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Maximum Madness Kentucky Scherzer — known to most of you as “Max Scherzer” due to SEO requirements — has joined the elite sniper squad of the Texas Rangers for another bid at the World Series. How greedy can a guy get? Just like Nolan Ryan piling up all those no-hitters. Come on, Nolan — share the wealth! It probably makes sense that Scherzer joins the team that Nolan Ryan served as President and CEO for during the financial crisis.

Last week, I asked y’all to target Scherzer in any last minute fantasy trades. Although Scherzer was legit awful in July — like, top 5 worst starting pitchers in the league awful — his true skill stats looked pretty reasonable. We all know Scherzer is a playoff magnet. He’s got an opt-out clause in his contract and enough life left in his arm for another contract after this season. And now Scherzer gets to mentor a pitching room filled with the likes of [checks notes] Dane Dunning and Jon Gray. What a beautiful world!

Scherzer’s southward migration kicks off what will likely be a spectacular trade season. Some overbought teams — the Mets and Padres, for example — are selling to some wildly unexpected teams, like the Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles…and maybe even the Reds, Cubs, Brewers, Twins…the list goes on.

Some of these trades will benefit your fantasy team: Scherzer going from a losing team (the Mets) to a winning team (the Rangers) is pretty nice. Unforch, the Rangers have only a measly three games against the Athletics remaining in the season. The remaining schedule is against a bunch of winning teams. Remember what I said about taking the easy games as they come early?

Some of these trades will, possibly, hurt your fantasy team. The Rangers have the division lead but probably don’t need a 6-man rotation (or, the 7-man rotation according to the veritable trove of accuracy that is RosterResource). So, who gets demoted to the bullpen…or traded? Fantasy teams that had been leveraging Dane Dunning and Martin Perez, your cheap sources of Wins just got tougher. Very likely, either Dunning or Perez shifts to the bullpen or finds themselves packaged for a trade. Especially with many playoff-bound and World Series-minded teams going to 4-man rotations — which will be especially feasible with Scherzer in the lineup — do the Rangers really need 7 starters (and former starter Spencer Howard in the bullpen)?

The biggest potential trade impact is, of course, Shohei Ohtani. The Angels are ostensibly still in the playoff hunt, with a calculated 13% chance of making the playoffs in some form. With Ohtani expected to command upwards of half a billion in salary as a free agent this off-season, and with none of that money likely coming from Anaheim, the Angels have every incentive to show the West Coast their superstar for the next 8 weeks and stay put. A wiser move for the franchise would be to have Ohtani on the trade block — how many playoff teams would kill for Ohtani right now?

MLB Trade Rumors says that Ohtani is off the trade market. They’re also the site that advertised for a bilingual Ohtani-specific writer, and when I inquired — you know, with my Japanese translation ability, book about Japanese baseball, and extensive WordPress experience — and they ignored me. Just saying — things change.

Justin Verlander is probably on the market as well, but the fireworks and fanfare for his departure are probably more calculated. Whereas Scherzer’s true skill stats are mostly in-line with his career norms, Verlander’s having the worst year of his Hall of Fame career. His K/9 is at its lowest point since 2014, his walks are above 3 BB/9, and his fastball hasn’t been this slow since 2016. Sic transit gloria. Verlander can probably find a friendlier place to play than New York, and a return to Houston would make for some fun Scherzer / Verlander matchups later this year.

Lucas Giolito went to the Angels, ostensibly proving that the Angels are in “win now” mode. Even though Giolito finished 2022 with an abysmal 4.90 ERA, his 2023 true skill stats are showing he’s a worse pitcher now than he was in 2022. Arte Moreno is out here playing with baseball cards while the industry is playing with Statcast. Gio’s a streamer for all fantasy formats, but the Angels have mostly a nightmare stretch toward the playoffs. They get the Athletics for two series, but after that, it’s basically a murderer’s row of teams.

Mitch Keller is playing around with his repertoire — he’s never really succeeded for this long, so it’s natural that he’s figuring things out as he goes. His fastball velocity is down but his swinging strike rates are up. The Pirates are out of the playoff race and Keller is under team control for a while, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the Pirates dial back his IP to prevent injury. Just in time for your fantasy playoffs!

