| | | | Wednesday, May 1, 2024 | | I don't even want to be around anymore. | | A brutal season for injuries just got worse. Less than 24 hours after I wrote about Mike Trout's brilliant start to the season that had him shooting up the early-season rankings , he's going on the IL with another injury. Trout suffered a torn meniscus at some point during Monday's game and will have surgery to repair it. It's a brutal injury for a guy who has missed so much time due to injuries, but especially because he hadn't missed so much as a single game due to a knee injury since 2012. | | As of late Tuesday evening, we don't know what the timetable for Trout's recovery will be, beyond vague reporting indicating that the Angels don't believe it will end his season. Meniscus injuries are tough to pin down as far as recovery time, because so much depends on the type of surgery they opt to perform – the timetable could run anywhere from two weeks (unlikely, given the long-term ramifications of a meniscus removal) to the rest of the season in the event of a full repair. For a better read on the situation, I recommend Will Carroll's Under The Knife newsletter, where he goes into the potential treatment options and timetables under possible consideration when Trout undergoes surgery Friday. | | For now, hang on to Trout in the hopes that the timetable is somewhere in the middle – Christian Pache returned from meniscus surgery after just six weeks a year ago, so maybe a mid-June return is possible for Trout, too. Either way, he's going to fall back down the rankings as a result of this, though exactly how far remains to be seen. | | | | I did write about rankings fallers for CBSSports.com today, so before we get to the rest of today's newsletter, he's a quick rundown of the biggest fallers in the rankings from the start of the season to now, the beginning of May: | Mitch Garver, C, Mariners
Preseason: C9 – Now: C14 | Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, Cardinals
Preseason: 1B6 – Now: 1B9 | Bryson Stott, 2B, Phillies
Preseason: 2B10 – Now: 2B15 | Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B, Pirates
Preseason: 3B12 – Now: 3B16 | Nico Hoerner, SS, Cubs
Preseason: SS9– Now: SS11 | Nolan Jones, OF, Rockies
Preseason: OF14 – Now: OF18 | Carlos Rodon, SP, Yankees
Preseason: SP34 – Now: SP44 | Michael King, SP, Padres
Preseason: SP50 – Now: SP61 | Gavin Stone, SP, Dodgers
Preseason: SP59 – Now: SP71 | Andrew Abbott, SP, Reds
Preseason: SP75 – Now: SP89 | | Head here for my full thoughts on each, why they've fallen, and what I expect from them the rest of the way. But for now, let's get to the rest of the news from Tuesday's MLB action, along with the top waiver-wire targets and more: | | | | Tuesday's top waiver targets | | Another day, another big-name prospect promotion for Fantasy Baseball players to know about. Following Joey Loperfido and Jordan Beck in recent days, the Brewers are calling up one of their top hitting prospects, Tyler Black, from Triple-A. | | Black was Scott White's No. 42 prospect fro Fantasy Baseball coming into the season, and nothing he has done so far in his second stint at Triple-A has dimmed his star. Black has hit .303/.393/.525 with five homers in 25 games at Triple-A this season, though, somewhat disappointingly, just three stolen bases. | | Last season, Black stole 55 bases in 123 games across the top two levels of the minors, though that pace has slowed considerably at Triple-A even before this season – he has 11 steals in 64 games at that level, after he swiped 47 in 84 games at Double-A. That's still a solid pace – 26 over a 150-game pace – but it puts a lot more pressure on Black's bat to play up. That might not seem like much of a question for a career .281/.412/.472 hitter in the minors, but when you dig under the surface, it might be a bigger one than you think. | | Because, while Black has hit the ball well in his minor-league career, he's done so without a ton of raw power backing it up. We now have access to Statcast data for Triple-A, and across his 64 games at that level, he has just an 85.7 mph average exit velocity; his 95th percentile exit velocity is just 104.5 mph, which would have ranked just 331st out of 609 players who had at least 50 batted balls at Triple-A last season. No matter how you measure it, it's below-average raw power, and might be even less than that in game, despite 23 homers in 148 games dating back to the start of last season. | | Now, he also comes with a really good approach at the plate, including more walks than strikeouts and a very good 13.4% strikeout rate so far at Triple-A, so I don't want to make it sound like Black is totally without appeal. It's just that the whole package looks a lot more promising if it comes with 40-steal upside rather than 25-steal upside. | | And Black has definitely shown that kind of upside before. But, at least