MLB Daily Notes - April 20
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis
The Daily Notes are the flagship resource of MLB Data Warehouse. Every morning, Jon breaks down the current goings on in the fantasy baseball world, and an automated daily report gets you up to date on key stats and trends. Become a paid subscriber at MLB Data Warehouse to get this unlocked in your inbox every morning!
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I have some good news for you Cole Ragans owners. The fact that you’re reading these Daily Notes right now tells me that you’re probably not currently undergoing some massive life crisis. You’re probably doing relatively well to be able to spend a little bit of time on a fantasy sport this morning. I hope that makes you feel better.
Let’s examine some of these claims!
Cole Ragans (4.1 IP 4H 7ER 7R 6K 8BB)
EIGHT walks in a single start! That was just the fifth time a Major League pitching has walked eight going back to 2021.
Ragans now has 18 walks in 21 innings. He gave up three homers yesterday as well. How that turned into only seven earned runs, I have no idea. That’s a bit of a miracle in itself. You should be thankful that wasn’t like a 14 ER explosion.
Is there any good news? Not really! He sports an 11.1% SwStr%, a 45% Strike%, and a 42% Ball% this year. Those are all very bad numbers, and nothing like what we’re used to from Ragans.
He’s also one of the biggest losers in Stuff+ this year. He’s dropped 3.2 points from a season ago, which is substantial.
This stuff is still developing. We’re a handful of starts in for each guy at most. Any slight injury or tweak or any kind of wrench in the works of the normal season build-up could explain a lot of the poor early-season performance.
Garrett Crochet (5.0IP 7H 5ER 5R 8K 2BB)
Crochet gave up 64 total earned runs in 223 innings from 2025 up through April 7th of this year. His ERA stood at 2.59. He’s given up 15 earned runs in his last 6.2 innings, raising his 2025-2026 ERA to 3.10.
We saw him above as well. His Stuff+ is down from 103.4 last year to 100.7 this year.
2025:
2026:
The four-seam velo is mostly still there. It’s 0.5mph down from last year, but that’s not a bright red flag. It’s the breaking balls that have been the problem. The cutter and sweeper just haven’t been as effective.
But I don’t see any reason to think Crochet is pitching hurt. That might be the case with Ragans. We’ll see. But I’d be doubling down on the attempt to buy low on Crochet. With Ragans, I’m not sure I’d do that just because of the injury history.
That said, there’s no way I’d be benching Ragans. And I’d certainly pick him up immediately in any league if he were available. I don’t expect anybody to be dropping Ragans, but just to make it clear, I think the most likely outcome is that he figures this out soon and is mostly very good for the rest of the year. That would assume health, though.
Trevor Rogers (5.0IP 6H 5ER 6R 5K 2BB)
Rogers is up to a 4.08 ERA with a 1.33 WHIP on the year after aloowing nine earned runs in hits last two outings. His K-BB% sits at 13.9%, which is not good, and he’s finally giving up some homers now with three allowed (to the D’Backs and Guardians) in these last two.
He does have a 17:3 K:BB over the last three starts, which is very good. Funny enough, his seven scoreless innings on Opening Day was by far his worst K:BB outing of the year.
You also have a pretty clean 13.1% SwStr% and a 34% Ball%. He was due for plenty of luck regression this year after allowing a crazy low HR/9 and BABIP last year.
Both of those things are back to a league average look at a .318 BABIP and a 16% HR/FB.
All of his pitches look fine. I would say this is a pretty decent buy-low opportunity. I’m not saying he has stud upside, but he’s pitched better than you’d think from looking at the basic stats.
Edwin Diaz
Something seems off with Diaz. They didn’t use him at all between April 11th and April 18th, and then he came in yesterday and gave up three earned runs on three hits and a walk before exiting. His four-seamer has averaged 95.7 this year, while it was at 97.2 last year.
It’s surpring the Dodgers even tried it yesterday. You’d have thought they’d have been fine with parking him on the IL and figuring it out while they plan for October.
Shane McClanahan (4.1IP 8H 4ER 4R 5K 0BB)
This was against the offensive juggernaut that is the 2026 Pittsburgh Pirates! AH HAH!
It continues to look very poor for McClanahan. An 8.8% K-BB%, a 44% GB%, a 4.25 JA SIERA. And that’s with a lucky 7% HR/FB and .245 BABIP.
He did have the best fastball of his young season yesterday:
So that’s something to build on and probably a reason not to cut the guy loose in deeper league just yet. That heater went for a marvelous 12.8% SwStr% and 57% Strike% yesterday. Very good news there.
He gets matchups with the Twins and Giants for his next two. I might even be looking to acquire McClanahan right now, he has to be pretty cheap. It’s an easy case to make that he’s just done for after the injuries, surgeries, and all of that missed time.
Who else we got here??
Here is my live list of verdicts renders:
Edwin Diaz: Does suck, but probably just hurt
Garrett Crochet: Will be just fine
Cole Ragans: Probably hurt
Trevor Rogers: Does not suck, but more of an SP4 for fantasy
Shane Baz: Absolutely sucks he should try a different hair cut
Kyle Bradish: Slider Stuff+ is down, fastballs have always been terrible. Yeah, he might suck.
Jesus Luzardo: Does not suck (6th best K-BB% in baseball)
Jeff Hoffman: 42% K% though! Just crazy easy to homer off of sometimes, which is weird because he throws a splitter 35% of the time. I guess once hitters can sit on his fastball it’s freaking launch ass city (.413 xwOBA, 1.000 SLG on his heater this year). But a 1.36 JA SIERA, bro. He’ll be fine.
Andres Munoz: 37% K%, six out of eight clean outings, he’s fine.
Logan Webb: He has simultaneously given back the extra strikeouts from last year while posting a career-high walk rate so far. He might not get back to a 25% K%+ like 2025, but it’s silly to think he’s just suddenly a guy with a league average walk rate.
So that’s what I think about the suck list. Thanks to Matty Wood for the assist.
Lots more to say, but we’re hitting the paywall first!