| | | | Thursday, May 22, 2025 | | If you've been a baseball fan for long enough, and especially if you're the specific type of baseball fan who subscribes to a daily Fantasy Baseball newsletter, you've surely heard the term "there's no such thing as a pitching prospect." | | TNSTAAPP. | | It's a joke, but it's also not. Pitching prospects are ephemeral beings, prone to injury and performance fluctuations that make ranking them a foolhardy exercise in the best of times. But here's the thing: It's also true for all pitchers, not just prospects. | | Take Gavin Williams . In the span of about three years, he's gone from being one of the most hyped pitching prospects in baseball to an intriguing-but-frustrating rookie, then pivoted to being a just-frustrating sophomore, and now he might have come back full circle. In fact, if you zoom out just to this year, he's gone from largely an afterthought in Fantasy circles at the start of Spring Training to one of the most-hyped young pitchers in the game once again during the spring, only to totally peter out in April, putting up a 5.14 ERA in the first month of the season and likely earning a tip back to the waiver wire in most leagues. | | And now? Now, I think he's back to being an incredibly intriguing pitcher again. And he's done it by completely reinventing himself yet again. | | In his first three starts of the season, Williams regressed, going back to being a three-pitch pitcher after expanding his arsenal in 2024 while dealing with an elbow injury. He started working his cutter back into his arsenal starting in his fifth start of the season, and on Wednesday against the Twins , he showed his deepest arsenal yet, reintroducing his changeup to give him a full five-pitch mix. The fastball is still the star when things are going well – he threw it 52% of the time Wednesday and generated 10 of his 13 swinging strikes with it – but the cutter got its most extensive look of the season, as he threw 19 of them, generating a bunch of weak contact, if not many whiffs. | | | | Because Williams' fastball can be so good, it's fine if the rest of his arsenal isn't generating whiffs. He can pitch backwards if he needs to, using the fastball as a putaway pitch while stealing the occasional strike with his curveball and changeup to keep opposing hitters honest. You'd like to see more from the sweeper – just one whiff – than we got Wednesday, but that's been a good enough pitch this season that I don't have too much concern about it. | | Williams is a good example of how pitchers can morph over the course of the season, especially when they are struggling. Stubborn pitchers might bang their head against the wall and try to brute-force their way to success, but Williams has shown admiral adaptability in his career, trying different approaches until he figures out what works. There's no guarantee he's solved it – Williams had nine walks across two starts to open May, for example – but with 29 strikeouts to 12 walks in 20 innings in May, this is the best he's looked in a long time. | | Things might fall apart in his next outing, of course. But Williams is talented enough that I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt when he's suddenly showing flashes. Is he a must-start pitcher all of a sudden? Of course not! Wednesday's was just his second quality start of the season, after all. | | But must-roster? Yeah, I can get on board with that. Just in case this latest version of Williams is for real. | | Here's who else we're looking to add from Wednesday's action: | | | | Thursday's top waiver-wire options | | | | Jake Burger, 3B, Rangers (58%) – Burger getting hot after coming back from Triple-A wasn't some kind of bold prediction; it was an inevitability. Burger has always run extremely hot or cold, and his .561 OPS before his demotion wasn't even an especially cold stretch – he had a .601 OPS as late as July 1 last season. He would go on to hit 22 homers and put up an .891 OPS from that point on. He went 3 for 4 with two homers (and a steal!) Wednesday and is now hitting .344 with three homers and five extra-base hits in nine games since coming back. If you liked him enough to make him a top-120 pick two months ago, you should still like Burger roughly that much. Go pick him up. | | Matt Shaw, 3B, Cubs (60%) – Shaw looks a whole lot more comfortable in his second stint in the majors. He looked overwhelmed at times in April, sporting the lowest swing rate in the league, a timid approach that left him in far too many inopportune situations. He hasn't had those issues in three games since returning, going 5 for 11 with a double in each of his first three games, with two steals and just one strikeout to show for it. Shaw was one of the top prospects in the league entering the season, and his struggles in April shouldn't have done much to change our hopes for his best-case scenarios this season. Those best-case scenarios are still in play, and he might even be more well-equipped to live up to them for his early struggles. | | Cade Horton, SP, Cubs (49%) – The line wasn't terribly impressive for Horton – one run allowed in 5.1 innings, but only three strikeouts while walking three? Against the Marlins ? But under the hood, there was some good stuff going on, as Horton generated 16 swinging strikes on 92 pitches, including five with his sweeper and nine with his curveball. The fastball has been unimpressive, but the secondaries look solid and should lead to more strikeouts moving forward. Horton is by no means a must-add pitcher, and he's certainly behind the Ryan Weathers/Logan Henderson/Will Warren/Hayden Birdsong group from yesterday. But if you've got a roster spot to play with Horton has some upside, especially with a home start against the Rockies on the way next week. | | Ryan Yarbrough, SP, Yankees (3%) – I'm not convinced there's much upside with Yarbrough, but there was some interesting stuff going on here in Wednesday's start. Yarbrough pulled a classic Yankees move, minimizing