| | | | Thursday, May 23, 2024 | | Before we get to today's newsletter: Hey everyone, I'm back! Thanks to Scott White and Dan Schneier for holding the newsletter down while I was on vacation the past couple of weeks, but I'm back for the rest of the season to help you keep chasing that Fantasy championship. | | And you might need more help if you have Xander Bogaerts on your roster. I mean, it's not like he was doing much so far this season, so you might have been looking for help in the middle infield already, but now, with Bogaerts suffering a fracture in his left shoulder, you definitely need a replacement. So, before we get to the rest of Thursday's action and news, here are some options to consider to replace Bogaerts in H2H points, Roto, and in deeper leagues for both 2B and SS, as we discussed on this morning's Fantasy Baseball Today: | SS for H2H points: Ezequiel Tovar (73%), Luis Rengifo (70%) and JP Crawford (60%)
2B for H2H points: Luis Rengifo (71%), Abraham Toro (69%), Joseph Ortiz (58%)
MI for categories leagues: Jose Caballero (67%), Luis Rengifo (70%), Willi Castro (65%)
Deeper categories leagues: Luis Garcia (47%), Davis Schneider (39%), Wenceel Perez (33%)
Buy-low trade candidates: Bo Bichette, Nico Hoerner, Dansby Swanson, Thairo Estrada | | Alright, with that out of the way, let's get to the rest of what you need to know from Wednesday's action, starting with some other waiver-wire candidates to target: | | | | Thursday's top waiver targets | | AJ Smith-Shawver, SP, Braves (19%) – The Braves have a hole to fill in their rotation for Thursday's start against the Cubs , and while they didn't turn to their top pitching prospect (Hurston Waldrep), they are calling up a young pitcher Fantasy players should know about, in A.J. Smith-Shawver. Now, whether Smith-Shawver is someone Fantasy players need to run out and add immediately is a different question, and one I probably wouldn't answer in the affirmative to right now, what with Smith-Shawver's ugly 6.10 ERA down at Triple-A this season. Smith-Shawver has posted up a strong 25.2% strikeout rate this season, but that's pretty much where the positives end, as he has struggled to keep the ball in the yard (2.61 HR/9) while also walking 12.2% of opposing hitters. He'll need to be a lot better than that to matter in the big leagues, and I'd probably bet against it at this point. But he's a top-100 prospect who will be pitching for one of the best teams in baseball, so if he can figure out his control and homer issues, there's some upside here. Let's see what he can do. | | Luis Rengifo, SS, Angels (71%) – It took a bunch of injuries to get Rengifo to a spot in the Angels lineup where he probably should have been all along, but he continues to make the most of his opportunities. He reached base despite going hitless Wednesday against the Astros , which was actually just the second time in his past 13 games he failed to register a hit. He's hitting .308 for the season, and while his underlying numbers don't quite back it up, his contact-heavy approach should continue to make him a solid contributor in that regard, and his 12 steals speak for themselves, even with less than elite speed. The Angels are running a ton, and Rengifo is taking advantage. With quadruple eligibility – sextuple, if you count MI and CI – you probably have a spot in your lineup for Rengifo if he's available. | | | | Patrick Bailey, C, Giants (16%) – Bailey's apparent breakout has been derailed over the past three weeks by post-concussion symptoms, so it was nice to see him back in the lineup Wednesday and hitting the ball well, as he went 4 for 5 against the Pirates. He has his batting average for the season up to .295, and it may not be a fluke – he has cut his strikeout rate from 28.3% to 20.8% while matching last season's .410 expected wOBA on contact, leading to a .291 expected batting average for the season. It's a small sample size, but given Bailey's youth and elite defense, he's going to play a ton and might be good enough to be a viable starting option in two-catcher leagues. | | Tyler Anderson, SP, LAA (58%) – Anderson continues to generate terrific results, with an ERA below 3.00 in each of the first two months of the season to date, and given that he's still just 58% rostered in CBS Fantasy leagues, it's not like there's much cost to buying in. I expect things to take a dramatic turn for the worst at some point – his xERA entering today's start was 4.83, right in line with last season's mark – but he's fine to keep around while things are going well. | | Henry Davis, C, Pirates (17%) – The Pirates aren't calling Davis up from Triple-A just yet, as he continues to work on his swing after an abysmal start to what we hoped would be his breakout season. But, with veteran Yasmani Grandal dealing with a groin injury, it might be just a matter of time before we see the former No. 1 pick again. He was dreadful in his 23 games before being demoted, hitting .162/.281/.206 with a 35% strikeout rate, and if you don't want to give him the time of day after that, I can't really blame you. In deeper, two-catcher leagues where securing two reliable catchers is a challenge – a common scenario – reconsidering Davis isn't a bad idea. He's been sent back to Triple-A, where he's posted impressive stats, batting .279/.456/.628 with four homers and a 17.5% strikeout rate over 12 games. Maybe it won't work out – I'd probably bet against it, too. But he's still young and still has some upside whenever he gets that next call. | | | | News and Notes | | Josh Lowe was removed due to right side tightness. That's the same side