It's a frustrating time for those playing in fantasy baseball. Injuries are happening daily and to significant players. Mike Trout is the latest star to hit the Injured List with a calf strain and will miss six to eight weeks.
Those with Trout are likely dejected and think the season is over. This isn't the time to give up. There's still lots of baseball to be played. With all these injuries, it's affecting many teams. While you may feel like the bad luck is all on your team, many teams have injuries. Unfortunately, more will happen.
The people who continue to fight, work the waiver wire, make trades and examine all the details to find the next big waiver wire find will prevail in the end. Fantasy baseball is a grind and it takes work to win a championship.
Trust me, I am upset about losing Trout. I have Trout in the NFBC Main Event high stakes format and already lost my third-round pick Eloy Jiménez for the season. There's nothing I can do but move forward. This is a league with no trading, so at least in your leagues with trading there's another way to make changes. The bottom line is: Never give up!
Here are some things standing out to me.
Rich Hill got off to an awful start this season and was dropped in many leagues. He allowed 16 runs over his first 16.1 innings. In his last 21.2 innings, the Rays left-hander has allowed eight hits, two earned runs, walked eight and struck out 27. Hill is 41 years old and injuries are always going to be a factor for him. He pitched 38.2 innings last season and 58.2 innings in 2019.
Hill has been good the last several seasons and will continue to help fantasy teams. While has a 4.26 ERA due to the poor start, he has a 3.34 xERA, 26.6 percent strikeout rate, 8.4 percent walk rate and 1.08 WHIP. Hill isn't allowing hard contact and is having excellent success with his curve.
While strikeouts are up across baseball and many players are striking out more, Ryan McMahon has reduced his strikeout rate from 34.2 percent last year to 21.5 percent this season. His career average is 29.3 percent. The Rockies infielder is hitting .256/.305/.482 with 28 runs, nine home runs, 26 RBIs and two stolen bases.
McMahon has a career best 42.1 percent fly ball rate and the Statcast numbers look excellent. He's hitting the ball hard and has an xBA of .279, which is valuable in this environment. As expected, the stats are better at home in Coors Field compared to the road. McMahon is hitting .280/.323/.538 with 22 runs, six home runs, and 15 RBIs at home in 93 at-bats and .225/.282/.408 with six runs, three home runs and 11 RBIs in 71 at-bats on the road.
Leaving Coors Field had some concerned about Nolan Arenado and he dropped in drafts with the move to St. Louis. Arenado has homered in four consecutive games going into Wednesday. He is hitting .307/.362/.583 with 25 runs, 10 home runs and 30 RBIs. He constantly makes contact with a 12.4 percent strikeout rate and ballparks haven't been an issue for the Cardinals third baseman. Arenado is hitting .289/.365/.566 with 13 runs, five home runs and 13 RBIs in 76 at-bats at home and .322/.359/.598 with 12 runs, five home runs and 15 RBIs in 87 at-bats on the road.
Niko Goodrum has been playing consistently and has seven stolen bases. With steals a scarce category, the Tigers infielder is getting added. Just beware of some alarming stats for him. Goodrum is striking out 39.7 percent of the time, has a .373 BABIP and is still only batting .226. Based on these trends, the average is heading below .200.
I have never been a big fan of Robbie Ray . While the strikeouts have been great for fantasy, he was a WHIP killer and worked too many deep counts preventing him from going deep in games. I heard in the past how he made some changes and it never translated into success.
This time around, it looks like it's working. The Blue Jays left-hander has a 6.6 percent walk rate. Yes, that's not a typo. I didn't leave out the “one”, it is 6.6 percent. This is stunning considering the last few seasons it has been 10.7, 13.3, 11.2 and 17.9 percent. The strikeouts are slightly down, but 28.9 percent is still good.
With the walks down, the WHIP is 1.17, a stark difference from the 1.35, 1.34 and 1.90 the last three seasons. He has a first-pitch strike percentage of 66.9 percent, well above his career average of 58.5 percent. Over his last five starts, Ray has walked two and struck out 42. Even the biggest Ray backer could not have seen it coming.
Ray changed his arm slot and the fastball velocity has increased from 93.7 miles per hour to 95.2 miles per hour. One problem for Ray is the hard contact is still high, but with less runners on via the walk it's helping him improve drastically since home runs are still a problem. Ray has allowed 11 home runs in 40.1 innings.
While the final line was appealing, Luis Castillo showed some good signs Tuesday. The Reds right-hander pitched five innings and allowed six hits, three runs, walked three and struck out 11. He averaged 97.7 miles per hour with his fastball and had 21 swinging strikes. If you're in desperate need of pitching and near the bottom of ERA and WHIP, there's still a chance to buy low.
Have you ever seen a line like this: .139/.397/.354? Yasmani Grandal is hitting .139 with an on-base percentage of .397. He's been hurt by a .125 BABIP, but he has walked 29.9 percent of the time. Grandal is in the 97th percentile for hard hit percentage and 96th in exit velocity.