This game can surely put you through an entire rollercoaster of emotions on a daily, weekly and year-long basis. When things are going well, you can’t check the box scores or live scoring enough. You want to see how each incremental stat moves you higher and higher up the standings, thinking that the sky is the limit from here. When things turn the other way though, sometimes you can’t get far enough away from the game. That was this week in a nutshell.
From Monday - Friday, I was on top of the world this week, my team could do no wrong and we were making up ground in the standings. Then the weekend hit, the blows just kept coming and now we’re back trying to pick up the pieces heading into the first full week of May.
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Hitting Review
Through the first half of the week, it seemed like very little could go wrong with the offense. The only disappointments really came in the form of managerial decisions. I stuck with the slumping Randy Arozarena who continued to flail wildly at pitches and went 0-for-10 during a miserable half-week. That mistake was ratcheted up by the fact that Jurickson Profar went 8-for-12 with a homer on the bench. Ugh.
Things slowed down considerably over the weekend though, and overall the power number came up very short again this week with only nine home runs total. Part of that problem was finally mustering up the courage to bench Arozarena over the weekend. He had been hitting .139/.220/.235 on the season to that point, so it seemed like a good idea to take his terrible bat out of the lineup. Naturally, he crushed a pair of home runs and stole a base over the weekend. Hopefully it’s a sign of things to come.
Overall on the week, we came up just short of our goal of 300 at-bats. We missed out on four games due to illness though which played a role in that – Jake Fraley missing two in the front half of the week and Luis Rengifo missing the final two to finish the week.
It hurt not having Rengifo in the lineup too, as he paced our offense for the week – going 8-for-15 (.533) with a homer, three RBI and a pair of stolen bases. Let’s hope he gets right back to that on Monday. His teammate, Jo Adell, was our major addition in FAAB last week and he added a homer and two steals to our total for the week, though it came with a putrid .100 (2-for-20) average.
The catcher position continued to hum along. This time it was the elder Contreras brother leading the way with two homers, five runs scored and a stolen base. William Contreras chipped in five RBI and a steal of his own. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, there’s nothing like quality proven production from the catcher spot.
After a strong Week 5 we had high hopes that Paul Goldschmidt was back, but he hit just .208 with three runs scored and zero RBI on the week. Blah. Ezequiel Tovar turned in his worst week of the year, but he still added a steal to the total.
Jose Ramirez had just one hit – one – on the entire week, going 1-for-20 (.050). Thankfully, that one was a two-run homer and he still managed to drive in three runs, score three runs and steal a base.
Max Kepler continues to look like a tremendous addition, hitting .421 (8-for-19) with a homer, three runs scored, four RBI and a swipe for good measure. Josh Rojas played over the weekend and went 6-for-8 with an RBI and a steal to help the cause.
While we missed out on Profar’s big first half of the week, he still hit .364 (4-for-11) with a homer, three runs, two RBI and a swipe over the weekend. He’s not leaving the lineup for a while. Joey Meneses struggled in his four games to start the week and is going to be kicked to the curb again. Jarred Kelenic couldn’t even find his way into the lineup with a bunch of right-handers on the schedule, so he’s probably a drop as well.
Jorge Polanco had his best week of the season, hitting .296 (8-for-27) with a pair of homers, four runs scored and five RBI. We could certainly use more of that. Jarren Duran scored five times and swiped a base while hitting .294.
In terms of tracking to our new updated targets, you can see that we came up short everywhere except in stolen bases where we were actually 3.5 ahead of the number — putting us one steal ahead of the season-long pace. We came up 3.7 runs short, 2.1 homers short and a massive deficit of 10.3 RBI.
Looking at the season-long numbers, we’re barely ahead of pace in runs and steals, way behind in batting average and with major deficits in both home runs (-9) and RBI (-32).
Pitching Review
On the pitching side of the ledger, things couldn’t have gone much better through the first five days of the week. Kutter Crawford and Ryan Pepiot each pitched gems in their respective starts and earned victories. Corbin Burnes pitched well in his start as well, but couldn’t snag a win.
