With more than a quarter of the season in the books, buy low and sell high time is in full swing. Between X posts, website articles, and podcasts, everyone is dropping names of players off to cold or hot starts that are candidates to be involved in a trade to extract maximum value. Unfortunately, it’s far easier said than done, particularly if you’re in a competitive league (like one filled with FanGraphs and RotoGraphs readers, of course!). So while it’s easy to tell your readers to buy Gunnar Henderson, Ketel Marte, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Shohei Ohtani, actually executing on such recommendations ain’t.
Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.
The chart includes their performance for 2026, their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness, my general start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues – essentially a shallow, medium, deep league setup – and then a note about some, most, or all depending on the day. 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 a much riskier stream for those spots.
These are general recommendations for standard 5×5 roto leagues, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. I usually won’t have much to write about aces who are locked into our rotations. If you want to discuss someone further, please feel free to leave a comment. I usually do a few sweeps of the comments before game time in case there are time-sensitive questions.
Eovaldi’s season is a great example of why we can’t aggressively react to every single outing, particularly from well-established arms. He opened with 11 ER in just 8.7 IP but then 2 ER in his next 13 IP (so now a 5.40 ERA in 4 starts). Then a 3rd Dud of the year, this time 6 ER v. ATH saddles him w/a 5.79 ERA thru 6 and wellll, you start thinkin “he is 36 with a lengthy injury history and he’s lined up for NYY 2x in a row so maaaybe he needs to be cu–” NO! Dude has a 3.40 ERA/1.11 WHIP in 736 IP since 2021, he gets more than 6 starts before any reaction. I was only getting some start/sit stuff on Eovaldi, but you know he was getting cut in some 10s and 12s where he had no business hitting the wire off what we’d seen.
His 16% K-BB was fine and his 14% SwStr said the 22% K should rise. His velocity was even up a half tick, which isn’t significant enough to drive improvement, but assuages health fears from the oft-injured vet. There was just nothing in his profile that said this was anything more than a few bad starts. Fast forward 15 IP of 1-run ball later during which he fanned 15, walked 1, and allowed just a single homer in those two NYY starts and he’s down to a far more palatable 4.15 ERA/1.18 WHIP combo. Just because we’ve flipped the calendar to May doesn’t mean numbers won’t still move severely off 2-3 starts. Stay diggin’ in those gamelogs to get a true feel of a pitcher’s season and as always, use the skills profile to make hold/cut assessments, not just their surface ERA.
The rest of the board:
Rasmussen’s up 5 pitches/start v. last year and while that’s not a ton, it’s enough him to log at least 5 IP in 6 of 7 starts with the one he missed just being a rough outing.
Weathers is outrunning a 1.4 HR9 that would normally give me a lot of pause, but he’s looking like a lefty version of Joe Ryan where his skills profile can sustain the elevated HRs. He’s an easy all-formats rotation lock right now and we’ll adjust if the HRs do start to pose a problem.
Soroka rebounded with a 6.3 IP/1 ER gem v. PIT though that was the lone run in a 1-0 game so he ate the L but it was nice to see him back on track after the 8 ER Dud at MIL.
Cantillo/Lambert are interesting-but-dangerous arms as both are running 12% BB rates that will breed volatility, but I’d still take either of them in a 12 over Sasaki despite his far better matchup.
McDonald gets one of the worst 2-start setups you can concoct with a trip to ATH looming on the weekend after this LAD start.
In the article, I cover the players using CBS’s and Yahoo’s ADD/DROP rates. Both sites have the option for daily and weekly waiver wire adds. CBS uses a weekly change while Yahoo looks at the last 24 hours. Yahoo is a great snapshot of right now, while CBS ensures hot targets from early in the week aren’t missed. I start players being added at CBS who started the week on less than 40% of rosters.
