Pitching comes in waves in Fantasy Baseball. There are stretches when nobody particularly interesting seems to be on the waiver wire, and then there are times when it seems like there are too many interesting pitchers to add at once.
We're in one of the latter periods right now, with the emergence of names like Ian Seymour, Joey Cantillo, Griffin Jax, Sean Burke and more buttressing the position in recent weeks. And the most interesting of them all might have pitched Wednesday, as Troy Melton continued to look like a potential ace while limiting the Athletics to one unearned run over 5.1 innings of work, while striking out nine.
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for Melton, who entered spring with some real sleeper appeal, but who never got off the ground during Spring Training and ultimately opened the season on the 60-day IL with an elbow issue. With the addition of Framber Valdez late in free agency, it didn't quite look like there was room for him in the rotation, but by late-May, the call came and he … didn't look all that exciting.
Melton got decent results in his first five starts, but with just 19 strikeouts to nine walks over 31.2 innings, there just wasn't a ton to get excited about here. Even under the hood, his velocity was down and he had just a 9.0% swinging strike rate, which made the 2.56 ERA tough to buy into. But he made a mechanical tweak before his June 25 start against the Tigers that led to a 2 mph jump in average fastball velocity and he has suddenly looked a whole lot more interesting.
On Wednesday, he averaged 97.1 mph with his four-seamer and continued to sit up with the entire arsenal, generating 15 swinging strikes on 91 pitches, and he's now up to a 14.4% swinging strike rate over his past three starts with 22 strikeouts to just two walks in 17.2 innings. And it's not like the swinging strike rate is coming from out of nowhere – he had a 16% swinging strike rate in 45.2 innings last season in the majors, and was at 16% in 75.1 innings in the minors, too, though his strikeout rate was weirdly low in the majors, which is worth noting.
Still, this dude just misses bats, and that's a hugely valuable skill. As someone like Emmett Sheehan is showing, it's not everything, of course – Sheehan has the seventh-highest ERA among starters but would rank 93rd in ERA if he had enough innings to qualify. But Melton also has good control and doesn't seem to have issues with hard contact – his 3.08 xERA entering Wednesday's start wasn't quite up to his 2.05 actual ERA, but it doesn't give me much concern moving forward, either.
Melton has some regression coming his way, of course, because nobody is a sub-2.00 ERA pitcher forever. And his success does seem contingent on him sustaining the velocity he has shown over the past three starts, and that is obviously no sure thing. Any kind of small-sample size success should be taken with a grain of salt, and Melton's comes with the added risk that he has already dealt with a multi-month elbow issue. This could come apart fairly quickly.
But with the way he's pitching right now, I think Melton is more or less at the top of any list of pitchers to add in any league where he's available. I like Burke and Seymour and the rest of them plenty, but Melton's last three starts might have vaulted him to the top of the heap. If you've already added Melton, you're smart; if you're in one of the 26% of CBS Fantasy leagues or 41% of Yahoo leagues where he is still available, consider yourself lucky you still have a chance to add him.
Now, just go do it.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
IL Stash rankings. Scott White ranks the top 50 players to keep stashed on your IL heading into the second half of the season.
MLB Draft Preview. Mike Axisa highlights seven candidates who could be the No. 1 pick when the White Sox step to the podium.
Bullpen Report. Tyler Wells looks like the top option in the ninth inning for the Orioles. Who else is working their way into the ninth-inning situations? Scott White looks into it.
Top 25 trade candidates. Tarik Skubal could be on the move, and he's not the only big name who could be traded by the end of the month. Mike Axisa ranks the biggest names on the market.
Caminero for MVP? Matt Snyder looks into how Junior Caminero has played his way into the AL MVP conversation.
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from Wednesday's action:
Jared Jones, SP, Pirates (57%) – This was the kind of start we've been waiting for from Jones, who went six perfect innings against the Braves Wednesday. We'll save the incriminations about the early hook for later in the newsletter, because this is just about Jones finally showing the potential we've been waiting to see from him since his return from the Internal Brace procedure on his elbow. He struck out eight and had 14 whiffs on 77 pitches, including seven on his slider and six on his four-seamer, both of which were dominant. Now it's about Jones finding some consistency and doing something like this again, because his 4.37 ERA so far this season isn't getting the job done, especially with the early hook the Pirates have had with him. The underlying numbers are better than that, so if they start to let Jones push toward 90-plus pitches in the second half, Jones could be very useful down the stretch. I'd put him behind Melton and the rest of the pitchers mentioned in that section, but if you have a roster spot to play with, Jones has plenty of upside, if some shorter-term questions.
