Below you’ll find a roundup of notable moves and roster notes from the past two days, as well as future expected moves and a Minor League Report, which includes a list of recent major league debuts and top prospect promotions. For this column, any lineup regulars, starting pitchers, or late-inning relievers are considered “notable,” meaning that middle relievers, long relievers, and bench players are excluded. You can always find a full list of updated transactions here.

RosterResource News:
•View all 30 projected lineups (vs RHP and vs LHP) on one page, updated daily.
•Our 2024 Minor League Power Rankings leaderboard is active. Click HERE to see how the rankings are determined.

Lineup Regulars

Baltimore Orioles
• 4/10: 2B Jackson Holliday had contract selected from minors; 2B/OF Tony Kemp designated for assignment.

After playing 10 games with Triple-A Norfolk and putting up some big numbers (14-for-42, 2 HR, 5 2B, 12 BB, 8 K), Holliday made his MLB debut in Wednesday’s 7-5 victory over the Red Sox at Fenway Park. The 20-year-old, batting 9th and playing second base, was 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts and an RBI groundout.

Kemp was the odd man out on the roster while Ramón Urías is expected to lose the most playing time with Holliday in the mix. It’s also become apparent that Colton Cowser will be getting the majority of at-bats in left field, putting him in a platoon with Austin Hays.

Brandon Hyde on today's lineup, which includes Jackson Holliday, Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser:

"I think how it looks tonight is probably going to be how we're going to go for a while and a majority of nights." https://t.co/8Ikm5IuI5D

— Matt Weyrich (@ByMattWeyrich) April 10, 2024

Because Holliday was called up with at least 172 days remaining in the regular season, he’ll qualify for the Prospect Promotion Incentive and will reach a full year of service time as long as he remains in the majors. The Orioles, as a result, will gain an extra draft pick after the first round if Holliday wins AL Rookie of the Year or finishes in the top three in AL MVP voting during his pre-arbitration seasons (2024-26).

Roster/Depth Chart  |  Playing Time Projections

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Daily SP Chart archive

I updated the wOBA rank to this year’s versus the pitcher’s handedness. Once the pitchers start to get 4-5 starts for everyone, I’ll add in their numbers. Even those are small samples, of course, but one absolute gem or dud isn’t carrying quite as much weight. Plus, I’m usually citing core skill changes in the blurbs.

Don’t panic over ugly ERAs. Yeah, they’re ugly to look at and frustrating, but I’m not going to panic if the core skills are in order. Luis Castillo has a 19% K-BB, right in line with his 20% the last two years. George Kirby’s is a bit further off the pace, down 4 ticks from last year at 16%, but his calling card control remains in order with just a 0.5 points higher walk rate at 3% flat. Hell, I don’t even worry about decimals on those rates so it was 3% to me last year, too. The difference between 2.5% and 3.0% is about 4 walks in the span of a full year, but I digress. I’m literally 0% worried about either Castillo or Kirby. But even if I was, it wouldn’t be actionable because there’s no world where we cut them. This was all just a slightly different way of telling y’all not to panic, which is the same thing I did yesterday, but after my chat today I figured it was worth reiterating… so don’t panic, it’s dangerous!

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American League

Astros

• The team needs to determine which starter will leave the rotation when Justin Verlander returns from the IL. Just a week ago, it was assumed to Ronel Blanco.

When Verlander does return, Houston could have a compelling rotation crunch to address. Ronel Blanco profiled as the odd man out, but after throwing a no-hitter on Monday, he may be given a longer look. The Astros have four off days from April 18-30, so a six-man rotation isn’t feasible.

Nearly two no-hitters later for Blanco, the narrative has changed to Blanco, J.P. France, and Hunter Brown.

Justin Verlander’s impending return could move Blanco, J.P. France or Brown into the bullpen as long relievers, too, but Houston has more immediate needs.

Blanco is probably safe but France and Brown have both been struggling.

Name: IP, ERA, xFIP
Brown: 7.0, 6.43, 4.94
France: 11.1, 4.76, 4.96
Blanco: 15.0, 0.00, 4.58 Read the rest of this entry »

Daily SP Chart archive

The internet has done a lot to foster the fantasy baseball community, but those innovations came at the expanse of a scourge: the up-to-the-second standings. They really don’t do us a ton of good at any point in the season, but they can actively hurt fantasy managers early on. Well at least how we react to them can. Your team doesn’t really have clear needs yet, at least not ones that weren’t there coming out of the draft. The exception of course would be a major injury that undercuts you in a stat.

The first two guys just eclipsed 60 PA on April 8th meaning no one is really off to a legitimately slow start just yet. That doesn’t mean you can’t monitor their skills, but there hasn’t really been much that is actionable thus far, outside of injuries. You can obviously churn 2-3 of your late rounders, but if you’re getting rid of any of your foundation (~top 2/3rds of your roster), then you’re probably doing too much. Trust the guys you drafted for some real time before declaring them cuttable. Just be careful out there.

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While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even a larger entry fee ($2.5K to $15K). They got originally named “High Stakes Leagues” and this year there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers are going to try to gain any advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in four or more of these leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Still the funnest play in baseball

🚨ELLY DE LA CRUZ INSIDE-THE-PARK HOMER🚨 pic.twitter.com/PGKKnfmvaQ

— MLB (@MLB) April 9, 2024

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Daily SP Chart archive

The chart includes their last season performance until we get some actual data for this year, their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness from last year (and then I’ll add the last 30 days outlook next month), my general start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues, and then a note about them (notes will be more statistical-based once we get some sample to work with). Obviously, there are league sizes beyond those three so it’s essentially a shallow, medium, deep. If a pitcher only has an “x” in 15-team, it doesn’t mean there’s no potential use in 10s and 12s, but it’s basically a riskier stream for those spots.

These are general recommendations, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. This is for standard 5×5 roto leagues. The thresholds for H2H starts are generally lower, especially in points leagues so I thought there would be more value focusing on roto.

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4/8/24

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to our Patreon!!

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

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INJURIES/TRANSACTION NEWS

• Shane Bieber out for the year
• Spencer Strider likely to follow
• Shallow: Tanner Houck, Logan Allen, Luis Gil, Seth Lugo, Max Meyer
• Deep: Spencer Turnbull, Cody Bradford (short-term), Graham Ashcraft, Alec Marsh
• Trevor Story out a while w/shoulder injury

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Here is today’s chat transcript:
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This article ranks the game’s top projected hitting prospects by peak wRC+ heading into 2024 (it does not incorporate any 2024 data). It is a counterpart to this February piece on baseball’s top projected pitching prospects. I only just got done with my offseason methodological updates for hitters–please forgive me for publishing this one week into the season!

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