his fastball usage (his sinker and four-seamer combined for just 26% of his pitches against the Rangers), with his cutter taking center stage. He generated three whiffs with the cutter while stealing a bunch of called strikes, and his changeup and sweeper provided solid whiff rates, too. The Rangers were unusually passive in this one, swinging at just 54% of pitches in the strike zone, which probably isn't sustainable. But Yarbrough is RP eligible and could be in line for two starts next week, so he's not a bad streamer in points leagues. | | Mike Burrows, SP, Pirates (2%) – Burrows isn't Bubba Chandler. I know, I know, we're all just waiting on Chandler's promotion. But we shouldn't totally ignore Burrows, who is set to return to the majors to start against the Brewers Thursday. Burrows made one relief appearance for the Pirates late last season, but he's going to get his first real shot here. And it's coming as he has looked exceptional in Triple-A, as he has a 31.5% strikeout rate (and 23% K-BB rate) and 2.51 ERA in 32.1 innings of work. Burrows has struggled with injuries and strike-throwing at times in his minor-league career, but he throws in the mid-90s with a legit four-pitch mix and could be a surprisingly useful Fantasy option for deeper leagues. | | | | Wednesday's standouts | | Jacob deGrom, Rangers @NYY: 7 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 9 K – At this point, it seems like the only question for deGrom is whether he can ultimately stay healthy. His velocity has rebounded from an early-season lull and his fastball has become an elite pitch again, generating eight whiffs on Wednesday to lead the way with his arsenal. But here's the most impressive thing about his start against the lefty-heavy Yankees lineup he faced: Of the seven changeups deGrom threw, six were swung and at and missed. That's an absurd showing, and he even had a couple of whiffs on four curveballs, too. He could probably throw those pitches even more, but his fastball and slider are back to being so dominant that he only needs them occasionally. deGrom's overall numbers aren't quite where they were at his best, but he's still been absolutely dominant over his past seven starts, striking out 49, walking just six, and sporting a 1.66 ERA over 43.1 innings in that span. He's back to being one of the best pitchers in baseball. | | Corbin Burnes, Diamondbacks @LAD: 7 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 8 K – That's three great starts in a row for Burnes since he had to miss time with some shoulder soreness – including two in a row against the Dodgers! – and maybe a little time off was all he needed to get right. The cutter worked well Wednesday, and his curveball was as good as it's been in a long time, generating nine swinging strikes on 11 swings to fuel the big strikeout number. His cutter movement still doesn't look quite like it did prior to 2024, which is my main source of skepticism right now. There might be a sell-high window right now, but if you hang on to him, I don't necessarily think you'll regret it, either. | | Logan Webb, Giants vs. KC: 4 IP, 10 K, 3 ER, 0 BB, 5 K – Webb's sinker just wasn't fooling anyone in this one. The Royals jumped on it for eight batted balls with an average exit velocity of 96.1, and they added a couple more hard-hit balls on his four-seamer for good measure. | | Hunter Brown, Astros @TB: 5 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – Brown clearly wasn't at his best in this one. Sure, he had to suffer the indignities of giving up a home run that would have been out only in Steinbrenner Field and Yankee Stadium – Brandon Lowe's fifth-inning solo shot had a .010 expected batting average – but it's not like he was dominating outside of that hit. He gave up three homers, and the other two were legit. Brown got just six whiffs – all on his four-seamer and sinker – and just didn't look quite as sharp as usual. It happens, and he's been so dominant this season that I can't work myself up into getting concerned about this one. | | Joe Ryan, Twins vs. CLE: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – This was officially a relief appearance for Ryan because it was a suspended game from earlier in the week. He worked his usual starter's workload, and though his velocity was down 1.5-2 mph across the board, I don't see any reason to be alarmed here. Ryan's velocity has fluctuated a bit this season, but it hasn't really impacted his effectiveness overall. He remains a must-start pitcher. | | Max Meyer, Marlins vs. CHC: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K – This is a nice job of righting the ship after a pretty rough four-start stretch. We'd like to see more than four strikeouts and eight whiffs on 99 pitches, though that is likely the result of Meyer relying on his slider less – he threw it just 23% of the time Wednesday, down from 37% usage for the season. He'll have to get that pitch back to get back to dominating, but we'll take this outing as a reason to stop panicking, at least. If you were thinking of dropping Meyer, don't. | | Kevin Gausman, Blue Jays vs. SD: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 9 K – When you just take what he's done over the past two seasons, Gausman looks like a pretty boring pitcher, with basically average strikeout rates and an ERA right around four. But he's Kevin Gausman – or at least he used to be. And then he'll have games like this where he absolutely dominates with the splitter and makes me want to buy back in. The problem, of course, is he's done versions of this multiple times over the past two seasons – heck, this was his third start with at least nine strikeouts in 2025 so far. He followed the first one up with 12 runs allowed in his next three starts; he was tagged for nine in 11 innings in his next two starts after the most recent one, too. Maybe Gausman figured something out Wednesday and is about to go on a vintage run, but I don't have much faith in that anymore. | | Dustin May, Dodgers