| | | | Wednesday, July 10, 2024 | | There's an obvious trend showing up in Rodon's starts: He's just awful in the first couple of innings. Even before getting tagged for four runs in the first Tuesday, he had a miserable 7.50 ERA in the first inning this season, with the second inning's 6.00 ERA only marginally better. | | The primary culprit seems to be the fastball, which Rodon tends to rely most heavily on early in games – as Frank Stampfl noted on Twitter, Rodon has allowed an average exit velocity of at least 96.5 mph with his four-seamer in five starts in a row, including 100.9 mph on four balls in play Tuesday. That's just totally untenable, especially with his whiff rate with the pitch dropping below 20% for the season now. | | What makes it so tough to make sense of is that Rodon's fastball doesn't really look any different than it did in 2021 and 2022, when it was one of the best pitches in the game. His velocity is right where it was back then, and the movement profile of the pitch is nearly identical, too. But, for whatever reason, the pitch has gone from being a dominant one to a cringe-inducing one. | | And what makes it especially frustrating is that the rest of the arsenal looks better than ever! The slider is still an excellent pitch, and Rodon is throwing his changeup and curveball more than ever, with excellent results on both – including a whopping nine whiffs with the changeup Tuesday, a career-high. Rodon is throwing his fastball less than ever this season, but based on the results, he's probably still throwing it too much. | | The adjustments Rodon needs to make are fairly obvious. Whether he can and will make them is a different question entirely, but we're reaching an "adapt-or-fade-away" point in Rodon's career, potentially. I'm not ready to drop him yet, but if I have the option, I'd certainly prefer not to start him Sunday against the Orioles. | | Rodon is not one of my second-half breakout picks, naturally, though there are a few other disappointing starters on that list, which you can read here. In the rest of today's newsletter, I've got everything else you need to know about from Tuesday's action around the majors, including big questions about Bobby Miller's future after yet another disastrous start: | | | | Wednesday's waiver targets | | | | Rece Hinds, OF, Reds (6%) – When Hinds makes contact, good things happen. He's hit over 900 feet worth of homers in his two career MLB games so far, so it's pretty clear the power plays against major-league pitching, and it could be legitimately special power. If he makes enough contact. In 77 games at Triple-A this season, he struck out 126 times, 38% of the time, so that's a massive "if." But if you want to chase upside and see if he might make just enough contact to be a difference maker, that seems reasonable enough, especially since there might be useful speed here, too. | | Michael Busch, 1B. Cubs (59%) – It's gone kind of unnoticed since it hasn't been quite as loud as his April, but Busch has been a pretty awesome hitter again over the past month-plus. He homered for the second game in a row Tuesday and is now hitting .327 since the start of June. That's come with significantly less power than earlier in the season and with many of the same contact issues, so skepticism is warranted. But given his 1B/3B eligibility, I'll bet you've got a spot in your lineup for Busch. | | Colt Keith, 2B, Tigers (49%) – Keith might just be figuring it out. I wrote about him as one of my second-half sleepers, but he's already waking up, with four of his eight homers coming over the past seven games and five in his past 14. There's been an increase in strikeouts along that time, too, but it's been a tradeoff worth making for Keith, at least so far. There's 20-homer, 10-steal potential here, maybe a bit more if he keeps pulling the ball like he has been. | | Zack Gelof, 2B, Athletics (54%) – Gelof continues to turn his season around. He went 3 for 4 with four RBI and a couple of runs scored Tuesday against the Red Sox , and is now hitting .257 since the start of June. That's not exactly Ted Williams stuff, but it's about as good as we can realistically hope for from Gelof, and frankly, it's more than enough to make him a viable Fantasy option – he has seven homers and six steals in that span, to that point. He's a solid power/speed option in any categories league, but especially ones with MI spots. | | Rowdy Tellez, 1B, Pirates (17%) – Rowdy Tellez has been around long enough that we can be pretty sure of who he is. Of course, what he is is the kind of hitter who will occasionally get blindingly hot, and he's on one of those runs right now. He homered three times in June and has four more already in the first eight games of July, while hitting .352 across both months. He doesn't play against lefties really and doesn't do much when he isn't hitting for power, but he can certainly be useful when he's locked in like this. | | | | News and Notes | | The Dodgers placed Tyler Glasnow on the 15-day IL due to lower back tightness, retroactive to July 6. Apparently his back flared up Sunday while playing catch, and this one came out of nowhere. I'm operating under the assumption that it's a minor issue, and if Glasnow misses the minimum time on the IL, he could end up