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Before we get to what you need to know about this weekend's action and more, some quick thoughts on the biggest news of the weekend: Zack Wheeler's season is over, and he will require Thoracic Outlet surgery. 

This is slightly different from the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery we typically see, which is typically due to compression of a nerve, causing pain and numbness in the arm. Wheeler's is to relieve pressure on the blood vessel that caused the clot in his shoulder, though the surgery to repair it is similar for both – it requires the removal of a rib and sometimes some of the muscle in the area. Either way, it's a significant injury, and one we don't have a ton of examples of pitchers returning at full strength from.

However, I will note that one study that looked at 46 pitchers who had Thoracic Outlet surgery from 2010 through 2017 found that 79% of players return to play at the same level as before, though that includes just 15 players who had the type of surgery Wheeler will have, which reduces the sample size. How many of them were 35-year-old aces already publicly musing about retiring in the next few years? Well, there aren't a lot of pitchers to compare to Wheeler in general, I guess.

Wheeler has been given a 6-8 month timetable to return from the surgery, though the aforementioned study says the average time to return was 9.5 months, and it might be better to err on the longer side of the timetable; even if Wheeler is able to return in eight months, he'd still likely need a rehab assignment, so assuming closer to nine months might be more practical. Which means we probably shouldn't expect to see Wheeler until May of next season. And obviously, we won't know how he'll look until we see him on a mound.

It's possible Wheeler beats expectations and is ready to pitch early next season, but that's not at all a guarantee. Neither is it guaranteed that he'll still pitch like he was before the surgery; in fact, I think you probably have to expect some kind of decline. All told, I don't quite know where we'll have him ranked for 2026, but I can't imagine it'll be inside the top-100 overall, and even something like 150th might prove to be too optimistic. I'll drop him there in my mental model for now, choosing to be optimistic. 

But there's a chance this wrecks what is left of Wheeler's career, which would be a real bummer for a guy who was starting to build a legitimate Hall of Fame case late in his career. That could still happen, but it's a lot less likely now than it was two weeks ago, unfortunately. 

12 things to know from this weekend

Shane Bieber looks like a league-winner

Bieber made his long-awaited return Friday and looked like he hadn't missed even one start. Bieber's velocity was up 0.7 mph from where it was the last time we saw him (and up 1.4 mph from his last full season), putting him at the same level he was at in 2021, when he had a 3.17 ERA and a 33.1% strikeout rate. And the Marlins just couldn't touch him. 

Bieber made it through six efficient innings, allowing one run on just a solo homer, one of two hits he allowed. He didn't walk a single hitter and struck out nine while racking up 15 swinging strikes on 87 pitches. 

It would be hard to ask for much more from someone who hasn't pitched in the majors in 16 months. It was a nice soft landing, sure, but still, this was exactly what Bieber was doing in his two starts before the injury to open the 2024 season, and I don't see much reason to be skeptical here. Bieber's command has looked intact dating back to his rehab assignment, and while I don't expect every start to be this good, I do think it's fair to treat him like he at least has must-start upside the rest of the way. And I think you have to have him active in all leagues this week. We can take it one start at a time for now – Bieber is found money! – but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect he'll be in your lineup every week the rest of the way. 

There's no slowing Trevor Rogers down

I don't know if this is the most unlikely turnaround I've seen this season, but … actually, yeah, never mind, it obviously is. It's not just that Rogers had a 5.09 ERA since his breakout 2021 campaign – including a 7.11 ERA in four starts with the Orioles after last summer's trade. But he also had a 5.51 ERA and just a 19.9% strikeout rate at Triple-A this season before his promotion. There was absolutely no way to see this coming, and it's not like the Orioles seemed to disagree – Rogers threw 6.1 shutout innings as the 27th man during a doubleheader on May 24, and they still didn't call him up again until June 18. 

But there's just no stopping him. Rogers threw seven one-run innings for the third start in a row Sunday against the Astros, and he hasn't allowed more than one run in a start since July 20 – when he gave up two, his worst start since June, if you can believe it. He's obviously not this good, but I've come around a lot on Rogers, who has bumped his strikeout rate up to 9.3 per nine in August, with just six walks in 35 innings of work. 

Even with his velocity down a tick Sunday, Rogers still had eight swinging strikes with his four-seamer, and his whiff rate with that pitch now isn't far off from where it was in 2021, while the changeup similarly just keeps getting better. I don't necessarily think I buy Rogers as an ace again, but his 3.06 expected ERA entering Sunday's start shows that he's doing an awful lot right these days, and I don't see any reason to doubt him as a must-start pitcher the rest of the way. 

Kyle Tucker finally looked like himself again

When Tucker homered Friday, it was his first in 26 games. When he hit two more Saturday, that matched his total from his previous 46 games, dating back more than two months. He followed that up by going 1 for 3 with a couple of walks Sunday, and he went 5 for 12 with four extra-base hits, two walks, and as many strikeouts across the three games.

