Shane Bieber made his return from the IL Tuesday, and unlike Brandon Woodruff the night before, he did not give us much reason to be optimistic.
Bieber was understandably rusty Tuesday in his first competitive start since last year's playoffs. So, from that perspective, you can justify giving him the benefit of the doubt for his performance, which saw him tagged for four runs over 3.2 innings of work.
On the other hand, Bieber made it through just under 60 innings last season in his comeback from Tommy John surgery before dealing with forearm fatigue after his final postseason start last October that kept him off a mound until April. And even when he got back on a mound, his progress was incredibly slow, none of which would seem to bode well for his ability to make an impact this season.
And that's before you even get to how he actually looked Tuesday, which was, charitably, pretty bad. His velocity was down 0.7 mph on his four-seamer and generally a bit more across the rest of the arsenal, and he ended up with just six whiffs. And he was hit hard, giving up three consecutive homers and an average exit velocity of 94 mph on 17 balls in play.
The question here is whether this was just rust or if Bieber is permanently diminished. We can't answer that, but given how tough a go he's had of things since his surgery, I'm kind of inclined to think this is more than just one bad start. Bieber had a lot to prove to me at this point, and he just didn't do it. Maybe next time will be better, but at the very least, I can't say he needs to be more rostered than he is today.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
Buy-low Pitchers! Scott White highlights six pitchers who still have plenty of room to live up to their potential. It's time to make some trade offers.
Brandon Woodruff's debut, Gerrit Cole's struggles. In case you missed yesterday's newsletter, here's what I had to say about Brandon Woodruff's return from the IL and everything else from Monday's action.
Week 14 Trade Values! My rankings have been updated for both H2H points and Roto leagues for Week 14. Go check out the latest changes and get some guidelines for a deal as we near the halfway point of the season.
Braves sinking? Dayn Perry looks at why the Braves' latest slump may not be just a bump in the road.
Rumor roundup. The Red Sox are primed to be sellers at the deadline, and Sonny Gray could be the key to getting the selloff started.
Snyder's Soapbox. Getting rid of the Home Run Derby clock was a mistake. Here's why.
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from Tuesday's action:
Sean Burke, SP, White Sox (46%) – Burke has found another gear in his past two starts. His velocity wasn't up quite as much this time, but he still sat 0.9 mph up with his four-seamer, and a bit less across the rest of his arsenal en route to 14 swinging strikes on 90 pitches and six strikeouts in 6.1 innings of one-run ball. It's still a fairly limited sample of Burke looking like much more than an average pitcher, but the past two starts have been impressive enough – 14 strikeouts to two walks in 13.2 innings – to be worth adding Burke in at least 12-team leagues.
Brandon Sproat, SP, Brewers (17%) – Now that's the kind of pitcher the Brewers thought they were getting when they shipped out Freddy Peralta. Sproat entered Tuesday's game with a 5.94 ERA, but was absolutely brilliant against the Reds, striking out 10 over six shutout innings with one hit and no walks allowed. He didn't really change his approach much in this one, and his velocity was basically where it always is, but he just executed at an unusually high level, generating whiffs with all six of his pitches to end up with 18 overall. It was an impressive showing, the kind Sproat has only hinted at being capable of before. That's not enough to make him anywhere close to a must-roster pitcher, but if you want to add him and see if he can do it again when he faces the Reds at home next week, that seems reasonable enough.
Bryson Stott, 2B, Phillies (58%) – Stott is a pretty known quantity at this point, and there hasn't been much to get excited about in recent years. But he's been very good lately, hitting .304/.385/.464 with five steals in the month of June after showing some unexpected power in May, so if you want to add him as a hot-hand play for your middle infield spot, I don't mind it, even if he's likely to end up pretty boring in the long run.
Mitch Bratt, SP, Diamondbacks (3%) – It sounds like Bratt has a chance to be recalled to start for the Diamondbacks Wednesday, and he's a name to know, if not one to run out and add across the board immediately. Dan Szymborski at FanGraphs recently tabbed him as an interesting potential call-up, noting that the ZiPS projection system gives him a 3.90 ERA. We're typically hoping for more than that from prospect callups on the wire, and Bratt does have a 2.84 ERA down at Triple-A, albeit while averaging just over four innings per start. Bratt's is more of a command-over-stuff profile thanks to a low-90s fastball combo, so he's more someone to target in a 15-teamer for now. But he's limiting hard contact and walks right now and has shown some bat-missing potential in the past, so maybe he can surprise us.
Ryan Johnson, SP, Angels (2%) – Johnson struck out eight over six shutout innings against the Braves Tuesday, and at the risk of underestimating Johnson, I'm having trouble getting excited about it. Johnson has some pedigree and was productive in the minors, but he had been absolutely overmatched in the majors before this one, so I need more than one good start before I'm looking to add him outside AL-only leagues. But sure, we can keep an eye on his next start.
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
Jac Caglianone just won't slow down
Two more homers Tuesday give Caglianone nine in the month of June; he had 12 in the first 115 games of his career prior to this month. On the whole, it sure looks like Caglianone has fully leveled up after a frustrating rookie season, as he entered play Tuesday ranked 11th in the majors in average exit velocity and 24th in expected wOBA – the latter despite still striking out nearly 30% of the time. He has cut that strikeout rate down to 26% in the month of June and has bumped that xwOBA up to .481, a legitimately elite number. I don't think that's sustainable, as he's still holding his own against lefties more than actually hitting well against them. But the step forward we're seeing is no fluke, and his overall production – a 30-homer pace and .277/.349/.498 line – sure looks real. This might just be a top-15 outfielder in Fantasy moving forward.
