MLB Barometer: Risers & Fallers

A PSA to those who are sick of hearing about the ongoing negotiations between players and owners regarding when and how to resume the baseball season: there isn't much else going on at the moment, so this week's introduction will be about those issues. If that doesn't interest you, feel free to skip to the Risers and Fallers sections below, which contains a bonus KBO mini-barometer to make up for subjecting you to yet more labor talk.

There's seemingly been very little progress in the negotiations to bring back the MLB season over the last week. Billionaire owners across the league continue to cry poor and expect fans to care about their bank accounts while simultaneously refusing to open up their books to prove their claims correct. Meanwhile, the players, who are the ones who would take on the health risks that come with playing during a pandemic and who therefore could have a legitimate case to ask to cancel the season completely, continue to push to bring fans as many games as possible, as long as they're paid the amount that owners previously agreed to pay them back in late March. 

The owners had fought against upholding that deal for several months, before finally consenting to pay prorated salaries back in late May, albeit only over a pitifully short season which would result in a pay cut of around 70 percent for players. They've now gone back to trying to renege on that deal, returning to their demand that they be allowed to violate the March agreement and force players to take another cut. It's beginning to feel as though the owners have no real desire to play this season at all.

The fact that this continues to be framed in many places as an issue in which both sides need to concede something to reach a compromise remains astounding. As fans, we deserve baseball owners who love the game as much as we do. Players and fans deserve owners who are willing to sacrifice short-term profits for the health of the game and the entertainment of millions across the world. 

Owners who don't fit into that category are more than welcome to sell their teams to people who do and to leave the baseball world for other industries. The Kansas City Royals of all teams, hardly the league's most prestigious or valuable franchise, sold for a cool $1 billion last year. That makes the owners' pleas of poverty rather hard to believe, but even if those pleas were somehow accurate, owners who are worried about taking a short-term loss have an easy path to rectifying that and giving themselves an unfathomably large pile of cash with which to pivot into another field.

I hope the owners will prove themselves worthy of being stewards of civic institutions which bring joy to so many and finally concede to paying players their agreed-upon salaries over a reasonable number of games. I hope they realize that the long-term health of the game and the happiness of baseball fans around the world matters so much more than temporary hits to their piles of gold, which will remain incomprehensibly massive even after one rare season of losses. I hope they stop making statements like Cubs' owner Tom Ricketts' recent one, in which he claimed that teams were struggling because "no one anticipated a pandemic," words that ring rather hollow in the ears of us peasants who have had to make plenty of sacrifices because none of us anticipated a pandemic, either.

I can't say I have a ton of hope, based on the way the owners have acted throughout the last 150 years of the game's history, but maybe they'll finally see that they're running out of time to reach a deal. If not, maybe it's time for the Players' League to return after its 130-year absence.

Fantasy-relevant news has remained slow as usual lately, but this week's Barometer will cover a few players whose stock has changed based on recent news, all of which happens to be injury news this week. I've also included another KBO mini-Barometer, focusing on players who could be of interest in very deep dynasty leagues.

RISERS

Shohei Ohtani, SP/DH, Angels: Each day that the players and owners fail to reach a deal buys more time for Ohtani to complete his recovery from October 2018 Tommy John surgery. The amount of time he was expected to miss has continued to dwindle, and it now appears quite likely that he'll be able to pitch right away once play resumes. He's been able to throw live batting practice and has thrown as many as 55 pitches in a session. It's likely that he's as close to game-ready as nearly any other pitcher in the league, as pitchers are presumably staying a couple levels below regular-season readiness as they still don't know when they'll next be expected to throw 100 pitches. Owners can treat Ohtani as a true two-way player for the entirety of the year, as the Angels are unlikely to set an innings limit on him in a season which could be as short as 48 games.

Griffin Canning, SP, Angels: The news on Canning has been positive for quite some time, as he's been able to throw for over two months since suffering "chronic changes" to his UCL during spring training. Tommy John surgery appeared quite close at the time, but he's seemingly been able to build back up without setbacks. Like his teammate Ohtani, he's been able to throw 55-pitch live batting practice sessions. He's still not particularly trustworthy, as he also dealt with elbow issues late last season, but it at least now looks to be quite likely that he'll be part of the Angels' Opening Day rotation.

Carlos Carrasco, SP, Indians: Sticking with the theme of pitchers recovering from elbow issues, Carrasco has been able to throw bullpen sessions without any setbacks after getting shut down with elbow inflammation in mid-March. He got back on the mound by mid-April and has now had nearly two months to build back up. It appears as though he'll be a member of Cleveland's rotation on Opening Day, though there's a chance he's on a pitch count early. It's worth noting that Carrasco's battle with leukemia last season could theoretically make him likely to opt out of playing this season due to coronavirus risk factors, but The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal reported that he doesn't intend to do so.

