| | Friday, April 26, 2024 | Thursday is kind of a reset day for Fantasy Baseball. Many of the teams are off for travel, though that was less true this week than most, with 10 games Thursday. Still, it wasn't the most eventful day in Fantasy baseball history, with few standout performances from low-roster-rate players and, thankfully, few significant injuries of note. | So, while we'll get to the injuries and recap stuff in the rest of today's newsletter as we normally do, we're also going to turn our attention to the upcoming weekend's games, as we've been doing every Friday. I've got 18 pitchers to watch from this weekend's games, including a few you could even consider streaming if you're adventurous, plus a handful of high-end guys and what we need them to show us this weekend amid some struggles. | Before we get to all of that, however, a few things. First, I want to drop my email here in the intro, because I'd love to hear from you, dear FBT Newsletter readers. I've been meaning to do this more often, but there's just been so much news to react to this season that, a month in, we haven't even done a mailbag yet. I'm going to change that this weekend, so feel free to send your questions to Chris.Towers@Paramount.com to be included. | You can send your questions about trades or rankings – though you may find the answers you're looking for in my Week 5 Trade Values Chart here, or Scott White's Rankings Movers column from Wednesday , so check those out first. But I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the newsletter, too. What about our coverage you've enjoyed, what you'd like to see more of, and what you haven't seen any of that you think might help make you a better Fantasy player. | Because that's what I'm here for! It's why you signed up, and it's why I'm writing this thing five days week! So, I'd love to hear from you, whether you've got a burning trade question, need some help with an underperforming roster, or just want to reach out. | And now that that's out of the way, let's get to what you need to know from Thursday, and what you need to watch this weekend: | | What to watch this weekend | | We're about to hit the one-month mark of the MLB season, if you don't count the Seoul Series. Which is both hard to believe – it's been a whole month already – and still represents so little time – there are still five whole months left! | Writing these weekend previews may get harder as we go along, because the sample sizes will get bigger, and player values will get more settled. But, for now, there's still plenty of players worth keeping an especially close eye, starting with the highest-end pitchers and working our way down: | Just give us a reason to be optimistic … | Pablo Lopez, Twins @LAA, Sunday – I'm not even close to lowering Lopez in my ranings yet, to be clear. His strikeout rate is still 27.4%, in spitting distance of his 29.2 career-high mark from a year ago, and his walk rate is actually slightly lower. He's giving up a bit too much hard contact right now (47.9% hard-hit rate vs. 34.8% last year), but I don't actually see too much in his profile to be concerned about. But I know a lot of you don't deal well with your aces scuffling even a little bit, so I'm here to acknowledge your concerns, but to tell you I don't share them. | Joe Musgrove, Padres vs. PHI, Friday – My general sense is to not be too concerned about Musgrove either, but he's not as good as Lopez and he had that shoulder injury last season, so I can't dismiss concerns about him quite as easily. His curveball, four-seamer, and cutter are all getting crushed right now, with an expected wOBA of at least .400 on all three pitches, which is a problem when those are his three most-used pitches. Musgrove's velocity is down a touch, too, which is all to say, his struggles aren't just bad luck. He's had consecutive quality starts in spite of that, though with just seven strikeouts to four walks, so we'd really love to see him put together a vintage start. I'm definitely more worried about Musgrove than Lopez, for sure. | Tanner Bibee, Guardians @ATL, Saturday – One of the key questions with Bibee is why he didn't get more strikeouts as a rookie, and why that issue is continuing in year two. He has three swing-and-miss secondaries, but he tends to struggle to put hitters away, with just a 43.7% strikeout rate once he gets hitters to two-strike counts; that's 35th out of 68 qualifying pitchers since the start of last season. Which isn't bad per se, but Bibee sure seems like the kind of pitcher who should be better than average when it comes to strikeouts, and he just hasn't been. With mostly average-ish control and results on balls in play, does he actually have the ace upside we hoped was here? This is an especially tough matchup, and I don't