| | | | Tuesday, June 17, 2025 | | How much can one start tell us? Well, when it comes to how dependable a player is going to be for Fantasy, it can't tell us a whole lot. Max Meyer and Shane Baz have put together some of the very best starts by any pitcher this season, and neither looks like someone you can trust right now. Looking at pitchers who have had starts with at least 10 strikeouts this season returns names like Bryce Elder, Lance McCullers, Eduardo Rodriguez, Taj Bradley, Tyler Megill, Luis Ortiz, and Chris Paddack , none of whom should be viewed as must-roster players, let alone must-start ones. | | Which is to say, Lucas Giolito's 10-strikeout performance Monday against the Mariners shouldn't fundamentally change how you view the largely disappointing veteran. The ability to strike out 10 batters in a game in one start tells us very little except that a pitcher is capable of striking out 10 batters in one start. It tells us very little about what the next start is likely to look like. | | Of course, before Monday, I wasn't sure Giolito still had the ability to do something like this, even for one start. So, while I don't think this start tells us much about how useful Giolito will be moving forward, it does tell us that he still has the high-end upside to be a difference-maker. And that's not nothing. | | How'd he do it? Well, we start where we often do: The fastball velocity, which was up to 94.5 mph, the highest it's been in any start since Giolito's return from Internal Brace surgery. The fastball has generally had a good movement profile and shape and has performed decently, but it's just hard to have a truly good fastball at 93.3 mph; at 94.5 mph, it's a little easier. | | | | But it's the other pitches that really impressed for Giolito. He generated five whiffs with his slider and four with the changeup, the best marks of the season for him. Neither pitch has been any good at all for Giolito this season, and it's worth noting that both pitches were hit hard when Mariners hitters did get the bat on them, putting up a 97.2 mph average exit velocity. That's a red flag, but since we're talking more about upside than anything else right now, it's easier to ignore that and focus on the nine combined whiffs. | | It's worth noting that this start was in T-Mobile Park, the best park for pitchers in baseball – including, notably, the highest strikeout park factor for any park in baseball. That impact has been slightly muted so far this season, but over the years, this has been by far the easiest ballpark in baseball to generate strikeouts with, and that's a relevant factor when talking about Giolito's unexpected strikeout breakout. | | Does it all add up to Giolito being a must-add player? Oh, certainly not. But I do think it's worth considering adding him in many of the 54% of CBS Fantasy leagues where he's available. There might be someone else more interesting out there – I would add him ahead of Quinn Priester (57%), Ben Casparius (45%), or Clayton Kershaw (66%), and I'd probably add him ahead of Michael Burrows (9%) or Brandon Walter (17%) even though I think they're interesting in their own rights – but I'd say after this start, Giolito has made himself interesting again. | | I wasn't sure we'd get there this season. Here's what else you need to know from Monday's action around MLB: | | | | Tuesday's top waiver-wire targets | | | | Nick Kurtz, 1B, Athletics (72%) – A trip to the IL got in the way of Kurtz's breakout, but he's starting to show that it was for real. He homered for the second straight game Monday (a walk-off game-winner), and now has six in his past 11 games straddling the IL stint. His strikeout rate is down to 27% in that stretch and his average exit velocity is up to 94.6 mph, which is exactly what we want to see. Kurtz stumbled a bit in his first 20 or so games, but he's clearly a talented prospect who is starting to figure it out, and I do think he basically needs to be rostered in every single league at this point. | | Giancarlo Stanton, DH, Yankees (57%) – I'm still not sure how much Stanton is going to play, and that's a major question when it comes to how much more rostered he should be than this. The answer to that question will come in time, but it was nice to get confirmation Monday that Stanton is still capable of Stantonian feats. He went 2 for 4 in his first game of the season, and he had three batted balls hit over 100 mph – including a single that came off the bat at 111.1 mph. That already puts him in the 73rd percentile among all hitters in max exit velo, which is pretty impressive after one game. I'm skeptical he's going to play enough to really be worth using in H2H points, but at least after one game, he showed that he is still capable of making an impact when he's in the lineup. | | Jose Soriano, SP, Angels (60%) – Coming off arguably the best start of his career, Soriano followed it up with another impressive