Brendan Rodgers, 2B, Rockies: Before play was paused, Rodgers didn't appear to be a lock to make the Rockies' Opening Day roster. He'd been able to take a handful of at-bats in the Cactus League prior to the shutdown, but whether or not he was going to be fully recovered from last June's shoulder surgery wasn't initially clear. It also wasn't clear whether or not he was even in the Rockies' Opening Day plans, as they also have Ryan McMahon and Garrett Hampson as second-base options and Trevor Story locking down the shortstop position. The delayed and altered season appears to have solved both of those problems. He's now completed his rehab work and can be considered fully healthy when play resumes, and the likelihood of expanded rosters means he's quite likely to make the team. In what capacity remains to be seen, but the Rockies won't want the highly-rated 23-year-old rotting on the bench every game.

FALLERS

Chris Archer, SP, Pirates: There aren't many better ways to see your value fall than to undergo season-ending surgery. That's what Archer did last week, undergoing a procedure to relieve symptoms of neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome. How many (if any) games he'll wind up missing remains to be seen, and he's reportedly expected to be back for the start of next season, but thoracic outlet syndrome is an issue which can completely derail a pitcher's career--see Matt Harvey for a particularly prominent example. The shoulder issues prematurely ended the righty's 2020 season in late August last year are likely related, and it's possible his struggles last season, where he limped to a 5.19 ERA and a 10.5 percent walk rate, are related as well. Archer will be 32 years old next season, so the likelihood of him returning to his peak appears quite low.

Seranthony Dominguez, RP, Phillies: Dominguez's prognosis hasn't look good for quite a while, as he suffered an elbow setback in mid-March as he attempted to work his way back from an injury which cut his 2019 campaign short in June. Tommy John surgery appeared to be on the table, but he'd headed home to his native Dominican Republic before the country's borders closed due to the pandemic and was stuck in limbo, unable to go forward with the procedure. He's now back in the United States and will undergo the surgery within a few weeks, over a year since the date of his last major-league pitch. If he'd been able to have the procedure back in March, he'd have a good shot at appearing in a meaningful portion of the 2021 season, but he's now likely to be out until 2022. Dominguez had emerged as the Phillies closer during his rookie season in 2018, saving 16 games while posting a 32.0 percent strikeout rate and a 2.95 ERA, but by the time he gets back on a big-league mound, it will have been two and a half years since his most recent game.

KBO RISERS

While MLB news remains very slow, the KBO in South Korea is going strong and is now over a month into its season. I can't recommend the league highly enough, as it's a great brand of baseball, with more contact and longer rallies but still plenty of home runs. Additionally, for those who only care about the game on the field, the scarcity of English-language reporting on anything but the games themselves could well be a refreshing change, for better or for worse. We're covering KBO daily fantasy contests extensively at RotoWire, but those in MLB dynasty leagues deep enough that players outside the MLB system are worth owning have reason to pay attention to the league as well. The following four young players look like they could one day be capable contributors or better at the MLB level.

Jung Hoo Lee, OF, Heroes: The 21-year-old outfielder had shown incredible contact skills through his first three years in the league, .324 or better in each season while trimming his strikeout rate to just 6.3 percent last year. What he hadn't shown is power, hitting no more than six homers in a season. Through the first 30 games this campaign, however, he's already launched five bombs. ESPN analyst Kiley McDaniel called Lee "arguably the top prospect in the KBO" on a recent broadcast and said that "scouts are pretty excited that he's got a chance to be an everyday guy in the big leagues one day." He's still several years from free agency, so we won't get the chance to see him stateside for quite a while unless he's posted early, but he's an athletic young outfielder with a bat that looks like it could play at the highest level.

Ha Seong Kim, SS, Heroes: Speaking of getting posted early, Lee's teammate Kim is expected to be made available to MLB clubs this offseason, shortly after his 25th birthday. Kim was listed by Baseball America as the top prospect in the KBO, one spot ahead of Lee. He does a little bit of everything, with the glove to stick at shortstop, legs that helped him steal 33 bases last season and a bat that's produced a career .292 batting average and five straight seasons with at least 19 homers. He struggled early this season but has gone on a tear over his last 19 games, hitting .371/.506/.643 with four homers.

Baek Ho Kang, 1B, Wiz: Kang has big upside, bursting onto the scene with an .879 OPS as an 18-year-old rookie and improving to a .911 mark in that category last season even as league-wide offense plummeted due to a de-juiced ball. He looked even better early this season, hitting .333 with five homers in 14 games before suffering a wrist injury, which he's expected to return from shortly. There's middle-of-the-order potential in his bat, though he's likely to be purely a first basemen by the time he gets the chance to try his hand at the MLB level, as he's already been moved in from the outfield this season at just 20 years old. Still, the bat plays, and Kiley McDaniel suggested that he'd go in the first round of the MLB draft, and potentially in the top half of the first round, if he were eligible as an American college player.

Chang-mo Koo, SP, Dinos: The 23-year-old lefty has a strong chance to be Korea's best pitcher since Hyun-Jin Ryu. Prior to this season, his 3.20 ERA last year represented his best effort, but he's reached another gear this year. Through six starts, he's allowed just three earned runs, posting a 0.66 ERA and a 0.71 WHIP, numbers he's backed up with a 29.7 percent strikeout rate and a 6.1 percent walk rate. He's had success by pounding the zone with a fastball that can touch 93 mph and a slider that's given KBO hitters fits. He's still several years away from reaching free agency, but if his early results are any indication, we'll see him stateside before too long should he wish to come over.