Ottoneu Cold Right Now: June 18, 2025

Cold Right Now (CRN) is a weekly Ottoneu feature focused on players being dropped or who should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. In this feature, we will break down players into three sections:

1. Roster Cuts: Analysis of players who have been cut in a high percentage of leagues.
2. Recent Injuries: A look at the implications of recent injuries (not all, just some high-profile ones).
3. Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.

This article will typically run once per week and will help fantasy managers keep track of players that need to be given extra attention to improve rosters.

Roster Cuts

Robert Hassell III, Add% Change (7 days): -11.0%

Hassell’s being cut primarily because he was sent down. But he was sent down, at least in part, because he didn’t hit. Over 79 MLB PA, Hassell has a .220 wOBA. His xwOBA (.292) is much better but, as you know, there can be a gap between “better” and “good” and that xwOBA is still not good.

The problem is, to be blunt, he really didn’t do anything well at the plate. His walk rate is 1.3%. His K-rate is 26.6%. His barrel and hard-hit rates are both bottom half of the league. Just not a lot to like.

Hassell’s minor league career has been riddled with ups and down, so a poor debut like this is both not a huge surprise and, perhaps, not a massive reason for long-term concern. He’s shown an ability to recover from slumps like this, to make adjustments and to perform better. That said, he hasn’t looked like a particularly exciting prospect for a while and there isn’t a ton of reason for him to remain rostered.

 

Injuries

Justin Martinez, Add% Change (7 days): -47.0%

Martinez wasn’t exactly in the very top-tier of Ottoneu relievers, but was putting up over 8 P/IP and was a guy you’d be thrilled to have in your lineups. Unfortunately, he’s been shut down and will undergo Tommy John surgery. Given the timing, this not only ends his 2025, but puts his chances of pitching in 2026 in doubt. If you are prepping your 2027 draft sheet ahead of time, though, you should put him on there.

Jackson Jobe, Add% Change (7 days): -18.7%

Jobe, like Martinez, is going under the knife and will likely miss most, if not all, of the 2026 season. Unlike Martinez, Jobe remains rostered in nearly 2/3rds of leagues. The question is: why? Young, talented, high upside starting pitchers are certainly more stashable than even very good relievers, but is Jobe really worth stashing?

I think that depends on price. He’s been placed on the 60-day IL, so you no longer need a roster spot for him, which helps. But Jobe pitched pretty poorly this year and his median salary is $6. If you are holding him at $6 now because you don’t need the cash and don’t feel like cutting him, that’s perfectly reasonable.

But if you are looking at keeping him, or you do need the cash, it’s okay to let him go. I don’t think Jobe is an $8 stash for all of 2026, knowing you likely get limited to no value from him until 2027 when he will be $10, and when he will be almost two years removed from what’s been an incredibly disappointing rookie season.

Jerar Encarnacion, Add% Change (7 days): -10.7%

I almost put Encarnacion in the category above – I didn’t want to leave Hassell feeling lonely and Encarnacion’s performance hasn’t been good – but it felt cruel. No, it is not totally accurate to say the injury is the only reason Encarnacion is being cut, but calling out his poor performance over 22 PA doesn’t seem productive either.

That said, Encarnacion has now had 222 MLB PA over three different seasons and done absolutely nothing with them. His K-rate has improved since his debut, but it is still not good and given poor grades on his hit tool as a prospect, we should neither be surprised nor expect that to change.

Honestly, I don’t see the appeal in Encarnacion. Looking over his minor league track record, he wasn’t an above average hitter in the high minors until age 24 in Double-A. He might just be a late bloomer, but he looks more like a guy whose performance we need to discount because of his age. Once you do that, you aren’t left with much to be excited about.

Cold Performers

Cold performers are marked by measuring low P/G or P/IP in the last 14 days.

Emmanuel Clase,  4.6 P/IP

Clase could probably benefit from a deeper dive than I can give in this space, but when you are counting on a high-priced reliever to give you elite performance and he looks like a middling starting pitcher, that isn’t ideal.

Clase is a good (bad?) example of why you use K% instead of K/9. On the year, he has increased his K/9 to 9.68, which would be a career-high. But his K% is 23.7%, down from last year and from the 25% he was running in his Cleveland tenure coming into the season. His K/9 is up because his walk-rate (6.5%) is a career-high and his BABIP is an absurd .387.

So what is driving these struggles? He’s giving up more hard contact than ever before, though his 40.4% hard-hit rate isn’t a TON higher than the 37.6% he posted in 2023. Of course that was his only season over 33% since his rookie year, so that’s not great.

Clase is primarily a two-pitch guy and this is a quick summary of those pitches over the years.

What stands out this year is that his velo is lower than it has ever been and his movement is greater than it has ever been, on both pitches. It’s almost like he traded off a small amount of velocity on the cutter (and more on the slider) to get more break. And it doesn’t seem like that is a great trade off for him. Making matters worse, his velocity is not trending a positive direction.

Putting both pitches on the same graph makes the slider decrease look worse (and it is) but don’t downplay the fastball decline. And this isn’t a trend he has shown in past seasons. Last year, in fact, his velocity increased as the season went on.

More research would need to be done to identify a root cause here, but this is the trend to watch and definitely an issue to track. I am not cutting Clase right now, but if I had him on a team where I was selling, I would be shopping his name value. This might be a blip, it might be a down year, it might be an injury, but in any of those cases, if you can trade him for full value, you won’t regret it.