performance against the Yankees Monday, shutting them out over seven innings with six strikeouts to one walk. The control has been much better over the past two starts, and the strikeout upside has always been there for Soriano with curveball, splitter, and slider providing very strong swing and miss rates. And that sinker keeps the ball on the ground and prevents damage even though it doesn't miss many bats. | | Orion Kerkering, RP, Phillies (17%) – I'm not sure Jordan Romano can get the job done consistently, and I'm not sure the Phillies want to pigeon-hole Matt Strahm into the closer's role, so there might be a path for Kerkering to get some saves in Philadelphia. I think it's pretty unlikely he'll emerge as the runaway choice with his middling strikeout rate and poor control, but Kerkering's 2.63 ERA is backed up by a 3.52 xERA thanks to his strong quality of contact prevention skills. Kerkering probably isn't a shutdown closer, but he might be good enough to work in the role if the Phillies want to give it a try. | | | | Monday's standouts | | Logan Gilbert, Mariners vs. BOS: 5 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 10 K – I'm always a little wary of trusting starters in their first back from arm injuries, but it was hard to get away from Gilbert in a two-start week, and it sure worked out here. Despite the elbow woes, Gilbert's stuff looked intact, as he averaged 95.4 mph with his four-seamer and generated 21 swinging strikes on just 84 pitches. That's a massive rate and a sign that while there might be some risk for re-injury, he should be good when he's healthy. | | Ryan Pepiot, Rays vs. BAL: 8 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 11 K – I went back and forth on Pepiot this offseason. I originally wanted to call him a breakout pick, but backed off when the Rays announced they wouldn't be playing their games in Tropicana Field – my concern there was that Tropicana tends to make fastballs play up, and Pepiot was more reliant than most on his fastball for strikeouts. Those concerns look reasonable for a while, but his fastball has looked like an elite pitch lately, with a whiff rate north of 40% over the past three starts. He has 28 strikeouts to six walks in 19.2 innings in that stretch, and now has a 2.42 ERA over his past eight starts dating back to the start of May. The strikeout rate continues to tick up, and with the Rays set to play 55 of their final 35 games on the road, the homer troubles that have hurt him at home should be less of an issue, too. The breakout might just be happening. | | Sandy Alcantara, Marlins vs. PHI: 5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 5 K – That's three solid starts in a row for Alcantara, and I don't think it's a coincidence that he has just one walk in each of those starts. Alcantara's control was about as bad as we've ever seen it through the first two months, but the stuff still looked pretty good, so I was mostly willing to write it off as rust coming off a year-plus off recovering from Tommy John surgery. It sure looks like he's knocked off the rust lately with a 2.12 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, and 15 strikeouts to three walks in 17 innings in June so far. And Monday's start was especially promising because it came against a good Phillies lineup – his previous two had been against the Rockies and Pirates, which came with a big grain of salt. Things are looking up. | | Clarke Schmidt, Yankees vs. LAA: 7.2 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K – Schmidt's on a nice roll lately, with a 2.44 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, and 45 strikeouts in his past 48 innings since the start of May. He has six quality starts in eight tries in that span, and he's doing it with improved control and his typically excellent quality of contact skills. You'd like to see more strikeouts from Schmidt, but it's hard to argue with the results right now. | | Mitch Spence , Athletics vs. HOU: 5 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K – Since joining the rotation, Spence has allowed just two runs in 15 innings of work, which is pretty good! Only two walks in those 15 innings is pretty great! And 10 strikeouts is … pretty disappointing. In his bullpen role, Spence showed a ton of swing-and-miss upside with his slider and curveball, but that hasn't really been there for him as a starter – he had just eight swinging strikes on 84 pitches Monday. There's a bit of upside here if he can get the whiffs back, but right now, I'm not rushing out to add him. | | Mick Abel , Phillies @MIA: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K – I think we might have just seen the best possible outcome for Abel in his first career start because we haven't seen anything like that since. Since striking out nine in his debut, Abel has just eight strikeouts to four walks in 14.1 innings. The results have still been solid, but I just