We are entering the dog days of the season and this season is of course particularly unique because we’re coming off the pandemic year. The dog days could hit harder than normal and have teams pushing hard for reinforcements to ensure their major league arms can get to the finish line of the regular season and beyond if they are contenders. Here are five guys who be called up (or back up) to make a late-season impact.

Joe Ryan | MIN – 35% K, 5% BB, 3.63 ERA, 0.79 WHIP in 57 IP

Ryan was in the Nelson Cruz deal and though the Twins are toast for the year, they should still consider giving the 25-year-old righty a look soon. Brilliant command of his fastball has fueled elite K%-BB% all the way up the minor league ladder along with being a bit old for each level, too. He fared pretty well for Team USA in the Olympics, too, with 10 K and 1 BB in 4.7 IP. It’s time to see if this heater is going to find MLB success and if they turn him loose, he could be a nice SP pickup in a lot of formats.

Aaron Ashby | MIL – 36% K, 12% BB, 4.48 ERA, 1.38 WHIP in 62.3 IP

Ashby made his debut earlier this year and it didn’t go well, allowing seven runs (four earned) on four hits and three walks while getting just two outs. He struggled in his first two outings back in Triple-A after the debut, but then settled down with a 2.08 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 38 K, and 6 BB in 21.7 IP. He is actually back today (Tuesday, August 10th) for the doubleheader against the Cubs and could be a key piece to helping Milwaukee rest the three aces down the stretch. This is a volatile profile, but the huge strikeout ability gives him some real upside.

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Following a 2020 season in which only 40 starting pitchers reached at least 60 IP, the general worries that starters would be limited this year, have yet to be actualized. Granted, they still have two months to do so but my concerns have at least been tamped down on veterans with track records of high usage. However, pitchers with previously middling maxs are still worrying, particularly as more teams drop out of contention, and young starters still carry the same concerns as they do in the second half of any season.

However, whether looking at veterans or rookies, fantasy managers must try to set expectations for their pitching staff as we head into the fantasy dog days. Even if trusting what management says tends to be an exercise in futility. But you need to at least try to have a handle on who you can depend on the rest of the way, if only to curse their names when they do the opposite.

One if by shutdown, two if by bullpen…The limits are coming! The limits are coming! Read the rest of this entry »

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they shape they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

Tonight is a short slate, so not a lot of great options, so I thought we’d zero in on DraftKings, where we have to play two pitchers. On DK, we have to know when to play about half of the pool and when to condense the pool. With so much bad pitching, it’s a slate to attack that bad pitching with a diversity of hitter stacks and have a condensed player pool.

And even this condensed pool isn’t super pretty, so you can imagine how much fat we’ve cut:

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Over the last week, I’ve discussed a number of hitters who have recently earned regular playing time. Now let’s shift our focus over to starting pitchers. Let’s dive into four starters who have just recently made their first MLB starts.

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Baseball is happening! I decided for the entire season to run a weekly article on pitchers who have been “heating up.” I will dive into what it could mean for the pitcher and what you should do with them. This should be a captivating concept because it will be pitchers of all levels, anywhere from aces to pitchers you would have never drafted. That’s what it’s all about, catching players as they improve and acting on it before anyone else can realize. Welcome to “Throwing Heat!”

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Our MLB DFS lineups don’t start and end with pitching. I’m not saying to punt pitcher every night or even every now and then. I’m just stressing that each and every slate does not rest upon our pitching. That said, the pitcher position is so vital because it’s the slot where we can get the most accurate projection in an extremely volatile wing of DFS.

Our pitching isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they shape they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

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7/23/21

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

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• @sporer – Host
• @PitcherList – Nick Pollack (Producer)

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FIRESIDE

• Max Scherzer (1:30)
• José Berríos (10:18)
• Kyle Gibson (16:08)
• Jon Gray (24:20)
• Charlie Morton (30:20)

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Yesterday, I discussed six starting pitchers who had seen their strikeout rates surge the most over the last 30 days compared to the rest of the season to date. Today, we’re going to review the starting pitchers on the opposite end — those whose strikeout rates have declined the most over the last 30 days.

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It’s been too long since I’ve released an updated SP ranking here on the site. While I am updating them with regularity on our Patreon, I will make sure to have another couple of updates over the final 2+ months of the season here as well.

The blue bar represents the START of a new tier.

I generally don’t include IL’d guys, but I made an exception for Manoah because he should be back after essentially a minimum stay for a back contusion. He slipped in the dugout and hurt himself, but it looks like he could pitch this weekend or be in line for a 2-start next week.

I view these as 3-4 week rankings given the volatility of pitching and I think this second half will be among the most volatility with pitchers getting skipped and shut down for innings limits. I’m confident that Luis Garcia will be swapped with Cristian Javier in the Astros rotation, but it hasn’t happened yet and so we need to enjoy his excellence while we have it. Garcia’s true talent is probably Top 30, but the rug could be pulled out at any moment so I hedged a bit with his ranking.

The same goes for the Brewers studs, though at a higher level. If we didn’t have any inning concerns, they’d all slot a bit higher.

I’ll answer as many questions as I can in the comments so let me know what you think!

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Pitchers sometimes change rapidly. Whether it’s gaining or losing velocity, altering their pitch mix, changing their delivery, moving on the rubber, or something else, it’s important to pay attention to trends in their underlying skills as it could be very telling. So let’s review the strikeout rate surgers over the last 30 days compared to what these pitchers posted for the season heading into this period.

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