where he injured his oblique back in spring training, which is a concern. He'll undergo an MRI on Thursday. | | John Means was removed from his start due to left elbow discomfort and will undergo medical testing. His fastball velo was down 2 MPH in this start, and given his history, this is another very concerning situation right now. | | Austin Riley has now missed nine straight with side soreness without being placed on the IL for some reason. Apparently he hit off a tee without any issues before Wednesday's game, but it's not clear if there's a timetable for his return right now. | | Adolis Garcia was back in the lineup after missing two games with right forearm discomfort. | | Zach Neto left early with right elbow soreness. He'll undergo further testing. | | Evan Phillips is scheduled to throw a live bullpen at High-A on Thursday. If all goes well, he'll begin a rehab assignment on Sunday. | | Merrill Kelly will undergo an MRI later this week to see how his strained right shoulder is progressing. | | Noelvi Marte recently reported to the Reds' facility in the Dominican Republic to continue participating in exhibition games before the start of the Dominican Summer League. He is suspended for the first 80 games of the season, so he won't be back until July at the earliest, but he's worth stashing if you have the roster spot to play with in a deeper league. | | Francisco Alvarez could begin taking batting practice next week as he continues his recovery from a torn UCL in his left thumb. | | Eloy Jimenez was placed on the IL with a left hamstring strain. The White Sox plan to recall outfielder Zach DeLoach | | Wednesday's standouts | | Cole Ragans, KC vs. DET: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 12 K – Ragans has had a couple of seven-run blowup starts, but we don't even have to take those out of the picture to see he's pitching like an ace again: After Wednesday's outing, he's down to a 3.34 ERA and 2.38 FIP, a mark only four starters have bested so far this season. And he's doing this without his best slider, a pitch that helped fuel his breakout when he got to the Royals last summer. Yes, things could get better. | | Freddy Peralta, MIL @MIA: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K – I don't think there was much reason to be worried about Peralta despite a 6.23 ERA over his previous five starts, but it was still nice to see him bounce back, even if he didn't get a win to show for it against the lowly Marlins . Peralta's 3.81 ERA isn't quite what you hoped for, but everything else looks as expected, including a 3.46 FIP. | | Max Fried, ATL @CHC: 9 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 9 K – Entering his start on April 23, Fried had a 7.71 ERA; in six starts since then, he has a 1.70 ERA with two complete games to his name. While last year's forearm injury looms as a major red flag, as it turns out, a healthy Max Fried is still a really, really good pitcher. His 2.66 ERA over the previous four seasons should have been your hint. | | Jesus Luzardo, MIA vs. MIL: 8 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K – I'll admit, I was pretty spooked when Luzardo went on the IL with an elbow injury toward the end of April. But after Wednesday's start, he has allowed just two runs in 19.2 innings since coming back from the injury, with 19 strikeouts and just one walk. His velocity hasn't been quite where we want it to be – he was down 1.7 mph with his fastball Wednesday – but the results have been impossible to complain about. You could make a case for him as a sell-high candidate, but it's not a high priority for me right now. | | Justin Steele , CHC vs. ATL: 6.1 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 5 K – In four starts since coming back from his hamstring injury, Steele has now allowed 15 earned runs in 20.2 innings, which is even worse when you realize he threw 4.2 scoreless in his first of those four starts. That's not what we were hoping for from last year's No. 5 Cy Young finisher, and given his unorthodox approach – he's basically a two-pitch pitcher who rarely even reaches the mid-90s with his fastball – it's fair to wonder if he's lost some of the magic. His approach might just carry a slimmer margin for error than other pitchers typically ranked in his range. That being said, I do think it makes sense to view him as a buy-low candidate, given how good he was last season. | | Blake Snell , SF @PIT: 3.1 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 4 BB, 5 K – Look, maybe this is the season where Snell just never figures it out. It's possible, and there's absolutely nothing to be optimistic about through his first four starts, where he has a 22% strikeout rate and 11.7% walk rate to go along with his 11.40 ERA. But … am I alone in having a hard time actually being too concerned about him right now? Remember, he had a 5.40 ERA through his first nine starts last season before going on a run that would eventually lead to his second Cy Young award; in 2022, he had an ERA over 5.00 as late as July 15 and still managed to finish with a 3.38 ERA for the season. He's frustratingly inconsistent and always has been, and I just don't see much reason to think he won't figure it out at some point. I'm trying to buy. | | Bryce Miller, SEA vs. NYY: 6 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 0 BB, 4 K – The splitter has been a nice addition to Miller's arsenal, but he still tends to go as far as his four-seamer will carry him, and that's a problem on days when that pitch isn't getting the job done. Wednesday, he gave up seven balls in play on that pitch and allowed