Fantasy Baseball 2017: Top 250 rest of season rankings

Welcome back. Another week, another top 250 update. Let’s jump right in!

Quick reminder, these rankings are for standard 5x5 rotisserie. I’ll do my best to explain any large rankings changes and feel free to ask player specific questions in the comments. This is your weekly forum to sound off with any fantasy questions you have. I’m here to help you!

Quick Hits

• We had more star pitchers hit the DL over the past week. Noah Syndergaard is certainly to be the worst of them all. Syndergaard left Sunday’s start against the Nationals after just 1.1 innings. We have since then found out he suffered a tear to his right lat muscle. The timetable for return is 3 months. Syndergaard drops to SP #45 and overall player #194. The Mets ace is a top 5 fantasy pitcher when healthy but his owners will be without him for much of the season now. The nature of the injury is very troublesome. I fear re-injury or set back after set back during his rehab. I’m not dropping him, but I wouldn’t judge you if you had to. Stash him on your DL for now and hope these injuries stop!
• In addition to Syndergaard, fantasy owners also lost both Corey Kluber and Cole Hamels to the DL. Kluber hit the DL after leaving his start with lower back issues. This does not seem too serious and the Indians are simply allowing their ace to fully heal. He should return in 10 days or soon thereafter. He drops slightly in my rankings, just behind some hitters I have more trust in. Hamels was scratched before his Tuesday start. He was diagnosed with a strained right oblique and will miss roughly 8 weeks. This is a bigger blow to the Rangers than fantasy owners. Hamels was a solid #3 fantasy starter but he had shown signs of declining skills recently. His strikeouts were way down this season and his walks were up going back to the 2nd half of last season even. He hardly remains in my top 250 and he could fall outside that range if a few more SP just on the outside emerge. Put him in your DL if you have room but he is no longer a must own pitcher.
• Let’s shift this towards more positive news. Freddie Freeman is now top 20! I said he belongs there after showing last year’s power surge was legit, but his walk rate is helping his case even further. It was tough to squeeze him in there though. A.J. Pollock jumped into the top 25 and the top 10 at OF. A month’s worth of elite production will do that. Eric Thames, Jay Bruce, Miguel Sano, and Ian Desmond all move up roughly 40 spots each and inside the top 100. Sano’s K rate is almost the same, but the walk rate is up. The Twins offense is much better than expected as well which has led to the high number of RBI for him. Bruce is a historically streaking player. Perhaps even the definition of streaky. He looks great right now. His walks are tad bit up which has helped the batting average. He’s as reliable as they come for 30 HR 90 RBI and he has 6 games at 1B. Desmond was a top 100 player before his injury. He is healthy now and, to top it off, David Dahl is not. Desmond should get the majority of the playing time between him, Mark Reynolds, and Gerardo Parra.
• Aaron Judge and Ryan Zimmerman both make huge leaps in this update. One could certainly justify having them both inside the top 100. I’m not there yet. Judge is now player #144 and OF #41. Zimmerman is player #159 and 1B #21. This may seem low, but considering they were both outside my top 250 before the season (like you saw this coming) I think having both around top 150 is fair. The downside with them still exists. Judge played 27 games last season with a .179 AVG and 44% K rate. Let’s just be realistic with the hot starting rookie. Zimmerman’s concern is health. He has played just 90 games on average over the past 3 years. If you guaranteed me 150 games of Zimmerman, he’s a no doubter top 50 player.
• David Dahl still has yet to return from injury. On Sunday, the Rockies general manger Jeff Bridich was hopeful Dahl was a week or so away from playing in [minor league] games. Tuesday, Bud Black told MLB Network that Dahl was “still a ways away”. The return of Ian Desmond along with the solid play of Mark Reynolds makes playing time an issue for Dahl once he is healthy enough to rejoin the Rockies. He has 20/20 potential when healthy and obviously has the best hitting environment a batter can ask for, but he’s getting harder and harder to stash and wait.

Losing Faith

Here’s a few of players who dropped in the rankings and, if their poor performances continue, could soon be outside my top 250:

• Cole Hamels (see above)
• David Dahl (see above)
• Jermey Hellickson (recently rock by the Cubs. I didn’t know a 3.4 K/9 was possible!)

Hello, Goodbye

The following players are new additions to the top 250:

• Jedd Gyorko
• Mike Leake
• Aaron Altherr (widely available)

The following players are no longer in my top 250:

• Joe Ross (sent to minors)
• Adam Eaton (out for season)
• Greg Bird (really bad start and now he’s hurt)

See you next week!