What a difference a week makes. A week ago there wasn’t a ton of movement, but this week I felt like an overhaul was in store. We’ll get to the risers and fallers in a little bit, but first there is a bit of scuttlebutt to address. No, not Scuzzlebutt the basket-weaving monster who lives in the mountains of South Park and has Patrick Duffy for a leg and a stick of celery for an arm. SCUTTLEbutt. The largest of which has to be the surprise demotion of Rockies Opening Day starter Jon Gray to Triple-A Albuquerque. Gray had a particularly heinous 5.77 ERA, so bad that Mariska Hargitay had begun poking around Coors Field to keep an eye on things. His FIP, however, is a sterling 3.07 (11th best among qualified starters), and his K-BB% is 21.8% (12th best). You can’t even point to Coors Field as causing his troubles, with a 5.89 road ERA. This looks like incredibly bad luck, but with this demotion clearly the team is focused on something mechanical. It’ll be pretty hard to hang on to him in standard mixers, although he may not be down for too long if they fix what needs a-fixin’ right quick. I’d try to hold him in a bench spot if you can in 15+ team leagues. Elsewhere, there aren’t too many notable promotions, but there are a few new names on the back end to peep.

Whew! It turns out taking a week off from ranking these guys makes for a lot of work the next time out. As you might imagine, there is a bit more moving and shaking than normal this week. Surprise surprise, we’ve also had a slew of injuries that continue to take it’s toll on the top 50. We’ve lost Stephen Strasburg, Walker Buehler, and Garrett Richards most notably, with Clayton Kershaw and Noah Syndergaard looking lost for extended periods. The aces that are left continue to dominate though, and Trevor Bauer has worked his way into the top 10. We did get Madison Bumgarner back, but he hasn’t looked very sharp and I’m wondering if he belongs in the top 20 at this point. Carlos Martinez has been killing his owners since his return from the DL himself, yet his upside makes it hard to drop him too hard just yet. On the brighter side of things, Tyler Skaggs, with whom we planted flags several weeks ago, continues to climb the list in glorious fashion. Also, I still have no idea how Ross Stripling is suddenly an ace, but he keeps shoving and I keep ranking him higher. I’d consider selling depending on what you’re getting in return, but I’m probably just enjoying the ride if I have Stripling. Let’s go in depth on a half dozen other Risers, Fallers, and Newcomers of interest this week.

What a disgusting tease of a week that was. Some people like to be teased I suppose, but in this very important fantasy baseball circumstance I’m not all about it. Just as I was all set to toss Clayton Kershaw back into the fold, he leaves his first start with back tightness and it’s back to the DL dungeon for at least a month. Same story with Alex Reyes, who I was all set to gush about this week. Sadly, he left his first start with the Cardinals after just four innings and is lost to the DL for a long, long time with a “significant” lat strain. The loss of Kenta Maeda is sad since he was pitching so well, while the loss of Jeff Samardzija is less so since he’d been horrendous. Addition by subtraction? Perhaps. We also lost Noah Syndergaard, although hopefully this will be the only week he drops from the rankings since his finger injury isn’t considered to be serious. Because of all the injuries and a general lack of blow-ups from mid-tier starters, there weren’t a lot of fallers this week. So rather than nitpick a few minor laggards, let’s look at a bunch of new entries to the Top 100, and a couple risers as well. I feel like such an optimist!

Hey, for a change we didn’t have a devastating injury this week! Huzzah! Not only that, we got ourselves a few newcomers to the list who are pretty exciting. The top 20 remains relatively unchanged, although Patrick Corbin gets a bit of a ding for the continued diminished velocity and a dip in his whiffs. Speaking of whiffs, can you Snell that Snell? Snell has a freakin’ 2.78 ERA and has had to face the Red Sox three times already. He’ll come down from that mark for sure, but he’s still really good. I didn’t write him up fully, but I trashed Zack Godley nearly 20 spots. I was as patient as I could be, but those 2017 K:BB gains have evaporated. I also believe I had Reynaldo Lopez a bit high given his lack of strikeouts, and his .218 BABIP through 10 starts is pretty absurd. Let’s check out some more of the interesting movers and shakers this week.

Another week of pitching injuries with precious few callups, and the back end of this Top 100 is getting ugly. I ranked Carlos Martinez last week with the expectation that he would miss just a single start, but at this point he’s missing multiple turns so he’s out. Intriguing rookies Mike Soroka and Joey Lucchesi are DL’d, and Freddy Peralta really came down to earth in his second start. We’re creeping closer to June when we should expect to see a few more high profile callups…and Alex Reyes looms. His most recent start was 7.2 1-hit, shutout innings with three walks and 13 K’s. Seems ready to me! If you don’t have him stashed yet and he’s still available in your league, stop whatever you’re doing (reading, I suppose) and remedy the situation. If I were forced to rank Reyes before he makes a MLB start, I’d probably initially slot him in around SP30. Chris Archer is at SP29, and I don’t think he’s giving you anything Alex Reyes can’t.

It’s rough to start a list that brings me as much joy as this with the sad trombone, but this is how we have to begin when we lose Clayton Kershaw. Sad trombone. There’s no current timetable for his return from biceps tendinitis, and the most recent update has him playing catch from 60 feet for five minutes. Yippee. I like to think he’s actually just practicing an eephus and he’s going to start working it into his repertoire. In any case, he’s not close to a return. Sadly, DL trips have become commonplace for Kershaw. At this point you have to bake a DL stint into his projection every year, and to me that puts him squarely behind Mad Max and Sale moving forward.

Kluber is also showing a few chinks in his armor, so that dude has to watch out for pointy objects. While he’s got a cool 2.62 ERA, his FIP is 3.94. His swinging strike rate is down a full 5% from 2017 while his contact rate is up 9%. He’s getting fewer reaches out of the zone and is missing far fewer bats in the zone. I don’t foresee an implosion of any kind per se, but among elite options he’s got my eyebrow raised.

I think Jake Faria read me shorting him at #73 last week, responding with eight shutout innings. It came against an ugly Tigers lineup, but you’ll take it anyway. Unfortunately, it was a tough week for injuries. Just last week I was asked why I didn’t have Johnny Cueto higher, and I sort of shrugged (not that anyone could see me shrugging) and said that I was waiting for the next injury to strike. Sadly it did, and he could be lost for the season this time. Hyun-jin Ryu tore his groin right off the damn bone, which is a thought that makes me cringe more than watching entrepreneurs getting shot down on Shark Tank. Robbie Ray is gone, Jordan Montgomery is gone, and we get screwed with ole dusty balls Adam Wainwright instead of Jack Flaherty. What a world. We do have some fun debuts to get to though, so there is a silver lining. We’ll focus more on them than the risers/fallers this week.