My home league team is dead, sad to say. I’ve made the playoffs (4 out of 10 make it) every year since 2018, an incredible run, but this year it is not happening. So the white flag is up there. In the MLB DW points league, I’m coasting to the playoffs and there’s not a whole lot that matters until those playoffs start.
So I’m in a weird spot now. The motivating factors aren’t really there. But hopefullyou you won’t notice.
I paid almsot no attention to baseball SAturday and Sunday, so we have some catching up to do. Let’s first look for the most interesting SP performances.
Max Scherzer: 7 IP, 3 H, 11 SO, 0 BB
This happened yesterday agaisnt the Tigers. Retro Max. Fastball velo was up to 94.1 and he went for a sweet 24% SwStr% on the slider.
His numbers since returning from the IL:
The fastball is not anything like what it used to be. He’s at a 9.3% SwStr% on it (not awful, but not great) and it’s been easy to get into the air as you can see that 42% FB%. He’s going to give up some homers.
But he has a foursome of pitches behind it, and they all are getting whiffs and working pretty well. Max is still capable, but I wouldn’t be counting on him to give you a great start every time out, the longballs are going to catch up with him, I think.
Trevor Rogers: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 5 SO, 1 B
This was against the Rockies, so salt it up, but still. Seven one-hit innings is an impressive feat.
He’s now at a 22% K% with a 7% BB%, but he’s been fantastic at limiting hard contact with a ridiculous .295 xwOBA and .202 SLG allowed. The JA ERA sits at 3.53, which isn’t that good.
This is one of those cases where you have to be very skeptical of the success. I say this all the time, but xwOBA allowed is not something the pitcher has anywhere near full control over. So any time you see a really low or really high xwOBA allowed, you should expect some regression toward the mean.
Kevin Gausman: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 10 SO, 1 BB
This was Gausman’s best work of the season. But it’s just another spike on a very bumpy road for Gausman. This is what we said Gausman’s season would look like right from the beginning:
And if you think he’s primed and ready for an elite final two months because of this sick two-start sample, you’ve set yourself up for massive disappointment. But probably he should be started in all fantasy leagues. The good with the bad measures out to probably an overall positive. He’s at a 3.83 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP this year.
Maybe the bigger story here is how good of a matchup the Tigers are currently.
They have a team .212/.289/.355 slash line in July. Only Torkelson has an OPS above .800 in this span and they have a team 26% K%. It’s bad right now.
I added a new tab to the MLB & MiLB Stats Dashboard to quickly show some team stats:
That’s pretty ugly, but I’ll keep adding onto it.
J.T. Ginn: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 4 SO, 0 BB
Ginn is a guy we have been keeping an eye on, and he did nice work yesterday against the Astros.
He has a shockingly low 2.60 JA ERA in his 26 innings in June-July. It’s a 25.3% K% with a 3.0% BB% and a 53% GB%. So he’s doing all three things we like the most. But it’s only 380 pitches worth of a sample and the 11.1% SwStr% is pretty bad especially since it comes with a 38.7% Ball%. He should not have anywhere near this good of a K% or BB%.
He’s throwing that sinker 54% of the time, which you never love to see since we like strikeouts in the fantasy game. It’s good to keep the ball on the ground in Sacramento, but yeah 54% usage of a 6.8% SwStr% pitch is not going to turn into a K% over 20% very often.
But Ginn is a little better than people think, and he is somewhat useful as a streamer.
Noah Cameron: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 6 SO, 1 BB
This was against the soft Cleveland lineup, but Cameron is on a roll. He now has a 28:4 K:BB in his last four starts with a 2.19 ERA and a 0.97 WHIP.
The K% has spiked up to 28% over these last 114 batters faced and so has the SwStr% to 14.6%.
He has been mixing very, very well over this hot run.
It’s rare to see five pitches over 15%, and that’s key for a guy like Cameron who doesn’t have much of a fastball. The fatsball has been bad. I mean a 41% Strike% on a four-seamer is awful. But the way to get around that is by having a bunch of good pitches behind it, and keeping that pitch in the yard when it does get put into play. And he’s done all of that.
I like Cameron. I think we could see him turn into a poor man’s Max Fried. Maybe a Justin Steele type. Seth Lugo. Something like that where he doesn’t blow guys away and the K% is more often around 23-25%, but he delivers really solid ERA marks through deception and hard contact suppression.
The WHIP is a bit more in question with his higher 37% Ball%. He has thrown strikes when he’s needed to so far with a 6.9% BB%, but clearly he does not have elite command at this point.
But yeah, I think I’ll be pretty interested in him next year.