immediately, I'm expecting Loperfido and Beck to be more immediate contributors for Fantasy, especially if you don't specifically need speed. Black could end up being a must-start Fantasy option, but the path there just feels a bit narrower than it was for the last couple of big-name hitting prospects to get the call. I'd still add him in Roto leagues especially, but probably not in H2H points leagues right now. | | Wenceel Perez, 2B, Tigers (3%) – I'm going to be honest: I hadn't heard of this guy before I saw him in the Tigers lineup for the first time earlier this season. He appears to be something of a late bloomer as a hitter, finally reaching Triple-A in 2023 after toiling in the Tigers organization since 2017. But the past few seasons have gone pretty well for him, and he has established himself as a pretty regular part of the Tigers' lineup, having started seven of the team's last 10 games, including both halves of Tuesday's double-header. And, with three homers in his past three games, he deserves another look here. There's some speed and power in his profile, with nine homers and 26 steals in 116 games last season, though I think the power is probably more fringe than the speed; even his two homers Tuesday had an exit velocity below 102 mph, so not exactly smoked. I think he probably only matters in deeper Roto leagues right now, but it's a name to watch, in case there is more late development this season. | | Alek Manoah, SP, Blue Jays (24%) – Alright well, hold on a second, maybe Manoah will matter this season after all? Even pitching at Triple-A on his rehab assignment, Manoah has given us little reason to think he's going to rediscover the form that made him a top-three finisher in the AL Cy Young voting as recently as 2022, but that changes Tuesday. Pitching for the Blue Jays' Triple-A affiliate, Buffalo, Manoah was terrific Tuesday night, striking out 12 and walking just two over six innings of work. He got 13 whiffs with his slider, a huge number, and averaged 94.2 mph with his sinker, actually up about 1 mph from where he was in 2022. Manoah has been such a disaster since that 2022 season that, yeah, I get it, you're skeptical. You should be. But if there's even a chance he has rediscovered that form, it's worth taking a flier on him just in case. With Yariel Rodriguez added to the IL Tuesday, Manoah's next start could come in the majors, and I'd rather roster Manoah than someone like Hunter Brown (60%) or Dane Dunning (61%), just in case. | | Tommy Pham, OF, White Sox (9%) – Through his first four games with the White Sox, Pham is hitting .350 while hitting in the top four of the lineup in every game. He went 2 for 5 with a double and a run scored Tuesday, and while he hasn't been someone any Fantasy player has gotten excited about in years, he did have 16 homers and 22 steals in 481 PA last season and can clearly still be a very useful option for categories leagues. | | | | News and Notes | | Luis Robert has been taking batting practice and running at 80% effort as he works his way back from a hip injury. The White Sox have said Robert could be ready to return in mid-May. | | Jesus Luzardo played catch out to 90 feet on Tuesday, his second time playing catch in as many days. It seems like this flexor strain could end up being a relatively minor issue when it's all said and done. | | Blake Snell is scheduled to throw a bullpen on Wednesday. He went on the IL last week with a Grade 2 adductor strain, and will likely need multiple weeks to get back to full strength, but this is a good sign. | | Nolan Jones was officially placed on the IL with a lower-back strain, retroactive to April 29. Jordan Beck was promoted, and as I wrote yesterday, he's worth an add in most formats. | | Max Scherzer's scheduled rehab start on Tuesday will be pushed back due to thumb soreness. Hopefully it's nothing more than a brief delay as he works his way back from back surgery. | | Jordan Montgomery was scratched from his start Tuesday … because a bee colony formed right behind home plate and caused a two-hour delay to the start of the game against the Dodgers. Look away, Nicolas Cage. | | Craig Kimbrel received treatment for his back and was unavailable again on Tuesday. | | Jake Burger will begin a rehab assignment at Triple-A on Wednesday as he works his way back from an intercostal strain. If all goes well, he could be back by next week. | | Braxton Garrett will make a rehab start at Triple-A Wednesday before potentially returning from the IL for his next start. | | Nick Pivetta is scheduled to make a minor league rehab start on Thursday, and could be back shortly after that if all goes well. | | Masataka Yoshida will undergo an MRI on his left hand on Wednesday. | | Vaughn Grissom was not activated from the IL because of an illness, but hopefully it's just a brief delay. | | With Joey Loperfido promoted by the