If you had a starting pitcher put up a dud in your lineup Wednesday, I've got some good news for you: You weren't alone! Okay, I recognize that isn't actually good news – especially if you were going against Eduardo Rodriguez, more about whom later – but at least you weren't alone. Among the 30 pitchers who started Wednesday, eight gave up at least four runs, and four were started in at least 48% of CBS Fantasy leagues; two more were started at least 37% of the time, and another was still active in 28%.
There were a lot of crooked numbers put up on Fantasy scoreboards last night. With so many key names struggling, it was tough to whittle down the list to just three names for what I typically call my "Three Down" segment in the FBT Newsletter, so today we're going to have to do things a bit differently. Instead of that segment, we're borrowing the Drop-O-Meter from the FBT Podcast and looking at seven pitchers who struggled to determine how tightly you need to hold onto them heading into the key final month of the season.
All seven are rostered in at least 59% of CBS Fantasy leagues, and at this point in the season, you can't afford to have anyone dragging you down, so let's look at who really needs to stick around right now: Bryan Woo, Mariners (97%) – The first one comes with an "If he's healthy" asterisk. Woo missed his previous start with shoulder soreness, and while his velocity was actually up in this one, seeing six runs on his line coming off an injury is awfully worrisome. After the game, Woo said he "felt great," and I'm not dropping him if he's healthy, despite his disappointing season, though I will grant that it's going to be tough to trust him coming off this start when he faces the Red Sox next week.
Drop-O-Meter rating: 3 MacKenzie Gore, Rangers (91%) – I'm actually kind of stunned Gore is as highly rostered as he is. I know he entered this one on a heck of a run; I just figured Fantasy players were done trusting him. There will be more good stretches to come, surely, but he's a random number generator, not someone you can ever trust to keep rolling once he gets going.
If he wasn't coming up on a two-start week with decent matchups against the A's and Rays, I would be a lot more open to dropping him. Don't be surprised if you regret hanging on to him. Drop-O-Meter rating: 4 Kyle Bradish, Orioles (88%) – I think we're done here.
Frankly, we probably should have been done a long time ago. Bradish's 4.03 ERA for the season isn't terrible, but the ceiling is just dramatically lower than we expected coming into the season – did you realize he doesn't have more than five strikeouts in 10 straight starts, dating back to late June? He's shown enough upside in the past that I'm always going to be wary of fully giving up on Bradish, but he just hasn't shown that upside this season, really.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
