David Price and James Paxton are back from DL, but Masahiro Tanaka has the 2nd-worst ERA among qualified starters (6.24), Matt Harvey aka The Dark Knight isn’t far behind at 5.43, and stable assets like Julio Teheran and Jose Quintana (the righty/lefty version of one another) have been buried in a heap of home runs. Even as we get some studs back, pitching remains a landmine-riddled hellscape. We’re on pace for the 2nd-most starts of 5+ ER since 2009 with 322 already. There were 937 all of last year.
Sitting around and complaining won’t do us any good, though. We have to remain diligent on the waiver wire and trade block to counterbalance the blowup starts that are seemingly impossible to avoid for more than a few days at a time regardless of who makes up your pitching staff. Today, I have three AL arms I’m looking as potential long-term* pickups. I tried to span shallow to deep league availability, too. I’ll have NL arms tomorrow next week.
*long-term at this point is a month to six weeks (speaking of which, there will be a new SP Update in a couple weeks)
Sean Manaea
Manaea walked five in his first start off the DL, but has been sharp ever since including a brilliant three-start run. He faced both Cleveland and New York on the road as well as hosting a red-hot Toronto offense, allowing a combined three runs against them. He has a 2.70 ERA and 0.93 WHIP with 34 strikeouts in 30 innings since returning. Over the five starts, he has a swinging strike rate below 14% just once (9% v. BOS) and a filthy 18% rate in his last two starts.
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