It's just three games, but Tucker needed something to go his way, and this is our first sign that maybe that time off Tucker got this week will pay off. Skepticism is still warranted, but there's nothing you can do except start him and hope this is the start of Tucker looking like the first-rounder you drafted and haven't seen since June. 

Max Fried looked better (finally)

Fried didn't need a good game quite as badly as Tucker did, but seeing as he hadn't even had a quality start since June, it was very nice to see him more or less look like himself Friday against the Red Sox. He did walk three, which is out of character, but we'll take six shutout innings and more than a strikeout per inning. 

Fried's regression coincided with a blister, but there wasn't an obvious explanation for why things had gone so wrong for him over the past couple of months. His velocity hadn't really dipped, and his pitch mix was largely unchanged; he just … wasn't pitching as well. 

Which is a danger zone for a pitcher to enter as a Fantasy analyst, because I don't know how actionable "he just needs to pitch better" actually is. Fried is a great pitcher, with a long track record of success, and the lack of obvious explanations for his struggles meant that it was fairly safe to bet on him figuring it out at some point. But it also means there wasn't one silver bullet trick we could point to and say, "Once Fried starts doing this, you can trust him again." 

He just needed to pitch better, and at least for one start, he did. Can he keep it up? Yeah, I'd bet on that. 

No second-half fade for Ranger Suarez

The story on Suarez has been fairly straightforward for the past few years: You can trust him when things are going well, but you have to understand that never lasts. He was one of the best pitchers in baseball down the stretch in 2021, then took a bit step back in 2022, ultimately becoming a Fantasy also-ran in 2023. He got off to a huge start in 2024, but a back injury around mid-season derailed him, and he just never got right. 

So, when Suarez had a 6.59 ERA in his first five starts coming out of the All-Star break, it was reasonable to think it was happening again. And the time to trade him was here. But I sincerely hope you didn't, because Suarez might be in the midst of the best two-start stretch of his career since, and he might have put together the best two-start week of any pitcher in the majors this week. 

Suarez struck out 10 Monday against the Mariners, and then one-upped himself by striking out a career-high 11 against the Nationals Sunday. What was interesting about this stretch from Suarez is that it has come while fading his changeup, typically his best pitch. He threw it just 12.5% of the time Monday and then threw just eight of them Sunday, way down from his season-long average of 22%. Suarez had everything working for this one, generating 16 swinging strikes, including at least two on his curveball, slider, cutter, and four-seamer, a truly impressive display.

Suarez is another one of those pitchers where the difference between the excellent version of him and the mediocre one often just seems to come down to execution. He'll change his pitch mix occasionally, but it's generally the same kitchen sink approach with generally iffy stuff, and it's just a question of whether he's hitting his spots or not. In the past, there has generally been an expiration date on Suarez's utility for Fantasy, but these past two starts have me thinking maybe that won't happen this time around. For an impending free agent, that's phenomenal timing. 

Warning signs from Robbie Ray?

Ray's excellence this season has become a given, but back in April, saying he was going to be a must-start pitcher certainly wasn't a safe prediction. He's been a little shaky lately, allowing 10 runs over his past three starts, but Sunday's was the first start where it looked like there might actually be a reason to worry about Ray down the stretch.

The three runs over five innings aren't so worrying on their own, of course, but it's the way Ray got there that is. He gave up six hits and four walks over the five innings of work and, most notably, didn't record a single strikeout – the first start of at least one inning and zero strikeouts for Ray since 2015. And it wasn't just the line that was alarming – Ray's velocity on his four-seamer was down 2.2 mph and similar numbers on the rest of his pitches. Ray's velocity has been down since late July, but Sunday's start was an outlier, as it was the first time he's averaged below 92 mph all season. 

It's just one start, and I didn't see any quotes from Ray expressing concern about the diminished velocity, so we'll chalk it up to "just one of those days" for now. Let's just hope it's truly just one of those days. 

Vinnie Pasquantino is finally living up to the hype

I didn't even have to look it up to know this is the best stretch of Pasquantino's career – he has 10 homers in the month of August, the first time he's had more than seven homers in a month, and there's still a week left. But this isn't just a hot month for Pasquantino – he is hitting .288/.348/.518 with a 38-homer, 120-RBI pace since May 1. It hasn't come along with either an increase in average exit velocity or a drop in strikeout rate, but Pasquantino's pulled-air rate is up to a career-high 24.6%, while his barrel rate is also up to a career-best 10.2% rate. Zoom out a bit, and Pasquantino's expected wOBA over his past 250 plate appearances is .359, which is excellent, but hardly way out of step with his .346 career mark. That's not to write off what Pasquantino is doing, just to say that I don't quite buy him as a 40-homer guy moving forward. 

Is Wyatt Langford doing it again?

Last September, Langford convinced a bunch of Fantasy players to invest way too much into him in 2025 with a huge kick to close the season out, and he might be starting this year's version even earlier. Langford is hitting .284/.418/.527 with four homers and three steals in the month of August after his five-hit weekend, and he's doing it with the best underlying metrics of his season – a 92.3 mph average exit velocity and .411 xwOBA in August.