missing just one turn through the rotation with the All-Star break coming up. | | Zack Wheeler left his start after five innings Tuesday with lower back tightness. | | Both Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber were activated and in the lineup against the Dodgers. | | Julio Rodriguez was back in the lineup after missing Sunday's game with a quad injury, and he was awesome, going 4 for 4 with his ninth homer, two runs, and two RBI. Rodriguez did leave the game in the eighth inning with a calf injury, but by all accounts, it was a minor one that shouldn't keep him out of the lineup long, if at all. | | Yordan Alvarez was back in the lineup after sitting out Sunday with a knee contusion. | | Oneil Cruz was out of the lineup after leaving Monday with hamstring tightness. | | Kodai Senga made another rehab start, this time at Triple-A. He threw 2.2 scoreless innings with three strikeouts, and his velocity was right where it was last season, a good sign as he works his way back from a shoulder issue. He could make an impact by August. | | Xander Bogaerts is on track to return from the IL Friday and should be rostered in all leagues. | | David Bednar has been sent to Double-A to begin a rehab assignment. He's on the IL with a left oblique strain but could be back sometime next week, it looks like. | | Jacob deGrom threw a 30-pitch bullpen on Tuesday. Bruce Bochy said deGrom is still "a ways away" from making his season debut. | | | | Bryan Woo will return from the IL this weekend against the Angels. | | Triston Casas is expected to start hitting off a tee this week. He's been out since April with a cartilage tear in his left rib cage. | | Justin Verlander said Tuesday that he's increased the frequency of his flat-ground throwing, but there remains no timetable for when he will throw off a mound. I'm not expecting him back before August at this point. | | Clayton Kershaw will make his next rehab start Saturday at Triple-A. He made his first rehab start June 19, but soreness in his shoulder forced him to pause the rehab assignment. | | Each of Jordan Montgomery, Merrill Kelly, and Eduardo Rodriguez completed bullpen sessions as they all worked their way back from injury. | | Both Blake Snell and Thairo Estrada were reinstated by the Giants on Tuesday. | | Jonathan India was a late scratch due to a left knee contusion. | | Here's a name we haven't heard in a while: Drew Rasmussen is scheduled to throw live batting practice Saturday and is aiming to begin a rehab assignment following the All-Star break. He could be back at some point in August and is worth a stash in very deep leagues. He had a 2.62 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and 47 strikeouts over 44.2 IP last season. | | Esteury Ruiz began a rehab assignment at Single-A on Tuesday. | | Tuesday's standouts | | Chris Sale, Braves @ARI: 5.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 9 K – You should at least consider selling high on Sale. Not because I think he's going to fall apart moving forward, but because I don't. Rather, this is about how his surface-level numbers might not quite capture his actual impact for Fantasy, given how careful the Braves are being about his innings. He has pitched just one time on normal rest this season, and the Braves pushed Sale back this week to get him an extra day of rest. That cost him a chance for two starts this week, and makes it pretty unlikely we'll see that from him much the rest of the way. That won't tank his value, certainly, but it could serve as a drag, especially if there's any regression. Of course, when I say "sell high" in this case, I mean you need to be moving him for either a top-five SP or an ace plus something. If not, he's a terrific anchor for any staff. | | Zac Gallen, Diamondbacks vs. ATL: 5.1 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 K – Gallen's velocity remains up, though not quite as dramatically this time around, as he averaged 94.3 mph with his fastball, down from 95-plus in his first two starts back from the IL. And the fastball was a problem in this one, generating zero whiffs on 36 pitches and nine balls in play with an average exit velocity of 98.7 mph. In fact, Gallen really didn't have anything but the curveball working for him in this one, which makes it a minor miracle that this start wasn't worse. Shake it off and hope for better results next time around. | | Nick Lodolo, Reds vs. COL: 3.2 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 K – That's two subpar outings in a row for Lodolo, and this one is especially tough to swallow coming against the Rockies on the road. Lodolo was pitching extremely well prior to that stretch, though it's worth noting that the strikeouts haven't really been there since his return from injury in late May – he has just 34 in 38.2 innings of work, compared to 43 in his first 35 innings of work. The biggest issue seems to be the changeup, which generated just two whiffs Tuesday and has a whiff rate below 20% since the start of May. That leaves him almost wholly dependent on his curveball and fastball for strikeouts, and that's a tough place to be. Let's keep an eye on the changeup in the next few starts before we start worrying too much. | | Yusei Kikuchi, Blue Jays @SF: 7.1 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 