Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images

American League

Angels

• Oswald Peraza’s (.775 OPS) playing time dried up with just two starts in the last five games. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2003, I arrived at Ft. Meade, Maryland to attend the Defense Information School (DINFOS) for Journalism. I had originally been an ammunition specialist and tried to reclassify to a linguist but failed the entry exam (a story for a different day) and ended up choosing journalism as my backup plan. I was pretty embarrassed and not very excited for my new career path in the Army. After arriving at my barracks, I was shown to my room and introduced to my bunkmate, Private Hunter. 

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Last week, we looked at five of the top rookie hitters to examine their major league path, performance, skills, and how to value them moving forward. There have been many rookie hitters who have been providing value in redraft, keeper, and dynasty leagues of various sizes, so we wanted to cover five more. It’s helpful to digest their prospect grades and reports to see how they align with the underlying metrics. Should we buy, sell, or hold these five rookie hitters? We plan to cover pitchers in a future article if you’re wondering what’s next. 

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• Daily SP Chart archive
• 2-Start podcast episode
• SP Rankings (last update: 4/27 | next: wk of 6/1)

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, and recently added opponent’s K% (also v. SP 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.

Comments in the morning!

I was among those ready for the Eury Pérez ascent this year. A pair of 90-something IP samples separated by a TJ year saw him put up a 3.71 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and 20% K-BB in 187 IP. I would, of course, loved that as a line this year but I’ll admit I had dreams of even more on that ERA front. While my expectation was ace, it was certainly in cards as a reasonable outcome for the 23-year old. And it may still come fruition, it’s a long season after all, but as we sit here on May 22nd, he’s no doubt on the verge of being cut in some shallow leagues, particularly if tonight goes poorly. In fact, because I’m writing the commentary a few hours the board went up I know there’s already a comment saying as much! And frankly, I get it. Worse yet, us Eury fans are to blame for our overzealousness.

We’re not to blame for his struggles, obviously, but rather our expectations were a bit outsized even before the benefit of hindsight. Lost in the gloss of his first 187 IP was both the glaring HR issue and modest BB% output. While he did improve his HR rate last year from 1.5 to 1.1, anything north of 1.0 puts you in the danger zone, though his pristine WHIP made it less of a huge concern with the idea being that limited base runners should keep those to mostly solo shots. That’s where the walks come in. I’m not saying anyone should’ve fully predicted his rate ballooning to 12%, but matching 8.3% marks in his first two seasons essentially left him around average. The walk rate on its own isn’t something that would raise a red flag for me, especially with that 28% strikeout rate supporting it, but when paired with the home run troubles, it should’ve at least opened my eyes to the potential of trouble for Pérez. I was operating as though he was much more of a finished product than we’ve seen so far this year: 5.33/1.41/13% in 52 IP.

Now he gets a Mets team that is last in wOBA vR on the season, but finding their footing a bit of late, sitting 15th in the last two weeks. Another stinker here, particularly if it ends up being his 6th straight start with at least 2 BB (only 2 starts under 2 BB this and those were both 1, so he has 0 BB-free starts), has to start bringing up some shallow league cut questions and definitely puts him on the bench for me in medium and deep leagues with a trip TOR coming up next week. And the lack of a cut in those formats is definitely due more to lack of quality options off the wire. If you’re blessed with some wire gems who are better than Pérez, then by all means, but as I look over the available names in my 15-teamers where I have him, I see the likes of his teammate Janson Junk, newcomer Tatsuya Imai, and also-ran Padres Walker Buehler and Griffin Canning, none of whom are appealing enough for me to make the move.

Others of note:

