Zack Godley & Aaron Altherr: Deep League Wire

It’s your favorite time of the week, the moment we dive into the deep depths of the ominous free agent pool. Who will we find?! Will we discover hidden treasure?!

Zack Godley | SP ARI | CBS 4% Owned

On Sunday, Zack Greinke hit the disabled list with an oblique strain. Those injuries are always tricky and sometimes lead to a month of missed time. Though the Diamondbacks weren’t required to replace one Zack with another Zack, that’s precisely what they did. And with a name like Godley, how could they resist such temptation? Pehraps he’s the man to act as the team’s savior this season. Or not.

So Godley isn’t exactly a top prospect. He got barely a mention in Dan Farnsworth’s preseason organizational prospect rankings, as Dan described Godley as “a one-trick pony with a low-90s cutter and below-average overall command”. Eeek, that’s not very nice! Of course, Godley is 26 already, so he’s a bit old to really be considered a prospect. And he only just reached Triple-A this year, throwing 24 innings.

However, he has generally posted pretty good strikeout rates wherever he has landed, though admittedly he has been rather inconsistent. In Double-A this year, he posted a weak 15.4% strikeout rate, but then enjoyed a surge at Triple-A, as it jumped to 24.8%. Whaaaaaa?! His walk rate has similarly been all over the map. He has shown a ground ball tilt, which is good when pitching in a home run happy park like Chase Field.

I think it was a bit unfair to call Godley a one-trick pony with just the cutter. In fact, he also throws a curve ball and changeup, and both pitches have been excellent. The fastball, not so much, which is why he uses it so infrequently. But both the curve and change have induced swinging strikes and grounders. He should probably just stop throwing his four-seamer, and go sinker/cutter and the two off-speed pitches. There is potential here for a decent pitcher, for as many turns as he gets while Greinke is out.

Aaron Altherr | OF PHI | 3% Owned

Remember him? After coming up in mid-August last year, Altherr went on a 19 homer, 22 steal pace extrapolated over 600 plate appearances. That kind of power/speed combo made him a nice sleeper at the end of even mixed league drafts. Unfortunately, spring training wasn’t so kind to him as he ended up tearing a tendon sheath in his left wrist while making a diving catch. See what you get when you try hard and make an effort?! Life isn’t fair sometimes. The injury knocked him out for a while and a four-to-six month timetable was slapped on his return.

We’re now four months later and he isn’t back yet, but there is some news:

OF Aaron Altherr could be about five weeks from a return, Matt Klentak said.

— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) July 5, 2016

That puts him right in the middle of his expected return timetable. So why recommend him now if he’s still more than a month away? Because it pays to be proactive and stash him away now so you don’t have to compete with the rest of your league when he’s just a week away, of course! Even better if you could pick him up and place him right into one of your DL slots.

Altherr played at every outfield spot last year and posted ridiculous UZR/150 marks at all three. Outside of Odubel Herrera, the Phillies offense has been atrocious. Peter Bourjous has BABIPed his way to 0.4 WAR, which is unlikely to last, while Cody Asche has played pretty well after returning from his own injury. But after that, it has been a disaster. So it shouldn’t be difficult for Altherr to find at-bats and on a Phillies team going nowhere, they have every reason to find time for the 25-year-old.