With just over two months left in the season, we're not far from the point where even relatively minor injuries are potentially season-enders. Even injuries that won't end a player's season have a huge impact on how you view them – when I was working on my rankings Wednesday, figuring out what to do with Aaron Judge was one of the biggest issues I had, for example.
Judge is probably going to miss at least a few more weeks recovering from his rib injury, and with only 10 or so weeks left, that just doesn't give you much time. If it's two weeks, okay great, getting 80% of the season from Judge is still hugely valuable. But if it's more like four weeks? Yeah, that's extremely tough to know how to value.
Lucky for me, my colleague Scott White did a lot of the work in that regard already this week. Scott published his latest IL Stash rankings Wednesday, breaking up the 50 biggest names to stash into the following four categories:
- Too valuable to drop, period
- Also really difficult to drop
- Still a priority on some level
- Stashing is purely a luxury
Judge is, of course, in that first group, though he ranks just seventh, behind players who aren't quite as good but who might all beat him back to action by multiple weeks. To see who else cracks the top 50 and who you need to keep around, head here.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
Bold Predictions. 10 bold predictions for the second half, from yours truly.
Second half re-draft. Scott White gives you his top-24 players for the second half.
Power Rankings. Matt Snyder ranks all 30 teams, focusing this time on the suddenly red-hot AL East race.
Deadline landing spots. Mike Axisa looks at the best landing spots for the top trade candidates ahead of the deadline.
Player rankings. What do the top 50 players in MLB look like at the All-Star break?
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from Tuesday's action:
Cole Carrigg, OF, Rockies (65%) – Right when Carrigg was starting to really take off, he hit a wall, going 0 for 14 in the final five games of the first half, putting a halt to his emergence as an apparent must-add Fantasy option. Well, he just needed a couple of days off, it seems, because he has been on a heater since coming back from the break, going 7 for 16 in his past four games after a three-hit game Tuesday. Carrigg is still getting a few more days off than you'd like, and that might remain a problem until the trade deadline, when the Rockies will presumably move some of their spare parts to clear the way for the young guys to fully take over. On the whole, Carrigg is still hitting .304/.379/.527 with a manageable strikeout rate and some pop and speed in his first 35 games, and he remains one of the more obvious second-half breakout candidates around.
Walbert Urena, SP, Angels (54%) – I've had my reservations about Urena, but I'll admit I'm pretty surprised he is only 54% rostered at this point. His limitations are obvious, and they've been on full display recently, as he walked nine in 9.2 innings across his final two starts before the All-Star break. Of course, it seems notable that he still allowed just one run over those two starts because he continues to generate decent strikeout numbers and really limits damage on contact. Skepticism is a reasonable response to Urena's performance this season, but he also has a 2.78 ERA after allowing just one run over six innings Tuesday against the Cardinals, and usually that's enough to get people buying in. There are limitations, but there's also plenty of upside here with Urena, and he remains pretty useful as is.
Luis Robert, OF, Mets (69%) – Robert just needed to get a game under his belt to get his feet wet. After he went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts Monday in his return from the IL, he crushed his first homer since April 9 on Tuesday. And he really crushed it, hitting it 451 feet – a reminder of how prodigious Robert's skills are when he's healthy and locked in. It's been a long time since he's been locked in for more than a few weeks at a time, but Robert could still be a difference maker down the stretch and remains worth rostering in any categories league or any league with five outfielder spots.
Joe Mack, C, Marlins (21%) – Mack has made a big impact for the Marlins with his defense behind the plate from day one, but he's starting to make his impact felt at the plate now, too. There probably isn't a ton of upside here with Mack as a hitter, but he has real power and a classic No. 2 catcher profile – the hope here is he develops into a 20-plus homer guy with a batting average that won't kill you. He homered Monday and Tuesday and now has a .267 average, eight homers and an OPS over .900 over the past 31 games. He struggles against lefties and probably won't be able to keep this level of production up, but he's a solid second catcher option moving forward.
Zach Thornton, SP, Mets (32%) – Quick note here: Thornton recently announced he is going by "Zac," but he is still listed with the "h" in the CBS Sports database (and presumably at most other sites) for now. Regardless of how he spells the name, Thornton continues to get the job done for the Mets, this time allowing just three hits and a walk over six shutout innings against the Brewers Tuesday. He did that with just two strikeouts, and he has just a 19.5% strikeout rate so far in the majors, though he was above 24% in the minors before his promotion. I don't think there will ever be much strikeout upside here, but he's doing a good job of limiting damage on contact and keeping walks down, so if the strikeout rate pushes up closer to average, there could be something here. He's not an arm I'm especially excited about right now, but he's worth a look in deeper leagues, at least.
Luinder Avila, RP, Royals (8%) – Avila is probably best left for even deeper leagues, but he impressed Tuesday, striking out seven while allowing just two runs in 6.1 innings against the Giants. It was a good matchup, but he took advantage of it and had both his slider and curve working for a 36% or better whiff rate in this one – and for the season his slider and changeup have whiff rates over 34%, too. Avila is a SPaRP, so he's an okay target in points leagues, though I'm not sure I want him in my lineup in even a deep Roto league for a scheduled start in Coors Field next week.
Three Up, Three Down
Three big performances that have players trending up, and three that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.
