Roto Riteup: April 22, 2025
Sliding into the work week like:
On the Agenda:
1. Closer Chaos
2. Quick Hits
3. Various News and Notes
4. Streaming Pitchers
Closer Chaos
Jesus Tinoco threw a perfect ninth inning versus the Reds on Monday to register the save. This was Tinoco’s second save in back-to-back games. He does have very good stuff and could find himself as the main guy in Miami, but this feels like more of a committee than one person’s job.
Quick Hits
Chase Meidroth was placed on the IL with a thumb injury. There is no timetable for his return.
Rob Brantly was placed on the IL with a strained lat. Top prospect Agustin Ramírez was recalled to take his spot on the roster and will be a top pick up this week.
Luis Arraez was placed on the 7-Day IL with a concussion There is no timetable for his return.
Spencer Strider was placed on the IL with a hamstring strain. Strider injured the hamstring while playing catch in the outfield on Monday. There is no timetable for his return.
Various News and Notes
Top prospect Nick Kurtz is expected to be recalled on Wednesday to make his Major League debut. The fourth overall draft pick in the 2024 draft has been unreal in AAA this season, hitting .321/.385/.655 with seven home runs in 97 plate appearances. He may have a transition period in the Majors, but he will be a must pick up this week in all formats.
Eric Wagaman went 2-for-5 with a home run and stolen base in the victory over the Reds on Monday.
Wagaman has quietly been good when he is in the lineup, hitting .277/.338/.477 with three home runs and a stolen base. He makes a lot of contact, but he has an accumulator profile on a bad team where he may not be playing regularly.
Gavin Sheets went 2-for-4 with a home run in the loss to the Tigers on Monday.
With Arraez out with a concussion, Sheets will get to play more in a platoon with Yuli Gurriel. He is hitting .344/.388/.557 with three home runs and a stolen base and is a good streamer the rest of this week with all five of their games against right starters.
Streaming Pitchers (Under 50% in CBS)
Pitcher for Today: Nick Martinez
Not a lot of great options here, but I am ok picking on the Marlins in Miami.
High Risk Options: Griffin Canning vs PHI, Osvaldo Bido vs TEX, Will Warren at CLE, Edward Cabrera vs CIN, Ryan Feltner at KC
Pitcher for Tomorrow: David Festa vs CHW
Festa may not go deep enough to get a win or QS so if you are streaming for that, look elsewhere, but K’s and ratios should be nice here versus a terrible White Sox team.
High Risk Options: Andrew Heaney at LAA, Tomoyuki Sugano at WAS, JP Sears at TEX, Luis Ortiz vs NYY, Michael Lorenzen vs COL, Jack Kochanowicz vs PIT.
For those of you that would like to see how these picks play out, I have a doc I put together to track the stats from my recommended pitchers. It does not include the “High Risk Options.”
Justin is the co-host on The Sleeper and The Bust Podcast and writes for Rotographs covering the Roto Riteup as well as other periodic articles. In addition to his work at Rotographs, Justin is the lead fantasy writer/analyst and co-owner for FriendswithFantasyBenefits.com, and the owner of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational. He is also a certified addiction treatment counselor. Follow Justin on Twitter @JustinMasonFWFB.
Perusing Kurtz’s MiLB page, and just based on the numbers there:
Kurtz’s 1st 10 games: .386/.426/.909
Kurtz’s last 10 games: .250/.361/.375
HIs BB% the 1st 10 games was 5.9% and it’s been 14.9% since then. Meanwhile his K% has gone from 25.5% to 29.8%. So it looks a little like teams have stopped pitching to him and maybe he’s just in the midst of adjusting back to being pitched a lot more carefully since he has 7 BB in his last 7 games.
(I’m using the game logs from his MiLB page which doesn’t have HBP or SF/SH. He does have 2 SF per his FG player page, though I don’t know when so they aren’t factored into the splits above and they aren’t going to change the numbers that much anyway)
He also has massive platoon splits: 1.152 OPS with a .404 ISO vs RH pitching and .804 OPS with a .185 ISO vs LH pitching.
Don’t harsh on Kurtz. My offensively starved teams need this!
Same here! I’ve been monitoring him so closely precisely because I have him stashed. Really hoping he succeeds. When I 1st saw how much he’s slowed down, I was massively bummed. Reminded me of Coby Mayo last year who was red hot, then went ice cold just before getting called up and then stinking up the joint at the MLB level.
But this looks a little bit like teams just stopped giving him anything to hit.
Rob Brantly. Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
Sooooo…what are the A’s going to do with two mashing lefty first basemen? There is an ominous tie-in to left field. Both Rooker and Andujar have modest career splits, but the only reasonable assumption is that Andujar is done facing righties and Rooker will have to play the outfield. That is the only way to open up the DH slot for Soderstrom.
Very interesting for sure. My guess is Kurtz platoons hitting vs RH pitching only. That solves half the problem. Rooker will have to play some in LF vs RH pitching and stay at DH vs LH pitching. But there are various things they can try. Not to mention Kurtz may strike out a fair bit in his rookie season and might not stay in the majors if he does.
They’re talking about possibly trying Soderstrom at 3B or LF and maybe also go back to catching every so often as well since he came up as a catcher and even started 15 games there at the MLB level back in 2023. Obviously Langeliers is pretty locked in as the starter but he isn’t going to catch every day. If he can do that, that really opens it up to be:
I’m kind of thinking Soderstrom at 3B is probably a stretch, we’ll see, but I could see him handling LF. His sprint speed is a perfectly respectable 27.7 ft/sec. I know that doesn’t automatically mean he’ll be Ok out there, but it’s a good starting data point for an OF. He must have a decent arm having played C so maybe he could even spell Butler in RF occasionally. Kurtz is supposed to be a plus defender at 1B and has played almost literally nowhere else since high school so defensively he’s probably locked in at 1B/DH only.
Who’d have thought the Athletics might actually be interesting this year? If they can get any pitching whatsoever, they might even be decent. . . .
Regarding David Festa he is indeed a good pitcher and should be in the rotation but something has to give as Zebby Matthews is close to forcing the Twins to put him in the rotation. With Pablo coming back the Twins have 7 starters. Paddack was about to be sent down or to the pen but suddenly pitched a good game. For me the 5 starters should be Pablo, Joey Ryan, Ober, Festa and Matthews.