necessarily think he has earned the benefit of the doubt for a start against the Braves. | Hunter Greene, Reds @TEX, Friday – Green does so much well, and there might even be signs that he's starting to figure things out if you can get past the 4.55 ERA. He's generating his usual 30% strikeout rate and 9% walk rates,but Greene isn't getting hit nearly as hard as he has in years past, with his expected wOBA on contact allowed down to .287; it was .384 last season, while league average is .369. It has only led to one quality start so far, but it's a reason to be optimistic about another frustrating start for Greene. If he keeps the Rangers bats quiet? It might even be time to buy Greene. | | Still worth rostering? | Michael King , Padres vs. PHI, Sunday (95%) – King's 13.1% walk rate is a significant outlier for his career, but the thing we have to keep in mind when analyzing King is, this is really his first time as a full-time starter in the majors, so I'm just not sure how much his prior career performance really matters. His velocity is down about 1.5 mph so far, and his swinging strike rate is down to a rather pedestrian 10.8% mark. I think it was reasonable to take a flier on King coming off his success in the rotation last September, but I also don't plan on having an especially long leash with him; he's gotta start giving me reasons not to drop him at this point. | James Paxton, Dodgers @TOR, Sunday (92%) – Similar to King, we're at the point with Paxton where he needs to give us a reason not to drop him. His velocity is down 1.7 mph from last year, and yet he's throwing his four-seamer more than ever; probably because his curveball is the only pitch he has with a whiff rate over 20% and his cutter is getting crushed. With just one strikeout over his past two starts, Paxton needs to give us a reason to keep him on our rosters once this two-start week is done. | Jordan Hicks, Giants vs. PIT, Saturday (87%) – Hicks has always been the kind of pitcher who didn't necessarily need strikeouts to be successful, because he limits hard contact so well, but he's really taking that to another level this season, with just a 16.7% strikeout rate to date. His control remains mediocre, too, so at this point, he really needs elite quality-of-contact skills to thrive. His sweeper and splitter both have the potential to be good putaway pitches, but he's still throwing his fastballs 43.5% of the time in two-strike counts, which helps explain the lack of strikeouts. We'd love to see him start to put hitters away a bit more consistently at some point to justify a roster rate this high. | Kyle Harrison , Giants vs. PIT, Friday (84%) – I just don't see it. Harrison has a pretty good fastball, but not such a good fastball that he can remain a Fantasy-relevant pitcher while throwing it 70% of the time. He's cut his walk rate all the way down to 4.4%, which was a major issue for him in the minors, but it's come at the expense of strikeouts, as he has a pedestrian 21.1% mark. Even as a flyball pitcher in Oracle Park, it's hard to see this approach working for him, as his 5.00 ERA (4.52 for his career) attests. Harrison had some prospect hype when he came up, and it carried him to a must-draft status this preseason, but through the first four weeks of the season, he hasn't given us much reason to think he's still worth rostering. | Gavin Stone, Dodgers @TOR, Friday (54%) – I thought Stone had some sleeper appeal coming into the season, after he talked about how he had a pitch-tipping issue that led to his struggles in both the majors and minors last season. However, through four starts, he has just one with more than five strikeouts, with only 16 for the season, compared to 10 walks. His changeup remains a terrific pitch, but it might be the only good pitch he has in his entire arsenal, and until he shows something more than that, there just doesn't seem to be much reason to roster him. | Logan Taylor Allen , Guardians @ATL, Friday (53%) – I thought Allen has some sleeper appeal heading into the season, but it seems like he's taken a step back, with his strikeout rate dropping form 22.2% to 18.6%. The biggest culprit there might be the shelving of his slider, which had his best whiff rate among his pitches at 36.8% last season; none of his pitches are over 31% so far this season. Seeing as he's still struggling with home runs and doesn't have great control, he really couldn't afford to lose a good swing-and-miss pitch. Until he fixes that issue, I don't see much reason to be excited. | | Time to buy in? | Luis Gil, Yankees @MIL, Friday (64%) – Luis Gil is like a more extreme version of Edward Cabrera ; he's absolutely unhittable, but it may not matter much because he can't stop walking everyone. It's an exaggeration to say "everyone," of course, but … not much of one, given his massive 20.2% walk rate this season. If he could just get that down to even 10-12%, he might be a must-start Fantasy pitcher, as he showed when he struck out nine and walked three in 5.2 innings in his last start. The problem is, it was the only start where he has pitched more than 5 innings so far. If he builds on that with another good start, it's time to get excited. | Reese Olson, Tigers vs. KC, Friday (47%) – Olson followed up his best start of the season last week with a pretty midding showing against a very beatable Twins lineup, which halted any momentum he might have been building. The Royals are suddenly a pretty tough matchup, with a whole bunch of red-hot hitters who can make you pay for any mistake, and they now have the fourth-lowest strikeout rate against RHP to boot, so this is a real test. Olson's slider and changeup have been tremendous pitches for him, but his fastball has been too hittable to get to putaway situations often enough. If he can command that four-seamer a bit better, there's room for Olson to take off. | Albert Suarez, Orioles vs. OAK, Sunday (12%) – I'm not sure how likely Suarez is to keep his success up, but I'm willing to take a chance on him almost entirely because of the park he pitches in and the lineup backing him. If he's decent at all, he could be a very valuable Fantasy option with the Orioles, and he might be a bit more than decent; he's shown very good command and a 93rd percentile whiff rate, while generating very good results on balls in play. It's all terribly small sample sizes, but if he has another good start against a great matchup, why wouldn't you pick him up? | Keaton Winn, Giants vs. PIT, Sunday (41%) – Winn is going the "pitching backwards" thing, leading with his splitter as his most-used pitch, followed by his two fastballs. That splitter has done a good job limiting damage on contact, but can he really get away with this approach without more whiffs? Among pitchers with at least 10 PA against their splitter, only A.J. Puk has a lower whiff rate than Winn's 19.6% mark. Among the eight pitchers who have thrown at least 100 splitters so far this season, Winn is one of just two with a whiff rate below 25%. If he can start burying that pitch down in the zone and garnering more whiffs with it, it would be easier to buy into Winn. | Jose Butto, Mets vs. STL, Friday (50%) – Where are these strikeouts coming from? That's the key question with Butto, who has struck out 21 in 16.1 innings after striking out 114 in 132.2 innings in his Triple-A career. His secondary pitches have been very good swing-and-miss pitches, but the four-seamer has been his primary strikeout pitch so far, with his whiff rate jumping from 22.7% last season to 32.4%. Without an increase in velocity, it's hard to buy too much into that growth, so we're going to need to see more success before I buy in. | Mitchell Parker, Nationals @MIA, Saturday (40%) – Parker has little minor-league track record to back up his early success, but it is worth noting that, while he has a 4.15 ERA in his MiLB career, strikeouts were always a big part of his game; he had a 29% strikeout rate in 329.2 minor-league innings, but walks held him back mostly. He has yet to walk a batter in two starts, so that's going to be the key thing to watch here moving forward. Against this Marlins team, I don't mind him as a streamer. | Bryce Elder, Braves vs. CLE, Sunday (38%) – Elder took care of that bad Marlins lineup in his first start of the season earlier this week, but I think that success was probably more about the lineup than any Elder did. I remain skeptical that Elder can be much more than a streamer, but let's see what he does here. | Ben Lively, Guardians @ATL, Sunday (10%) – Whatever interest I have in Lively mostly stems from confidence in the Guardians pitching development staff. He has struck out 14 with just one walk in his first two starts, though he's done that while relying more on a kitchen-sink approach than any one or two killer swing-and-miss pitches. I assume the Braves are going to stop his hot start in its tracks, but if he succeeds again, he might require another look. | News and Notes | Zack Gelof was placed on the IL with a strained left oblique. Max Schuemann started at second base Thursday for the A's, but he's hard to get excited about. If you need a replacement, consider Jonathan India if he's available; it's been a rough start, but he still has a ton of upside as an all-around contributor at the top of the Reds lineup. Also consider Luis Garcia from the Nationals, who is off to a hot start with pretty terrific underlying numbers that suggest he may have figured something out. | Framber Valdez will return to start Sunday against the Rockies in Mexico City. Reminder: Do not start