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Why do they hate Reynaldo López?? They have pushed this man off a potential 2-step for three straight weeks. Maybe they are simply trying to protect their RP-turned-SP, but I’ve yet to get the hint and instead keep getting fooled into thinking this is the week! They moved him back 2 days this time now, so he’s off his every Tuesday pattern from the first three starts. Thankfully, they didn’t push him out of the Miami series, that would’ve just been cruel.

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Jared Jones twirled another gem. What a phrase… twirled a gem. Anyway, he was chucking rubies — or is it just a single ruby since it’s twirling “a gem” and not multiple “gems”? — at the Brewers, allowing just 1-run in 6 innings with 7 Ks and 25 swinging strikes!! He had 13 with the heater, 11 with slider, and 1 with the changeup. I know there is excitement for Paul Skenes to come up and join Jones, but let’s appreciate Jones while he is shining and being the true frontliner for the Pirates. I didn’t love the innings-instead-of-pitches approach to limiting him last time out, but I understand that they aren’t just going to turn him loose and not at least try to mitigate damage, even though these types of plans haven’t been shown to tangibly improve pitcher health at all.

I don’t even mind a pitch count limit that much, but it just feels wasteful to take him out after 59 pitches and yes it was made markedly worse by the next pitcher losing the game for the Pirates. No shade to Luis L. Ortiz, everyone has tough games, but Jones should’ve gotten at least another inning so Ortiz would’ve had more time to warm up! At least get him to 75 pitches. Let’s not harp on the past, though, and let’s appreciate that the Pirates blessed the baseball viewing public with 91 pitches from the 22-year-old tonight. I really hope they push him a bit this year, especially if they continue to play .500 or better ball. He’s had 123 and 126 innings the last two seasons, it seems like 160 should be more than workable.

Obviously, they know their pitchers better than I ever could, but a 40-50 inning increase doesn’t seem out of pocket after making 26 starts in both 2022 and 2023. Either way, just enjoy Jones while he’s pitching. You landed on a gem if you drafted him or scooped him off waivers so don’t focus on when it might end or the occasional shortened outing/extra day or two of rest, but instead dial in for his outings every fifth (or so) day and watch an impressive young righty pop off with a brilliant fastball-slider combo as he cultivates the curve and change in hopes of a developing a bankable third offering.

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Talked a bit in my chat about doing a full week ranking at some point and while I wasn’t able to do that this weekend, I do have a new feature: a 2-start ranking board!

Monday Morning Update:

• Added Grayson Rodriguez because he is probably getting Baltimore’s 2-step instead of Albert Suarez.
• Added Michael King, didn’t see that he and Cease were both getting 2-steps this wk

And now, Monday’s board:
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Daily SP Chart archive

Decided to skip commentary on some of the obvious ones where I didn’t have anything terribly insightful to say.

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Daily SP Chart archive

With so few games tomorrow, it is easier to just do quick notes on the pitchers going instead of going through the whole charting process.

Logan Webb SFG v. ARI – A fantasy ace; must-start. Reco: All

Ryan Pepiot TBR v. LAA – I’m still fully in on my guy. The 5.40 ERA isn’t great, but the 23% K-BB and 1.02 WHIP leave me undaunted by the extra runs he’s allowing. He’s still locked into my lineup and he gets DET next week, too! Reco: All

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Pretty straightforward board on Wednesday. I think you have to stick with Fried and Gausman despite their slow starts. There’s a nice handful of streamer types to take shots with across all formats or in DFS. I really wish Feltner wasn’t a Rockie so I could just roster him all year, I think he’s really good. Next week I’ll start adding this year’s stats for pitchers. I just don’t want to people to get overly influenced by weird ass ERAs. It’s not like next week is some perfect cut-off, either, but I’m trying to wait for most guys to have 4-5 starts at least and I’ll do my best to point out when there’s 1 start causing a misleadingly bad ERA and things like that. I’ve got my chat on Wednesday at 1 pm ET so feel free to bring your questions there or just leave ’em in the comments of this post!

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Daily SP Chart archive

How do y’all handle Hunter Greene? Do you try to time him and skip home starts? Or just go all out and use every start? Obviously he’s a start in Seattle, but I feel like you almost have to do the latter and just run him everywhere. He was a top 150 pick so even in the shallowest formats, he is part of the upper 2/3rds of a roster so there is some real expectation of production. I can envision having a rotation deep enough to spot him a bit in 10-teamers, but in 12-teamers or more, I can’t see sitting him, especially because his splits aren’t even that severe so you can find yourself sitting gems and eating duds.

He and Nick Lodolo are tough ones for me because I’m a really big fan of both, but Great American Ballpark’s 128 HR Park Factor the last three years paired with Greene’s 1.6 HR9 and Lodolo’s 1.4 HR9 rates kept me away at the draft table. I know there’s a world where they both put it together enough to start suppressing homers, even at home, and fulfill their breakout prophecies. And that world is what feeds my FOMO with them.

Skipping Lodolo was just the injury to start the season and I don’t love drafting already-injured guys in the NFBC universe (7 reserves, no IL). But when push came to shove with Greene requiring a pick around 100 to really secure him (137 ADP in the Main Event with a min pick of 89), I just couldn’t see it. In one of my drafts, I took Tanner Bibee (who also throws on Tuesday) and Shota Imanaga in the 2 picks where I was really considering Greene, who went 4 picks after Imanaga at pick 125.

In my other draft, he lasted until 150 but I was hitter focused with 3 of my 4 picks from 101-150 and Yu Darvish as my only pitcher. I can certainly understand the argument for Greene over Darvish, but even at age-37 I felt more confident about what I can get with Darvish. They’ve been about the same thus far per our new Player Rater with Greene at 84 among pitchers and Darvish at 92. It seems like Greene has more upside because we can dream on just about anything if that stuff comes with a summer of premium command a la Germán Márquez in 2018, but we’re also not that far removed from Darvish’s 3.10 ERA/0.95 WHIP of 2022 which still exists as a potential upside. He started off that season with an 11% BB rate in 4 starts before delivering a 4% BB rate over his next 26 starts, fueling the excellent season.

Who do you like the rest of the way: Greene or Darvish?

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Pitchers drafted in 150-250 range in the Main Event that I’m really looking to hold through this early storm:

• Mitch Keller
• Ryan Pepiot
• Luis Severino
• Kenta Maeda
• Griffin Canning

You can find that ADP here and then select Main Event. I think I want at least 5-6 starts before moving off this group if I bought in on them at the draft table. League size and who is available of course plays a role as these are mostly for 12s or more.

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No comments on today’s chart. I am just dead tired and need to get to bed, but I will answer the comments throughout Friday if you have questions about anyone for tomorrow or the weekend.

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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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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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