My hometown Minnesota Twins are somehow holding to the division lead while ace starter Joe Ryan is getting absolutely torched. Over his last six starts, Ryan has allowed…wait for it…13 home runs. Yeesh. Might as well send me out there. He’s also pitched against the Royals, Athletics and the White Sox in that period. Woof. Just in time for your fantasy playoffs! Ryan’s velocity is down a tick and he’s nearing his career high for IP…and it’s worth saying that he had basically never topped 100 IP in the minors before the majors. A lot of the great peripherals are still there — his swinging strike rate is insane, and his xFIP is nearly 4 points below his ERA for the recent phase, indicating a ton of bad luck has gone his way. The Twins will need Ryan to figure himself out if they hope to hold on to the AL Central lead.

As I loaded up the ol’ Whiffonator, I was surprised to see that Freddy Peralta had jumped into Tier 1. I miss him so! Over Peralta’s last 9 starts, he has a blistering 13+ K/9 to go with a reasonable 3 BB/9, and a tolerable 4.25 ERA. The ERA is tolerable because his true skill stats are way lower — 3.90 FIP, 3.23 xFIP, 3.13 SIERA. So, if we were playing the odds, Peralta would basically be doing a cheap impression of Spencer Strider. I bet you can’t get Strider at the fantasy trade deadline, but I bet you could get Peralta at cost. The Brewers are in the division lead, and Peralta and the gang have done the playoff thing before — he’s not going to crash your team.

Rankings

As I noted last week, 1) I increased the noise threshold to make the rankings more aggressive, and 2) we’re running out of time where rankings matter. People love a good listicle, but deep fantasy leagues are heading into the playoffs in like 2 weeks, and standard fantasy leagues are in the playoffs at the end of the month. Rankings are fun to look at, but especially in playoff mode, fantasy players don’t have the luxury of a long timeline for ERA to align to FIP.