Jake Bennett, SP, Red Sox (62%) – Bennett just looks like a really solid pitcher. Not necessarily a great one yet, given the lack of strikeouts we're seeing from him, but he commands the ball well, has limited hard contact (81 mph average exit velocity Wednesday against the White Sox) and has a 2.64 ERA and 3.04 FIP through his first eight starts. And with a 12% swinging strike rate for the season, it's not impossible to think he could tap into a bit more strikeout upside moving forward.
Joshua Kuroda-Graurer, 3B, Athletics (7%) – There might be something here. Kuroda-Graurer didn't come to the majors with much fanfare, despite hitting .323/.367/.478 across Double-A and Triple-A this season. He probably won't hit for much power thanks to a very slappy approach at the plate that leads to plenty of hard-hit balls but not a ton in the air. But he makes a ton of contact and has kept his strikeout rate below 8% in both the minors and majors so far. He went 3 for 4 Wednesday, and while the .500 batting average is obviously a fluke, Kuroda-Graurer has now started eight games in a row since his promotion, and the A's sent Max Muncy down recently, so the playing time should continue to be there. This is deep-league stuff, but you could get a useful batting average and some steals out of him, at least.
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
Foster Griffin continues to dominate
Early on in the season, Griffin was getting away with something – his 2.21 ERA through eight starts was excellent, but his 4.29 xERA suggested it wasn't real, and 17 runs in 20.1 innings over his next four starts seemed to confirm it. And then overnight, he started just pitching a whole lot better, and Wednesday was his seventh straight start with one or fewer runs allowed, and while his underlying metrics still don't back it up, they're coming a lot closer thanks to a 23.6% K-BB% rate that would be sandwiched between Cristopher Sanchez and Joey Ryan for the best mark in baseball. How's he doing it? Well, there isn't an obvious explanation here. His average pitch velocity has jumped up about 1 mph on his four-seamer and he has continued to emphasize his cutter more, and the latter was especially devastating Tuesday, generating nine of his 22 whiffs against the Astros. But the truth is, there isn't an obvious, tangible skill change we can point to that explains why Griffin is pitching so much better. He's using a very similar kitchen-sink approach and he's just pitching extremely well right now. And maybe that will prove sustainable – it has so far! But whenever we don't have an obvious skill change to point to, I'm typically inclined to assume it won't continue. I'd like to see Griffin prove me wrong, but I remain pretty skeptical, especially when the overall ERA estimators still hover more than a run higher than his actual 2.77 mark.
Luis Garcia isn't slowing down a bit
Did you know Garcia is second in the majors in RBI? He's been absolutely scorching hot since the start of June and homered again Wednesday as part of a three-hit game, his fourth with multiple hits in his past six. Garcia's lofty ranking in RBI is even more incredible when you remember he has only started seven of the Nationals' 29 games against lefties this season – he has 57 RBI in 62 starts against righties, which is just astounding. This all sounds too good to be true and probably is, but he really is a terrific hitter against righties, capable of both hitting for power and running strikeout rates in the mid-teens. It's at the point where I'd like to see the Nationals just give him full-time run against lefties, just to see if he can do this as a full-time hitter, but I don't see any reason to expect them to do that at this point in his career – which makes it all the more annoying that they never really gave him a chance to play against lefties when they were in the deepest depths of their rebuilding phase. For now, I say enjoy what you're getting from Garcia, while still expecting him to be more of a corner infielder type in the long run.
Sal Stewart pulled out of the slump
How can you tell when a slump is just a slump, vs. when it's a sign that a player is getting figured out? Well, here's the bad news: You usually can't until the player snaps out of the slump. If they do, then it was just a slump! I know that isn't helpful, but when we're dealing with players with small sample sizes, we can't just assume every bad month is just a bad month; they haven't earned that benefit of the doubt. In Stewart's case, it is starting to look like it was just a bad month, as he slumped to a .711 OPS in June but has pulled out nicely lately. In his past 20 games, he's hitting .288 with six homers, an OPS over .900, and an average exit velocity up to 91.9 mph. The underlying numbers have dipped since his scorching hot start to the season, but he still has a .337 xwOBA over his past 100 plate appearances, which is good enough to keep Stewart very much in the top-12 at any of the positions he is eligible at – he just might not be the top-30 player he looked like back in April.