Justin Verlander only struck out two batters in his start, but still delivered quality ratios across seven frames while failing to secure a victory. Kyle Gibson was brilliant in his spot start against the Tigers, piling up nine strikeouts over seven innings of one-run ball, but he too was denied a win.
The Brewers finally had another lead to protect late in the game, and it was everything that we had been hoping for. With the 9-1-2 hitters due up in the lineup in the eighth inning, it was Joel Payamps that was called upon to be the bridge to the ninth inning, then Trevor Megill came on and closed it out against the heart of the order. People are still sleeping on the situation in Milwaukee, but Megill looks like the clear closer right now. His emergence could make Devin Williams expendable for us.
Josh Hader even locked down a two-inning win and picked up a save for us. Things were looking up and up.
All stayed good until the fifth inning on Saturday. Erick Fedde entered that frame with a 3-0 lead and looked to be in line to nab our fourth win of the week. Then he gave up five runs, got just one additional out and did a number on our ratios. Oof. Then the Cardinals announced the Kyle Gibson’s second start would be pushed back until Tuesday, meaning he would miss out on a matchup against the White Sox. Ouch.
Then on Sunday, Ryan Pepiot was drilled in the shin by a 107-mph line drive and had to leave his start after two poor innings in which he surrendered three runs. Not only was that a whammy on the ratios, but now his status for next week’s start is up in the air, meaning we probably need to have coverage in the event that he can’t go. Then Josh Hader came on and served up a homer to take a loss against the Mariners.
The biggest whammy of all though came from Alexis Diaz, who came on just to get some work in during a 7-0 game against the Orioles. Instead, he wound up getting just one out while surrendering four runs on two hits and two walks – taking what had been a tremendous week for our ratios and punting that into oblivion.
One bright spot to note though, is at least we avoided the Michael Wacha disaster. He was the lone pitcher that we left on the bench this week for his single start against the Rangers, where he was saddled with seven runs over 3 2/3 innings of work.
All told, we came up short on everything across the board on the pitching side. The ratios being where they finished was pretty demoralizing, as we had like a 1.90 ERA and 0.95 WHIP heading into Saturday and expected to make up ground there.
We finished almost 11 strikeouts shy of our target and are now behind the number for the season. We also came up short in wins and saves and are now battling deficits of -4 and -8 respectively.
FAAB Plan
Overall, this is probably one of the most interesting FAAB weeks that we have had so far this season. For the first time, there are thought to be several impact rookies available that should go for triple-digit bids. Some in the high triple digits. Are they worth the cost for our team though? Let’s dive in.
As always, we start out by examining our roster to find out how many potential drops we have. As of Saturday, I thought that was going to be four, but after Kyle Gibson’s scheduled start on Sunday was pushed back to Tuesday (and he now lines up for two starts next week), he’s safe and should be in our lineup next period.
Those that aren’t safe and could definitely stand to be upgraded are Javier Baez, Joey Meneses and Jarred Kelenic. We’re also carrying a dead roster spot in Devin Williams, and with Trevor Megill actually looking like the current closer for the Brewers, our outlook in the saves department doesn’t look as dire as it did a couple of weeks ago. We still like the long-term potential that Williams has, but if we need the roster spot, or could get better utilization out of it for a couple of weeks, that has to be considered.
The top name available on the wire this week is Mets’ top pitching prospect Christian Scott. Not only did he put up sublime numbers and monster strikeout totals in the minor leagues, but he flat out dominated the Rays in his major league debut on Saturday – striking out six batters over 6 1/3 innings of one-run baseball while securing a victory. There’s no doubting his immense talent. I do have some minor concerns though. One, is workload. The 24-year-old right-hander has never thrown more than 87 2/3 innings in a season, and already has 32 innings under his belt this year. Eventually, they’re going to need to pump the brakes, as it’s hard to envision him exceeding around 130 innings in total for the season. That still leaves you with the potential for around 100 innings of domination, but it’s at least something to keep in mind.
