The San Diego Padres have a very interesting pitching staff for fantasy purposes, so who will provide the most value for the rest of the season? And, why Joey Gallo shouldn't still be owned in 90% of fantasy leagues.
The San Diego Padres starting rotation has mainly consisted of six players- Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Chris Paddack, Dinelson Lamet, and Ryan Weathers. They have combined to throw 269 1/3 innings and have given up 90 runs, for a 3.01 ERA. Every member of this rotation is relevant to fantasy baseball, as some of them have been outstanding while others have disappointed, but still have value. So, how should these starters be ranked for the rest of the year?
1. Yu Darvish
This is a no-brainer. Darvish was a consensus top-25 pick in drafts, and he has lived up to his high expectations. Darvish has scored 205 fantasy points in standard ESPN leagues, tenth best among all pure starting pitchers. He's striking out more than a batter per inning, and he's also earned a win in five of his eleven starts with only one loss. Expect Darvish to continue his stellar play. He is locked in as a top-20 starter for the rest of the year, with a top-10 finish likely.
2. Joe Musgrove
Musgrove is also clearly in a tier of his own at this point, for he has been one of the big breakout stories in baseball this year. He owns a superb 2.08 ERA (better than Darvish's 2.16), and his statistics are extremely similar to Darvish's across the board. He was boosted by his no-hitter on April 9, and following a stretch of five average starts (probably due to the "no-hitter fatigue" that pitchers around the league have been suffering from this year), he's 85 points in his past four outings. One negative about his season is that he's only 4-4, which is less his fault and more the fact that the Padres have given him three runs or less of run support in six of his ten starts. Before this year, Musgrove was viewed as clearly below Darvish, Snell, and Lamet, and even slightly below Paddack, but he has earned his spot as the number 2 starter in this rotation and should continue to put up top-20 numbers (he's currently the SP13) the rest of the way.
3. Blake Snell
The next two pitchers have both disappointed fantasy owners so far, and are both very close together in terms of value for the rest of the year. They've even scored exactly the same number of fantasy points so far. But, Blake Snell still deserves to be here above Chris Paddack. The 2018 AL Cy Young winner has been bad this year, with a 5.55 ERA. He's not pitching enough innings, for he's averaging just over four innings per start. This is because he's simply giving up too many hits and runs, and he's walked almost twice as many batters as the Padres pitcher with the next most walks. Despite this, some of the underlying stats do support Snell possibly returning to his top-50 overall form at some point. First of all, his FIP is 1.16 lower than his ERA, suggesting he's been at least a little bit unlucky. Furthermore, he's striking out batters, and he's done that 70 times this season (only 9 less than Darvish and Musgrove). He has an elite strikeout percentage and whiff rate due to a great slider and an effective curveball. If he can get the walks under control and start allowing fewer runs- which he definitely has shown in the past that he's capable of doing- his strong swing-and-miss skills should lead him above Paddack. Snell should not be dropped in an ESPN standard league, and if a leaguemate drops him, fantasy managers should pick him up if they can. He's also a player to buy-low on in trades since managers may be growing frustrated with his outputs, for he can definitely turn it around soon.
4. Chris Paddack
Paddack has struggled this year, and that shouldn't be that surprising anyway since he had a 4.73 ERA in the short 2020 season as well. This year, it sits at 4.24, and like Snell, he's also struggling to go deep into games- due to him getting knocked around and the fact manager Jayce Tingler loves to be extra careful with his young starters (see Lamet, Dinelson). He doesn't have elite strikeout stuff, and his strikeout rate has decreased every year since his strong rookie season two years ago. Furthermore, the sabermetrics don't support him either. Summarizing won't do this justice; just look at all of the blue and white in this chart from Baseball Savant:
5. Dinelson Lamet
Lamet is the most interesting member of the group. It's extremely hard to predict the rest of the season for him due to his strange usage patterns this season. It's as if Jayce Tingler wants to put him in bubble wrap and store him away forever, but he can't because he'd get fired for not using a good pitcher on a contending team, so he just uses Lamet as little as possible to "protect" him. As someone who owns Lamet in leagues, the Padres' refusal to let him pitch has been infuriating. While he did miss about a month at the beginning of the year, he's only pitched 14 innings since then! His performance isn't the problem, as he's pitched to a 2.57 ERA along with 15 strikeouts, but his workload is making him almost useless in points leagues. Something may change with his situation if Tingler decides to let him pitch deeper into games, but he's clearly their #5 starter until that happens.
6. Ryan Weathers
Weathers is being managed similarly to Lamet, and they frequently share a game (one starts, the other comes in from the bullpen, neither pitches more than four innings). They have similar workloads, so Lamet's skills and potential puts him above Weathers. To read more about Weathers, see the previous blog post.
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Joey Gallo is not playing well. The Texas Rangers slugger has simply not been slugging, hitting, or making enough contact with the baseball to still be on 89.9% of fantasy rosters.
First of all, he's hitting .211. That's terrible, but it was expected with Gallo, who was selected in drafts to be a power bat. But, he hasn't shown a lot of power either, with only nine home runs in 222 plate appearances, tied with players like Andrew McCutchen and Freddy Galvis for 47th in the major leagues. Furthermore, the worst part about him is that he's struck out 76 times, more than anyone else in the MLB. It also doesn't help that he plays for the Rangers, one of the worst offenses in the MLB. On the other hand, he is good at drawing walks (39), but that's about it for the positive aspects of Gallo's game this season. So, why is this happening to him? Simply put, he's not hitting the ball as hard as he used to. His average exit velocity is down almost 6 mph from his All-Star season in 2019, and his hard-hit percentage is down from 59% to 42%! He's also hitting ground balls much more often than ever before.
This evidence shows that Joey Gallo is not worth an almost universal roster spot in fantasy leagues. This is especially true in rotisserie formats, where his low performance in every category but walks could be dragging down fantasy teams. Some players who he could be worth dropping for who are owned in fewer leagues than him:
-Austin Riley, a young Braves third baseman who's hitting .310 with ten home runs
-Dylan Carlson, a rookie outfielder for St. Louis with good contact skills and about twenty more fantasy points than Gallo
-Nick Madrigal, who plays second base for the White Sox. He doesn't hit for power, but he's one of the best contact hitters in the game and rarely strikes out.
These are just three options who could be picked up if they're available in exchange for Gallo, and that's not even including pitchers like the aforementioned Chris Paddack, Zach Eflin, and Taijuan Walker. The point is, Joey Gallo is not providing enough value for fantasy managers this year, and he is definitely expendable if there's a good option available in free agency.
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