How do you rank the following injured pitchers for the rest of the season: Yu Darvish, Clayton Kershaw, Shelby Miller, Robbie Ray, Ervin Santana?
Ray Flowers (Fantasy Guru Elite, @BaseballGuys): I wish we didn’t have to deal with this whole mess, with arm after arm hitting the infirmary on a daily basis. The best skills analysis is often thwarted by the continual injuries. It’s brutal. That said, we all have to play the game on even footing, so let’s have at it. If I ranked em’ it would be Kershaw, Ray, Darvish, Santana and Miller. Miller was blasted to the stone age last time out allowing eight runs with nine outs coming back from surgery. Santana has had setbacks with his finger, and he’s thrown 5.1 innings, as of this writing, in 2018, and his return is totally up in the air. The other three are all working their ways back from injury with all hoping for a return before the All-Star Game. Hell, who knows at this point. Ray has predictably regressed, Darvish hasn’t looked like himself at virtually any point, and Kershaw hasn’t been himself either with that back, but a 1.12 WHIP, 9.73 K/9 and 4.82 K/BB ratio prove he can still get outs with the best of them… when his body holds up.
Patrick Davitt (BaseballHQ, @patrickdavitt): I have to say I just don’t know.
Vlad Sedler (Fantasy Guru Elite, @Rotogut): Kershaw – Ray – Darvish – Santana – Miller — It won’t be a completely lost season for Kershaw as I’d expect for him to right his ship after the All-Star break and deliver top 8 SP roto numbers. Ray should be back soon and that humidor should help him just as it has his rotation-mates. Those whiffs are dreamy, but they come with the warts that are walks on walks on walks. Darvish has been broken, cursed, whatever you want to call it, since the World Series. His 12% walk rate is a career high and his lack of control is the issue that will continue to plague him. He only gets the nod over Santana because Erv continues to have setbacks in his road to recovery and he may be hard-pressed to provide value to fantasy owners who have been patiently waiting. Not to be stubborn, but “never again” for me and Shelby Miller. I won’t be bidding for his services even though he may occasionally post solid starts in Chase Field. Those blowups will occur far too often.
Doug Dennis (BaseballHQ, @dougdennis41): Kershaw and then a wide gulf. The truth is, I have no idea whether Kershaw is just going to reset and blow ’em away July through playoffs or if he is going to have another problem in two weeks. But I’d still take him over the others because he could blow ’em away. After that, Ray, I guess, but he wasn’t all that consistent even before he hurt his oblique. I might go for those Ks, but it will cost you in WHIP, I’d expect–especially in the early going. I might rather someone else jump on him and then trade for him if he struggles initially but proves healthy. After Kershaw and Ray, I’m done. I don’t want what Darvish would cost when he hasn’t really done anything to create a glimmer of hope and I don’t see Santana or Miller providing anything positive at all. It is all idle guessing, though, until we see them performing (for better or worse) in MLB games.
Mike Podhorzer (Fangraphs, @MikePodhorzer): Since players returning from injury are usually a crapshoot, the safe answer here is clearly Kershaw as top dog. Then given his track record, you have to rank Darvish second. I’d go with Ray third, following by Santana, and lastly Shelby Miller. I projected Ray to post ratios somewhere in between his bloated 2016 and breakout 2017 marks, and the humidor in Arizona should benefit him. I was a fan of Miller’s when he enjoyed a velocity surge last season before succumbing to an elbow injury that ultimately required Tommy John surgery. I don’t bet on TJ returnees.
Scott Swanay (FantasyBaseballSherpa, @fantasy_sherpa): The flip side of Kershaw’s having missed so much time w/ back injuries the last few seasons is that he has a track record of being able to pitch effectively after returning from them. The others? Who knows – I never know what to expect when a pitcher returns from an arm, elbow, shoulder, or hand injury. I’ll go w/ Darvish, Santana, Ray, and Miller, but that’s admittedly a SWAG.
Stephania Bell (ESPN Fantasy Sports, @Stephania_ESPN): My ranking: Kershaw, Ray, Darvish, Miller, Santana. Obviously there are no guarantees when it comes to returning from injuries…but if anyone has shown an ability to return from injury and pitch effectively, it’s Kershaw. The difference this time is that he isn’t coming off a stellar start to the season; his fastball velocity has dipped and his home run yield is higher than normal. Most concerning is the amount of time he’s been unavailable between the biceps tendinitis and now his back…again. BUT…given the options here, the upside of Kershaw is far higher than the others and if he continues to progress on his current path, he could deliver better results – even if he isn’t at peak Kershaw performance – in the second half of the season. As for the others, Ray is nearing a return which keeps him ahead of Darvish who may not come back until the second half. Both offer the potential for strikeouts but Ray is pitching in rehab games currently while Darvish has yet to face live hitters. Not finding a lot to be thrilled about with either Santana or Miller but Miller is ahead of Santana (as of this moment) when it comes to approaching a return. Miller had a lousy rehab outing recently where he gave up eight runs but followed it with a nice bounceback performance. Pitchers are often inconsistent early in their return from TJ surgery but he is at least throwing all of his pitches and, as of yet, isn’t dealing with unusual soreness. Meanwhile, Santana has had some setbacks due to discomfort in his middle finger post-op, still isn’t throwing all his pitches and is eight years older than Miller. Santana could be back for the second half but there is still uncertainty there and that’s enough for me to rank him below Miller.
Todd Zola (Mastersball, @toddzola): I wish I shared my response before Stephania since I’m in lockstep with her reply, though there’s one major difference. This is her realm while I’m just reading tea leaves, though admittedly a semi-educated reading from lessons I’ve learned from her and Rick Wilton over the years.
As an aside, while I don’t want to apologize to my fellow Touts for this question, I recognize crystal ball questions aren’t our favorite to answer. More hedging on my part – it’s not quite unfair to have asked this, since the answers are likely of interest to fantasy managers. That said, with Stephania being the obvious exception, some of our answers fall under the mantra “your guess is as good as ours”. This is also germane to questions like who will get the saves for the Royals and who will be traded at the deadline. With the disclaimer this is my opinion and not necessarily that of the Tout brethren, but in most cases, it’s your team, your call. Find expertise most apropos to the question and use it to formulate your own opinion. Again, speaking for me, I don’t know if it’s Kevin McCarthy or Tim Hill (as an example). Your guess is as good as mine.