Greetings, friends, and welcome to Week 11 of the Fantasy Baseball Quick Grades series. We have a ton of games this week, with 17 teams playing seven games and one team (the Mets) scheduled to play eight games. The Rangers are the only team scheduled to play just five games, and 11 teams are scheduled to play six games.
I went over how the grades for this series are calculated in Week 1, and I’ll link to that breakdown every week rather than filling this space with a lengthy explanation every time. If you’re interested in knowing my process or just want to talk baseball, feel free to reach out on Twitter @mikeMaher. I reply to Tweets, and my DMs are open. Here’s a link to the Week 1 piece with the full Quick Grades breakdown:
Week 1 Quick Grades (2021 Fantasy Baseball)
BREAKING: Fernando Tatis Jr. is not in the Top 5 for Quick Grades this week. Ok, that isn’t a huge deal, and you don’t have to scroll too far to find him, but I did get pretty accustomed to seeing him near the top of this list. We had seven players crack the 90 mark this week: Starling Marte, Cedric Mullins, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Tommy Pham, Tim Anderson, and Shohei Ohtani. Marte, in particular, is atop the list because of his recent performance since returning from the injured list and an excellent matchups grade of 20.83, which is second only to the 22.85 number that Cleveland players received (Eddie Rosario, Harold Ramirez, Amed Rosario, and Jose Ramirez all broke the 80 mark).
Now, let’s get to the rest of Week 11 grades and notes.
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Note: This table is three pages (see the button on the top right) and is sortable and searchable, so feel free to look around!
Week 11 Hitter Grades
Team Streams
- The Diamondbacks, Orioles, Cubs, White Sox, Reds, Indians, Rockies, Tigers, Angels, Brewers, Padres, Giants, Mariners, Cardinals, Rays, Blue Jays, and Nationals all play seven games this week.
- The Mets are scheduled to play eight games.
- As mentioned above, the Cleveland Indians have a matchups grade of 22.85. They play seven games and don't face a pitcher ranked in the Top 100. If you're looking for streamers, start with the Indians. Harold Ramirez is a name that comes to mind. He is available in more than 90% of leagues and has a grade of 85.93 for Week 11.
- The Atlanta Braves only get six games, but they don't have an unfavorable matchup in the bunch. They get a struggling Eduardo Rodriguez and Garrett Richards before four games against the Cardinals and Johan Oviedo, John Gant, Carlos Martinez, and Adam Wainwright. And all six games are at home.
Fades of the Week
- The Rangers are the only team scheduled to play just five games in Week 11.
- The Diamondbacks play seven games this week and open up against a struggling Alex Wood, a TBD, and Anthony DeSclafani. However, then they get Kevin Gausman, Trevor Bauer, and Walker Buehler before closing things out with Tony Gonsolin. They have a low grade of 12.85.
Notes
- Dominic Smith's high grade seems to be boosted by a hot streak a little over a week ago, and his numbers have been coming down in the days since.
- Patrick Wisdom has the highest wOBA in baseball over the last two weeks, but his overall grade (which is still an impressive 85.11) is hurt by a 13.21 matchups grade. The Cubs start the week against David Peterson but then get Taijuan Walker, Jacob deGrom (who is expected to make his start), Marcus Stroman, Pablo Lopez, Cody Poteet, and Trevor Rogers (unless his starts get moved or pushed back).
- The Rockies play all seven of their games at home this week. Stream Colorado batters and fade their pitchers.
- If you sort the list by grade, you'll find Nick Solak and Nate Lowe at the very bottom, with grades below 50.
Week 11 Pitcher Grades
Below, you'll see a grid of probable starters, their matchups, and their grades. The grade is on a scale of 0-100, and here's what those numbers mean.
These grades assume you are in 10 leagues of varying size and format, with a good mix of shallow, deeper, scoring, and roster/lineup sizes. The score for all of these players corresponds to how many leagues I would start a pitcher in if I had him in every league. So, a pitcher with a score of 100 means I would start him in all 10 leagues. A pitcher with a score of 50 means I would start him in five leagues. Zero, zero leagues. Got it? Great.
Note: The starters below are grouped alphabetically by team and schedule, and the table is two pages to keep the length manageable (you can click to see the second page on the top right).
Notes
- Eduardo Rodriguez has an ERA above 6.00, but his expected numbers are much better. His FIP is 3.85, his xFIP is 3.48, his SIERA is 3.64, and his xERA is 3.60. There are a number of small underlying numbers that indicate bad luck, but nothing really jumps out. This really looks to be mostly bad luck and a pitcher not executing when it matters (specifically, when runners are on base). Dan Harris and Joe Pisapia discussed Rodriguez on Friday's episode of Leading Off, and Dan preached patience because of what I just wrote above. I have started getting questions on Twitter about dropping E-Rod, and I'm definitely not there yet. I gave him a 30 here because I'm going to bench him for a start or two in most formats, and that's what I recommend to other fantasy managers, too.
- Matthew Boyd and Casey Mize both earn 70s for their two-start weeks with matchups against the Royals and the Angeles. Both starts are on the road, but I'm rolling them out in most of my leagues.
- I wrote this piece before Jackson Kowar's start on Saturday, and an impressive performance could bump him up from a 10 to maybe a 30. But this is still a young pitcher making this third start against one of the better lineups in baseball. I'm leaving him on the bench in the majority of my leagues while we continue to evaluate him.
- Trevor Rogers landed on the COVID-19 injured list as I was writing this. It sounds like this IL stint could be due to a vaccine reaction, and he may not even miss a start. Monitor this situation leading up to when lineups lock on Monday in weekly leagues. If he's active, I'm starting him everywhere, obviously. Even if he misses the first of what are scheduled to be two starts, it's possible he at least makes one of them.
- I tend to fade pitchers coming back from the injured list for a start, but I'm rolling the dice on Kenta Maeda in most of my leagues with him currently scheduled for two starts. I wrote about Maeda in the most recent Statcast Review, and I'm bullish on him bouncing back if he comes back healthy.
- Jacob deGrom had an MRI that came back clean, and he is reportedly expected to make his next start.
That's it for this week. Again, if you have any questions, feedback, or requests, hit me up on Twitter!
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Mike Maher is an editor and featured writer at FantasyPros and BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive, follow him on Twitter @MikeMaher, and visit his Philadelphia Eagles blog, The Birds Blitz.