vs. ARI: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K – May always looks like he should get a lot of whiffs and strikeouts with how much his pitches move, but that hasn't really been the case for him at any point of his career. Which makes it hard to buy into this start, as impressive as it was. I'll take the under on his current 4.09 ERA moving forward, and his 70% roster rate feels a bit low – though I wouldn't prioritize him over the likes of Ryan Weathers or Logan Henderson if both are available as well. | | Taj Bradley, Rays vs. HOU: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – It's been a frustrating season for Bradley, whose whiff rates on all of his pitches except his cutter have moved in the wrong direction – and the cutter is getting hit harder, which kind of offsets the whiff rate gains. Even in a good start like Wednesday's, he had just nine whiffs on 84 pitches, five of them coming on his four-seamer. In a piece for The Athletic this week , Eno Sarris noted that "none of Bradley's pitches are necessarily stuff standouts anymore, and those plus-plus strikeout rates of his debut probably aren't coming back," and I think I'm in agreement. He's not a bad pitcher, and there will be good starts strewn about, but I just don't think Bradley is going to be the standout we hoped he would be. | | Tylor Megill, Mets @BOS: 4.2 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 10 K – Megill is such a weird pitcher. This is his third start of the season with at least nine strikeouts, and he has only gone six innings in one of them. That is also his only start where he has gone at least six innings this season. The Mets are smart about limiting Megill's exposure to the third time through opponent's orders, which is a blessing and a curse for Megill's Fantasy value – it gives him better ratios but limits his volume upside. He's a decent source of strikeouts, but his mediocre control makes him a WHIP liability, which all adds up to him being a pretty fringe-y Fantasy option but I'll definitely start him next week against the White Sox. | | Tomoyuki Sugano, @MIL: 6 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K – Sure. None of this success is sustainable, but he keeps getting it down. Sugano has great command of really mediocre stuff, and he took advantage of a Brewers team that has been one of the worst scoring teams at home in the league. I still don't see any reason to think Sugano is going to keep running an ERA even below 4.00 – he had a 4.50 xERA entering this start – and I wouldn't want to start him in his next scheduled start against the Cardinals next week. But he'll follow that one up with a matchup with the White Sox, and I'm fine hanging on to him for that one. | | Chad Patrick , Brewers vs. BAL: 4.2 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K – Patrick is trying to pull off a similar command-and-control-oriented success as Sugano, and this is really the first time he's hinted at more upside than that. Patrick's velocity was up about 1 mph across the board and his cutter and four-seamer were humming, generating 14 of his 16 swinging strikes. Of course, he wasn't as efficient as usual, failing to get out of the fifth inning, which isn't great – and it might be a sign that Patrick is too limited to tap into this kind of upside often without having to make otherwise unwanted sacrifices. He remains a streamer at best right now. | | News and notes | | Jared Jones underwent elbow surgery Wednesday, and while the Pirates didn't specify what kind of UCL repair he underwent, the 10-12 month timetable suggests it was an Internal Brace procedure rather than a full Tommy John ligament replacement. That timetable puts him in line to be relevant early next season, though we don't quite have as good a sense for how pitchers recover from that specific surgery. How the rest of the season goes for Lucas Giolito and Spencer Strider could tell us what to expect from Jones. | | George Kirby will make his season debut Thursday against the Astros. | | Kirby missed the start of the season with right shoulder inflammation, but his velocity has been fine on his rehab assignment, so hopefully he's good to go. | | Dylan Crews was placed on the IL with a left oblique strain. As expected, the Nationals promoted prospect Robert Hassell. I don't have huge expectations for Hassell, but as I wrote in yesterday's newsletter, maybe you can catch lightning in a bottle here. | | Anthony Santander left Wednesday's game with left hip inflammation. | | This doesn't sound good: Ronel Blanco has been sent back to Houston because of right elbow soreness. The Astros rotation has taken a lot of hits this season, and this could be another big one. | | Mike Trout has progressed to running at roughly 80 percent. He's on the IL with a bone bruise in his left knee but could be back in the next few days if all goes well. | | Bryce Miller played catch in the outfield prior to Wednesday's game. He's recovering from elbow inflammation but seems to be making good progress. | | Aaron Boone said he has "no plans right now" to re-insert Devin Williams into the closer's role. Luke Weaver just hasn't done anything (since last Summer, really) to lose the job. | | Justin Martinez threw a scoreless inning at Triple-A on Tuesday and averaged 100 MPH on his sinker. Hopefully, he'll be back in a few days from his shoulder injury. | | Justin Verlander is going on the IL with right pectoral soreness. | | Thairo Estrada has taken batting practice every day this week and faced high-end velocity on Tuesday. He could return as soon as next week and is an interesting stash option in categories leagues. | | Jonah Heim left early Wednesday due to a compressed nerve in his right hand. | | | | | | | | Golazo Network | | UEFA Europa League Final | Watch LIVE global soccer coverage on the CBS Sports Golazo Network, available FOR FREE on the CBS Sports App, Pluto TV and streaming on Paramount+.
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