Hey! Deep Leaguers! Get in here. There’s a pitcher apocalypse outside. We’ve lost: Skubal, Crochet, Trevor Rogers, Sonny Gray, Kodai Senga, both of the big game Hunters (Greene and Brown), Cody Ponce (we hardly knew ye), and I’ll stop there or we’ll never to the Risers. This is why I always argue for more IL spots. I don’t even have to know how many spots there are, to know there isn’t enough. But these same injuries have given us glimpses of Payton Tolle, JR Ritchie, and Emerson Hancock already, just to name a few. Make sure to stay on top of call-up streaming opportunities. May is often the perfect time to find the next Ace before they bloom.
Fallers
Matt McLain, Second Base, Cincinnati Reds – 47% Rostered
I think Deep Leaguers are intimately familiar with McLain by now. He tickled our fancies by slashing .290/.357/.507 with 16 homers and 14 steals in just over 400 plate appearances as a rookie back in 2023. He looked like the next Jose Altuve, and had the dual benefits of playing half his games at Great American Ball Park and batting in front of Elly De La Cruz. But McLain missed the entirety of the 2024 season due to a variety of injuries and has failed to come close to replicating his eye-popping rookie year.
McLain struggled to a .643 OPS last season, but did manage to stay on the field for 147 games and provided fantasy managers with 15 homers and 18 stolen bases despite his poor batting line. What got us (me) all excited was his seven-homer, 1.500-OPS spring training explosion. Second base was as shallow as ever and McLain was back to save us in Die Hard 6: Die Hard Hit Grounder Up the Middle.
So far this season, McLain is batting just .195/.308/.293. He is doing a good job laying off pitches out of the zone, but is still sporting a strikeout rate over 25%. He’s also walking at a 12% clip which has really been his biggest offensive contribution. His hard-hit rate sits at just 30% and his exit velocity at just 87.5 MPH. McLain has almost exclusively batted second this season, but was dropped to ninth a couple days ago and has been out of the starting lineup for two of the last three Reds games. He is 0 for his last 13 at bats and 2 for his last 22. On the bright side, Sal Stewart might pick up second base eligibility.
Andrew Painter, Starting Pitcher, Philadelphia Phillies – 23% Rostered
Painter’s MLB debut was delayed a couple years thanks to Tommy John surgery. This was a huge blow to the Phillies, and to pun enthusiast fantasy baseball writers. Painter did make his first MLB start back on March 31st, and it was a work of art. He struck out eight Nationals while issuing just one walk on route to a 3-2 victory. One month later, Painter is still looking for win number two.
Painter has pitched to a 5.28 ERA and 1.59 WHIP so far. He has struck out 28 batters and walked 9. His BABIP stands at .374 which is well above the MLB average, so there has been some bad luck at play. His 6.8% walk rate is also in the top 25% of MLB pitchers. However, his CSW is sitting at 25.5%, which does indicate that he isn’t throwing a high enough percentage of his pitches for strikes.
His 32.6% hard-hit-allowed rate looks great, as does his 6.3% barrel rate and his 87.5 MPH average exit velocity. His 36% chase rate is elite. I expected to see that Painter was having difficulty getting ahead in the count. His first pitch strike is just over 61% which is actually a little bit better than average. However, he has ended up falling behind hitters nearly 14% of the time, which is a couple percentage points worse than average, and lands him in the bottom quartile.
He does get to two-strike counts at an average rate, but has struggled to put away batters, despite that elite chase rate. Basically, he gets that first strike, but tends to fall behind hitters anyway. Painter has been unable to capitalize on his excellent ability to get hitters chasing pitches out of the zone, because he’s had to throw too many two-strike pitches in the zone. He also isn’t getting enough grounders, and hitters have been able to pull and lift the ball. I’d actually like to seem him in the zone more after his initial pitch per at bat, and maybe some more willingness to risk walks when he has batters with two-strike counts.
Overall I really like what I see in Painter. I love the huge six-pitch arsenal. I love the chase and walk rates. If you can pry him away from a manager disappointed in his early season line, I strongly suggest doing so.