Another concern is the Mets’ rotation itself. It was easy to bump Adrian Houser to make room for Scott right now, but with Tylor Megill and David Peterson both getting healthy, they might have some harder decisions to make soon. Not to mention that Kodai Senga continues to progress and will be ready to return at some point over the next couple of months.
My final concern has more to do with my own philosophy regarding FAAB. I tend to shy away from making those giant splash additions, instead focusing on churning the roster as much as I can on a week-to-week basis, playing matchups and hoping to build to a juggernaut overall. If I dropped around $350 to land Scott (which is where I think his price will ultimately land), that would leave me with just $328 remaining for the remainder of the season. Is that enough to manage over the final 20 weeks or so, sure, but not optimally. I’ll have a bid in, just in case everyone is asleep at the wheel, but it won’t even be close to the range that I think he’s going to go for. While Scott is great and would look fantastic as part of our rotation, it’s extremely unlikely that we’re going to get him.
So we’re not planning on getting Scott, what about the other sexy names that will be available for the first time this week? Tyler Black is actually the one that I’m most excited about. The versatile 23-year-old hit .284/.417/.513 with 18 homers, 73 RBI and 55 stolen bases across 123 games between Double-A Biloxi and Triple-A Nashville in 2023. He then bashed five home runs and swiped three bags over 25 games at Triple-A to begin the 2024 campaign, earning him his first promotion to the big leagues. Brewers’ manager Pat Murphy seems to have committed to him, as Black has started four straight games against right-handed pitching since his arrival – hitting third or fourth in the Brewers’ lineup in each one. It sounds like he’ll sit against southpaws, which should be accounted for, but his overall upside is quite high hitting in the middle of the Brewers’ lineup. He has third base eligibility and is well on his way to gaining first base as well – making him an attractive target for us at corner infield. I don’t think that I’ll go crazy here, but I could see a bid in the low triple digits giving us a real shot at landing an impact bat.
The next big name available this week is Joey Loperfido. The 24-year-old slugger was crushing it at Triple-A Sugar Land – slashing .287/.393/.713 with 13 homers, 27 RBI and a 37/16 K/BB ratio over his first 25 games. Like Black, it looks like he’s going to be an everyday player for the Astros against right-handed pitching while sitting against southpaws. Unlike Black, he has been stationed at the bottom of the Astros lineup in his first five starts, hitting either seventh or eighth. The power seems legit, and he makes for an intriguing addition, but I’m not quite as high on him as I am on Black.
After that big three, there are a ton of quality options available up and down the wire this week. Jordan Beck was promoted by the Rockies and has started every game in left field since his arrival. He’s got a nice blend of power and speed and the Rockies are at Coors Field next week. Wenceel Perez continues to hit third in the Tigers’ lineup and has shown surprising power. He looks like a nice discount option that may sneak through with the high-priced options around him drawing attention. Mike Yastrzemski has been swinging a hot bat and the Giants get four games in the first half of next week – including three weak right-handers at Coors Field. That seems like a perfect streaming opportunity. Will Brennan plays everyday against RHP and hits fifth for the Guardians. He’s got a nice schedule next week with four games in the first half. Nolan Schanuel, Dane Myers, Jon Singleton, Parker Meadows, Jose Miranda, Vidal Brujan, Trey Lipscomb and Alek Thomas are all interesting to me as well. It’s just a matter of how many we can get and how we structure the bids.
On the pitching side, behind Christian Scott, there are a couple of sketchy doubles that I have interest in. One of those is Colin Rea (at the Royals, vs. the Cardinals). He has allowed three runs or fewer in all but one of his starts this season and has made it through at least five innings every time. Seems like we could get solid ratios, 10 Ks and a decent shot at a victory there. Sticking in the same rotation – and the same matchups – we have Bryse Wilson. The 26-year-old hurler has looked very sharp since joining the rotation and there’s nothing terrifying about those two matchups.
