Mining the News (8/19/26)

Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

Note: Any noted rostership rates come from the NFBC RotoWire Online Championship, the same rates we use on the FanGraphs Player Rater. For reference, these leagues are 12-team Roto leagues with 30-man rosters (2 C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, MI, CI, 5 OF, UT, 9 P) and weekly add/drops. This rate can be compared to other rostership rates found in this article.

American League

Astros

• Hunter Brown continues to have issues controlling his fastball.

In six of them, Brown has had an in-zone fastball rate of lower than 40 percent. Last month, Brown bemoaned a problem with the timing of his delivery — his upper and lower halves were not in perfect sync, Brown said. He has thus far been unable to correct the issue with any consistency.

“It just comes down to the fact that I should be able to throw my four-seam fastball in the strike zone,” Brown said. “Is it timing? Is it this? Is it that? Sure, there’s a lot that goes into it. But at the end of the day, I need to throw more strikes. That’s the bottom line.”

• Mike Burrows is no longer dealing with elbow neuritis and is returning to his old mechanics.

Meanwhile, right-hander Mike Burrows is hoping to be an option to rejoin the rotation down the stretch. On the injured list since early July with elbow neuritis, he threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings in his first rehab start Friday at Triple-A and is scheduled to start again for Sugar Land on Thursday.

“I think we were just identifying what I did well last year and trying to get back to some of those good movements that I had last year that can keep me feeling good throughout the year,” Burrows said. “It was really just harping on a couple of things posturally and [with] the release with some of the pitches.”

Burrows, who posted a 5.99 ERA in 18 games (17 starts) for the Astros this year, said Friday he had been dealing with elbow neuritis for six weeks prior to going on the injured list and was trying to manage it with antibiotics. He spent four weeks in West Palm Beach, Fla., resting and rehabbing, and said the issue is resolved.

Athletics

• Denzel Clarke is on a rehab assignment.

OF Denzel Clarke
Injury: Left hamstring strain
IL date: April 22 (transferred to 60-day IL on May 26)
Expected return: Early September
Status: Will begin a rehab assignment with Triple-A Las Vegas on Aug. 18 with a Spring Training-like progression.

The outfield is going to get crowded with Clarke (.417 OPS), Henry Bolte (.710 OPS), Carlos Cortes (.745 OPS), and Lawrence Butler (.656). While Clarke has struggled at the plate, he is one of the top few defensive outfielders in the league.

Blue Jays

• Spencer Arrighetti is struggling with his fastball velocity while on rehab.

RHP Spencer Arrighetti
Injury: Morton’s neuroma (right foot)
IL date: July 25 (15-day)
Expected return: Potentially late August
Status: Threw 50 pitches over 3 2/3 innings Aug. 16 in a rehab start with Triple-A Buffalo. Averaged 90.5 mph on his four-seamer, below his average of 92.4 mph this season in the big leagues. Could need at least one more rehab start.

I’m ignoring him for now.

Mariners

• Colt Emerson dealt with a wrist issue for a while.

SS Colt Emerson
Injury: Left wrist tendon inflammation
IL date: Aug. 14
Expected return: TBD
Status: Is in the process of seeing a specialist in Arizona for a more thorough evaluation of the issue, which has been bothering him for some time now.

Hopefully the injury helps explain his .581 OPS.

Rangers

• Jack Leiter (26% rostered) is about done with his rehab assignment.

RHP Jack Leiter
Injury: Right ankle arthroscopic surgery
IL date: June 21 (retroactive to June 19, transferred to 60-day IL on Aug. 9)
Expected return: August
Status: Pitched 2 2/3 innings in a rehab start with Triple-A Round Rock on Aug. 13, striking out three with one hit and one walk. Might not require another rehab start, depending on Jacob deGrom’s status.

Before going on the IL, he had a 5.29 ERA (4.25 xFIP), 1.44 WHIP, and 9.3 K/9.

Red Sox

• Trevor Story’s (31% rostered) rehab assignment is almost over.

SS Trevor Story
Injury: Sports hernia
IL date: May 16 (transferred to 60-day IL on June 4)
Expected return: Late August/early September
Status: Was 1-for-2 while playing four innings in rehab assignment opener on Aug. 16. Story is set to play seven to nine innings at shortstop for Triple-A Worcester on Aug. 18-19 and will be re-evaluated from there.