Three Down
Worrying signs for Kyle Harrison
This is starting to get a little worrisome. Harrison threw just 70 pitches in four innings Wednesday before being pulled, and after the start, he acknowledged he has been dealing with some soreness on the outside of his elbow over the past few weeks. The All-Star break has arrived at a good time for Harrison to get some extra rest, and the fact that he's been able to pitch through it suggests the Brewers aren't too concerned about his elbow right now. But "we think you can pitch through this" isn't the same thing as "you can pitch at full strength through this," and with Harrison going four innings or less in his past two starts, we can't assume the latter right now. I'm certainly not dropping Harrison with how good he's been this season – and I do mostly believe he is really this good if he's healthy. But that may not be a given right now.
Mackenzie Gore remains a headache
I think on the whole, Gore probably remains a pitcher worth rostering. Underneath his 4.72 ERA after yet another poor start Wednesday, you have a 3.58 FIP and 3.86 xERA, and with the potential for 200 strikeouts even with his struggles, that's probably a pitcher who should be rostered in most leagues. But I just really don't want him on my team anymore. I just don't think he's worth the headache. Gore is clearly talented, and when he's locked in, he looks like an ace. But starts like Wednesday's, where he was tagged for seven runs in five innings against the Angels, are too common to just write off as a bit of bad luck or underperformance. At this point in his career, I think we just have to accept that Gore will never be the pitcher we wanted him to be. He can be useful, but I'd rather him be useful on someone else's team at this point.
We're done with Spencer Arrighetti
Yeah, he just isn't good. Even when things were going well for Arrighetti in May, he had just 22 strikeouts to 17 walks in 29 innings to go along with his 0.93 ERA. It was smoke and mirrors and he's gone up in flames since, with his season-long ERA now reaching 4.50 after he was tagged for eight runs in six innings against the Nationals. He was still outperforming his xERA by nearly a full run entering this start, too, so there's even more room to drop here. I had some hope that Arrighetti might be able to live up to the promise he showed in the second half of 2024, but he's throwing nearly 2 mph lower than he did and really seems to be a curveball-or-bust pitcher these days. There is, I suppose, some theoretical upside here, but he hasn't shown it in long enough that I think Arrighetti basically doesn't need to be rostered in any leagues at this point.
Extra Innings
Some thoughts on no-hit bids
We had a couple of no-hit bids fall short today, and it's going to become fodder for baseball's never-ending culture war. Just a few days after everyone was gnashing their teeth over Eury Perez being pulled after seven innings and 92 pitches, the Pirates went even further, pulling Jared Jones from his perfect game after six innings and just 77 pitches. I'm sure we've got engagement bait, blue-check accounts on X drawing comparisons between those two starts and Dylan Cease's bid, where he got up to 118 pitches before allowing his first hit in the ninth inning. And I get it: I shook my head a bit at Perez's early hook, and Jones' definitely caught my eye, too.
But here's the truth: Dylan Cease is just a different pitcher than those guys. He's probably the model of health and consistency (at least in terms of staying on the mound; what happens when he gets there is a different story) among pitchers these days. Meanwhile, both Perez and Jones are young, have injury histories, and notably had their starts come during a point where neither was built up to go 100 pitches. Perez came back from what was thought to be an eight-week injury after just four weeks and one rehab start, because the Marlins desperately needed arms, while Jones has been strictly limited to 75 or so pitches in his return from elbow surgery.
Sure, you could argue the situation calls for changing plans, especially with the All-Star break looming as a prime spot for some extra rest. But the reality of modern baseball is that teams have their plans for their young pitchers, and they aren't going to risk deviating from that for the sake of temporary glory. How long were they supposed to let Jones go when he hasn't thrown more than 81 pitches yet this season? If he gets through the seventh without allowing a baserunner but he's up to 90 pitches, do they have to let him out there for 100-plus? What if he gets through eight perfect innings but has already thrown 25 more pitches than he has in any game since 2024?
I get the frustration. I do. I sympathize with it, even. But this is the reality of the game, and the stakes are too high for teams to risk their young arms for the potential of making history. You don't have to like it, but you should at least understand and acknowledge the very different circumstances facing Cease, Perez, and Jones.