As far as interesting single starts go, Jose Soriano has impressed so far and draws a decent single against the Pirates (Martin Perez) in Pittsburgh. As a bonus, he would double the following week (vs. Cardinals and at Rangers). Another interesting single start, that takes at least some creative thinking, is Jack Leiter. He was crushed in his first start against the Tigers, but has gone back down to Triple-A Round Rock and dominated in each of his last two starts there, allowing just one earned run and posting a 12/5 K/BB ratio over 11 innings. The Rangers need two starters for their series against the Athletics – one on Tuesday and one during Wednesday’s doubleheader – and it seems likely that Leiter will make one of those starts.
After those four, it falls off a bit for me. I’ll have some conditional bids out on a few others, maybe Mike Clevinger (who could return on Monday and actually double next week at Rays and vs. Guardians), but I’m hoping to land one (or two) of those top four options. The real concern on the pitching side now comes from the fact that Ryan Pepiot left his start on Sunday after being drilled in the shin by a 107.0 line drive. While X-rays came back negative and he’s being considered day-to-day, there’s always the chance that they push back his next start. His single start against the Yankees isn’t a great matchup anyways, so it’s wise to have coverage for that one. In all likelihood, adding a second pitcher probably means dropping Williams.
Let’s hope for the best.
FAAB Review
I report back to you as a broken and defeated man. The biggest FAAB weekend of the season so far, and I wound up spending a grand total of $35 to land a great big pile of meh to fill four spots. Not exactly ideal.
Let’s see how it went. I actually put in a decent token bid on Christian Scott at $204, but as anticipated it wasn’t even in the ballpark. The Mets’ phenom wound up going for $373 ($287).
I had played around with the number that I was comfortable with on Tyler Black for the majority of the evening. At one point it was locked in at $143, then after the news broke that Kyle Manzardo was coming up I wanted to make sure I had enough in the tank if I wanted to go that direction next week. Regardless, I adjusted the bid down to $129 which was only good for the runner-up bid to the winning mark at $141. Only time will tell whether or not we wind up regretting that one.
We had a bid on Joey Loperfido, but it wasn’t close to the $82 ($73) that he ultimately went for. Daniel Hudson was plucked for $73 on the news that Evan Phillips was heading to the injured list, but we weren’t in the market for a part-time potential closer there.
I did have bids in on Vidal Brujan, but didn’t come close to the $55 ($15) that he reeled in. Hayden Wesneski has looked good in the Cubs’ rotation and was pretty far down on my list of conditionals, needless to say I was nowhere close to his winning bid of $48 ($14).
We also missed out on Wenceel Perez $36 ($28), Nolan Schanuel $33 ($17), Jordan Beck $33 ($17) and Will Brennan $28 ($20) and weren’t even the runner-up bid on any of them. We were the runner-up bid on Mike Yastrzemski $26 ($11) but weren’t close enough.
We also had the runner-up bid on Bryse Wilson $19 ($9). It wasn’t until the 18th player on the list that we finally got someone to add to the team. That was Colin Rea $14 ($8). Given the uphill battle that we’re fighting on the pitching side right now, his two-step should play well this coming week.
The first bat that we wound up getting was Jon Singleton $8 ($2). He has been locked in as the Astros’ everyday first baseman since Jose Abreu was demoted and he socked a couple of dingers with six RBI this week.
On the offensive side we also brought back Trey Lipscomb ($6 unopposed) to the team. He continues to play everyday, moving all over the infield for the Nationals and that team has been running like crazy. Lipscomb already has a homer and five swipes on the season and makes for a decent enough bench bat. I could see us dropping him again next week though if things don’t go well.
The other arm that we added wound up being Mike Clevinger ($7 unopposed). The right-hander is tentatively set to make his 2024 debut on Monday against the Rays and if so he would line up for two starts next week. The ratios have always been good, even though the White Sox won’t deliver much in terms of run support.
As discussed above, the four drops were Meneses, Kelenic, Williams and Baez.
Taking a glance at the interesting potential drops from around the league, here’s what piques my interest: Triston Casas, Simeon Woods-Richardson, James Paxton? 41 drops around the league and there’s really not much there.
As of now, we have just $643 of our $1000 FAAB budget remaining. That’s the fifth lowest total remaining on our 15-team league. The rest of the league ranges from $986 remaining to $342.
