MLB Player News

Mastrobuoni is up with the Cubs ending the Matt Mervis experiment. For now, anyway. Mastrobuoni will provide some defensive value but that won’t carry over to fantasy rosters.

Crismatt will presumably stick around as extra organizational relief depth after being removed from Los Angeles’ 40-man roster for the second time this season already. The 29-year-old righty has pitched well in seven relief outings for the Dodgers so far.

The Cardinals offense is bad, but Nootbaar is good, and the decision to drop him to the bottom of the order earlier this month was yet another poor one from Oli Marmol. Fortunately, Nootbaar is back batting second versus righties now. The homer was his fourth in 131 plate appearances. He’s hitting .300 with three homers and a 6/10 K/BB in his last nine games.

Gibson had been on a roll of late, though he picked up just one win while amassing a 2.10 ERA in his previous five starts. This will help make up for that, as Gibson improved to 3-2 with a 4.09 ERA and a 32/17 K/BB in 36 innings. There’s no reason to expect him to perform any better going forward.

The ability is there for Bello to be better than this, but he’s just so overrated now. The Cardinals were averaging one homer every 51 plate appearances this season before Bello gave up three to the 21 batters he faced tonight. Boston would have been better off giving his six-year deal to Kutter Crawford this spring.

Winn hit the ball 402 feet, which was far and away his longest drive of the season. He previously had a 379-foot double off Sean Manaya, but he hadn’t hit anything else over 350 feet in 142 plate appearances. Winn has been perfectly solid in batting .280/.343/.384 this year, but his profile doesn’t suggest that he’ll be hitting many more homers in his first full season.

Statcast thinks Wong has been one of the game’s most fortunate hitters this year, but the luck shows no signs of stopping. His exit velocity numbers remain mediocre, but he has shown some legitimate improvement in terms of contact ability. With the Red Sox hitting him third of late, he’s a top-12 catcher for the moment.

Anderson gave up eight hard-hit balls tonight, yet just two proved troublesome. One was a homer off the bat of Jonah Heim. The other was a double. It’s kind of baffling how Anderson has a 2.72 ERA with weaker peripherals than teammates Reid Detmers (5.19 ERA) and Patrick Sandoval (5.00 ERA). If the Angels can get anything of value for him in trade, they really ought to go for it.

Heaney will almost certainly be pushed into middle relief if the Rangers ever happen to get all of their starters healthy, but it’s not happening this month. Heaney currently has an 0-5 record in spite of a 4.43 ERA and a 44/11 K/BB ratio over 44 2/3 innings in nine starts. He’s been particularly unlucky in terms of run support, and the Rangers are 1-8 when he pitches, compared to 22-15 the rest of the time.

Calhoun’s combination of solid exit velocities and excellent strikeout rates has never paid much in the way of dividends, but when it was least expected, he’s popped off with a .365/.382/.577 line in 55 plate appearances for the Angels this season. With limited home run power and zero speed, he still doesn’t figure to be very useful for fantasy purposes going forward. However, he might remain a perfectly solid DH for the Angels.

We’re not sure what Schanuel is doing batting leadoff for the Angels at this point; yes, his approach is good, but he’s just not a major league hitter and he’s also a liability when he does reach base. It seems like the Angels ought to give Zach Neto an opportunity at the top of the order.