Twins

• Zebby Matthews has new cleats after dealing with a blister since July.

Though Matthews struggled in the sixth, he held Atlanta scoreless through five innings. Wearing new cleats for the second start in a row, Matthews said a blister/foot laceration issue he’s dealt with since July is subsiding.

Matthews’ record improved to 7-8 as he struck out four and allowed a run in 5 2/3 innings.

“Foot’s been great,” Matthews said. “Switched cleats and got new turf toe. Shout-out Under Armour cleats I guess, I don’t know. It’s been good.”

Yankees

• If Clarke Schmidt returns this season, it will be in the bullpen.

RHP Clarke Schmidt
Injury: Tommy John surgery recovery
IL date: Feb. 12 (60-day IL)
Expected return: Possibly August
Status: Has resumed playing catch after experiencing right forearm cramping during Aug. 4 live batting practice. Yankees are getting him ready to return in a bullpen role, but he has yet to throw from a mound again.

National League

Brewers

• Sal Frelick and Cooper Pratt are on rehab assignments.

OF Sal Frelick
Injury: Right shoulder strain
IL date: July 18 (10-day IL)
Expected return: As soon as the week of Aug. 17
Status: After beginning a rehab assignment with Triple-A Nashville as the designated hitter, played right field on Aug. 14 and Aug. 16 and was getting close to a comeback. “Sal will know when he’s ready,” Pat Murphy said.
…
SS Cooper Pratt
Injury: Right hamstring strain
IL date: Aug. 9 (10-day IL)
Expected return: Late August
Status: Will begin a rehab assignment on Aug. 18 at High-A Wisconsin, that club announced.

Looking back at mid-June to mid-July, when both were healthy, the lineup was a constant mess, and it was tough to find regulars. I suspect something similar this time.

Update: The team sent Pratt to the minors.

Milwaukee Brewers sent SS Cooper Pratt on a rehab assignment to Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.

— MLB Transaction Bot (@transactionbot.bsky.social) 2026-08-19T19:34:19.997711+00:00

Cubs

• Justin Steele and Ben Brown will not be joining the rotation, but will be in the bullpen once healthy.

Two pitchers who are on the IL with starting in their backgrounds are righty Ben Brown and lefty Justin Steele. They have both advanced to throwing off a mound, but they are not expected to be rotation reinforcements down the stretch.

Brown thrived as a high-leverage, multi-inning reliever earlier in the season, and that could be an option once again for him in September and possibly in the playoffs. As for Steele, given that he has missed the bulk of two seasons after left elbow surgery, Chicago’s focus is to get him into game action before the end of the year. That means a Minor League rehab assignment, with any appearances for the Cubs viewed at this point as a potential bonus.

Diamondbacks

• Lourdes Gurriel Jr. is about done with his rehab assignment and headed to a crowded outfield.

Where Gurriel plays in a crowded outfield when he gets back is another can of worms considering the Diamondbacks have seven outfielder already on the roster, including utility man Tim Tawa.

Corbin Carroll is in right field every day. Right-handed hitters Ryan Waldschmidt and Lawlar can play center or left. Left-handed hitters Max Kepler and Lars Nootbaar have been swapping between left field and designated hitter against righties. Switch-hitter Jorge Barrosa is a late-game substitution most of the time.

With that much depth, Gurriel may have to adapt to a different role when he returns compared to what it was when he went down.

Maybe someone can learn to play second base.

Giants

• Blade Tidwell pitched with a sore back.

But Tidwell was dealing with back soreness, and Vitello said the coaching staff had monitored his drop in velocity. The Giants didn’t go any further with Tidwell after he issued a pair of one-out walks in the fifth.

Next time, don’t pitch hurt. In 4 IP, he allowed 6 ER on 1 K and 5 BB.

• Marcelo Mayer (5% rostered) is nearing the end of his rehab assignment.

SS Marcelo Mayer
Injury: Bone stress reaction, left ulna
IL date: June 26 (10-day IL)
Expected return: August
Status: Began a rehab assignment with Triple-A Sacramento on Aug. 13. Could return during the Giants’ upcoming trip to Cleveland and Boston.

In his rehab, he’s struggling to make contact with a 47% K% and 64% Contact% (19 PA).

Marlins

• During the All-Star break, Pete Fairbanks reworked his delivery.