Looking Ahead
Alright, let’s try to maintain a positive attitude and see what we’re looking at to start next week. We’re going to start by looking at what we have available on the pitching side of things.
Overall we have 12 total options, meaning that we need to find three to sit. While we have three closers, we’re going to be using them, so that’s easy. Corbin Burnes and Justin Verlander are every week starts for us, that gets us to five pretty easily. It helps that Verlander also doubles, with one of them coming against his former squad at Comerica Park in Detroit.
Kutter Crawford has also been an automatic start for us this season, but he gets a brutal matchup against the Braves in Atlanta. It’s hard to bench a guy with a 1.56 ERA and 1.07 WHIP over 40 1/3 innings to begin the season, but that start terrifies me.
Kyle Gibson and the two new additions – Rea and Clevinger – are expected to double. If we use all of them and Crawford, that would get us to nine. So what would that leave behind?
It would mean benching Michael Wacha again for a single against the Angels in Los Angeles. Given how bad he was last time out, that seems like an easy choice. It would also mean benching Erick Fedde. Aside from the fifth inning on Saturday, he has been outstanding throughout the season and his matchup against the Guardians at home isn’t terrible. I don’t think I can play him over any of the doubles, but maybe for Crawford? The final option is Ryan Pepiot, who is dealing with a bruised shin after taking that 107-mph liner off of it during Sunday’s start. If he pitches, it would likely be Saturday against the Yankees – so not a great matchup anyways.
As of now, we’re leaning toward Crawford and all the doubles. If we do that, it would still give us 10 starts for the week even while rolling three closers.
Onto the hitting side.
Catchers are in, nothing to do there. Goldschmidt, Rengifo, Ramirez, Adell, Kepler, Rojas and Polanco each get four games during the first half of the week. That gives all of them the edge over any potential replacements. Ezequiel Tovar is still our best option at shortstop and gets three games at Coors. He’s in. We also said that we aren’t benching Profar anymore, so he has to play with three at Wrigley.
So what does that leave us with? Two outfield spots and utility with seven potential options to fill those spots. We’re first going to take Trey Lipscomb out of the running, as the Nationals only play two games during the first half of the week.
That leaves these six:
Arozarena 3 vs CWS (all RHP)
Jake Fraley 3 vs. ARZ (two RHP and Jordan Montgomery)
Singleton 3 at the Yankees (two RHP and Carlos Rodon)
Mark Canha 3 at the Guardians (two RHP and Logan Allen)
Tyler O’Neill 2 at the Braves (Reynaldo Lopez, Chris Sale)
Jarren Duran 2 at the Braves (Reynaldo Lopez, Chris Sale)
I think that given the matchups, and the strong weekend that he put up on our bench, we have to give Arozarena another shot. O’Neill has been one of our best hitters all season, and he got a day off on Sunday so he should absolutely be in the Red Sox’ lineup for both games against the Braves.
That leaves one final spot. There’s a strong desire to insert the shiny new toy (Singleton) into the lineup, especially since he’s playing at Yankee Stadium. I could understand arguments for any of the others as well though. That spot may come down to what lineups look like when they start to roll in on Monday and Tuesday.
Where we Stand
Had this write-up been a few days earlier, we would have been on top of the world and on top of our league with around 110.0 league points. Getting our teeth kicked in over the last two days though dropped us right back to where we began the week with 102.5 league points. That puts us in second place in our individual league, 5.5 points back of first and with a four-point edge on third place. We’re currently 114 out of 855 teams in the overall competition and hit as high as 62nd during the week.
It’s time to get up off the bat and put together a monster performance in Week 7. All of our doubles are going to pitch well, we’re going to hit 18 home runs and drive in 60 runs as a team and next week’s update is going to be straight fire. Just putting that out there into the universe.
As always, I would love to hear your feedback on what you think of the article, the team, my poor decision making – anything. Those that have reached out so far, it has been very appreciated. Just drop me a line on X (@DaveShovein) and I would be happy to discuss.