Astros, Jose Abreu will be optioned to the Florida Complex League on Wednesday. He voluntarily agreed to the assignment with the hopes he can get back on track after a miserable start to the season, but you can drop him in all but the deepest leagues at this point. | | Monday's standouts | | Logan Webb, Giants @BOS: 3.2 IP, 9 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 4 K – Sometimes even very good pitchers struggle, and I mostly think that's what happened here. Webb has been giving up plenty of hard contact, with a dip in his swinging strike rate and strikeout rate in the early going, and he didn't help any of those metrics tonight, giving up 12 hard-hit balls with just four swinging strikes. I can't say I'm worried about Webb, but I wouldn't mind a few more strikeouts the next time out, at least. | | Cole Ragans, Royals @TOR: 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 9 K – What can you say except: "Aces gonna ace." Ragans will still have starts where his command fails him, but after two straight starts with just four strikeouts, he bounced back in a big way this time out. And he's doing this without really having his slider, a pitch he threw around 15% of the time after getting to the Royals last season but which he has thrown around 10% so far. He could get even better. | | Yu Darvish, Padres vs. CIN: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K – Darvish made his way back from his neck injury Tuesday, and while he wasn't dominant, he was good enough to feel worth trusting moving forward. Would I prefer more than six swinging strikes on 70 pitches? Oh sure, certainly, especially since Darvish's strikeout rate has been annoyingly low so far this season. But it's still early, and the stuff still looks good enough that I think the whiffs will come. | | Jack Flaherty , Tigers vs. STL: 6.2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 14 K – Uh, do you think Jack Flaherty believes in the concept of the revenge game? His velocity was way up early and he finished averaging 95.1 mph with his four-seamer, up 1.5 mph from his season average. He had 10 whiffs with that pitch alone and a whopping 24 en route to his career-best strikeout showing, and I'm not sure there have been more than a handful of better starts in Flaherty's career. Can he keep that up when the adrenaline isn't quite flowing the same way? Probably not. But Flaherty now has 50 strikeouts to just five walks in his first six starts and has generally looked a lot more good than bad this season despite an ERA that still sits at 4.00. I don't think I'm selling Flaherty at this point. | | Jose Berrios, Blue Jays vs. KC: 7 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K – This is just what Berrios does sometimes. He'll go through stretches where he's just awful, and then he'll pitch like an ace for a stretch, and it's hard to pinpoint what is different. He's clearly executing at an extremely high level right now, but we've seen enough from Berrios in his career to know he's not an ace. If someone views him like a top-24 starting pitcher, ship him off. If not, he's perfectly fine to have around. | | Mackenzie Gore, Nationals @TEX: 5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K – I feel like I've been grading Gore on a curve, because while I really like what he's doing so far this season, he still has just one quality start in six trips to the mound now. One of them came against the Dodgers last week, and this was a pretty great start given the matchup, so I remain extremely bullish on Gore, who has 45 strikeouts to 10 walks in six starts. This is the best version of him we've ever seen, and with his velocity still up more than 1 mph from last season, I'm still buying. | | Spencer Turnbull, Phillies @LAA: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K – They can't pull him from the rotation right now, can they? That is very much up in the air at this point now that Taijuan Walker is back from the IL, but it sure doesn't sound like he's going to be in the rotation for at least the next couple of weeks – manager Rob Thomson told reporters he doesn't want to use a six-man rotation when the Phillies have a day off during both of the first two weeks of May. That probably means Turnbull is going to the bullpen for at least a little while, though it's worth noting that teams only ever have "too much" starting pitching for so long before something tests their depth. I'd try to hold him if I could. | | Reynaldo Lopez, Braves @SEA: 5 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – If I'm grading Gore on a curve, then Lopez is somewhere on the opposite end of the curve, because I just don't buy his early-season success. Am I being unfair? Possibly! It's just that we've seen Lopez operating in the 94-96 mph range with his fastball as a starter in the past, and though there were often stretches like this