MLB Daily Notes - June 25
A daily automated report of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, along with other recent trends and further analysis
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TODAYS STREAMER PICKS
Matthew Boyd vs. NYM
Tatsuya Imai vs. DET
Bubba Chandler vs. SEA
Troy Melton vs. HOU
We had another STARTS & SITS come out right on time. Hunter delivered another one. And I have to say, I was surprised at how much I agreed with all of his picks. It’s hard to trust someone else with the keys to the operation here, but I think Hunter is very good at this. It’s a fantastic article to check out Wednesdays & Sundays to get ahead of your SP planning on your fantasy teams. Check it out here:
Starts & Sits June 25-28
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STUDS
deGrom: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 8 K, 2 BB, 24 whiffs
Ohtani: 6 IP,5 H, 2 ER, 8 K, 2 BB, 20 whiffs
Ashcraft: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 10 K, 0 BB, 15 whiffs
Ryan: 6 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 9 K, 1 BB, 17 whiffs
The business with Ohtani and Rushing was funny. Ohtani challenged a pitch and Rushing was mad about it, and then Ohtani was right.
And then Rushing got a stern talking to in the dugout from the manager. It must be crazy to play with Ohtani and not be like Freeman, Betts, Yamamoto, etc. I mean, you’re Dalton Rushing - you’re in the Major Freaking Leagues. What an accomplishment. You’ve reached the pinnacle. But compared to Ohtani, you’re dirt. You probably can’t even talk to the guy unless he talks to you first.
But what’s up with TARIK SKUBAL? It’s been a roller coaster for your MORONS who drafted him in the first round. It looked like he was out for several months, and then he goes full Lazarus and comes back in two weeks. But then he puts nine earned runs on the ledger in his three starts.
So let’s see what’s up! Here are the numbers from his last three starts:
It would appear that there’s nothing to worry about here. A little 45% HR/FB has hurt him badly. The 16.6% SwStr% is elite, the 28% K-BB% is elite, and he’s throwing more strikes than ever with a 28.6% Ball%. Maybe a few too many since he’s given up six homers. You’d be taking him in the top three at SP if drafting today for the rest of the season.
Braxton Ashcraft is the man. He’s been better than Skenes.
3.07 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 22% K-BB%. And he’s so efficient. He’s throwing just 3.6 pitches per batter, Skenes is up there at 4.16. I love that guy.
Griffin Jax - 5.0IP 5H 0ER 2R 7K 2BB
Another good one! And look - 88 PITCHES!
13 whiffs, a 7:2 K:BB, no homers. He’s been awesome for the Rays. The only thing holding him back from fantasy league relevance was the pitch counts, and that got fixed last night. We’ll see where they go from here, but there are a lot of games left to be played… they’ll probably have to let him get into the 6th inning more often than not.
Shota Imanaga - 5.33IP 4H 4ER 4R 4K 1BB
The home run, man. He gave up three of them. This is the Imanaga line. As many runs as hits. He has a 6.2% BB% and a 1.05 WHIP. You don’t typically pile up base runners against him. But his 1.96 HR/9 is seventh-worst in baseball, and that has the ERA jacked up to 4.50.
There are five pitchers above a 34% FB% this year. It’s Taillon, Nelson, Ray, Civale, and Imanaga.
That can kinda work for Robbie Ray when he’s in San Francisco, but Civale and Springs being up there on the chart is just a really stupid thing to see.
I know it’s not easy to just build your roster however you want. It’s not easy to find big league caliber pitchers, but having Civale and Springs while playing these games in Sacramento is questionable nonetheless.
The A’s and Reds should be piling up on the ground ball pitchers. But again, easier said than done I guess.
Eury Perez returned very quickly from his injury. That was another one that looked like a long-term absence but turned out to just be a few weeks. He threw 68 pitches in his return and allowed just one run on three hits, but only four whiffs and a quick hook.
Fastball velo was fine at 98, but it only got one whiff. We’ll see where he goes from here. You definitely have to own him and start him because the stuff is so, so good. So far this year, he’s given up a crazy high 14.9% Brl% that will come down. And the 20% HR/FB will come down with it. So if he can stop walkin so many guys, he’ll pitch like a stud.
Bryan Woo got roughed up by the Pirates
4.0IP 6H 5ER 5R 4K 2BB
But he didn’t give up a home run. That’s usually his problem. He did get hit decently hard (.349 xwOBA), but a .429 BABIP and a play that should have been made by Arozarena in left did him no favors. I’d be still trying to buy low on Woo. You can use his 4.26 ERA and the piggy back situation as your sales pitch.
But I guess you don’t really want to make the sales pitch. That’s not the right way to approach it. Because they know you’re after something. You can’t open up a trade offer with “Hey this guy on your team SUCKS so I’ll just take him from you”, that doesn’t work.
But chances are there are some Woo owners out there who aren’t as hot on him right now, and I’d check in to see what can happen.
One thing I like to try to do is make an offer you know will be declined for SOMEONE ELSE. And then they decline that, and then you pivot over to the guy you want. That throws them off the scent.
I think I’ll do a BUY LOWS podcast later, that could be fun.
But I want to talk about some hitters. Hitters don’t get enough talk. And DANSBY SWANSON has scored 92 fantasy points since Monday.
It was a double header yesterday, THAT ALWAYS HELPS. But 11 RBI in one day? That’s the most in a single day going back to 2021.
Swanson (6/24/26): 11 RBI
Ohtani (9/19/24): 10 RBI
Nimmo (4/28/25): 9
Schwarber (8/28/25): 9
Mountcastle (4/11/23): 9
It wasn’t one game, so it’s not that cool. But yeah, YOU’LL TAKE IT. And he had four RBI on Tuesday.
This one guy in my home league, NICK picked him up Sunday. And now Swanson has dropped nine hits, three homers, five runs, and 15 RBI on PAUL, who everybody hates. I mean Paul is a real scumbag. I’m pretty sure he embezzles money from the government and private charities like all the time.
Don’t forget what Swanson did last year. DON’T FORGET. You’ve probably forgotten. You guys probably don’t look at baseball stats seven hours a day 365 days a year like I do, because you’re losers.
Swanson in the second half, 2025:
→ .230/.298/.396, 8 HR, 13 SB
A .694 OPS is still pretty bad, but he hit five dingers and swiped nine bag in September. So he can do this 20-20 thing. He had 24 homers and 20 steals last year. This year he’s at 11-11, so he’s on the pace to do the 20-20 thing again.
He’s still hitting ninth, which they might want to change.
Bregman and Hoerner have been a-holes for them. Let’s get Swanson back in there.
I guess that makes the 15 RBI this week all the more incredible.
RBIs are rare down there. Here’s RBI per HIT by LINEUP SPOT:
1st: .428
2nd: .495
3rd: .568
4th: .615
5th: .553
6th: .512
7th: .497
8th: .491
9th: .462
The clean-up spot is named appropriately. That’s where the plurality of RBIs come from. There’s some bias here, since the 4th hitter in the lineup is getting more extra bases on their hits than the 1st and 9th guys. They have more power, and that’s why they hit there.
HITTER TIME SPLIT DASHBOARD
I made this one last year. I use it sometimes for content, but I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about it here.
You can quickly see Last 30, Last 15, and Last 7 stats just by using these boxes:
I got lazy and just left 1/0 there as the computer binary language. I could have put “Y/N”, but I assume that most people understand that 1 = YES.