a 93.8 mph average exit velocity, and that's just not going to work for Miller, given his lack of viable secondaries. Given his 4.23 xERA entering Wednesday, I think it's reasonable to view Miller as a sell-high candidate right now. | | Chris Bassitt , TOR vs. CHW: 7 H, 5 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – The thing that makes Bassitt so tough to analyze is that it's never quite obvious why he struggles when he does, relative to the times when things are going well. His kitchen-sink approach to pitching just might leave him especially vulnerable to stretches where he just doesn't have it, as we saw last season, when he had an ERA north of 4.50 in two of the first three months of the season before he figured it out. I'm not saying 2024 will work out in exactly the same way, but Bassitt is one of those pitchers whose numbers tend to end up where you want them to be at the end of the year, and I'll bet on that track record. | | Ryan Pepiot, TB vs. BOS: 4 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 3 K – I've been pretty skeptical of Pepiot's success this season, given how much he has to rely on outlier fastball whiff rates for his strikeouts, and on a day when he had more of a good-but-not-outlier whiff rate with the pitch (31% on 13 swings), you can see how he struggled. That's not to say I think Pepiot will be this bad moving forward, but I do think his 3.98 ERA right now probably isn't far off what I expect. | | Michael King, SD @CIN: 6.2 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K – King has stabilized after a very poor start to the season, but that mostly just means it's fine not to drop him, rather than that I expect him to be a must-start pitcher moving forward. He's fine to have around, certainly, but there remain enough warts in his game – poor command and homer issues, most notably – that I don't expect him to be much more than just a decent pitcher to have around at this point. | | Triston McKenzie, CLE @NYM: 5 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 5 K – My expectations for McKenzie moving forward are pretty similar to King at this point, despite a superficially impressive 3.44 ERA. His ERA estimators all say he's had quite a bit of good luck to this point, and unless his fastball dramatically improves (.467 xwOBA, 11.3% whiff rate for the season), I think he's much more likely to have an ERA that starts with a 4 than a 3 moving forward. | | Jhoan Duran, RP, MIN: There's been a lot of consternation about Duran's usage among Fantasy players, as he had just three saves entering Wednesday, including none in the previous two weeks of action. But he got the save Wednesday against the Nationals , and he now has four of the team's six saves since he came off the IL at the end of April. He's a dominant reliever who is going to get most of the saves for his team, and if there's any kind of discount to acquire him right now, you should take it. | | Fernando Tatis, OF, SD – Tatis went 1 for 5 with just a lousy single Wednesday, dropping his season line to .248/.332/.411, which is not the bounceback we were hoping for. But he also had four batted balls hit at 95 mph or harder Wednesday and remains one of the biggest underperformers in xwOBA right now – his actual .330 mark pales in comparison to his .370 expected wOBA. This is another one where, if there's any kind of buy-low window, you should try to take advantage. | | Julio Rodriguez, OF, SEA – The buy-low case for Rodriguez is a lot less obvious for Rodriguez, who has a .290 wOBA and just a .322 expected wOBA, and he really hasn't shown much reason to think he's about to break out of it, hitting just .272/.330/.333 since the calendar turned to May. I have faith he'll turn around his slow start, just as he did in his first two seasons, but I wish we had more concrete reasons to hope for it – especially since he only has two steals in May. | | Corey Seager, SS, TEX – Seager is another pretty big disappointment so far, but he homered for the third straight game Wednesday and now has six homers while hitting .313 over his past 17 games. It's just another reminder that, when you have a player with a track record as long as Seager's, you should probably be willing to buy in on them, even with a slow start. They're probably going to figure it out, as Seager currently is – you can also point to Aaron Judge for another high-profile example of that. | | Maikel Garcia , 3B, Royals – Garcia generated a ton of hype early this season with three homers in his first six games, but then he fizzled out pretty quickly, with his OPS dropping below .600 before April was even over. Because of that, you might not have noticed that Garcia has been really good over the past month, hitting .328 with just a 14% strikeout rate over his past 30 games after yet another multi-hit game Wednesday. He has just two homers in that span, but he's made up for it with seven steals and 43 combined runs and RBI, pretty massive numbers from the leadoff hitter of a good offense. That'll play in any format. | | | | | | | | PGA Tour | | NWSL | This weekend, the PGA Tour returns to Texas for the Charles Schwab Challenge. Watch LIVE as a field including the number one player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, along Spirth, Fowler and Straka compete on Saturday and Sunday at 3 PM ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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| | TONIGHT, watch SoCal rivals Angel City and San Diego Wave take to the pitch. Watch live at 10 PM ET on CBS Sports Network.
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