MLB Player News

Cardinals’ president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom announced the unfortunate news on Friday. While he’s expected to make a full recovery, he’ll miss the entirety of the 2026 season. Any fantasy managers in deeper redraft leagues that were hanging onto Fitts thinking he’d get an opportunity to work out of the Cardinals’ rotation can safely cut bait now.

That’s great timing from Heim in what is probably the Braves’ final game before Sean Murphy is activated. He entered the day with seven hits and three RBI in 40 plate appearances this season. The Braves wouldn’t seem to need three catchers, especially since Murphy probably won’t be seeing all that much time at DH with Dominic Smith performing well there. Still, they’ll probably keep Heim for now and perhaps look to trade him before Ronald Acuña Jr. or Ha-Seong Kim returns.

Strider struck out six, but control was an unusually big issue for him in Coors Field. Also discouraging was that he averaged only 94.6 mph with his fastball, down from 95.5 mph in his two Triple-A starts. 95.5 mph was also what he averaged last year, and that was down about two mph from where he was pre-surgery. We were growing a little more optimistic about Strider based on his minor league performances, but this seems like a setback. Of course, it was Coors. He has another tough assignment next weekend against the Dodgers in Los Angeles.

This isn’t the kind of usage that suggests López will be back in the rotation any time soon. López, though, was back up to 94.2 mph with his eight fastballs today. He averaged just 92.5 mph last time out. He was between 93.2 mph and 94.6 mph in his four starts before being sent to the pen to work on mechanical issues.

Freeland notched seven strikeouts and had a nice 31 percent CSW today, but the Braves still hit him plenty hard, with Jonah Heim and Jorge Mateo both taking him deep in the second. Freeland fell to 1-3 with a 5.04 ERA, and he’ll get the Phillies next.

Mateo could be a sneaky pickup while Ronald Acuña Jr is out. The Braves will likely roll with him at shortstop and use Mauricio Dubón in the outfield most of the time until Acuña returns, and Mateo, still one of the game’s best basestealers, is hitting .286/.318/.476 this far.

Moniak is hitting .329 with 11 homers, which seems like it should have produced more than 21 RBI. There’s no real improvement in his plate discipline or exit velocity numbers to back up all of this success, but he can remain in mixed-league lineups while he’s hot.

Rumfield is batting .268/.329/.425 as a platoon first baseman playing in Coors Field half of the time. That’s not so bad, but there’s still not much here to suggest he should be part of the Rockies’ long-term plans. For now, he’s a nice NL-only first baseman, but one who will probably lose his lineup spot at some point.

No word yet on the pick. The opener makes Peterson a better bet to get a victory tomorrow, but he still seems like a poor play in Coors Field.

José Caballero has been playing well of late, though Statcast thinks he’s been very lucky with his solid .321 wOBA and poor .269 xwOBA. Meanwhile, Volpe has been hitting the ball hard — nine times in four Triple-A games — with middling results on his rehab assignment. That’s just a bad combination for Volpe, and the Yankees are obviously putting more weight on the actual numbers than the expected ones. Volpe should be the better player going forward, and the Yankees probably will give him another chance, perhaps as soon as a couple of weeks from now.

It’s possible the Braves could have Iglesias set up for Robert Suarez in his first appearance or two back from shoulder inflammation, but Iglesias figures to reclaim his job, even if Suarez has been outstanding this season.