Rich Hill survived, man. Five innings, one earned runs on six hits, and he even got a strikeout. He had 8 whiffs (8.9% SwStr%) and a 38.9% Ball%. There have been many worse SP outings this year, so let’s just say one more shout out to Rich Hill. The one angle of this for fantasy baseball stuff is that the Cubs ran wild on him last night. They stole seven bags, the second-most in a single game all year for any MLB team.
I tweeted last night about Hill being afraid to throw first base. But that was an error. It was actually Jon Lester that couldn’t throw the ball to first base. But it’s okay because it looks like Hill is pretty darn easy to steal off of. The slow delivery, the low velo, the curveball heavy usage. You can probably stream some base-stealers against him in the future.
From one end of the age spectrum to the other, Chase Burns and Jacob Mis were both on the hill yesterday.
Fantastic line there wow. A Ball% under 30%… if that guy can do stuff like that he might end up being the best pitcher in the league.
For Burns:
5.2 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 10 SO, 2 BB, 17.3% SwStr%, 32.7% Ball%
Pretty nice line there as well besides the part that actually matters in the box score. lol! He gave up an untimely homer, his fourth of the year. He has a 33% TB% through his first 398 pitches, and he’s allowed a .438 SLG and a .333 xwOBA against. It’s not surprising to me. He is 90% four-seamers and sliders, and he’s pitching in Cincinnati. He’s going to give up homers.
But he’s also going to have some excellent outings with the stuff he throws. He has been pretty unlucky so far
In fact, he leads the league in bad luck over the last 30 days (starters only):
There are better starts ahead for Burns. And I think there are probably worse starts ahead for Misiorowski, but with both guys you really wonder about the pitch counts and workloads and all of that business.
Joey Cantillo is who we thought he is! From the slate preview yesterday:
And what did he do? He went out there and struck out 26% of the batters he faced, giving up just two hits and one run. But he also walked four and it took him 95 pitches to get through five innings. So it was almost a perfect prediction on my end, shout out to me. But if you’re in fantasy leagues begging for quality starts and consistently solid WHIP, Cantillo is not the guy for you. Here’s an update on the numbers since June:
Jacob deGrom is still healthy. And he’s even decided to increase the velo and keep it there, at least compared to where he started.
He did some of his best work last night with a 9:1 K:BB in six innings while giving up just one run on three hits. His season:
His trend data:
Pitch counts and another look at the velo:
The Pitcher Profile tab on the main dashboard is just so good.
The deGrom and Buxton seasons have reminded us that not all injury prone players are injury prone all the time. This season hasn’t quite hammered that lesson home as we’ve seen a lot of pitchers get hurt who a lot of predicted would get hurt. But this should remind us that there’s a smarter way to approach injuries.
Both of these guys came into the season being a long time removed from injuries. deGrom was making a conscious change to try to avoid re-injury, and he was in that envisioned “sweet spot” coming back from elbow injury. He’s also deGrom, which makes him more likely to do incredible things than other people.
Things go both ways, and it’s not advisable to just draft a ton of high-talent high-injury guys. That seems to hurt you more often than it helps. But I’ll try to take these lessons learned into the offseason so we can do a better job making draft decisions on injury-prone players next year.
But if you ended up taking the risks on deGrom and Buxton, you’re probably sitting pretty nicely in the standings right now.
Cristopher Sanchez threw a complete game with a dozen strikeouts against the Red Sox. That was one of the most impressive starts of the season. He has his ERA down to 2.32 with a 1.08 WHIP. He’s won more games (9) than homers allowed (8).
That’s a pretty cool stat. Sanchez is great, but he’s no Adrian Houser.
More wins than HR allowed, 2025 SPs
He’s now #3 in the NL Cy Young race.
Wheeler -110
Skenes -110
Sanchez +1200
Casey Mize gave up 10 hits and four earned runs to the Pirates in four innings. What a doofus!
His season K-BB% is now at 15.3% with a 3.55 JA ERA. The SwSTr% (11.9%) has never been convincing. But he’s been consistently fine this year, at least before last night.
I imagine he has a mix of good and bad starts the rest of the way out. He’s not having the breakout year many predicted in the spring, but at least he’s found his way to be a good SP4 (or so) option for the Tigers.
Drew Rasmussen threw 75 pitches. The Rays had said he’s getting back to his five-inning role. But he was inefficient yesterday and those 75 pitches got him through only four innings. I would not be surprised if he does not record another quality start the rest of the season. It seems to me that they’ll stop him after five innings regardless of the pitch count. So if that matters in your leauge, he’s a drop. But he does sport a 1.03 WHIP on the year. Getting five innings of a WHIP near one does have a positive affect on a fantasy team, so there are plenty of leagues where you’re happy to use the guy.
