MLB Player News

He’s playing left field and batting leadoff Sunday. Avery was batting .273/.373/.469 with five homers and eight steals for Norfolk and is worth scooping up in AL-only leagues.

Gott, Lipscomb, and Mervis all have prior MLB experience but were unable to win an Opening Day job with the Nationals. As a 33-year-old veteran, Gott has no more minor league options remaining, so it remains to be seen where he goes from here. Seaver King is the Nationals’ 5th-ranked prospect and is coming off a strong Arizona Fall League season. He was 6-for-16 in MLB spring training with five singles and a stolen base, and he will now either head to Double-A or Triple-A to try and continue his strong run of production.

The veteran was encouraged by being able to throw four “ups,” and he felt like this stuff performed close to how he wanted to, but he admitted that his status for Opening Day is still “up in the air.” His “main goal is the end of the year,” so he and the Brewers will not push for him to be on the mound to start the season if he’s not clearly ready to do so. With Quinn Priester (nerve issue) likely starting the season on the IL, that could mean there are three rotation spots for Kyle Harrison, Logan Henderson (elbow), Robert Gasser, Brandon Sproat, DL Hall, Aaron Ashby, and Shane Drohan to fight for. Woodruff also mentioned that he may need to pitch on six days’ rest throughout the season, which means the team may need to use spot starters throughout the year to keep him on schedule.

Birdsong impressed in his last relief outing this spring by throwing harder than he ever has. Now he’s feeling elbow soreness and is going to be evaluated. That timeline of events does not inspire a lot of confidence, but we will wait to see what the results of the evaluation are. Regardless, Birdsong was unlikely to pitch high-leverage innings for the Giants right away if he made the opening day roster, so his fantasy value was more of a long-term possibility.

Generally, players do not often return on the optimistic timeline, which means we could be looking at mid-May or later for Priester. However, this whole situation is a bit murky since we know that he is dealing with a nerve issue that’s “in the T.O.S. [thoracic outlet syndrome] family,” but we have little other information. It’s best to avoid him in redraft fantasy leagues right now.

Painter didn’t allow a run on just two hits through his first two innings while striking out four. He then retired the first two batters of the third inning before allowing a single, a home run, and a double, and being pulled from the game. Painter registered a 33 percent whiff rate and 27 percent CSW on the day, with his slider and changeup being particularly effective. However, he also had a 63 percent strike rate and just a 38 percent first pitch strike rate, so command remains an issue that the 22-year-old will need to iron out if he’s going to be effective this season.

Rasmussen also walked two but struck out four on the day. The 30-year-old threw plenty of strikes and got ahead in the count regularly, but he had just a 15 percent whiff rate and struggled to miss bats with any pitch other than this cutter. Still, Ramussen worked his way out of trouble regularly and has pitched well all spring. He could easily reach 170 or more innings this season and is still going far too late in fantasy drafts.

Oviedo struck out five and posted a 23 percent whiff rate and 30 percent CSW; however, he also walked three and threw just 57 percent of his pitches for strikes. The upside is that Oviedo had a 67 percent first pitch strike rate with his four-seam fastball, so he didn’t really struggle to get ahead of hitters; he just couldn’t execute with his breaking stuff as often as he would have liked after he did. Overall, it wasn’t a terrible start for Oviedo, and he remains the favorite to open the season as Boston’s fifth starter.

Henderson has been shut down due to elbow soreness, which is a concern since elbow inflammation ended his season last year. As of now, it appears Henderson is feeling good and could even pitch in a Cactus League game this weekend. It remains to be seen if that will be enough time for him to be considered for the fifth spot in the Brewers’ rotation.

Misner was traded to the Royals in November, and Hoskins has now been announced as the “player to be named later.” The 22-year-old reliever was a 12th-round pick in the 2025 MLB Draft out of Georgia. His fastball is in the 96-98 mph range, but he pitched only about 50 innings in college after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

The Blue Jays have been cautious with his workload this spring after a deep playoff run last year. Yesavage threw 35 pitches in his last outing, so the Blue Jays will want him to bump up from that so that he could potentially be up to 60 pitches by the end of spring training. He still has not appeared in an MLB spring training game, so it remains to be seen what the Blue Jays’ plan for him is at the start of the season, especially now with José Berrios potentially beginning the season on the IL.