| | | | Wednesday, August 14, 2024 | | We've spent a lot of time this season talking about the need to be patient with even the most hyped young prospect call ups, and we're seeing that bear fruits with James Wood of the Nationals, who had one of his best games as a major-leaguer Tuesday. | | Wood went 4 for 5 with a double, an RBI, and three runs scored in the Nationals' 9-3 win over the Orioles, and he's now up to a .283 average and .818 OPS for the season. Wood's performance Tuesday came with three batted balls hit at least 99.5 mph, and most importantly, three line drives among his three hits. And that's been the biggest thing holding him back so far. | | Wood has been hitting the ball hard consistently in the majors, sporting a massive 94.8 mph average exit velocity that only Shohei Ohtani, Oneil Cruz, and Aaron Judge can best among qualifiers; only Ohtani and Judge can top his hard-hit rate. That's as expected from the 6-foot-7 Wood, who is probably the player who comes closest to matching Judge's physicality among active major-leaguers. | | But, while Wood has been impressive in many ways, he has also looked a bit overwhelmed in a few others. The 30.6% strikeout rate is part of that, certainly, but so is the massive 58.8 groundball rate he has; that's a big part of why he has just four homers and a .165 ISO for the season despite his Judge-ian underlying power. That, combined with his 25.9% pull rate, which would be one of the lowest marks in baseball, has been dragging Wood's power down all season. | | He's still a bit late on too many of his batted balls, but Wood has at least lowered his ground ball rate to 45.8% since the start of August. It's a small sample size, but it's the kind of improvement we want to see from Wood, and that's what we're getting. He's still a long way from being fully actualized – he has just two batted balls in the air to the pull side all season – but it's pretty impressive what Wood has proven capable of with so many holes in his game. | | It's scary to think what he's going to be capable of when he figures things out, and that upside is something Fantasy players are going to be crawling over themselves to chase in the coming years. Don't be surprised if he's a top-36 pick next season, even if he doesn't get much better than this the rest of the way. | | | | Wednesday's waiver targets | | | | Kerry Carpenter, OF, Tigers (56%) – Carpenter's injury back in May came at the worst possible time, as he had homered in three of his last seven games before he went on the IL with a back injury that would ultimately cost him nearly three months of action. But he returned to the lineup Tuesday against the Mariners and it was like he didn't miss any time at all, as he went deep twice in a massive 3 for 5 performance that pushed his OPS for the season to .962. I'm not sure how sustainable that exact number is, but it's worth noting that, in an admittedly pretty small sample size, Carpenter has basically earned that kind of production so far – he has a .380 xwOBA for the season compared to an actual .382 mark. He's been protected from a lot of lefties in his time in the majors, which helps make those rate stats look better, but still, what he's done has been very impressive so far, and he looks like a solid starting outfielder in five-outfielder leagues, at least. | | Shane Baz, SP, Rays (68%) – It's been an up-and-down return to the majors for Baz, but I'm going to keep giving him a pretty long leash because I know the upside here is incredibly high if he figures it out. Tuesday was a sign that he might be starting to, as he generated 12 swings and misses on 97 pitches while striking out six over seven innings. It wasn't a perfect start – three runs on a couple of homers – but he's finding ways to get it done against good lineups without his secondaries playing to their full potential. He garnered seven of those 12 whiffs on his four-seamer, while his curveball was the only other pitch to generate more than one whiff). You'd sure look to see more from the slider and changeup, but if he gets even one of those pitchers to his pre-injury level, Baz could take off like a rocket, and I want him on my team if and when it happens. | | | | Matthew Boyd, SP, Guardians (12%) – Boyd made his first start in the majors since June of 2023 Tuesday, and he looked pretty good. He limited the Cubs to just one run on three hits over 5.1 innings, and he did it on just 80 pitches. His four-seam fastball velocity was up a bit from his 2023 levels, and he generated multiple swings and misses with four different pitches, good for 12 in all on 42 swings, a very solid 29% whiff rate. There was some loud contact along the way, leading to six hard-hit balls on 13 balls in play, but most of them were relatively harmless grounders or popups, with just two balls in play sporting an expected batting average better than .500. It's just one start from a guy who has disappointed a lot of Fantasy players, but I'm pretty interested to see what he can do moving forward after an exceptional minor-league rehab stint. | | Zebby Matthews, SP, Twins (24%) – The "elite control, mediocre stuff" profile is one I'm always inherently skeptical of for pitching prospects, but Matthews showed how to make it work for him in his MLB debut Tuesday. He generated just six whiffs on his 77 pitches, but he lived on the corners and just off the plate and ended up with five strikeouts and