Tier Name Team Confidence Own% L30$/G
1 Spencer Strider ATL 5.331 100 25.6
1 Kevin Gausman TOR 5.203 100 8.4
1 Tyler Glasnow TB 4.924 100 32.6
1 Pablo Lopez MIN 4.896 100 18
1 Jesus Luzardo MIA 4.853 100 33.6
1 Joe Ryan MIN 4.753 100 -22.8
1 Shohei Ohtani LAA 4.727 100 3.5
1 Blake Snell SD 4.567 100 22.3
1 Reid Detmers LAA 4.445 100 -19
1 Kodai Senga NYM 4.425 100 18.5
1 Dylan Cease CHW 4.418 100 -18.3
1 Hunter Greene CIN 4.396 100
1 Chris Sale BOS 4.350 88
1 Nick Pivetta BOS 4.329 69 34.1
1 Freddy Peralta MIL 4.125 100 10.6
1 Zack Wheeler PHI 4.075 100 24.4
2 Gerrit Cole NYY 3.976 100 27.5
2 Zac Gallen ARI 3.929 100 0.4
2 Zach Eflin TB 3.898 100 3.2
2 Framber Valdez HOU 3.835 100 -37.3
2 Eduardo Rodriguez DET 3.777 100 -1.2
2 Luis Castillo SEA 3.749 100 5.9
2 Clayton Kershaw LAD 3.728 100
2 Logan Webb SF 3.724 100 -5.7
2 Nathan Eovaldi TEX 3.717 100 21.4
2 Edward Cabrera MIA 3.680 100 -35.6
2 Logan Gilbert SEA 3.663 100 17.5
2 Corbin Burnes MIL 3.645 100 67.4
2 Sonny Gray MIN 3.627 100 -22.5
2 George Kirby SEA 3.623 100 16.9
2 Justin Steele CHC 3.613 100 11.6
2 James Paxton BOS 3.609 100 13.7
2 Braxton Garrett MIA 3.578 99 -13.5
2 Lance Lynn LAD 3.552 96 -17.8
2 Andrew Abbott CIN 3.529 100 25.5
2 Mitch Keller PIT 3.528 99 -29.7
2 Shane McClanahan TB 3.485 100 -42.6
2 Joe Musgrove SD 3.480 100 42.3
2 Hunter Brown HOU 3.461 100 -33.2
2 Bailey Ober MIN 3.447 100 7.4
2 Merrill Kelly ARI 3.406 100 6
2 Taj Bradley TB 3.403 98 -49.2
2 Aaron Nola PHI 3.343 100 2.1
2 Tanner Bibee CLE 3.343 100 35
2 Kyle Bradish BAL 3.343 100 19.5
2 Marcus Stroman CHC 3.339 100 -46.5
2 Alex Cobb SF 3.306 100 -5.2
2 Bryce Miller SEA 3.292 100 8.2
2 Jose Berrios TOR 3.270 100 -3.2
2 Bobby Miller LAD 3.232 100 11
2 Yu Darvish SD 3.228 100 4.4
2 Michael Wacha SD 3.223 76 27.8
2 Jordan Montgomery STL 3.219 100 -3.9
2 Charlie Morton ATL 3.219 100 9.6
2 Seth Lugo SD 3.216 98 9.6
2 Kutter Crawford BOS 3.200 65 17.2
2 Aaron Civale CLE 3.159 100 27.3
2 Lucas Giolito LAA 3.157 100 -16.7
2 Sandy Alcantara MIA 3.131 100 -2.4
2 Michael Lorenzen DET 3.084 89 26.5
2 Max Scherzer TEX 3.080 100 2.6
2 Domingo German NYY 3.077 100 12.6
2 Cristian Javier HOU 3.051 100 -46.2
2 Justin Verlander NYM 3.042 100 32.5
2 Kyle Gibson BAL 3.020 69 -22.3
3 MacKenzie Gore WSH 2.997 99 -27.3
3 Tyler Wells BAL 2.992 99 -37.4
3 Logan Allen CLE 2.976 100 -0.9
3 Chris Bassitt TOR 2.942 100 12.6
3 Griffin Canning LAA 2.937 88 -31.5
3 Steven Matz STL 2.921 45 4.4
3 Ranger Suarez PHI 2.914 90 -52.7
3 Shane Bieber CLE 2.913 90 -21.7
3 Yusei Kikuchi TOR 2.910 92 -13.9
3 Bryce Elder ATL 2.896 94 -28.6
3 Miles Mikolas STL 2.896 93 -13.3
3 Taijuan Walker PHI 2.873 99 2.8
3 Kyle Hendricks CHC 2.870 87 -8.9
3 JP Sears OAK 2.861 72 -6.2
3 Johan Oviedo PIT 2.853 36 -24
3 Tanner Houck BOS 2.853 8
3 Clarke Schmidt NYY 2.833 96 18.2
3 Brady Singer KC 2.821 55 -4
3 Jack Flaherty STL 2.790 98 6.6
3 Patrick Sandoval LAA 2.784 85 1.4
3 Jon Gray TEX 2.783 100 -53.8
3 Brayan Bello BOS 2.762 100 -2.1
3 Julio Urias LAD 2.727 100 -17.2
3 Dane Dunning TEX 2.707 92 -8.7
3 Anthony DeSclafani SF 2.698 38 -60
3 Nestor Cortes NYY 2.675 89
3 Dean Kremer BAL 2.648 83 -0.6
3 Ben Lively CIN 2.617 21 -10
3 Andrew Heaney TEX 2.615 87 -19.3
3 Tony Gonsolin LAD 2.612 100 -30.9
3 Rich Hill PIT 2.611 7 -51.9
3 J.P. France HOU 2.610 97 26.5
3 Colin Rea MIL 2.610 3 -9
3 Drew Smyly CHC 2.591 38 -50.9
3 Wade Miley MIL 2.578 35 -14.3
3 Josiah Gray WSH 2.570 95 -3.6
3 Brock Stewart MIN 2.551 1
3 Tarik Skubal DET 2.538 100 8.4
3 Jameson Taillon CHC 2.518 42 18.7
4 Grayson Rodriguez BAL 2.497 100 -10.5
4 Michael Kopech CHW 2.481 96 -39.6
4 Mike Clevinger CHW 2.467 16 69.3