13 K – This is about as good as I've ever seen Kikuchi pitch. He pretty much had everything working for him, generating 19 whiffs on 100 pitches, including 10 with his fastball alone. His was actually down 0.7 mph on the four-seamer, though if that helped him pound the zone while remaining tough to hit, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Kikuchi is a notoriously streaky pitcher, but this and his previous solid start should have done enough to quiet any panic you might have been feeling. | | Blake Snell, Giants vs. TOR: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 3 K – Baby steps, baby. Snell still wasn't generating a ton of whiffs in this one, but he did at least manage to throw 47% of his pitches in the strike zone, up from 43.1% for the season. Of course, the irony there is, Snell was already throwing more pitches in the strike zone this season than he did last season, when just 39.9% of his pitches were in the zone, so it's not like that's the one simple trick batters hate that will turn Snell's season around. Still, it was good to see him commanding a bit more consistently, even if it didn't manifest in much production. Given how disastrous nearly every other start has been for Snell, we'll take this and hope he builds on it the next time around. | | Max Scherzer, Rangers @LAA: 6.2 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 6 K – Hey, there's a theme here. It wasn't vintage Scherzer, whose fastball still isn't generating particularly good results. But he got the secondary pitches working well enough to generate 11 whiffs, including seven with his slider, and he really only made two mistakes – which both resulted in homers by Logan O'Hoppe. Scherzer needed to give us a reason to be optimistic, and he did. I still don't expect him to be an ace, but his chances of being a useful Fantasy option certainly look better after last night. | | Bobby Miller, Dodgers @PHI: 4 IP, 10 H, 9 ER, 3 BB, 2 K – My hunch is that Miller just isn't 100% right now, but as the great Eno Sarris brought up Tuesday evening, the thing that's so frustrating about Miller's struggles is that the stuff still looks like it should be good enough to be a very good MLB pitcher. That stuff is diminished from prior to the shoulder injury, which brings up another point: Miller also seemed like he should have been better than he was as a rookie, too. It's giving me some Noah Syndergaard flashbacks, where even when he was pitching well, it always felt a little disappointing. Miller still has plenty of time to turn things around, but I'm certainly not starting him right now, even if I'd prefer to avoid dropping him if I could. | | Brayan Bello, Red Sox vs. OAK: 5.1 IP, 9 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 11 K – Bello's manager probably let him down a bit by bringing him back out for the sixth inning when he was already at 91 pitches, though it's also a knock against Bello that he was neither able to pitch more efficiently nor maintain his effectiveness against this lineup. He continues to show flashes while being disappointing overall, and he's just an upside-bench stash until he shows more than that. | | Ryan Pepiot, Rays vs. NYY: 5.2 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 7 K – Pepiot has been entirely too fastball reliant this season, but he found success Tuesday against the Yankees despite not having his best fastball. He got just one whiff with that pitch, so he leaned on the changeup more than usual and generated seven whiffs with that pitch, plus three more on his slider and one on the curveball. Pepiot's fastball should remain a weapon for him, so if he can make the secondaries work like that more often, there's significant upside here. | | Jameson Taillon, Cubs @BAL: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K – Taillon now has the season ERA down below 3.00, which is pretty remarkable given his 3.77 FIP and 4.15 xFIP. I think he's a decent streamer, but if you trusted him here, you dodged a bullet, because Taillon had a 95.3 mph average exit velocity allowed. This could have been worse, and things will certainly get worse for Taillon moving forward. | | Colin Rea, Brewers vs. PIT: 5 IP, 6 H, 7 ER, 2 BB, 3 K – I always feel kind of bad when a pitcher has a great start or stretch, and my reaction is, "Yeah, but I still don't think he's very good." But this (and Joey Estes' disaster today) is a good example of why. Rea had a 2.56 ERA over his previous eight outings, but with a 4.50 FIP and little indication that his underlying skill set could support the success. The goal with those streaming types is to get out before these starts, and it's why I'm always going to err on the side of skepticism. Yes, this is also about Jameson Taillon. | | | | | | | | Canadian Football League | | SailGP | Back-to-back-to-back days of Canadian Football are live this weekend on CBS Sports Network. Catch the first of the three this Friday with the Calgary Stampeders taking on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at 8:30 PM ET.
Watch Live
| | See which team will sail away with $2 million this weekend! The grand final race of SailGP Season 4 is live from San Francisco this Saturday and Sunday at 5:30 PM ET on CBS Sports Network.
Watch Live
|
| | | | |
|
|
