As you continue to push forward towards a fantasy baseball championship and brace for a potentially wild league trade deadline, preparing your pitching staff is going to take a lot of finesse.
Not only are you looking to stack up strong arms, but they also need to be ready to take the mound every fifth day straight through the end of the year.
Veterans like Zack Wheeler and Dylan Cease always make for fantastic options as we expect them to hit that 180-inning plateau, but what happens when your pitching staff has been carried by elite performances that may not last into September?
How do you navigate pitchers like Paul Skenes and Garrett Crochet?
Innings limits routinely get complicated for young starters.
Conventional wisdom tends to favor what was routinely called the “Verducci Effect,” where teams wouldn’t increase a starter’s year-to-year workload by more than 30 innings for fear of injury or major regression the following season.
Some have backed off that stance, but a young pitcher’s health is still the top priority.
And for teams competing for a playoff spot, the question of whether to let the youngsters keep pitching or to shut them down for the future is always a point of contention.
The decision for the White Sox and Crochet seems to be easy.
Crochet will be a free agent after this season and the team is trying to find ways to keep him.
Leading up to the MLB trade deadline, they limited him to less than four innings per appearance, and following the deadline they did the same.
With no playoffs in sight and a desire to re-sign Crochet, you can expect more of the same, which means he’s not helping you anymore in fantasy this season.
You can try to deal him in a redraft league but you may end up having to cut him.
In a keeper league, if you believe a deal will help you win this season, trade him.
Skenes is a bit of a different story.
The Pirates are still contending, but are long shots to make it.
More than likely, they will be out of it by the end of August.
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Skenes has been dominant, but has already thrown 60 innings more than he did last year, and the moment the Pirates are eliminated we can expect the shutdown.
If you are in a redraft league, you may want to try to trade him to someone who believes he will keep pitching.
For keeper formats, unless someone is offering you a king’s ransom that will lock up the win, you’re going to have to put him on your bench and stash him for next season.
Navigating the pitching at this time of year can be difficult.
Veteran stalwarts should anchor your rotation to the end.
September call-ups should help support, but some of the top young arms we see like Skenes, Crochet or even Cole Ragans might not last this late in the year.
Howard Bender is the head of content at FantasyAlarm.com Follow him on X @rotobuzzguy and catch him on the award-winning “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 6-8 p.m. Go to FantasyAlarm.com for all your fantasy baseball news and advice.