During the All-Star break, Fairbanks and pitching coach Daniel Moskos huddled up to discuss how the 32-year-old closer could regain his dominant form, and they landed on raising the arm angle on his delivery.

The right-hander has consistently had one of the highest releases in the sport, as high as a 63 degree angle in 2021 and sitting at 59 degrees last season. However, Fairbanks had dropped his arm down to 53.4 degrees in the first half.

“We wanted to get back, lean into more of his north-south approach, something he’s done pretty much his entire career,” Moskos said. “That was a little bit of a delivery tweak, and you’ve seen him really take off and run with it. … It’s been pretty clean, pretty good. You’re starting to see the at-bats look a lot less comfortable against left-handers specifically. He’s been pretty good against righties all year, but the left-handed-batter approach is something that we certainly had our eye on.”

He’s improved with a 20% K-BB% before the break and a 33% K-BB% after it.

Nationals

• CJ Abrams wants to improve his shortstop defense so he can continue to play there instead of moving to second base.

Sanders doubled down on Abrams’ assertion that he views himself as a shortstop long-term, and indicated that his client intends to spend the winter focused on improving his defense at his preferred position. Sanders believes Abrams has earned an offseason to prove that he can stick at short.

“He’s always viewed himself as a shortstop short-term and long-term, and would love to have the offseason under this front office to be able to work on that,” Sanders said. “I believe CJ can be a very good shortstop, and without having an offseason to specifically train at the position using the information and feedback this staff has given him, I don’t think we have a full evaluation yet of how good he can truly be there.”

Phillies

• Andrew Painter wants his four-seam fastball to have 18″ of vertical break.

Painter has made clear that he wants to get the pitch back to where it was before Tommy John surgery in 2023. He wants the inverted break, otherwise known as vertical ride, around 18 inches — a foot and a half — because that is where the pitch can start missing bats again when he locates it in the zone.

That is where it was on March 1, 2023, in a spring training outing against the Twins, the day that later led to the torn UCL diagnosis.

On Sunday, he said his four-seam fastball was the “best it’s been since TJ.”

It averaged more than 18 inches of vertical break, after mostly sitting around 16 inches this season and closer to 14 inches in recent starts.

As seen in this graph, he’s reached that break in two to three starts, but it has eluded him most of the season.

Pirates

• The team hopes Konnor Griffin will come off the IL on September 4th.

SS Konnor Griffin
Injury: Torn left ring finger sagittal band
IL date: July 7 (transferred to 60-day IL on July 11)
Expected return: Early September
Status: Injured the finger on a diving play on July 5. No longer needs a splint after wearing one for six weeks. Will advance to baseball activities and head to Bradenton, Fla., on Aug. 19. Pirates are optimistic Griffin will be ready when eligible, on Sept. 4.

• According to the manager, Luke Weaver and Mason Montgomery will get the team’s Save opportunities.

“Maybe we get there. I don’t know,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said of definitively placing roles on his relievers. “Right now, I’d still say we’re Weaver and Montgomery in the eighth and ninth, just depending on what the matchups are looking like.”

• With Oneil Cruz off the IL, Jake Mangum will play some center and left field.

Mangum relished the ability to play consistently in the big leagues, entering Monday batting .300 while performing largely out of the leadoff spot and becoming the Pirates’ nominee for the Heart & Hustle Award. While Mangum won’t be in center field as much with Cruz easing back in, Pirates manager Don Kelly expects Mangum to still play plenty in center and left.

“It’s nice to be in rhythm. You’re in rhythm with a game,” Mangum said. “When you’re in that fourth outfield role, it’s challenging to stay locked in every day. You feel like you need to work pregame to stay ready for the game, but then you’re sore when you go into the game later that night. Playing every day allows you to get into a rhythm for sure. It’s a challenging thing to come in off the bench in this league and get one at-bat.”

In three games since Cruz returned, Mangum started in two of three games with Cruz sitting against the one lefty starter.

Rockies

• Kyle Karros (47% rostered) is close to rejoining the team.

3B Kyle Karros
Injury: Concussion
IL date: Aug. 12 (7-day IL)
Expected return: TBD
Status: Injured in an on-field collision with shortstop Ezequiel Tovar on Aug. 11. Is running, hitting and fielding in Arizona and could rejoin the club soon, according to head athletic trainer Keith Dugger.

Willi Castro has been playing third base with Karros gone.