, starting of course with an elite 60.6% groundball rate. There's big swing-and-miss potential in his arsenal, but he's finding success by pitching to contact more and letting the defense behind him take care of things. As long as he keeps the ball down, that can make him a somewhat interesting Fantasy option, but where the real upside could come from is if he can start to generate more whiffs with his various, very good secondaries. It's something to keep an eye on moving forward. | | Spencer Schwellenbach, Braves @BAL: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K – I don't think we've seen much to suggest Schwellenbach has much immediate upside for Fantasy, so this start is mostly noteworthy for the pressure it seemingly puts on Hurston Waldrep to pitch well in his next start. If he doesn't, Schwellenbach may have put himself in the lead to stay up whenever the Braves decide to send one of them down. | | Jonathan Cannon, White Sox @SEA: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K – This was a pretty impressive outing, with 17 swinging strikes to go along with the strikeout per inning, and it came on a varied arsenal, with at least two whiffs on five different pitchers. The problem is, he really hasn't shown very much strikeout upside before this, either in the majors or in the minors – his highest strikeout rate across three stops the past two seasons was just 22.9%. So, what happened here? The Mariners happened. They have the highest team strikeout rate in MLB history outside of the 2020 season at 27.2% and remain an excellent streaming matchup right now. | | | | | | | | NWSL | | Canadian Football League | A Pacific Northwest rivalry between the Portland Thorns and Seattle Reign is LIVE this Sunday at 4 PM ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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