Cam Schlittler predictably had a poor strikeout game. We took the unde 3.5 agianst the Blue Jays and their league-best (by far) K%. Schlittler did throw 90 pitches, so he wasn’t restricted like I suspected. It wasn’t a disastrous outing by any means:
5 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 3 SO, 3 BB, 10% SwStr%, 30% Ball%
I like that Ball%. The guy throws hard and has a good slider, so if he’s throwing a bunch of strikes I really like his chances. This was a tough spot.
JT Ginn threw 58 pitches in his return to the Athletics rotation. We are hoping that Jack Perkins gets a shot in there. But both of these guys could have jobs for the rest of the year if the Athletics are actually able to find a trade partner for Sears, Severino, or Springs. You’d have to think they’d find someone to give them a prospect for at least one of those guys. So we might be talking a lot about Ginn and Perkins in August.
Ginn’s season:
The good
27% K%
5.7% BB%
21.4% K-BB%
51% GB%
The bad:
9.9% SwStr%
43% Ball%
40% Ball%
So it’s an interesting case where the outputs have been good while the inputs have been bad. And that should probably have us steering clear of him in most leagues. But I like the ground ball rate and clearly he’s been a bit unlucky this year with that 40% HR/FB and an elevated 11.4% Brl% (which makes even less sense with the good GB%). He’s a sinker guy. That’s good at home where the goal is just to keep the ball in the yard, but it will push his strikeout rate downward in a hurry. But he’s not as bad as many people may think.
As for Perkins, they’re treating him pretty carefully. He was called up around June 20th and he’s been used just five times since then, throwing 186 total pitches. That wouldn’t bode well for him throwing 90+ pitches as a starter, and it certainly can’t happen any time super soon. But he’s been effective in that short sample with a 28.6% K%, an 8.2% BB%, and a .268 xwOBA allowed.
Carlos Correa had a big game, and he’s someone who has been poppping up a lot in the tools and reports. He’s the #5 hottest hitter in that player trends page right now.
Hottest Hitters
Nick Kurtz
Salvador Perez
Tommy Pham
Willy Adames
Carlos Correa
That algorith compares each player’s recent performance with their performance beforehand. So it does somewhat reward hitters for just being really, really terrible early on this year. That’s the case with all of those guys. But Correa is at a +.109 xwOBA OE over the last two weeks, a fantastic number.
Since June 15th, Correa is hitting .308/.385/.423, a great slash line. But he has just two homers in 117 PAs and no steals. So he’s still nothing great, but he’s getting a bunch of hits and a good amount of counting stats in the middle of that Twins lineup. Do you remember how he finished off last year? From June 1, 2024 to the end of that season:
.352/.429/.574, 14% K%, 11% BB%, 10 HR
He is capable of putting up some big numbers, and I think he’s a sneaky shortstop add right now where available.
Some other sneaky OPS leaders since June 15th:
George Springer .977
Yandy Diaz .962
Ceddanne Rafaela .962
Willy Adames .953
Jose Altuve .942
Caleb Durbin .910
Josh Bell .905
Victor Caratiani .897
Alec Burleson .886
Taylor Ward .883
Isaac Collins .875
Should we talk about Collins? He’s a rookie having a nice season for Milwaukee. He has eight homers and 18 steals in 309 PAs with an .816 OPS overall. The K% (21%) and BB% (13.6%) make for a nice combination and that has turned into a huge .375 OBP. The guy has been great.
There’s some good luck there as you can see the red line wayyyy above the green one through June, let’s zoom in on that.
He has a .331 BABIP for the season and it was .350 in June. His xBA (.241) is well below his actual (.264), but it does seem like he’s a reliable guy for OBP and steals. So there you go.
Luis Robert has resurrected his season a bit. Maybe he sniffed the trade deadline or something. Since June 20th:
.275/.373/.529, 4 HR, 3 SB, 19% K%, 14% BB%
He is at a +.08 xwOBA OE over this time, which is what caught my attention in the first place. His Zone-Contact% is up to 81% in this time and the xBA (.262) and xwOBA (.383) both look good as well.
He has been stealing a ton of bags all year, so if there’s any hope for his power and batting average to come around, he’s a must-own guy. But this is quite likely just a hot streak that will crash and burn like it always has in his career. But hey who knows, I think he’s worth an add just because you can grab some steals while you see if it’s legit or not.