him in daily lineup leagues due to the high altitude and small dimensions. This is a hitter's paradise. | Nolan Jones has missed two straight due to back stiffness. Hopefully a few days off is just what he needs to get back on track, but you don't love seeing it come as a result of a back issue. | Max Scherzer's next rehab start will come Tuesday at Double-A. He likely needs at least a few more turns through the rotation after that before he's ready to come off the IL. | J.P. Crawford was placed on the IL with a Grade 1 right oblique strain. Dylan Moore started at shortstop Thursday against lefty Andrew Heaney. | Keibert Ruiz was reinstated from the IL Thursday. He was batting fifth in the Nationals' lineup. | Nick Pivetta will make at least one rehab start before rejoining the rotation. He's resumed throwing off a mound, and is probably still more than a week away as he works his way back from an elbow flexor strain. | Alec Marsh was placed on the IL with a right elbow contusion. He was hit by a comebacker Wednesday, though X-rays came back negative, so he seems to have avoided serious injury. | Jackson Merrill was scratched from the lineup due to right groin tightness. | Henry Davis has started just two of the past six games for the Pirates. I doubt he's rostered in a one-catcher league but if he is, Davis can definitely be dropped. | The Dodgers are giving James Paxton an extra day of rest so his next start will come Monday against the Dbacks, making him no longer a two-start pitcher this week. Given his struggles and how careful the Dodgers are being with his workload, I think you can go ahead and drop him. | Thursday's standouts | Luis Castillo, Mariners @TEX: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K – Remember when Castillo was struggling? Well, now he's had three straight quality starts against the Cubs , Rockies (at Coors Field), and the Rangers, and has 42 strikeouts to just seven walks in 34.2 innings this season. Do you promise to never be concerned about him again? | Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dodgers @WAS: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K – Earlier this week, I wrote about Yamamoto's struggles with his fastball , and that was not an issue in this one; he gave up five balls in play and allowed an average exit velocity of 81.1 mph. I'm not saying he reads my stuff, but he did a better job of avoiding the middle of the strike zone in this one, and wouldn't you know, the pitch didn't get hammered quite as much. He benefited from a bit of a wide strike zone, but hey, that's baseball, and you still have to take advantage of it. This was the kind of ace showing we've been waiting for from Yamamoto, and it won't be the last. | Freddy Peralta, Brewers @PIT: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 5 K – Peralta had been unhittable prior to this one, so we won't worry too much about his latest outing. He struggled with his command a bit for the first time this season, and when things go wrong for Peralta, that's often how it goes. Given how dominant he's been so far this season, I don't think there's any reason to be too concerned. He went super slider heavy after he struggled with his fastball command early, and that probably explains the control issues. | Justin Verlander, Astros @CHC: 4.1 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 7 K – It's a little hard to write off a poor start from Verlander, given his age and the fact that he was making just his second start of the season after overcoming a shoulder injury. His velocity is still down about 1 mph from last season, but he did manage to rack up 16 swinging strikes on 95 pitches despite the control issues, which is a good sign. I can't say with total confidence that Verlander will be fine moving forward, but we're two starts in and he's allowed just two runs, while doing a good job limiting hard contact, so I'm not too concerned here. It helps that my expectations for Verlander were more like an SP3 than an ace at this point. | Mackenzie Gore, Nationals vs. LAD: 6 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – Gore has been coming so close to putting together great starts, and you know what, we're gonna count this one! It was his first six-inning outing, and he did it against the Dodgers? Okay, Mackenzie. He blew consecutive fastballs right past Shohei Ohtani at one point and racked up 17 swinging strikes against one of the toughest lineups in baseball. Gore has flashed legitimate ace upside with his velocity higher than it's ever been, and his changeup once again performed well, with three swinging strikes on six pitches. He has his ERA down to 3.12 with 31 strikeouts and eight walks in 26 innings, and I think the breakout is happening. | Mitch Keller , Pirates vs. MIL: 5 