no walks over five innings, allowing two runs on five hits. He'll need to figure out how to generate a few more whiffs, or else the margin for error is going to be awfully thin here, but it's hard to argue with the results, either in the minors (2.60 ERA in 97 innings this season) or in this debut. He's worth adding in deeper leagues, at least. | | Andres Chaparro, 3B, Nationals (3%) – Chaparro didn't garner much hype when he was traded to the Nationals, nor when he got called up this week, but he's not here for your accolades. He's just here to hit. Chaparro doubled three times in his MLB debut Tuesday, continuing his season-long breakout. The 25-year-old has hit .328/.405/.572 at Triple-A, with 23 homers and a very manageable 18% strikeout rate. The reason he didn't garner much hype is that he's an older prospect playing in his second stint at Triple-A, and skepticism is obviously warranted for those reasons. But the Nationals have found success with exactly this type of overlooked archetype in recent years, getting decent production from the likes of Joey Meneses, Juan Yepez, Lane Thomas , and others, and Chaparro could be the next in line. He's not a must-add player right now, but he's worth a look in NL-only and deeper mixed leagues. | | | | News and Notes | | Bad news on Jazz Chisholm: He suffered a UCL injury in his left elbow and will most likely need a stay on the IL. The team is still waiting to determine the severity of the injury. One name to watch in deeper leagues: Oswald Peraza, who has a 1.094 OPS with seven homers and seven steals over his past 20 games at Triple-A. | | Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw about 40 pitches during a bullpen Tuesday and is scheduled to face hitters Friday. He's probably still a week or more away from a rehab assignment, but it's starting to look like he could be back in early September at this point. | | Ketel Marte was out of the lineup Tuesday with a bruised ankle. After the game, Torey Lovullo said Marte has a low-grade ankle sprain and is day-to-day, with the hope he won't need to go on the IL. | | Christian Walker is no longer feeling the effects of his oblique strain and has begun hitting off a tee. It'll be interesting to see what the Diamondbacks do when Walker is healthy, with both Josh Bell and Joc Pederson hitting well. Would they move Pederson to the outfield to get all three bats in the lineup? He played 37 games there last season but hasn't logged a single inning in the field yet this season. | | Ranger Suarez is tentatively lined up to rejoin the Phillies' rotation during their August 23-25 series in Kansas City. He's currently on the IL with lower-back soreness. | | Justin Verlander will make his second rehab start at Double-A on Thursday. He built up to 52 pitches in his first rehab outing, and while he could come back after this one, that hasn't been determined yet. | | Riley Greene will begin a rehab assignment at Triple-A on Thursday. He's on the IL with a right hamstring strain and could be back in time for next week if all goes well. | | Imaging on Byron Buxton's hip came back negative. Right hip discomfort forced Buxton to leave early on Monday, so hopefully it's just a day-to-day issue. | | Mark Vientos has missed two straight due to left ankle soreness, but he did appear as a pinch-hitter in this one. | | J.D. Martinez left Tuesday's game with a left elbow contusion after getting hit by a 100 MPH fastball. X-rays came back negative, so again, hopefully, it's a short-term issue. | | The Dodgers announced that River Ryan will require Tommy John surgery. Given the timing, that means he'll likely miss all of 2025 as well. | | Tuesday's standouts | | George Kirby , Mariners @DET: 3.2 IP, 12 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, 5 K – Would it make you feel better if I told you that it could have been worse? Kirby was originally charged with all 11 runs in this one, but a scoring change shaved five of those off. It's the little victories that really count. Kirby just wasn't fooling anyone today, surrendering three homers and a whopping nine batted balls of at least 100 mph. There have only been nine other starts with more 100-plus mph batted balls all season, and one of them actually came against Kirby on May 19; he would go on to put up a 2.64 ERA over his next 10 starts. Now that should actually make you feel better. | | Hunter Greene, Reds vs. STL: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K – If you want an explanation of how Greene keeps pitching this well, check this out: He generated five popouts on his 17 balls in play Tuesday. Popups are basically automatic outs, and only five pitchers have been able to generate a higher rate of popups this season than Greene. Greene has done an excellent job of generating weak contact all season, allowing the lowest barrel rate of any starter and the 10th-lowest hard-hit rate, and lately, he's been doing everything else well, too, recording 53 strikeouts to just 12 walks in 46 innings during his active seven-start quality start streak. I have my questions about whether it'll last – and I don't suspect I'll be drafting much of Greene next season if he's going to be taken as a top-15 pitcher, which seems at least plausible at this point – but I'm certainly going to keep riding this hot streak as long as it lasts. | | Michael King, Padres vs. PIT: 6 IP, 7 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 10 K – King now has a 2.54 ERA and 1.07 WHIP since the start of May, and even his season-long numbers look about as good as anyone could have hoped for: 3.19 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 10.7 K/9. It's fair to wonder how he'll hold up to by far his most innings since 2018, but he sure isn't showing any signs of slowing down. | | Yusei Kikuchi, Astros @TB: 5.