where he looked quite good, his ERA would tend to push back over 4.00 before long. That's not to say you should drop him, or anything. But a trade? Yeah, you should be putting him on the block, just to see what someone might give you for him. If it's a Joe Musgrove type, I'd make that deal. | | Kyle Gibson, Cardinals @DET: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K – That's three quality starts in a row and four in six starts for Gibson, and … so what? I don't want to be too dismissive, but we know who Gibson is at this point, and it's someone you never want to have to rely on for more than a few starts at a time against good matchups. His next two matchups are against the Mets and Brewers, and those are middling enough offenses that he could be good against them, but I would hope I have better options. | | Jon Gray, Rangers vs. WAS: 8 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K – I mostly feel the same way about Gray. There might be more strikeout upside here, but I'm past the point of betting on Gray as anything more than an occasionally useful streamer. He's doing really well right now, but with his next two starts coming against the Royals and then at Coors Field, this is another one where I sure hope I have better options. | | Javier Assad, Cubs @NYM: 5 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K – There's definitely an element of, "He can't keep getting away with it," to Assad right now. He had just three swinging strikes en route to his lousy one strikeout, and yet somehow lowered his ERA to 1.97 for the season. He's doing an excellent job limiting hard contact, but the strikeouts have been increasingly rare over the past few starts. I think he mostly just has appeal as a SPaRP in points leagues. | | Dean Kremer, Orioles vs. NYY: 7 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 4 K – Kremer might get a few more strikeouts than Assad, with good control (typically), and an excellent supporting cast and home park to call home. But he's just a streamer, I think. | | Ryan Feltner, Rockies @MIA: 8 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 3 K – Feltner has had a couple of big strikeout games, but if this is all he can manage against the Marlins , we probably shouldn't expect much more than average strikeout numbers against real lineups. Against the right matchups, away from Coors Field, he can run into starts like this, but he's easy to drop once you use him. | | Jhoan Duran, RP, Twins:Duran came back from the IL and was immediately thrown back into the ninth inning of a one-run game, striking out one while working around a hit for the save. His velocity was down a bit, but not enough to be concerning in his first outing off the IL. | | Jason Foley, RP, Tigers: There have been a few moments this season where the Tigers have used Foley in, let's say, interesting ways. Interesting, in this case, is not a complement. They used him for the eighth inning against the 9-1-2 hitters for the Tigers, and then replaced him with Shelby Miller for the save, who promptly blew it. I guess they don't want to use Foley for multiple innings, but the fact that he's mostly been used as a traditional closer makes me inclined to write this one off. Hopefully, a lesson was learned here. | | Carlos Estevez, RP, Angels: Estevez gave up a couple of homers to blow the save Tuesday night against the Phillies, and his ERA is now up to 6.23 for the season. That's bad, without even considering his miserable second half last season. But the thing is, who in this Angels bullpen is supposed to replace him with Robert Stephenson out for the season? It could be Matt Moore, who has continued to pitch well out of the bullpen, especially now that Amir Garrett is active to give them another lefty out of the bullpen. But I think it'll probably take more than this to cost Estevez his job. | | Riley Greene, OF, Tigers: Greene had himself a big day in the double header Tuesday, going 4 for 9 with two homers, and he's now hitting .257/.388/.524 for the season. It's not exactly how I expected his breakout to look – I expected a better batting average and definitely not a 40-homer pace – but his excellent quality of contact metrics back his hot start up, so I'm not writing it off. He might just end up a top-12 outfielder this season. | | Willy Adames, SS, Brewers: I don't know if I've mentioned Adames' name so far this season in the newsletter, which is a shame, because he's been the guy we hoped he could be last season. After homering Tuesday, he's hitting .270/.369/.441, with drastically improved plate discipline across the board. It's hard to move up the rankings too quickly at shortstop, but he's in consideration. | | | | | | | | NWSL | | Golazo Show | Watch a matchup between Angel City FC and NC Courage this Sunday at 7:30 PM ET on CBS Sports Network.
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