Jack Leiter: 6 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 7 SO, 3 BB
This was against a struggling Braves lineup. But Leiter has found a bit of consistency here. He has at least five strikeouts in five consecutive starts and he hasn’t given up more than three earned runs in a start since June 17th.
The command is still not there with an 11.4% BB% on the year and a 14% mark in July. But he’s been better in the other regards, so maybe he’s learning some valuable lessons this year and will be someone who can stick in that rotation in the future.
I wouldn’t want to put too many chips on him right now, but there are good signs here. He is not out there getting jacked up every third start.
Shota Imanaga: 3 IP, 12 H, 7 ER, 2 SO, 0 BB, 3 HR
We knew Imanaga was due for some regression, but this got ridiculous. It’s like he was just trying to get it all out of the way in one start. And this came against the White Sox.
Before this start:
→ .196 BABIP → 12% HR/FB → 7.7% RISP H%
After this start:
→ .222 BABIP → 14% HR/FB → 10.9% RISP H%
That’s pretty incredible stuff. This game helped the White Sox offensive numbers significantly, and they’ve been an above-average offense for the last few weeks.
They’re hitting .246/.315/.421 in July, their best month by far. They’ve hit 27 homers this month, that’s five more than any other month, and this is the month with the all star break, and it’s not even over yet.
White Sox SLG Leaders in July
For how bad of shape that organization has been in, theyu do have some young offensive talent to build on. Maybe they should just join forces with the Pirates.
I’d like to see that. Let’s just cut the league down to 24 teams and take the bottom six teams and smush them all together.
We can do three divisions of eight teams. I told Grok to do this for me and here’s what it came up with:
East
Red Sox
Yankees
Mets
Phillies
Blue Jays
Rays + Marlins
Nationals + Orioles
Braves
Central
Guardians
Reds
Tigers
Cubs
Brewers
Cardinals
White Sox + Pirates
Twins + Royals
West
Giants
Padres
Dodgers
Mariners
Rangers
Astros
Athletics + Angels
Rockies + D’Backs
Not bad! It’s also a bit harsh to add the Rockies to the D’Backs, but we could more or less just make that a deletion of the Rockies. Arizona can keep the stadium and the team name and the branding and stuff, there’s no need for Colorado to have any influence there.
The White Sox can move into Pittsburgh. Chicago already has a team and the Pirates have the history thing going for it. Also, my friends would be disappointed for the Pirates to leave town.
The homeless Athletics can move to Los Angeles, we don’t need more attention paid to Las Vegas right now.
Twins and Royals, I don’t know, it’s harsh I guess. Both organizations have done a pretty good job in recent years. The Royals even won a random world series 12 years ago or whatever that was. I like Kansas more than Minnesota, so we’ll just ship Buxton and some of those pitchers to KC and call it a day.
Honestly, this is a fantastic idea I have just had.
Your biggest weekends on the hitting side (Friday through Sunday), ordered by fantasy points scored.
Nick Kurtz 86
Michael Harris II 70
Tyler O’Neill 66
Shea Langeliers 59
Maikel Garcia 57
Kyle Schwarber 53
CJ Abrams 51
Bo Bichette 46
Trea Turner 45
Julio Rodritguez 45
George Springer 43
Vlad Guerrero Jr. 42
Kyle Stowers 42
TJ Friedl 41
Manny Machado 40
Andrew Benintendi 40
Oneil Cruz 39
Matt Shaw 39
Jarren Duran 39
Teoscar Hernandez 38
Is it finally time that Michael Harris gets going?
He has a big time .365 wOBA and a .371 xwOBA in July. The K% is down to 18% this month, and the GB% has dropped ten points to 42%. He has been hitting the ball hard all year, it’s just that he’s been striking out a bunch and hitting everything into the grounds.
Good to see some signs of life from him. This has been a really, really rough season and I would expect things to go better for him this year and into the future. Remember this kid is only 24.
Matt Shaw is also looking better lately. He has a .358 xwOBA in July with four homers now on a sick 6.7% K%. This is only in 60 PAs, so it could be randomness. But it’s good to see him making some adjusments.
This power doesn’t really seem to be there against big league pitching. Even in this good sample, he still has a really low 102 EV90. But he’s lifted the ball more this month (43% GB%) and has posted an 11.8% Brl%, which goes really nicely with his crazy low K%.
I’d say he’s unlikely to be a huge difference-maker for fantasy leagues this year, but he’s a good add if you need some upside and a guy who can steal some bags. And he’s a true 2026 breakout candidate after getting this super valuable year of experience under his belt.
