• Drew Smyly is going to rehab his shoulder instead of having surgery on it.

Smyly said the rehab process should take about eight weeks and believes he could pitch again for the Rays by late July or August, but added that there is a possibility surgery may be needed later if the rehab does not work.

I guess we will all know more in eight weeks.

• Jacoby Ellsbury’s knee is hurting and now he is on the DL. More information is to come out today once he visits the team doctor.

• Corey Dickerson’s plantar fasciitis (foot) finally forced him on the DL.

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Jake Marisnick was a third-round pick for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2009 Draft. After honing a do-everything centerfield profile for two seasons in the low minors, he began popping up on industry Top 100 Prospect lists reaching as high as 28 in 2012 with a low of 79 prior to 2014. In mid-November of 2012, he was a key piece in the mega-deal between Toronto and Miami after a two-level season that saw him rip through High-A before the rich talent of Double-A stymied him en route to a .622 OPS in 55 games.

He repeated Double-A in 2013 with his new club and enjoyed much better results (.860 OPS in 67 games). Results which were enough to earn him a call to the bigs in late-July, but he couldn’t get it going with the Marlins. His strikeout and walk skills were identical to Double-A, but he languished with a .478 OPS in 118 PA thanks in part to a .232 BABIP. Marisnick would find himself being dealt again in 2014, this time in a smaller, but still substantial deal. The Astros acquired him with some minor leagues (including #6 overall pick from ’13 Colin Moran) for Jarred Cosart, Enrique Hernandez, and a minor leaguer.

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Lots of folks here at RotoGraphs have been updating their positional tiers in the past week or more, so I figured to piggyback on their efforts and create reliever tiers over the past 30 days. In an effort to chop this list down, I focused on arms with at least ten appearances, one hold, an ERA less than 5.00 and a K-BB% at 10% or better. Also, the relievers appear in tiers and are listed in no particular order within their respective tier.

Tier One: Double India Pale Ales

Dellin Betances | Yankees
Evan Scribner | Athletics
Josh Fields | Astros
Joe Smith | Angels
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It’s time to play with fire. After this brutal of a start, it’s all we’re left with. I mean I think it’s been an especially difficult year to select two-start guys, especially since I think there have been some slumping aces and it has left the secondary tiers beaten down a bit, but I still can’t excuse this horsesh** performance.

Here are the totals through half of week six:

4-20 record
6.61 ERA
6.3 K/9
2.0 K/BB
1.56 WHIP

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses. Y! ownership numbers pulled courtesy of twitter pal @PandaPete21, whom you should give a follow:

RHP Jesse Hahn – 9% ESPN/26% Y! – v. DET (.336), v. NYY (.315)

Hahn’s numbers have been a bit troubling this year, but he seems to have rebounded a bit from a two-start rough patch earlier in the month. He’s fanned 11 batters over his last two starts, and is hopefully picking up some steam to get back to where he was earlier this season with a sub-3.00 ERA. The one troubling thing about Hahn’s pitch metrics is that his curveball seems to have fallen off the planet this season. Last year he threw 361 curveballs with a whiff rate of 18.3 percent; this year, he’s thrown 147 but is generating a swing and miss just 10.2 percent of the time. It’s been a better pitch outcomes wise (.456 OPS to .667 OPS), but would seem to be a big part of the reason he’s seen a drop in K/9 from last year (8.6) to this (6.2). His fastball has gotten pasted too (.917 OPS after last year’s .540), and it would seem to stand to reason one affects the other. I still believe in the arm — I have to especially this week — but he’ll need to reverse some trends to me anything more than a here and there option. Read the rest of this entry »

Much has changed since those uncertain and perilous first two weeks of the season. While most players who stumbled to slow starts have steadied themselves, we’re still early enough where a poor couple of weeks weighs fairly heavily on the season statistics. With that in mind, I’m going to focus on some of the top hitters from the past 30 days who have been playing better than their overall season numbers indicate. Statistics through May 20.

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Agenda

1. Dynasty Pt. 2
2. Daily DFS – Coors
3. GB / FB Splits
4. Tomorrow’s Targets – Fiers, Paxton, Blanks, Pagan
5. Factor Grid

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Episode 35 – Nick Swisher’s Slowly Rotting Corpse

The latest episode of “Field of Streams” is live!

In this episode, Dylan Higgins and Matthew Dewoskin discuss Matt being unable to complain, a big thanks to Paul Sporer for guest-hosting, “stackle,” Jon Lester straightening things out, what happened to and giving up on Ian Desmond, Carlos Carrasco underperforming his peripherals, Matt turning around on Ubaldo Jimenez, looking for feedback on how weekend picks are discussed, more Max Muncy love, and identifying Mike Wright.

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Yesterday, in addition to being some of my family member’s birthdays, also represented the 35th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back debuting across the United States. My favorite of the Star Wars film, here is the iconic Battle of Hoth scene.

On today’s agenda:
1. Clay Buchholz posts another quality start
2. Quick thoughts on Ryan Howard
3. Streaming Pitching Options
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Episode 232

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris discuss the Jacoby Ellsbury, Drew Pomeranz, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Drew Smyly injury news before diving into the performances of Tim Lincecum, Rubby de la Rosa, Ryan Braun, Matt Kemp, Gregory Polanco, Justin Upton, Kendrys Morales, and George Springer.

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There’s something beautiful about an empty canvas because of its potential. The painter can turn it into literally anything — anything from a masterpiece to utter crap. The painter can make mistakes. She can paint a miserably bad portrait, yet still have time to amend it, perhaps creating an entirely different work — a different and better portrait, the ugly original buried deep beneath several layers of paint. The final product is a marvel, though the journey there was not smooth nor seamless.

Or right from the start she can paint the perfect landscape. And that’s great, except she continues to paint until it is no longer the masterpiece it once was but a mess of dimensionless color, unrecognizable and void of merit.

Such are the stories of the seasons of MLB hitters. A player can suffer a miserable April — the ugly portrait — yet slowly build up to a respectable end-of-season stat line. Conversely, a player can have a monstrous April — the perfect landscape — yet watch it slowly fall apart over the course of the next five months.

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