Now, before you say, "Fool me once, shame on me," and all that, there's some things to keep in mind. First of all, there's the fact that Langford's season has been derailed on multiple occasions by oblique injuries, which are a notoriously difficult injury to try to play through. And then there's the fact that Langford's underlying metrics have been better than his actual production all season long. Maybe not to the level that he would have lived up to the lofty, superstar projections some had for him, but still enough that you could talk yourself into Langford deserving better production than he's actually given us.

And then there's this: Even without knowing what he'll do in the final 20% or so of the season, Langford is already up to 19 homers and 18 steals in 110 games, a 28-homer, 27-steal pace. That'd be pretty good, even if you hoped for better. 

Jack Leiter teased us with a hint of upside

Seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts and zero walks in what is almost certainly the best start of Leiter's career – and that might include the minors. I've been a believer in Leiter's talent in the past, so you might expect me to be excited about this start, but … I'm really not. 

I mean, it was a phenomenal start, to be sure. I just don't think it really tells us anything new about Leiter. He's always had great stuff, but the issue has always been consistently putting it into play in games. Even in this one, he generated just nine swinging strikes, including just three with his non-fastballs. Which is less impressive than the box score might make you think. If you want to add Leiter on the off chance this is the start of him figuring it out, I think that's a reasonable low-cost bet to make on waivers, but I don't really buy it. 

Taj Bradley is still Taj Bradley, (unfortunately)

Talent has never been the question, and so it was reasonable to think Bradley may benefit from a chance of scenery trade. And maybe that'll be the case in the long run, and we'll look back at the move to the Twins at the deadline as the thing that finally allowed everything to click for Bradley. But it hasn't happened yet, or at least it didn't happen in Bradley's Twins debut. He was tagged for seven runs on nine hits over five innings against the White Sox with just one strikeout, and if you can't trust him for better than that against the White Sox, I'm not sure how you could expect anything better from him moving forward. Bradley has the arm to be a special pitcher, but he's not anywhere close to that right now. At this point, the burden of proof is on him to show he can be that before anyone believes in him. 

Gavin Williams is starting to fall apart

No pitcher's success over the past few months felt more fraudulent than Williams'. I know some of you were hoping the 2.73 ERA since the start of May was just Williams finally living up to his considerable potential, but I never thought there was a good reason to buy into it – his 4.37 FIP in that time spelled trouble, as did his 11.4% K-BB% rate in that time. And I think we're starting to see that catch up to him. Williams failed to pitch even four innings for the second time in three starts Sunday, as the Rangers chased him after 3.1 innings of work, with three runs on three hits and four walks. 

What makes writing Williams off so tough is that he has obvious talent. He's massive and generates a huge amount of extension, releasing the ball nearer to the plate than basically any other pitcher in baseball while also having premium velocity. He's an intimidating presence on the mound, and if his command ever takes even a half-grade jump, he could be a real difference maker for Fantasy. As it stands, he was never a sub-3.00 ERA pitcher in terms of talent, as nearly any ERA estimator would show you. My go-to is xERA, which takes into account Williams' poor control and merely good strikeout rates, but also his surprisingly average quality of contact metrics and spits out a 4.30 mark. That just isn't good enough, and I don't think Williams will be good enough moving forward without some real improvement in the underlying skill set. 

Jacob Lopez couldn't keep getting away with it

Friend and sometimes guest of the FBT pod, Nick Pollack has a term for pitchers like Lopez over at PitcherList.com: He's a cherry bomb. And I think that might just be inherent to his skill set. He has the ability to miss a lot of bats with his funky delivery, and he mostly has pretty good command and limits hits well enough. That's the good news. The bad news is that he gives up a ton of fly balls and will probably always be extremely homer prone, which narrows his margin for error considerably. He had no margin for error to work with Sunday against the Mariners and MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, who hammered him for two homers; though, it's worth noting that Lopez did plenty to wreck his own day with six walks.

This start by itself raised Lopez's season-long ERA from 3.28 to 4.08, undoing much of the good work he had done in his previous four starts. And this is the second time he's done that – he had a stretch back in June of one run allowed over four starts before giving up 14 runs in his next 17.2 innings. And the worst part about it is that Lopez's best starts have come at least in part when his roster and start rates are relatively low, while his worst starts have come when he was in a lot of lineups. That means his functional ERA for Fantasy players might be even higher than his 4.08 overall mark. 

That doesn't under everything Lopez has done, and it certainly doesn't make him a useless Fantasy option. But I do think his 30% groundball rate is always going to leave him prone to these kinds of massive blow-up starts, and that's going to limit how useful Lopez can actually be for Fantasy despite the things he does well. 

Unfortunately, it is worth noting that Lopez did leave this start with forearm soreness and will be re-evaluated in the coming days. We don't have any further information at this time, but anytime you get close to the elbow joint, you're in scary territory for injuries that could cause missed time.