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K – Kikuchi has mostly faded his curveball since joining the Astros, opting to throw either his slider or changeup more, depending on the start. The results have been solid, with 24 strikeouts over 16.2 innings in three starts, and I think we can go back to starting Kikuchi with some confidence – though also with the knowledge that he'll probably always be prone to frustrating, ERA-inflating blowups. | | Seth Lugo, Royals @MIN: 4 IP, 9 H, 7 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – Every season, there are a few pitchers who get off to incredible starts to the season that are totally out of line with their established performance or their underlying numbers. And there is always an attempt to figure out why this is happening, and more importantly, why it might be sustainable moving forward. It rarely is, because we've gotten pretty good at figuring out a pitcher's skill level and what to expect from them moving forward. It's never a perfect process, of course, and some pitchers end up outrunning regression for months, or even whole seasons. With a 5.75 ERA and just 25 strikeouts over his past 37.2 innings, I think we can safely say Lugo won't be one of them. I expect an ERA between 3.50 and 4.00 the rest of the way. | | Gavin Stone, Dodgers @MIL: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K – All that from the above writeup about Lugo? Yeah, it applies to Stone, who hadn't won a game since June 26 and had a 6.91 ERA and 1.90 WHIP over his past six starts. Stone isn't that bad, but I'm not sure he's as good as his 3.63 season-long ERA, even with this good start; he has a 4.06 FIP for the season, which seems like a more realistic expectation. | | Kutter Crawford, Red Sox vs. TEX: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 K – Crawford badly needs a good start, and they just aren't coming, as he has allowed four earned runs in five straight starts. He has a 4.21 ERA with even worse peripherals and probably needs to be treated as just a | | Nestor Cortez, Yankees @CHW: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 9 K – When he was at his best in 2021 and 2022, Cortes' four-seamer and cutter were his bread-and-butter pitches, but that has changed in the past two seasons, and he's been pretty slow to adapt. We did see increased usage of his changeup and sweeper in this one, and it helped lead to some of his best results of the season. I don't know how sustainable this approach will be, but Cortes needed to do something to get us to not drop him widely, and if you hadn't by now, I think it's worth seeing where this goes the next time around. It might just be that he took advantage of the best matchup in baseball. | | Colin Rea, Brewers vs. LAD: 6 IP, 10 H, 7 ER, 0 BB, 4 K – I never really believed in Rea, so I can't say this result against this matchup surprises me. Even if you did believe in Rea's 3.38 ERA entering this start, did you really believe in it enough to start him against the Dodgers? Gosh, I hope not. He's sitting on a 4.75 xERA for the season and has a better argument for being droppable than must-start in my eyes. | | Jake Irvin, Nationals @BAL: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 3 K – If you actually started Irvin in this matchup, you are the Evel Knievel of Fantasy Baseball. He had a 6.82 ERA and 1.52 WHIP in his previous six starts, and sure looked to be running out of gas in what had previously been a breakout season. He has a 4.09 xERA for the season, so I still think he is pretty much just a streamer against the right matchups at this point. | | Paul Blackburn, Mets vs. OAK: 4 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 4 K – The biggest change Blackburn made to his approach since getting to the Mets was to prioritize his cutter and changeup, throwing them a combined 58% of the time in his first two August starts after throwing them around 28% of the time in July. He threw them around 40% of the time in this one, and the lack of changeups especially is hard to make sense of; he threw just 10 of them despite generating three of his seven whiffs and mostly weak contact. This definitely wasn't what we wanted to see in a much-anticipated two-start week, and if you want to drop Blackburn as a result, I don't really think you'll regret it in the long run. | | Charlie Morton, Braves @SF: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K – Morton is still capable of these kinds of outings when he has his curveball working, but I still don't get why he remains 87% rostered in CBS Fantasy leagues. There are plenty of pitchers capable of these kinds of outings from time to time, and Morton just isn't capable of doing this consistently anymore. He's just a streamer at best at this point. | | | | | | | | NFL Slimetime | | Eye on College Basketball | Watch NFL Slimetime, co-hosted by Nate Burleson and Young Dylan, on Wednesdays at 7:30/6:30c on Nickelodeon and streaming the next day on Paramount+!
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