Roto Riteup: March 16, 2015
The Roto Riteup is back for 2015, baby! David Wiers and I will be your hosts for yet another year, providing white hot baseballing content on a daily basis during the regular season. For the next couple weeks leading up to Opening Day, we’ll be publishing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to keep you up to date on news of interest around the fantasy baseball universe.
If you have any suggestions for the 2015 RR — other than replacing Wiers with someone who doesn’t love My Little Pony — please do leave them in the comments.
On today’s agenda:
1. Jake McGee on the mend
2. Drew Smyly to miss first turn through rotation
3. Rusney Castillo coming back slowly
4. Jake Smolinski making his case
Jake McGee on the mend
The Rays closer for most of last season, McGee underwent arthroscopic surgery on his elbow late last year, and has been working his way back from surgery for the last few months. McGee is set to throw a bullpen session tomorrow, and the Rays still believe he’ll be back in the bigs by early May. Brad Boxberger will handle ninth inning duties for the time being, and this author believes that he may pitch so well that McGee won’t automatically reclaim the job once healthy.
Drew Smyly to miss first turn through rotation
Sticking with the Rays, manager Kevin Cash has already proclaimed that Smyly will miss his first scheduled start of the season while recovering from tendinitis in his throwing shoulder. Smyly isn’t ready to throw off a mound yet, but the Rays are still hoping that he’ll only miss the one start. All-in-all, Smyly missing his first couple outings could be a blessing in disguise — the left-hander has yet to throw more than 153 innings in a season, and missing a couple starts early will be help limit his workload.
Rusney Castillo coming back slowly
The young Red Sox outfielder has been sidelined with a strained oblique, but he took some normal swings yesterday and appears to be on a path back to full health. Boston hasn’t made a prediction of when Castillo will be ready to appear in games, and with Mookie Betts playing well and a general glut of qualified outfielders, the team can afford to move Castillo along slowly. Once healthy, one would hope that the Cuban import will get a chance to win a starting job, but nothing is guaranteed.
Jake Smolinski making his case
Smolinski got some help from the BABIP gods in his 24 game audition late last season, but the Rangers outfielder has picked up where he left off this spring. Smolinski’s hitting .368 in Cactus League play, jacking three homers in 19 ABs. The Rangers don’t have a solution in place in left field, with Ryan Ludwick, Nate Schierholtz, and Michael Choice also in the mix for playing time, so Smolinski is going to have to fight it out to prove he belongs. It looks to be somewhat of a lost year for Texas, so they will hopefully look towards the future and give Smolinski a chance at an extended look in April and May.
Zach is the creator and co-author of RotoGraphs' Roto Riteup series, and RotoGraphs' second-longest tenured writer. You can follow him on twitter.
First, I just want you to know I peed a little in excitement at seeing dueling Roto Riteups this morning. Second, how worried should we be about Smyly’s shoulder over the course of the season?
If anyone would tinkle in excitement, it would be you, Emcee Peepants.
I’m not sure on Smyly’s shoulder yet. His over-the-top motion is a bit scary when it comes to shoulder issues, so it could very well end up as an ongoing problem. I’ll be dropping him down a round, at least, on my boards.
as you said, I hope they don’t rush him back. Doesn’t matter if his innings limit occurs at the beginning or the end of the year
I think the worry about Smyly all depends where he goes in your draft or auction. I’m a lot less worried about him if he drops a few rounds and becomes a worthy gamble that could pay off with a large return. I am very worried if I have invested in him heavily or my league does not drop him a few rungs in terms of value.
I guess what I am trying to say is that in my opinion, if I can get Smyly at a nice value where if he does get re-injured, it does not cripple my pitching staff, but if I am heavily counting on him to carry my staff to a championship I would be concerned.
As for McGee, I am at the point already considering some of the costs for redelivers in a few of my leagues that I am content to simply wait until nearly the very end and deal with RP’s on the back end of my draft and on the waiver wire. It may hurt me in April, but considering the massive upheaval at that position in recent years I see no point in investing in someone like McGee heavily considering Boxberger and Jepsen could run away with that job by the time he gets back 100%.
Have the Rays stated that Boxberger will get Save opportunities to start the year?
They’ve been non-committal, with Balfour and Jepsen also in the mix.
Don’t count out Balfour for Rays saves if he’s pitching well in camp.
Indeed.
.458 BABIP last year with the Rangers for Smolinkski, wow.
He not only got help from the BABIP gods, but the Norse, Roman and Hindi gods as well it seems. Interesting guy to follow for somebody in an AL only format.