IN THE FIELD
Kole Calhoun is still dealing with stiffness in his injured oblique as of Friday but he's still been playing in his rehab assignment with AAA Salt Lake. He homered on Friday and tripled on Saturday. He's been absolutely abysmal this season posting a 4 wRC+ so maybe a successful rehab stint could help him carry that over back into the Angels lineup.... Zack Cozart was placed on the DL with a shoulder subluxation after leaving a game earlier in the week.... Andrelton Simmons was activated from the DL and returned to the lineup on Saturday. Simmons was immediately slotted into second in the lineup for the Angels but went 0-for-4 at the plate. Simmons has been outstanding this season slashing .330/.399/.460 for LA and has four homers and five steals.... Justin Upton was scratched from the lineup Saturday but Upton said that he just woke up with a tight back and after getting treatment for it he's hoping he'll return to the lineup on Sunday.... Matt Joyce is set to start his rehab assignment on Monday after running the bases successfully Saturday. He's been on the DL since June 6th with a lumbar strain.... Steve Pearce is going to DH in AAA on Saturday and Sunday and then after the off day on Monday he's going to play some OF when the team travels to Pawtucket next week. Pearce has been out since May 3rd with an oblique strain... Troy Tulowitzki wants to try base running soon as he's still attempting to come back from having surgery on both of his feet in April of this year. Even if Tulo somehow makes it back this season, long are the days of him being a viable fantasy shortstop.... Vlad Guerrero Jr is still out with his knee injury and thanks to the minor league keeping injuries under a ridiculous amount of secrecy, it's going to take a big development before we hear of any next steps he might be taking.... Tyler Naquin was activated from the DL on Friday and started in centerfield for the Indians. He went 1-for-3 in his return to the lineup on Friday and went 1-for-4 with a double and RBI on Saturday.... Tim Beckham is currently on his rehab assignment with June 23rd still in mind for when he is hoping he will be activated from the DL. He played in the field on Friday night and he was scheduled to DH on Saturday.... Elvis Andrus' return to the major is imminent as he's working through he rehab assignment and has just was transferred to Round Rock on Saturday. Manager Jeff Banister is expecting for the team to get Andrus back with the big league club on Monday. This likely means that Jurickson Profar is relegated to the bench.... Nomar Mazara was held out of the lineup with wrist soreness on the 15th and 16th. It doesn't seem to be anything too serious and he looks to just be day-to-day.... The Rays twitter account said that Adeiny Hechavarria will be activated from the DL on Monday. Christian Arroyo was placed on the DL with an oblique strain as the accompanying move. With Willie Adames up with the team and having played shortstop for the last week, it'll be interesting to see who they have play second base and who plays short when they are both healthy.... Kevin Kiermaier is currently rehabbing with AAA Durham and the team is hopeful that's he going to be able to rejoin the club on their next homestand which begins on Friday the 22nd against the Yankees.... Daniel Robertson is on the DL with his strained hamstring and the MI positions just got are getting more more crowded with the return of Adeiny Hechavarria to the team, so it'll be interesting to see where he can get at bats with the club when he returns to action.... Dustin Pedroia is seeing some progress in his injured left knee but he isn't yet to the point where he's able to do baseball activities. Pedroia returned to the Red Sox for just three games before being sidelined again and even if he does return and his healthy enough to stick around, he just isn't much of a fantasy asset anymore besides a solid batting average.... Lucas Duda will begin his rehab assignment with AAA Ohama on Sunday. He's been dealing with plantar fasciitis since mid-May... Jorge Soler is going to miss at least six weeks with a broken toe and while surgery isn't immediately needed, he's going to get the break rechecked in around a week to be sure that the break isn't getting any worse to where he would need to have surgery. Soler was finally showing signs of the highly touted prospect that he was with the Cubs and this definitely puts a damper on his season.... Unfortunately now for the second year in a row we are seeing Miguel Cabrera miss a ton of playing time, and this time a torn biceps tendon will keep him out for the remainder of the season. Since the injury was so early in the season the team expects that he'll be ready to roll for spring training. John Hicks has been getting the majority of at bats at first base since the injury.... Byron Buxton is finally pain free in his injured toe and it sounds like he's going to begin a rehab assignment with AAA Rochester early next week . The Twins will be eager to get him back with the club because of his terrific defense in center, which luckily is there for fantasy owners because he's been terrible at the plate this season but his defense and speed will keep him in the lineup.... Miguel Sano is in the midst of an awful season and the Twins optioned him all the way down to High-A Fort Myers this week. Why High-A and not send him to AAA though has been answer that's been tough to find a real answer for. Aaron Gleeman of Baseball Prospectus wrote that Fort Myers is essentially the Twins' non-Minnesota headquarters and that they have a track record of sending major leaguers there to rehab over other stops in the minors.... Joe Mauer was activated from the DL Friday and has hit leadoff both Friday and Saturday for the Twins.... Avisail Garcia has been sent to AAA to begin his rehab assignment as he's working back from his hamstring injury. There's still no exact timetable for his return according to the team, but he's at least back in game action.... Josh Donaldson is the definition of day-to-day right now as he's back in Toronto with the team but he isn't up par on the bases with where the team wants him to be. They want to put him in the best position to be "competitive" when he returns to the lineup and it sounds like being able to run the bases well is the last box that he needs to check off..... Matt Chapman was placed on the DL Saturday with a right thumb contusion. He fielded grounders on Saturday and will be reevaluated next week.