The players are ordered for redraft leagues by my rest-of-season preference, grouped by hitters, starters, and relievers. Read the rest of this entry »
About three weeks ago, I was picking up my youngest kid from school and as she was telling me about her day, she mentioned she fell from the playground and landed on her wrist. This was not an uncommon occurrence as she has her mother’s balance and father’s spatial awareness. For example, a few days before, she had twisted her ankle chasing her friend around that same playground and was hobbling around for a couple of days before she was back to normal. When we got home, I took a look at her wrist and it was a tiny bit swollen, but she was able to rotate her hand, make a fist, and adding pressure to it didn’t cause any pain, so I was pretty confident it was just a minor sprain. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.
The chart includes their performance for 2026, their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness, my general start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues – essentially a shallow, medium, deep league setup – and then a note about some, most, or all depending on the day. 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 a much riskier stream for those spots.
These are general recommendations for standard 5×5 roto leagues, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. I usually won’t have much to write about aces who are locked into our rotations. If you want to discuss someone further, please feel free to leave a comment. I usually do a few sweeps of the comments before game time in case there are time-sensitive questions.
Alright, we have a ton of 3-x’ers today and they’re definitely not created equally so I want to break that group down in a bit more detail.
Easy studs: Fried, Luzardo, McLean, Cease, Sale, Miz, and Ray – the ones you don’t need detail on to know they’re starts
New 3s: I can’t ignore Hancock’s 1.5 HR9 and 93% LOB rates but there is a foundation to work with here (29% K, 4% BB, 12% SwStr – all far and away career bests) so we’re riding the the train; Detmers has brought his RP skills to his SP role wholesale with an equal 21% K-BB, though constructed more soundly trading 4 pts of K% for -4 of BB%. The 6% HR/FB will regress but these skills will soften the blow and he’s a rotation staple right now; Messick-Bubic-Burke is a rising AL Central trio who closed strong last yr and have rolled the success over into 2026 so far making them all easy starts right now; Burke might be a little fringier in 10s, but Messick/Bubic are all systems go
Sketchy 3s: Prielipp needs more than 3 starts to join his AL Central brethren but the early returns are strong; Montero’s .245 BABIP and 0.8 HR9 are helping squeeze a 3.48 ERA out of these skills (14% K-BB) and I’m open to running him at KCR; regression is coming for Griffin, particularly his .220 BABIP and 84% LOB, but I willing to bet he can stave it off another start with a trip to MIA; I’m not moving off Dollander for a rough one v. ATL and he’s catching PHI hitting even worse than their full-season line (hopefully he gets an opener again!); Sheehan gets that tough ATL lineup now and while the 21% K-BB is excellent, the 1.7 HR9 looms large against the MLB HR leader against righties… one silver lining is being on LAD gives him a chance to struggle a bit but still net the W as long as he goes 5 IP; 14 ER in 5.3 IP is going to stain Nelson’s ERA for a whiiiile but he rebounded at CHC and NYM hasn’t given us any reason to avoid them with streamers; Mlodzinski’s 18% K-BB is 10th best on the board today but I just don’t see how a 9% SwStr can sustain that 26% K rate and yet we’re obviously not turning down this trip to SFG; Early hasn’t quite lived up to expectations despite the decent ERA (3.79), so it’s time to show something in this next 3-start run (TBR, PHI, at KCR) or else the ATL might need to be skipped
I’m ready to get hurt by Canning again! I will say that we need to be a little tighter with streaming against STL as they sit 10th vR on the year and they’re riding high at 1st over the L2 wks
It’s Lodolo’s season debut so of course do what you will with first starts off the IL; his rehab did go very well with a 34% K-BB in 12 IP so there has at least been some ramp up
If you want to run McGreevy in a 10, it’s not crazy at SDP but this is pure run-hot; all the ERA indicators are north of 4.00 and his xERA is at 5.77!!
Holding Bradish and Rocker in 15s comes down to the fact that there probably just isn’t anyone better on the wire but they surely haven’t done anything to earn the roster spot
Snelling is a premium prospect making his MLB debut on Friday! Paddack was DFA’d so if this goes well, he’s going to stay in the rotation
While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even larger entry fees ($2.5K to $15K). They are named Elite leagues (previously called High Stakes Leagues), and there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers 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 five or more leagues. Read the rest of this entry »
