We had a brief glimpse of Lucas Giolito in 2016 as he started four and relieved in two games for the Nationals, accruing 21.1 innings of 6.75 ERA ball. We were looking forward to better times for the 6’6″ right-hander and after a trade to the Chicago White Sox during the 2016 off-season, Giolito held a 9.37 K/9, 4.13 BB/9, and 4.48 ERA in 24 starts in Triple-A. Tuesday night marked the return for 23-year-old Giolito and I for one was excited to see what he had morphed into during his time away from the majors. Let’s jump into the start and talk about what we saw.

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The 2017 season has not been kind to Blake Snell. The 24-year-old southpaw has been demoted to the minors multiple times while putting up ghastly numbers in the majors including a 4.42 ERA, 4.52 BB/9 and averaging just 5.4 innings per start. However, Sunday’s excellent outing of 7.0 IP, 0 ER, 2 Hits, 2 BBs, and 7 Ks against Seattle has been raising eyebrows, hinting at Snell’s massive upside we saw when he entered the major leagues in 2016. The question is, what did Snell do in this outing to succeed and can we expect this level of production to return in future starts?

Let’s dive into Sunday’s game against the Mariners to determine if Snell can be a dependable pitcher down the stretch. First here’s a quick overview of Snell’s approach for the afternoon.

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Few things are more frustrating in fantasy baseball than watching your pitcher struggle to put hitters away. He consistently gets ahead in the count and into two-strike situations, but regularly fail to finish. This is obviously even more crucial with runners on.

This is a particular struggle of youngsters if only because you will eventually be pushed to the bullpen or weeded out entirely if you don’t eventually learn to get outs with two strikes. When a young arm shows that ability early on – I say “ability”, but it’s usually a single pitch doing the heavy lifting so maybe it’s better stated as the ability to execute their out pitch – it curbs the prevalence of those disaster outings that can tank an ERA.

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It looked grim for Chris Stratton as he entered his Sunday afternoon start against the Washington Nationals. He held a 5.11 ERA through 15 Triple-A starts in 2017 and had been nothing short of a disappointment in his first two starts in the majors, allowing nine walks and fanning just five en route to seven total earned runs. However, he shocked many with ten strikeouts and just six baserunners in 6.2 shutout innings and suddenly he’s an intriguing option on a barren waiver wire in fantasy leagues. Even though he faced a Nationals lineup that didn’t contain Bryce Harper or Daniel Murphy, performing at this level against any major league lineup is worth a deeper look.

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We’ve been waiting all year for Reynaldo Lopez to show up in Chicago and he came out with guns blazing in his 2017 debut, fanning five in his first six outs en route to allowing just two earned runs in six frames. Plenty are buying into the hype Lopez has garnered after his first start, but is he for real? Is Lopez someone you can count on down the stretch in your fantasy league? Let’s walkthrough the entirety of Lopez’s 2017 MLB debut with plenty of GIFs to help us out.

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It’s been a big year for hitting without a doubt, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t seen some great pitchers emerge. Guys like James Paxton, Alex Wood, and Luis Severino are winning leagues for people, but there are also plenty of intriguing arms who aren’t necessarily toting gaudy bottom line results. However, their skills and stuff set them up to be next year’s version of those guys and they are the ones you can buy now for a big 2018 payoff. We’ll span league depth with a couple deep league considerations, too.

Danny Salazar | Indians

Danny Salazar has been peak Salazar since his return from the DL and I’m pretty excited about his prospects down the stretch and beyond. He’s allowed just three runs in 20 innings since returning, with 28 strikeouts, five walks, and eight hits! We talked about him on the podcast right around his return, I wrote up his first and second starts in the Roto Riteup, and then Eno wrote up his new approach. We saw what he can do in 2015 with a 3.45 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and 195 strikeouts in 185 innings. Since then, his walk rate has spiked to 11% and he’s been DL’d with both elbow and shoulder injuries, but he’s still just 27 with top-flight skills.

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You’re all familiar with pros and cons lists. Today’s subject is pitcher German Marquez from the Colorado Rockies. The 22-year old righty has had an impressive rookie campaign spurred by a two-month hot stretch that is ongoing. He was a top 100 prospect across the industry this year, charting 52nd on Eric Longenhagen’s list, but didn’t get much buzz because of his home ballpark. His quality pitching and the success of Colorado have forced us to take notice.

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