Below are the latest significant playing time projection changes for starters and relievers over the past week. The biggest news is Cam Schlittler‘s call-up, with his debut coming at the unfortunate cost of Clarke Schmidt’s UCL.

On Sunday, I read the following comment on Rotoworld about Chase Burns‘ start:

His fastball was located well, but, as has been true in his first two starts, he doesn’t get tons of whiffs on the pitch. He had eight whiffs on 55 total fastballs in this one, with a whopping 16 foul balls. His fastball has below average extension and simply isn’t as elite of a pitch against big league hitters who can handle high velocity.

Sure enough, his four-seamer has generated just a 7.6% SwStk% despite the pitch averaging a scintillating 98.2 MPH. So it got me thinking about perceived velocity, which extension affects. If a pitcher is throwing 95 MPH, but the batter perceives the pitch’s velocity to actually be 97 MPH, or perhaps 93 MPH, that should matter, right? I would therefore think the gap between perceived and actual velocity would influence the pitch’s whiff rate and the pitcher’s strikeout rate. So I decided to dive in and find out if that theory is true.

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Last week, I reviewed how the top hitting prospect have performed in the Majors this year. Today, let’s flip over to the pitching prospects. This time, I’ll be using the Post-Spring Training Top 100 Prospects Update, instead of the preseason list.

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Below are the latest significant projected playing time changes for pitchers in the last week, with Chase Burns‘ MLB debut the big headline. As always, you can see the rest-of-season percentages for each team on the Depth Chart diagram here.

The search for pitching help is never ending. Between injuries and ineffectiveness, fantasy players are always on the lookout for pitchers who are performing well who can provide some reinforcements. Last time I ran this column, I focused on eight starting pitchers who were pitching well at the time. This time around, my focus will shift to the bullpen — with three starters sprinkled in for good measure.

Over his first seven appearances (six starts and one bulk relief appearance) for the Brewers this year, Quinn Priester’s walk rate was an untenable 14.2%. In his six appearances since then (three starts, three bulk outings), his walk rate has been a very good 3.8%. He’s been pitching in the zone a bit more often — he had a 50.9% zone rate during that first stretch and a 55.2% zone rate during the second — while still maintaining an acceptable strikeout rate and an elite groundball rate. The groundball rate alone should give him a high-ish floor for Ottoneu, and the improved command makes him an interesting dart throw. Just make sure to monitor his usage as a traditional starter or a bulk reliever.

Injuries to George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, and Bryce Miller have forced Emerson Hancock into a much more prominent role in the Mariners rotation than the team probably expected. His season stats are being dragged down by two very ugly starts: a six-run, two-out disaster in his first start of the season and a seven-run, five-inning clunker against the Yankees on May 12. I don’t recommend doing this as a frequent practice, but if you remove those starts from his overall stats, his ERA drops from 4.48 to 2.60, his FIP from 4.81 to 4.09, and his Pts/IP rises from 3.05 to 4.26. That is a perfectly cromulent starter in Ottoneu as long as you’re benching him in particularly difficult matchups.

Mike Burrows isn’t the Pittsburgh pitching prospect we’ve all wanted to see in the big leagues (that would be Bubba Chandler), but he’s got a couple of interesting attributes that could make him an interesting pick up in Ottoneu. First of all, his changeup is currently returning a 51.7% whiff rate and a .252 xwOBA allowed. His slider’s xwOBA allowed is even lower at .221, though it’s not getting the swings and misses like his change is. The problem is that his fastball is far too hittable, which means his ceiling is capped pretty low. Still, he’s allowed just three runs total in his last three starts and is running an excellent 6.67 strikeout-to-walk ratio during this stretch. As long as the changeup continues to be a plus plus bat missing weapon and the slider continues to suppress contact, he’ll likely have stretches like this where he looks dominant. The run-of-the-mill fastball will bring him back to earth eventually.

Let’s tackle all these relievers by team. The Orioles have had a really tough time finding a consistent setup man to pitch in front of closer Félix Bautista. Six different pitchers have recorded a hold over the last week but the three pitchers listed in the table above look like the most interesting of the bunch. Bryan Baker has increased his strikeout rate 10 points this year while simultaneously cutting his walk rate to a career low. Fueled by an absolutely devastating changeup, he’s the guy I’m targeting out of this ‘pen. Seranthony Domínguez is no stranger to high-leverage work, though his inconsistent command means he’s been pretty volatile throughout his career. He’s on a heater right now, allowing just five baserunners over his last nine outings while striking out 16. Acting as the left-handed specialist in the bullpen, Gregory Soto is earning holds at a consistent pace while also providing solid rate stats.

It looks like Garrett Whitlock and Greg Weissert have settled in as the setup options in front of closer Aroldis Chapman in the Red Sox bullpen. Interestingly, both setup guys have earned saves in the last week after Chapman was unavailable for a few days and then used in the eighth inning on Wednesday to face the top of the Mariners lineup. Whitlock has overcome a long injury history and a failed attempt to convert him to a starter to settle in as a high-leverage reliever this year, a role he was familiar with back when he first broke into the big leagues. His strikeout rate has jumped up to 30.1%, though his walk rate is still a little high at 9.2%. Weissert hasn’t been as dominant as Whitlock, but he’s getting high-leverage opportunities and has done well to convert those opportunities into holds and saves.