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – The thing that's so hard about just finally giving up on Keller is, he's done so much tinkering throughout his career that I'm generally pretty confident he's going to figure things out at some point. But, after putting together a couple of quality starts a few starts back, he's been tagged for four runs in each of his past two starts and in four of six outings overall. I don't want to drop Keller, but I also can't start him with confidence right now, and anytime you can say that about a pitcher, it means they're on the cusp of droppability. | Triston McKenzie, Guardians vs. BOS: 4 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – We've been hoping for McKenzie to give us something to be optimistic about, and that this is the closest he's come, against a much-diminished Red Sox lineup, probably tells you all you need to know, unfortunately. He did a solid job racking up 13 whiffs on 75 pitches, but he is still sitting 91.1 mph and topping out at 92.5, whereas he averaged 92.5 in his breakout 2022.Given concerns about the health of McKenzie's elbow, I just don't see much to have faith in, unfortunately. | Trevor Megill, RP, Brewers: Joel Payamps got the last two saves for the Brewers before this game, but if you paid attention, Megill worked against the heart of the order to set him up, and that may have been the Brewers way of telling us something. Megill came in to face the 3-4-5 hitters for the Pirates and got the save, his first of the season. Payaps worked the eighth, so it's not like he wasn't available, so this one might be more of a committee than we thought. I'd bet on Payamps getting more saves moving forward, but not all of them, clearly. | William Contreras, C, Brewers: This is more just about appreciating Contreras' greatness than anything else, because he's off to an absurd start to the season, hitting .365/.446/.573 with five homers, 22 RBI, and a 94.9 mph average exit velocity, while generally looking like the peak version of Salvador Perez – who, by the way, homered again Thursday himself, so the peak version of Salvador Perez might just be this one. I expect Contreras (and Perez, for that matter) to slow down at some point, but it's been a remarkable run from one of the best hitting catcher in baseball. | Edouard Julien , 2B, Twins: Julien is legitimately one of the strangest hitters in baseball right now. He has terrific plate discipline that borders, at times, on passive, and he probably won't play everyday against lefties, but he's also been remarkably productive so far this season. He homered twice Thursday, both of righties, naturally, and he's now up to seven homers for the season. But that's also come with just nine RBI, and he's hitting .213, with a sub-.200 xBA, because he's striking out in one-third of his plate appearances and is barely hitting any line drives. Add it all up, and it's a profile that is really tough to value in Fantasy; I think he's probably just a middle infielder in Roto leagues, despite the power surge he's on. | Ty France , 1B, Mariners: France put in a ton of work this offseason to improve his swing, but you wouldn't really be able to tell from the surface level numbers; Thursday's homer was his first of the season, and he's hitting just .266/.322/.354 for the season. But if you check under the hood, the numbers tell a different story, as he has his best average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and expected wOBA on contact for a full season ever; the only exception is a slightly higher xwOBACON in 2020, in just 43 games. I'm optimistic the underlying numbers will prove more representative in the long run, and am trying to buy as a CI as a result. | Joey Bart, C, Pirates: We knew a former top prospect catcher was going to break out for the Pirates, but maybe we picked the wrong one. Bart has been unbelievable since joining the Pirates, to the point where it's fair to ask if Henry Davis will even have a job when Yasmani Grandal comes off the IL. If it was up to me, I'd let Grandal go and just roll with the two young guys, but it's not up to me, is it? Bart seems unlikely to sustain his current level of success, but a 1.168 OPS from a former top prospect is going to open eyes, even if it's just in seven games. In deeper two-catcher leagues, I'm interested. | | | | | 24/7 Sports News | | The Golazo Network | Stay up to date on all the sports you love with CBS Sports HQ. We bring you the top stories, news, picks, highlights and more anywhere, anytime, all the time. Watch Live | | Catch LIVE UEFA Champions League and Europa League coverage on the CBS Sports Golazo Network, available FOR FREE on the CBS Sports App, Pluto TV and streaming on Paramount+. Watch Live |
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