• Myers in for Peralta as the Mets pushed their guys back a day. Thanks to commenter David Klein on the note there! We still had Peralta in when I ran the board last night.
• Gilbert has two Duds this year, including a 7 ER bomb his last time out which pushed his ERA to 4.45 on the year and has led to some light chatter about his status on rosters. I don’t really agree with that, even in shallow leagues. In between the 2 Duds, he posted a 2.97 ERA/1.10 WHIP/20% K-BB in 39 IP. Worth noting he went >5 IP in both Duds, too, which is what aces do to salvage ERAs even during their worst outings. The 1.7 HR9 is a bit alarming on the season but that is a very recent issue with 7 HRs in L3, including 4 v. ATL. This is a good spot to get right at KCR, but even if it’s wobbly, I’d be more open to buying low than any sort of cut.
• Soroka has some upside to him if he can reel in his hit rate. A 28% LD rate has pushed him up to a .351 BABIP and left him with a 9.4 H9. That line drive rate should hopefully regress back toward his 22% mark or ideally even further down toward his 16% rate from 2023-25 and bring the hit rate down with it. His 20% K-BB is worthy of a low-3.00s ERA if he can shave this WHIP down.
• Henderson only has 43 IP as a big leaguer, but he’s been electric (2.49/1.02/27%) and paired with his minor league track record and prospect pedigree have me ready to run him anywhere versus the ever-difficult Dodgers. Sometimes doing the comments hours after post can be really helpful because the wonderful commenters help me out with rundowns like this about Henderson from Anon:
  • I’m sure Paul will chime in but there are so many stats where Henderson is basically elite:
    28.2% K-BB
    87.7 EV
    28.9% HardHit
    35.0% O-swingNow, his Barrel% is a a little higher than you’d like and while his 13.0% SwStr is very good, it isn’t elite. He also is an heavily extreme FB pitcher so there is always a risk of a HR game messing things up. He also has an insanely high overall Swing% so batters are swinging at everything he throws up there, not just balls.I also like that he’s home. We all know about Coors and everyone knows T-Mobile is an extreme pitcher’s park, but Milwaukee is a pitcher’s park and importantly, it is an extreme strikeout park. I’m starting to think that we underrate that about that park. It has a K park factor around 110 year-in, year-out. We all note that the Brewers are good at developing pitching, but maybe it’s at least partly the ballpark. 

    No sense just repeating all that in a different way, Anon nailed it. Here we go with Henderson today!

• I sliced an “x” off Arrighetti from the original posting as I’m just a bit nervous about his 14% BB rate heading to Wrigley.
• I know it’s so hard to bench a 1.51 ERA/1.04 WHIP with Martinez, but I really don’t see him being any different than last year outside of his fortunate 5% HR/FB rate. He has a 16% K, 5% BB, 8% SwStr this year v. 17%, 6%, 9% last year. But a 91% LOB, .255 BABIP, and that aforementioned 5% HR/FB are driving the bus and run completely counter to his 69%, .274, 11% last year and 74%, .280, and 11% career marks. He is catching NYY at the right time (26th vR the L14 days), but it still feels like a big regression start.

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5/21/26

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

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• Paul Sporer | Twitter | Bluesky – Host
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INJURIES/TRANSACTION NEWS

• Luis Castillo convo 3:40

PLAYER RATER SLEEPER V. BUSTS

• Catcher: Liam Hicks v. Gabriel Moreno 14:50
• First Base: Sal Stewart v. Josh Naylor.  20:30
• Third Base: Miguel Vargas v. Manny Machado 26:10

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Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

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 every 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.

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Before I get into analyzing what I think may be a relatively broken hitter, I have something to admit. This admission may sound familiar to you. Especially if you are at all impulsive. Or love to trade.

A few weeks back, after trading Corey Seager for Dylan Cease in what felt like an absolute coup, I got a bit ahead of my skis. Without looking at a single Fangraphs or Baseball Savant page, I fired an offer into the ether. I dealt away Michael King, Cade Cavalli, and Bo Bichette for Gunnar Henderson, in what felt like a classic buy low-sell high, where Henderson represented the low and King the high. 

The point of this article is not to discuss King’s less than rosy peripherals. Nor is it to shame me for dealing Bichette before he seemingly started heating up. It is, at least in part, a cautionary tale, though I’d say it’s a hopeful one.

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• Daily SP Chart archive
• 2-Start podcast episode
• SP Rankings (last update: 4/27 | next: wk of 6/1)

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, and recently added opponent’s K% (also v. SP 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.

Got rid of the Blue/Black color coding at the top/bottom end. Just Green = good, Yellow = OK, Red = bad.

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Jordan Johnson-Imagn Images

American League

Blue Jays

• Sounds like Spencer Miles will be throwing bulk innings at a regular interval.

Meanwhile, Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles is slated to pitch the bulk of the innings in the Blue Jays vacant rotation spot for the time being, either as a starter or behind an opener.

“You don’t want to move him back and forth too much. If we’re going to do it, try to be consistent with it,” said Schneider before the Blue Jays game against the New York Yankees on Monday.

In his last appearance, he threw 56 pitches across 3.2 IP. Miles has been solid this season with a 2.55 ERA (3.24 xFIP), 1.09 WHIP, 8.4 K/9, and 52% GB%. Similar rate stats to Nathan Eovaldi. Nice upside play. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for coming out!

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