Across three outings from April 30–May 7, Reid Detmers allowed 12 runs while recording just a single out. Since that low point, he’s allowed a single run in 16 appearances and is suddenly looking like a dominant high-leverage reliever. His strikeout rate is nearly 40% during this stretch and he’s earned six holds and two saves for the Angels. He has been throwing his fastball about two ticks harder than earlier in the season.

His pitch mix looks the same and there haven’t been any big changes to his approach: his zone rate and chase rate are ever so slightly higher during this hot streak, but batters are swinging and missing at his pitches a lot more often. His success might just come down to a harder fastball and better execution.

I included Nick Mears in this column back on May 13 and he had a bit of a hiccup right after that write up; across his next seven appearances after that article posted, he allowed six runs in 7.1 innings while striking out just three. Across his next seven appearances, he’s been a lot better, holding his opponents scoreless while allowing just two baserunners and striking out eight. He’s firmly behind Trevor Megill and Abner Uribe in the pecking order, but he could be working his way back into high-leverage opportunities in the sixth or seventh inning.

The Twins bullpen has been a bit of a mess recently — they’ve lost three games for the team in the past week — but that just means there are new opportunities for relievers to gain the trust of manager Rocco Baldelli. Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax are probably safe in their roles, but Louis Varland and Brock Stewart could be sneaking into high-leverage work ahead of those two. Varland has transitioned from the rotation to the ‘pen this year and has looked pretty solid as a reliever. He’s got the big fastball and devastating curveball to thrive in the late innings. Stewart has what Stuff+ thinks is one of the very best sliders in baseball. He’s been particularly injury prone during his career and his command can be spotty at times, leading to some volatility. Still, the 35% strikeout rate is nothing to scoff at, and as long as he’s healthy, he should be a high-leverage option for the Twins.

Below are the latest playing time changes for pitchers in the past week, with a couple of brutal pieces of news — Tommy John surgery for both Corbin Burnes and Jackson Jobe — the unfortunate headliners this week.

Below are the latest playing time changes for pitchers in the past week, highlighted by AJ Smith-Shawver’s season-ending injury that increases the importance of Grant Holmes and Bryce Elder in Atlanta’s rotation.

Every week, I look through my rostered pitchers noting the worst ones and churn them out next week. This week, the Yusei Kikuchi stood out. Someone with a 3.06 ERA and his ERA estimators around 4.50. It was his ERA estimators throwing red flags, but I have other pitchers worse. It was his 1.52 WHIP, third worst among qualified starters behind Kyle Freeland (1.63) and Jack Kochanowicz (1.56). With WHIP being its own Roto category, it has as much weight as ERA but ERA is the mentioned multiple times more often than WHIP. I’m just going to create a simple WHIP to ERA conversion to put both on the same scale.

To get the conversion equation, I used the overall rankings for the NFBC’s Main Event (15 team) and Online Championship (12 team). With them, I ranked the WHIP and ERA values separately. I removed the the first and last 10% of values because the change for them isn’t linear.

With the tails removed and plotted the best remaining WHIP with the best remaining ERA. I did that for each one. Here are the plotted results.

The correlation is nearly perfect, so the correlation equations can be used to convert a WHIP to an ERA equivalent. Here is conversion table.

The results for the two league types are close so I’ll only use the Main Event information going forward. Besides the above table, I have created a public Google Sheet (copy by going to File -> Make a Copy) where a WHIP can be entered and an equivalent ERA is spit out.

Kikuchi’s 1.52 WHIP would be equivalent to a ~5.50 ERA. No one is starting/rostering a pitcher with a 5.50 ERA this deep into the season. The high WHIP can’t be ignored and I’m likely to move on where I can find decent options.

Besides Kikuchi, Here are the qualified pitchers who have a WHIP that does as much ratio damage as a 4.50 or worse ERA.

Gavin Williams and José Soriano have been devastating managers’ in the WHIP category but it doesn’t seem as bad with sub-4.00 ERA.

WHIP is probably one of the most misunderstood categories and hopefully I made it easier to understand an expectable value.

In 12-team mixed leagues and shallower, you’re generally ignoring relievers that aren’t closing games or potentially will be given the incumbent’s missteps. That’s not true in 15-team+ mixed and, especially, mono leagues. In such deeper formats, replacement level for starting pitchers is poor. You’re essentially choosing between a 4.50 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, but with perhaps 10 wins and 120 strikeouts, starting pitcher, or a middle reliever with superior ratios, but fewer wins and strikeouts. Typically, the latter is actually more valuable even if he doesn’t record a single save all season. So let’s dive into some of the most dominant non-closing middle relievers this year who might be a better option than your worst starter.

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Below are the most significant playing time projection changes for pitchers for the past week, led by Jared Jones‘ season-ending elbow surgery that could keep him out for most or all of 2026, too.