Let’s not sugarcoat it: There’s no replacing Noah Syndergaard. Thor was a consensus top-five starting pitcher in drafts this spring and looked well on his way to fulfilling that potential before tearing a lat muscle on Sunday while getting bombed by the Nationals. Now the “conservative” estimate is that he’ll be on the shelf for three months.
Unfortunately, Syndergaard wasn’t the only fantasy ace to hit the DL this week with an injury to his midsection that may have already been impacting his performance. Cole Hamels, whose .219 BABIP was masking a disturbing decline in his strikeout rate and other peripherals, is now expected to miss at least eight weeks due to a strained oblique. And Corey Kluber, who’s had some struggles of his own in the season’s opening month, was placed on the DL with a bad back that’s been bothering him for weeks and could cost him more than just one start.
So what’s a snakebitten fantasy manager to do? It’s always worth exploring the trade market if you have a surplus of talent at another position, but for many fantasy owners, the answer will have to be found on the waiver wire. Here are some pitchers owned in less than 50 percent of Yahoo leagues who may be able to help ease the pain.
Ownership percentages are from Yahoo!
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Francisco Liriano (TOR) 45 percent
Liriano got completely obliterated in his first start of the season, giving up five runs to the Tampa Bay Rays while retiring just one batter before being pulled. Impatient fantasy owners evidently couldn’t stomach looking at Liriano’s 135.00 ERA and 21.00 WHIP after that appearance, so he was kicked to the curb in far too many leagues. Since that dreadful first game, Liriano has a 2.01 ERA in four starts with 24 strikeouts in 22.1 innings. Walks are part of the deal with Liriano, so he won’t be coming close to Syndergaard’s WHIP. But if you squint hard enough, Liriano could do a decent Thor impression with a mid-threes ERA, a strikeout-per-inning, and solid win potential as Toronto’s hitters eventually get healthy and begin to heat up.
Alex Wood (LAD) 26 percent
There’s a lot to like about Wood’s profile. He has a 3.35 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and 8.23 strikeout rate across 524 career innings, most of them coming as a starter. And he pitches in an extremely pitcher-friendly park with the support of a potent lineup and dominant closer. The only thing standing between Wood and a valuable fantasy season is the looming question of whether he’ll stick in the rotation. On paper, the Dodgers have more starters than they know what to do with, but between Kenta Maeda’s early season struggles, Rich Hill’s blister problems, Brandon McCarthy’s durability concerns, and the hip injuries plaguing Hyun-Jin Ryu and Scott Kazmir, it’s worth adding Wood to see where this story goes.
Eduardo Rodriguez (BOS) 39 percent
The range of plausible outcomes is significantly greater for Rodriguez than for Liriano or Wood — he’s a less-known commodity who may have more upside and downside than the other hurlers. Rodriguez is a highly-regarded young pitcher who has 31 strikeouts in his first 23.1 innings this year, along with a 2.70 ERA and 1.24 WHIP. Rodriguez never struck out batters at close to that rate in the minors, so some skepticism is warranted, but he did manage an 8.41 strikeout rate in 107 major leagues innings in 2016. Pitching for the Red Sox is both a blessing and a curse for his fantasy value; his win total should benefit from good run support, but his ERA and WHIP will likely suffer from Fenway Park and a division that is still treacherous to navigate. There are safer bets out there, but if you’re a Syndergaard owner who feels the need to reach for the stars, Rodriguez may be the best option available.
Jesse Hahn (OAK) 21 percent
In some respects, Hahn is the polar opposite of Rodriguez. He doesn’t have elite strikeout potential, but he pitches in a favorable environment and has over 200 innings of solid ratios on his resume. Hahn was truly awful in limited action in 2016 (6.02 ERA, 1.64 WHIP), and he has yet to top 100 innings in any of his first four seasons, so durability hasn’t been his strong suit. But he has shown enough throughout his career to give reason to believe that 2016 may have been an anomaly. Hahn won’t single-handedly win you any leagues, but he’s the definition of a pitcher that you can comfortably insert into your lineup for useful ratios while he’s looking healthy and effective.
Patrick Corbin (ARI) 33 percent
Like Hahn, Corbin had a couple promising seasons before compiling a disastrous 5.15 ERA and 1.56 WHIP in 2016. But that’s why these guys are owned in less than 50 percent of leagues! Corbin has a bit more strikeout potential than Hahn and also benefits from pitching in the National League. But he has to pitch in the worst ballpark for pitchers outside of Coors Field — at least until a humidor is installed at Chase Field. For now, Corbin is a pitcher you can feel confident using in road starts outside of Coors, and even in home starts when he’s throwing as well as he has been in the early going.
Wei-Yin Chen (MIA) 14 percent
Chen is another starter who had a 2016 season he would like to forget, although it wasn’t as bad as Hahn’s or Corbin’s. The main culprits for Chen were a career-high HR rate and career-low strand rate. Before that, he put together two very solid fantasy seasons pitching for the Orioles in the AL East. Chen is not a big strikeout pitcher (7.0 career K/9), and it hasn’t quite clicked for him in Miami yet, but there’s no reason his ERA and WHIP shouldn’t be even better now that he’s operating in a pitchers’ park in the National League. He’s a decent bet for an ERA below 3.50 and a WHIP under 1.20.
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Andrew Seifter is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.