Ezequiel Tovar, Short Stop, Colorado Rockies – 48% Rostered
Either Coors is boosting roster rates like it boosts offense in general, or a lot of fantasy managers are still chasing Tovar’s 25-homer, .269-average campaign from 2024. He missed a good portion of last season to injury and finished the year with just nine homers and a .694 OPS so that’s not the answer. He’s been even worse this year, slashing just .192/.244/.280 with a single homer and a couple steals.
There is nothing under the hood to suggest bad luck or an imminent turn around either. Tovar’s chase, whiff, strikeout, and walk rates are all in the bottom 25% of MLB hitters. His average exit velocity is down there too, and his hard-hit rate is just slightly better. His process chart shows everything trending the wrong way too.
Like many Rockies, he’s a considerably worse hitter on the road too, sporting a career .648 OPS on the road, compared to a .767 mark at home. There really is not anything to hang on to here.
Risers
Nathaniel Lowe, First Base, Cincinnati Reds – 8% Rostered
It can be easy to focus on all the young guys coming up during the early season and overlook veterans like Lowe. But it’s hard to ignore the .282/.349/.718 line and the five homers he’s launched over the last two weeks. He’s mostly been a DH, but Lowe has taken advantage of Matt McLain’s lack of production and has picked up starts at first base while Sal Stewart has played some second base. He’s mostly batted fifth, just behind Elly and Sal, a great spot to hit.
His underlying rates look phenomenal too. Lowe is sporting a 91.7 MPH exit velocity, a hard-hit rate over 50% and a barrel rate of almost 15%. He’s also got just a 20% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate. he’s doing everything except stealing bases. Get in on Lowe before his price and roster percentage gets too high.
Carlos Cortes, Outfield, The Athletics – 25% Rostered
If there are two things I love, it’s late-career breakouts and hitters shorter than 5’9″. I’m all about minimizing that strike zone. Cortes is offering us all of the above, and it’s been fabulous. The A’s outfielder is slashing .387/.452/.640 with four homers and an 8:7 walk to strike out ratio through 75 at bats this season. His process chart has bars in all the right places.
His underlying rates are excellent as well. Cortes is striking out in just 8% of his at bats (99th percentile!), and walking more than that. I know I already listed his K:BB ratio, but it’s so good I’m driving the point home like Cortes drives the ball with his 13.6% barrel rate and 91.5 MPH average exit velocity. He doesn’t chase, he doesn’t whiff, but he does sit against lefties.
Cortes has been on the bench against most left handed starters despite the fact that he’s batting .714/.750/.1000 against southpaws in an extremely small sample. But sitting against lefties is the only caveat I have to report here. Well, I guess he also doesn’t steal bases, but Cortes looks like an excellent batting average and on base play right now. And the A’s play in a great stadium for offense.
Brice Matthews, Second Base and Outfield, Houston Astros – 6% Rostered
Matthews started the season slowly, and has just a .211/.288/.394 triple slash on the season. But over the last two weeks he’s slashing .275/.333/.475 with two dingers and a stolen base. However, his underlying rates paint a less exciting portrait.
His power metrics are thoroughly unimpressive. His exit velocity is just 87.4 MPH, right in line with Tovar and McLain. His barrel rate is league average, but his hard-hit rate resides in the bottom 25% of batters.
Matthews does a good job laying off pitches out of the zone, with a chase rate in the leagues top quartile. But he struggles making contact, with a second percentile whiff rate and a fourth percentile contact rate on pitches in the strike zone. The MLB average rate of contact for swings at pitches in the strike zone is 84.4% this season, but Matthews has made contact on just 61.8% of his swings at pitches in the zone. That is a lot of swing and miss.
All of that whiffing has led to a bloated 36% strikeout rate that ranks nearly at the very bottom of MLB hitters. Matthew’s expected batting average on the season is just .188. His .211 season average actually includes a dash of good luck with a .300 BABIP. His contact is trending the right way, but still isn’t in a good spot.
It would have been great if I could have recommended Matthews as an immediate replacement for McLain. but he simply isn’t making enough contact to consider his production over the last two weeks to be sustainable. Enjoy the hot streak if you’re rostering Matthews already, but don’t worry if you’ve missed out.
That’s it for DLRF Week 7. We found good options at the cold corner and in the outfield, as well as a potential buy-low starting pitching target. The keystone remains a work progress. I hope at least some of you bagged Antonacci a couple weeks back. Thanks for reading and good luck out there Deep Leaguers!