Three Up
Manny Machado looks like himself again
I mostly think Machado is just back to being himself at this point. When we're talking about a player with a track record of excellence as long and consistent as Machado's, it really doesn't take long for me to buy back in, and he's looked like himself for over a month at this point. He homered twice Tuesday and now has 11 over his past 35 games while driving in 27 runs and putting up an OPS over .950. He's been hitting the ball hard and suddenly has 22 homers and 59 RBI on the season, putting him on pace for 35 and 94, or basically exactly what you drafted him for. The batting average still needs some time to normalize, but it's back over .200 and I don't expect him to go below that point again.
I'm buying into Justin Wrobleski
Wrobleski is one of the tougher pitchers to figure out right now. His overall line doesn't back up his 2.70 ERA, but if you draw some rather arbitrary endpoints, it starts to look a lot more believable. He was one of the worst swing-and-miss pitchers in baseball early in the season, but he struck out seven in 6.1 innings Tuesday against the Phillies and has seven or more in his past three starts now – with nearly a strikeout per inning and an 11% swinging strike rate over his past eight starts, which also coincides with a 2.12 ERA in 51 innings of work. Wrobleski was getting bailed out by the Dodgers defense earlier in the season, but it's getting a lot harder to dismiss his success lately, because he's still pitching in front of that elite defense and still has great control, but is now actually missing bats at an above-average pace. If that continues, there's really nothing to knock with him, and at this point I'm pretty much just viewing him as a top-40 starter.
Brandon Nimmo is figuring it out
Nimmo has spent a lot of the season putting up really impressive quality of contact metrics and disappointing actual production, and it seemed easy enough to write that off as a product of the Rangers' very tough home park. And with an .848 OPS on the road and a .681 mark on the road, the numbers back it up. But we'll have to update those numbers after Tuesday, as he put together a 4-for-4 game with a homer in Texas, and his past two homers have now come at home. Globe Life Field will never help Nimmo, but his .372 xwOBA is the best of his career, and it's not such a tough ballpark to hit in that it helps explain why he has an actual wOBA of just .327. He could be in for a big second half.
Three Down
Framber Valdez is just a mess
Valdez has always had an unreliable streak, but you could overlook it because once he locked in, he tended to stay locked in. That hasn't been the case so far this season, his first with the Tigers – he put together arguably his best start of the season in his finale one before the All-Star break when he struck out nine in 7 one-run innings, and then he couldn't even make it out of the first inning Tuesday against the Cubs. Before that, he followed up consecutive starts with 14 strikeouts and one run allowed with nine runs in 11 innings in his next two starts, and the pattern continues more or less like that since the start of the season. We're used to inconsistency from Valdez, but it's usually of the "month-to-month" variety, but he hasn't really put together more than a couple of good starts in a row since April at this point. He's a big feel pitcher, and his command sometimes just completely abandons him, which is definitely what happened Tuesday, as he walked two and had a hit-by-pitch along with five hits en route to six runs and an early exit. I still think Valdez probably has to pull out of this at some point, but he is 32 years old and his best days very well just may be behind him at this point, as disappointing as that would be.
Kevin Gausman is only slightly less messy
Gausman is a lot like Valdez, and I think that's not a coincidence – it's a result of both relying on a signature pitch that is inherently tough to consistently command. In Gausman's case, it's the splitter, which he famously used to struggle to even throw without hurting his hands earlier in his career. What's most concerning about his struggles lately, though, is that the splitter has actually been consistently effective, as he had a whiff rate on the pitch over 40% in both June and July entering Tuesday's start. The problem, then? Well, it's the other two pitches he throws, and especially the four-seam fastball, which didn't generate a single whiff Tuesday in his 3.1 innings before being chased. What was weird about this start is that while he only generated five whiffs on 90 pitches (all with the splitter, natch), he also didn't get hit nearly as hard as you might expect given the five runs and nine hits allowed. His average exit velocity allowed on 18 batted balls was just 74.4 mph, and just four of them were hit harder than 95 mph. It's hard to argue Gausman was the victim of bad luck when a lot of those were softly hit line drives, which are still dangerous, but it's not like he got crushed. Of course, it's also not like he's earned much benefit of the doubt at this point in the season, with a 4.51 ERA and an xERA near 4.00. There's probably been a bit of poor luck (especially Tuesday), but I can't exactly point to Gausman as someone I expect to be a big difference maker. Not at 35 and with diminishing velocity. I think the days of Gausman being a difference maker might just be over.
Reynaldo Lopez can be dropped in most leagues
Even when Lopez was pitching well – especially during his career-best 2024 season – I never quite bought into it. But with his velocity back after some early-season struggles, I was at least interested in him as a matchups-based streamer since his return to the rotation. Well, he stumbled in a good matchup against the Cardinals on July 11, and then he was even worse in an even better matchup against the Padres Tuesday, who jumped on him for two homers en route to five runs allowed in 4.1 innings. His ERA for the season is up to 3.95, with peripherals more in the 4.50 range, and if you can't even start him with confidence against a lineup like the Padres, when can you?
Extra Innings
I guess Jordan Romano is the Rockies closer now?
Typically, when a pitcher emerges as a team's closer, they'll at least get a mention in the waiver-wire portion of the newsletter, but I can't bring myself to recommend this one. He got the save Tuesday against the Nationals, and he now has three of the past four for the Rockies … and yeah, you're on your own here. Romano hasn't been a good pitcher since 2023, and now he's pitching half his games in Coors Field. I mean, c'mon. If you're desperate for saves, maybe he'll get a handful between now and the end of the season, and maybe that'll be the difference between you winning and losing your league. You'll have to decide if that's worth the obvious risk he represents to the rest of your stats. But I absolutely cannot, in good conscience, recommend that you actually go out and add Romano.