IN THE ROTATION
Garrett Richards left his start early on Wednesday with a hamstring injury and the team placed him on the DL on Friday. It's still so early in the diagnosis that there's no real telling of when he might be able to return.... No new updates on Shohei Ohtani and his injured elbow that may end up making him undergo Tommy John surgery. What will be interesting to watch in this case is figuring out if him pitching again this year is different than him at the plate. The team could potentially decide to have him not pitch again this year but if the elbow isn't something that effects (or is involved with heavily) in his swing if they would consider bringing him back as a full time DH.... Marcus Stroman will start Monday for AA New Hampshire as he's working his way back from shoulder fatigue. He started on June 13th in Dunedin and according to Fangraphs' Kiley McDaniel looked good sitting 91-to-93 with his fastball and his off-speed offerings looked above average.... Andrew Cashner will return to the Orioles rotation and is either going to start on Wednesday or Thursday for the club.... There hasn't been any major Chris Archer updates since he threw his bullpen session on June 9th and while we would like to hear some good news in there, no bad news is at least a good thing. Archer's season totals look a bit rough he performed significantly better in May and June than he did the first month of the season... Drew Pomeranz dealt with a stiff neck earlier this week but is reportedly feeling better and was throwing pitches on flat ground in Seattle on Friday. There's a lot of speculation across Boston media that Pomeranz will actually be brought back as a reliever for the club as Steven Wright has allowed just one run in his last 20.1 innings.... Francisco Liriano is expected to being his rehab assignment on the 17th. There are no reports as to how many rehab start he's going to need before being activated by the team.... Jordan Zimmerman made his first start since early May on Saturday and he allowed four runs and four hits over five innings against the White Sox. He did throw 51 of his 74 pitches for strikes in the outing, which is good for his first start back. ... Ervin Santana's next bullpen session is going to be on Tuesday. It's been reported that while he has been throwing off the mound in his rehab he's not yet begun throwing his slider off the mound, a slider that's a very important pitch for the righty.... Masahiro Tanaka was injured running the bases last week and is currently on the DL with strains in both of his hamstrings.... Carlos Carrasco was struck on the right elbow by a line drive from Joe Mauer and left the game Saturday. Initial x-rays were negative on the elbow but he's going to get more scans and tests done to verify that nothing is structurally wrong with his elbow.
IN THE BULLPEN
Terry Francona says that they are still trying to figure out a long term solution for Andrew Miller as the team wants to be sure that when he comes back, he's back for good. The team doesn't know for certain when he'll be activated but when asked if he'd be back in "a week or two" Francona certainly didn't rule it out.... Carson Smith's 2018 came to an end this week as he underwent surgery for a torn labrum in his shoulder.... Tyler Thornburg threw a scoreless inning in Pawtucket on Thursday and topped out at 96 MPH with his fastball and was sitting 94-95 according to reporters in attendance. Thornburg was acquired by the Red Sox offseason before 2017 but has yet to take the mound as a member of the Red Sox as he's been injured the entire time.
PLAYERS TO ADD
Hector Rondon is the Astros closing as manager AJ Hinch has all but removed Ken Giles from the role. Rondon has recorded three save since April 6th and in his most recent appearance he threw the ninth but the team was up by four runs so there was no save opportunity. Rondon is striking out 30.3% of batters and he owns a 1.44 ERA (1.81 FIP) over his 25 innings this season. Any closer needs to be owned in fantasy, and especially one on arguably one of the best teams in baseball.
ESPN Ownership - 20.2%
John Hicks is the new first baseman in Detroit with Miguel Cabrera being out for the season and he's gone 6-for-15 in his first few games being the primary first baseman with four runs scored and a homer. Hicks is definitely an add in AL Only because he should get some full time plate appearances and he currently owns a 40% hard contact rate which should keep the BABIP high, but it won't stay at a .381 clip.
ESPN Ownership - 13.3%
Steven Wright is making me question my complete distrust of knuckleball pitchers. Since being moved to the rotation he's allowed just one run in 20.2 innings and he owns a 1.21 ERA over all on the season. His walks are definitely concerning at 13.8% but he's allowing just 23% hard contact which helps him maintain such a low batting average against at .152. A 91.5% strand rate is hard to maintain as well but if the weak contact can keep up he could possibly end up keeping it in the 80% range. The Red Sox will help him have a steady stream of wins as well.
ESPN Ownership - 45.9%
Zach Britton has been activated by the Orioles and enters a bullpen where he is absolutely the best arm in the pen, but the Orioles are so horrific that I wonder exactly how many save chances he's going to get. Regardless of save chances Britton should provide great ratios in the innings that he does throw and if Showalter hasn't named him closer already I imagine it shouldn't take long. With Britton as a free agent this offseason too he's going to hear his name floated around in trade rumor as if he can land on a contender with a shaky back end of the pen his value could skyrocket if he stays healthy.
ESPN Ownership - 40.9%