Parker Messick is so back
Just when it looked like Messick was starting to run out of steam, he put together arguably the best two-start stretch of his career. Coming off nine strikeouts in his previous outing, he bested himself, striking out a career-high 10 batters in 7.2 innings of work Tuesday against the White Sox, and he did it while sustaining the velocity jump he had in the previous outing. That's notable because Messick was pitching on seven days of rest in that start, but he was back on an every-fifth-day cadence this time around and still dominated, generating 17 swinging strikes, 14 on that fastball/changeup combo. At the roughly halfway point of his season, Messick is down to a 2.67 ERA and 1.05 WHIP with 101 strikeouts and a near-190-inning pace, and it might be asking a bit much for him to keep this up. But he's topped 130 innings in each of the previous two seasons, so I don't think we're going to see the Guardians pull back on his workload too much, and every ERA estimator pretty much agrees he deserves something around a 3.20 ERA, so I certainly don't see much reason to slap the "sell-high" tag on him.
So, how high is too high to rank Dillon Dingler?
Dingler went 3 for 4 with a double Tuesday, his fourth multi-hit game in his past five to push his average to .385 so far in June. That is a nice bounceback from an underwhelming May, and it pushes his season-long line to .272/.339/.545. That comes out to a .379 wOBA, which is starting to catch up to his .393 expected wOBA, a top-10 mark in baseball, sandwiched right between Bobby Witt and Nick Kurtz. Dingler probably isn't quite that good, and he has now underperformed his expected stats in consecutive seasons, a sign that maybe his home park is holding him back from living up to his potential. But even if you take that as a given, his surface-level metrics make him arguably the best-hitting catcher in baseball. He's one homer behind Shea Langeliers and three behind Hunter Goodman, but looks like he might be a better bet for batting average than either, and his run production numbers are as good or better, too. Ben Rice is the class of the position these days, but I think Dingler has done enough to at least play his way into the conversation with the next tier of the position, including Langeliers, Goodman, William Contreras, Ivan Herrera, Drake Baldwin, and Cal Raleigh (yes, I still think Raleigh belongs there). That's a big deal for a guy who was kind of an afterthought coming into the season.
Three Down
Jesus Luzardo had the most "Jesus Luzardo" start of all time
13 strikeouts! Five earned runs! The Jesus Luzardo experience. You can't bench him as a result of these starts, because you're a lot more likely to miss out on a dominant performance than one of those truly abysmal lines that make you regret ever trusting him … but you're a lot more likely to get one of those lines from Luzardo than just about any other comparable pitcher. I do think we just have to accept that this is who Luzardo is. The ERA estimators will make you think there's elite upside here, and there is … up until he inevitably wrecks it. The ERA estimators just aren't designed to account for the level of inherent volatility Luzardo brings to the mound with him. You'll get phenomenal strikeout numbers, and he'll usually be excellent … but that ERA's probably gonna stay with a four at the beginning of it.
Shane McClanahan is going through it
The Fantasy-relevant line isn't so bad: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K. But this wasn't a good start for McClanahan, who allowed three homers and had four unearned runs on his ledger as well. Sure, the defense didn't help out much, leading to those four unearned runs, but it's hard to look at just seven swinging strikes and eight batted balls with an expected batting average of at least .500 and think this was all about bad defense. McClanahan isn't bad, but he's definitely hit a rough patch so far in June, and his 3.91 xERA suggests there's still some room for regression. Given that and the Rays' pretty strict workload limitations for McClanahan, who has finished six innings just twice all season, I still think you should be looking to take advantage of a solid ERA and name value to shop McClanahan. He's more like a rotation filler in my eyes.
Christian Walker has cooled down considerably
Between a solid run to close out last season and a strong start to 2026, I was pretty much ready to give Walker the benefit of the doubt that his poor 2025 was just a fluke. And why not? His .392 wOBA in April was backed up by an excellent .361 mark, and while he wasn't quite as good in May, he still had nine homers. But it may have been a dead-cat bounce situation, as Walker has completely collapsed lately. He went 0 for 6 with three strikeouts Tuesday against the Blue Jays, and his expected wOBA in his past 100 plate appearances is down to .252, a borderline unplayable mark. As his hot start showed, these underlying metrics aren't necessarily predictive, and Walker could very well get hot again and put these concerns to rest. But you probably need to get him out of your lineup until he does.
Extra Innings
Eduardo Rodriguez just keeps getting away with it
There really isn't much Rodriguez is doing well right now. He struck out 20% of opposing batters and walked 12% Tuesday, mediocre numbers more or less in line with what he's done all season long. He did generate weak contact in this one (87.5 mph average exit velocity), but that hasn't really been the case before this one – his .380 expected wOBA on contact for the season ranks 90th among 150 pitchers who have thrown at least 750 pitches on the season. And after Tuesday's 6.2 shutout innings, he's down to 2.27 ERA. The underlying numbers don't back it up, obviously – his 4.93 expected ERA is the 10th-worst among qualifiers, while his FIP is better, but still only good for 47th out of 67 starters. And then there's the consecutive seasons with a 5.00-plus ERA entering this one. I guess you can just keep starting Rodriguez until the wheels fall off because I don't suspect you can get much for him in trades, but I think you're a lot more likely to be dropping him by the All-Star break than starting him.
