Waiver Wire: August 13th
The options on the wire are dwindling as temperatures hit their peaks. Here’s a pair of pitchers with low ownership rates could help the right team in the right place, though.
Jhoulys Chacin, Colorado (2% owned)
It looked for a second like Esmil Rogers was the one that would replace Aaron Cook, but that is no longer the case. The team just wanted Chacin to build back up the innings, as he had been in the bully for a little while. Chacin just went seven in the minor leagues and will take the next turn in the major league rotation. And, of course, he’s a really good pitcher that is borderline mixed league material. He’s already good – a 3.77 FIP in less than a hundred major league innings, with a nice strikeout rate (9.73 per nine this year) – but he can even be better. His minor league groundball percentage is 60.1%, and was 66.3% in Triple-A this year – so his major league number (44.7%) could easily improve. He also only walked 2.7 per nine in the minor leagues, but that number also creeped up as he advanced, so perhaps his current number (4.15) represents his actual talent level. No matter. If he strikes out a batter per inning and gets half of his balls on the ground, he’ll be a good pitcher. The key is the strikeouts. After only striking out 7.5 per nine over his minor league career, he’s been doing well in the majors. An 11.3% swinging strike percentage is both above average and a good harbinger of future strikeouts, though, so we’re betting on this young Rockies pitcher.
Jordan Zimmermann, Washington DC (2% owned)
Everyone’s been waiting on the other Nationals pitcher to join the big league team, but they are really babying their second ace. Wednesday marked the anniversary of his surgery, but he’s still pitching four innings at a time on his rehab stint. Compare him to Edinson Volquez, who had the surgery 374 days ago and has already made five starts this year. That’s what being competitive will do to you, perhaps. In any case, Zimmermann’s rehab has gone well. Usually it’s the control that comes back last, but he’s put up a 23-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 29.2 innings while rehabbing, which has to bode well. The strikeout rate and walk rate haven’t been quite as stellar at the higher levels of his rehab, but it’s time to see what he can do in the major leagues – or so says a fantasy manager. If he does come up soon, and can put up anything like his strikeout (9.07) and walk (2.86) rates of last year (his minor league numbers seem to suggest he can), he’ll be a good pickup in any league.
Ownership rates provided by Yahoo Fantasy Sports.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Any idea why Zimmermann is not on the disabled list?
I was wondering this myself. I play in a very deep league and I had a free DL spot so I’ve been holding onto Zimmerman for a few weeks. I had to remove him from the DL a few days ago because I had to add a catcher when Soto hit the DL.
Pretty sure its because he already passed the maximum allowed rehab time, which is a month for pitchers if I’m not mistaken. Once a pitcher goes on rehab and is actively rehabbing in pro games for a month, he must be activated or shut down. Since the Nats didn’t want to shut him down or put him in the major league rotation quite yet, they activated him and then optioned him back to the minors. Kind of sucks for fantasy owners hoping to stash him, which I did on a couple teams. I still have him on one and its causing a bit of a headache because I still have him on the DL slot and its preventing me from making any other moves (since you can’t make other moves while you have a player in your DL slot whose no longer on the DL), but its a H2H league, I’m in first place, and nothing big enough to warrant dropping him has come up yet so I figure its worth it to stash him as a potential ace-in-the-hole for the playoffs.
Mark is correct. Rehab time done, but team wants more time in the minors so they optioned him. It does suck, but with his ownership so low, mixed-leaguers can wait for the news to pick him up, I’d bet.
Thanks for the info! I wasn’t aware that pitchers were only allowed a month in the minors for rehab. How long do hitters get? I would imagine that if pitchers get a month, hitters would only get what 5-7 days?
I wonder what the Nats had to lose by putting him in the big leagues. I suppose it may have hurt his confidence if he struggled, but it’s not like the Nats are going anywhere this year.
“…I still have him on the DL slot and its preventing me from making any other moves (since you can’t make other moves while you have a player in your DL slot whose no longer on the DL),…”
Busch league.
Dan: I think its 20 days for hitters and technically 30 days for pitchers.
Chu Dog: Why is that bush league? Its hurting me at least as much as anyone else. I was all ready to grab Hellickson and drop Bumgarner but couldn’t do it and didn’t think it was worth losing Zimmermann over, and I also have Axford who was recently demoted to part time closer, though the best wire option is Storen anyway, so again, not a reason to drop Zimmermann. As Eno points out, its not like mixed leaguers are running out to grab Zim, his Y! ownership rate is 2% and its a standard 12-team mixed league.
Dan, the second question is actually interesting. I can think of two possibilities:
1. They think he needs more time. Definitely possible, seeing as how the surgery was basically one year ago. His turnaround is pretty amazing as it is, and they don’t really have any reason to rush things.
2. Service time. This is a tricky one. He already has 168 days of service time, so if he spends at least 4 days on the MLB roster this year, that’ll be one full year of service time (one full year of service time=172 days). They could conceivably have him make just one start in September and then option him back off the club, since they’re not in contention anyway, thus keeping him under team control for an extra year later on. For fantasy purposes, this would suck, but I wouldn’t put it past a team like the Nats that is legitimately focused more on the future than the present. Then again, I’m not really sure what they’d do with him in September. They could just shut him down, but you’d think they want to at least let him get those extra four or five starts in to build him up for next year.