MLB Player News

Harper hadn’t homered since August 9. He decided to make up for lost time with the multi-homer game, and he’s up to 150 homers as a member of the Phillies. The 31-year-old still has 28 homers on the year despite that month-long power drought, and his .290/.377/.537 slash has been just fine without the roundtrippers. That being said, fantasy managers sure won’t complain if Harper wants to go on a hot run of dingers to end the season.

It was reported earlier in the day that Kremer would start today against the White Sox so now the move is official. We would still avoid him in this start outside of AL-only formats

Moran missed about a month with elbow inflammation, but will be back to pitch in lower leverage innings out of Boston’s bullpen, on the year he has a 3.00 ERA in 33 innings.

This is not a surprise after Early left last night‘s game with elbow discomfort, but it is a sign that the Red Sox don’t envision this is a minor issue. The team is sending the left-hander for additional imaging on Wednesday, and we will wait to see the results of that before making any predictions on his timeline. If you can hold him on your roster until the imaging results are back, that would be preferential. Patrick Sandoval may be an option to take his place in the rotation in the coming weeks.

Kremer has been out since late April with a quad injury, so the Orioles will need to make some roster moves before they activate him off the 60-day injured list. Kremer looked good in his last rehab outing, striking out eight over 6 2/3 scoreless innings for Triple-A Norfolk. He may eventually have streaming upside in deeper formats, but we’d leave him on the waiver wire outside of AL-only leagues for now.

Schweitzer was just called up last week and threw four shutout innings on Tuesday, allowing four hits and striking out three. He’ll be sent down to make room for Noah Schultz’s return, but Schweitzer should get another shot over the summer.

Schultz will take the mound on Wednesday against the Orioles. His last rehab outing was 74 pitches, so we should expect to see a pitch count somewhere in the mid-80s in this one. The 22-year-old has plenty of strikeout upside, but has also battled some command issues throughout the season, so that pitch count may not allow him to complete five innings and be qualified for the win. We have no problem adding him if he was dropped in your league, but we may not start him right off the IL.

Lara is now hitting .327/.437/.463 in 74 Triple-A games with seven home runs, 37 RBI, 21 steals, and an impressive 45/51 K/BB ratio. He clearly has the plate approach and contact skills to succeed at the next level soon, but his path to regular playing time is blocked in Milwaukee for right now.

Melton suffered an ankle sprain at the end of April that sidelined him until June 11th. Since coming back, he has gone 13-for-25 (.520) with one home run, six RBI, three steals, and a 4/6 K/BB ratio. The Rays will be in no rush to promote him because, well, they’re the Rays, but he could push for at-bats this summer if he continues to get on base at even half this level.

Perhaps more importantly, Robert Jr. played five innings in center field. He’s not able to DH since fellow rehabber Jorge Polanco (Achilles) is there, so the Mets are going to build Robert Jr. up to full games in center field and then have him try to play back-to-back games out there before bringing him back. We assume the Mets are still likely to be cautious with his workload once he does return to big league action, but there’s a chance that the team could have him back in the lineup at some point next week.

Gelof had his hand stepped on by metal cleats last week and landed on the 10-day injured list on June 25th. Gripping activities will progress to swinging a bat when they feel that Gelof’s grip strength has returned enough. Then, provided his hand can withstand the impact of hitting, he should be able to quickly return to game action since he has not been out of the lineup long. However, we need to wait and see when he can begin hitting.