haven't seen much reason to be excited about him since that first outing. He has had trouble maintaining his velocity and his curveball has been really iffy – problems that plagued him through his stint in the minors. Abel has pitched well enough that his rotation spot isn't in jeopardy, but he certainly hasn't looked like a must-roster pitcher since that debut. | | Ryan Gusto, Astros @ATH: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K – There's something here. Gusto's fastball looks like a legitimately good pitch, with a whiff rate approaching 30% after he generated seven of them Monday, and that's always going to be a good foundation to build on. The problem is, I'm not sure the rest of the arsenal is good enough. He traded out his cutter for sinkers in this one, and that's not a bad trick to try to pull, given how poorly the cutter has performed this season. But he probably needs another pitch, especially something he can rely on consistently against lefties. I don't think we're at the point where Gusto needs to be added in most leagues, but that Astros pitching lab is going to keep working on him, and I can certainly see them unlocking something pretty useful for Fantasy in the future. | | News and notes | | Cubs manager Craig Counsell acknowledged that Kyle Tucker 's sprained right ring finger still isn't 100% healthy. Tucker has been dealing with the injury since the beginning of June, and he hasn't been hitting as well in that time, though it's not like he's been a disaster – a .795 OPS is only disappointing for a superstar. Let's hope he gets past this soon and gets back to playing like a superstar. | | Bryce Harper fielded ground balls at first base Friday but the Phillies aren't certain when he'll be ready to swing a bat or resume throwing. He's on the IL with right wrist inflammation. | | Yordan Alvarez has not resumed hitting yet. He's still shut down with a small fracture in his right hand and at this point a June return is probably completely out of the question, and we might be waiting until after the All-Star break. | | Lance McCullers Jr. went on the IL with a right foot sprain Monday, an injury that pretty much came out of nowhere. You can probably drop him in most leagues. | | Shane McClanahan played catch from 100 feet last week and he said it's the best he's felt. He's been dealing with this nerve-related triceps injury all season to this point and probably still has more than a month of build-up left in a best-case scenario. | | Bryson Stott hyperextended his elbow while swinging the bat Monday. He'll undergo further testing and evaluation to determine the severity. | | Cade Povich was placed on the IL with left hip inflammation. | | Zack Gelof will begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A on Tuesday. He originally had a fractured hamate bone in his right hand and then suffered a stress reaction in his ribs. There's still some upside here, but Gelof is already rostered in 37% of leagues, and I don't think we need to take that any higher until he's actually on the verge of returning. | | Isaac Paredes returned to the lineup after missing three straight with a strained left hamstring. | | Colton Cowser returned to the lineup after missing three straight following a collision with the wall last Thursday. | | Justin Verlander will be activated to start Wednesday against the Guardians. He had a 4.33 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, and 41 K over 52 IP before the injury and probably needs to show us something more than that before he's worth rostering any more widely than his current 43% roster rate. | | Frankie Montas may rejoin the Mets in a bullpen role rather than being a starter right away. He's been getting crushed in his minor-league rehab assignment and probably doesn't need to be added in most leagues. | | Michael Toglia returned to the Rockies and Keston Hiura was designated for assignment. Toglia was a breakout pick for me before the season, so let's see if the trip to Triple-A can get him going like it did last season. He's a name to watch, but not one to add yet. | | In the Red Sox's first game without Rafael Devers, Kristian Campbell was the DH with David Hamilton at second base. They'll probably rotate a few different names through the DH spot with Devers out of the picture. | | With Giancarlo Stanton back at DH, Ben Rice started at first base vs. a RHP, which put Paul Goldschmidt on the bench for a second game in a row. Goldschmidt has been terrific for the Yankees and Fantasy players, but it might be worth looking into some sell-high trades if he's going to lose playing time. I'm not saying he's suddenly going to be a part-time player, but even a few days off a week could be a problem if Goldschmidt also slows down, as I expect. | | | | | | | | Golazo Network | | 24/7 Sports News | 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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