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The MLB offseason and Spring training are officially over. The regular season is here, and with it comes the daily influx of baseball news that fantasy managers missed in the winter months. Lineup news, actual games happening, constant waiver wire moves, pitching assignments, and bullpen usage.
Baseball is back, and so too is fantasy baseball, with the draft season having just wrapped up, or otherwise being very close to being wrapped up. This column aims to cover any and all fantasy baseball news, big or small, and how it pertains to your fantasy team. Spring training or the regular season, it's covered here.
Has a player who's usually been hitting in the middle of a lineup suddenly batting eighth or ninth for an extended period? The fantasy implications will be covered here. The same goes for injuries and injured placements and whether or not you should consider picking up a player who was recently called up. Basically, any kernel of fantasy news and its relevance to fantasy managers could be covered here. Today, the news of the day is the fantasy impact of Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Robbie Ray’s reported injury and Jose Iglesias reportedly signing a minor league deal with the San Diego Padres.
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Fantasy Baseball Impact Of Robbie Ray's Reported Injury
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Robbie Ray will reportedly miss the rest of the season due to “flexor tendon repair surgery,” per a tweet from The Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish on Wednesday.
Divish noted the following about the veteran right-hander in another tweet on Wednesday:
Ray made one start for the Mariners earlier this year, in what will be his only start in his second season in Seattle. He ended up allowing five walks, four hits, five runs, and three earned runs in 3.1 innings of work on March 31. Last season, the veteran pitched to a 3.71 ERA and a 4.17 FIP in 189 innings while adding 212 strikeouts compared to 62 walks.
The starter had already been on the injured list, with Chris Flexen stepping into the rotation. With the reported news that Ray will miss the remainder of the season, Flexen looks likely to continue in the rotation at the moment. That’s entirely speculative, though.
The right-hander has pitched to an 8.86 ERA and a 6.62 FIP in 21.1 innings for the American League West club this season, striking out just 14 batters while surrendering 11 walks and five home runs.
And while Flexen has found success before with reasonably low strikeout metrics -- his ERA finished below 3.75 in each of the last two seasons despite a strikeouts per nine innings rate south of 6.30 -- he’s probably someone to stay away from outside of deeper fantasy leagues.
The sample size is obviously still small. If Flexen keeps surrendering walks and home runs at the rate he is, it makes for an unideal fantasy situation given his low strikeouts.
In the past two seasons, the 28-year-old always kept his walks and home runs reasonably low. Just last year, he surrendered 51 walks and 17 strikeouts in 137.2 innings. This year, he’s already allowed 11 walks and five home runs in only 21.1 innings.
Low strikeout/high walk and home run rates or not, the Mariners haven’t provided the best run support to their pitchers so far.
As of the beginning of play on Thursday, 18 teams had scored more runs than Scott Seravis’ team. That -- combined with Seattle’s 11-13 record as of the beginning of play on Thursday -- isn’t ideal fantasy-wise where pitcher wins potential is concerned.
All told, fantasy managers are probably better off looking elsewhere.
Fantasy Baseball Impact Of Jose Iglesias Reportedly Signing A Minor League Deal With The San Diego Padres
According to a tweet from MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand on Tuesday, Jose Iglesias is reportedly joining the San Diego Padres on a minor league deal.
Iglesias previously hit .292 with a .328 on-base percentage in 467 plate appearances for the Colorado Rockies last season, adding three home runs and a pair of stolen bases in the process.
It marked the fourth-straight season that he hit above the .270 mark, though Iglesias failed to reach double digits in either home runs or stolen bases for the second straight full season in a row.
Though most of his experience has come at shortstop, the former Tiger does have some experience at both second base and third base. He’ll provide the Padres with some veteran infield depth moving forward, though he doesn’t have the clearest pathway to potential playing time -- and fantasy relevance in deeper leagues -- unless there’s an injury ahead of him.
Of course, that’s entirely speculative, but the Padres have Xander Bogaerts entrenched at shortstop with Ha-Seong Kim on hand as a reserve option. Elsewhere, veterans Jake Cronenworth and Fernando Tatis Jr. have experience at shortstop as well.
In terms of infield positions not called “shortstop,” San Diego has a number of other 40-man roster options like Brandon Dixon, Rougned Odor, and Matthew Batten capable of playing other spots around the infield.
Iglesias is certainly a name to monitor in the coming weeks to see how he does at Triple-A but given the Padres' depth around the infield, he’d likely only be an option in deeper leagues if he cracked the club’s major league roster at some point.
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