PHILLIES MAKE MOVE AT CATCHER
Jorge Alfaro had ankle surgery which cost him most of last season (injuries have been an ongoing issue for him). Still, the Phillies targeted him as a return piece in the Cole Hamels deal. He has a great arm behind the dish, and as a right-handed slugger he has power. He’s also struggled with pitch recognition and his approach. Still, he’s hit 13 homers with 18 doubles a .279 batting average and 61 RBI in just barely 400 plate appearances this season at Double-A. He’s being called up by the Phillies after they dealt Carlos Ruiz to the Dodgers for A.J. Ellis. However, heed the warning. It sounds like Alfaro will only be up for one game before being returned to the minors. He will likely return in September when the rosters expand. "There is a reasonably good chance one of our young catching prospects will be in the big leagues before the season is over," Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said. "Both our Double-A and Triple-A teams are in pennant races, and we believe it's important for them to continue to get meaningful at-bats and play in meaningful games."
Alfaro could be a moderate catcher two option in mixed leagues in September, though his 94 strikeouts and 21 walks speak to the potential of struggles in his first look against big league pitchers as well. Exercise caution.
ROYALS BULLPEN
Wade Davis feels good after his first outing in the minors Wednesday as he tossed a scoreless inning. He is set to make “a couple more” rehab appearances before being activated. It’s unclear what role Davis will return to, and I find it odd that so many folks in the fantasy community seem to just blindly believe Davis will take back over the 9th inning immediately. It’s like folks are just ignoring the multiple arm setbacks he’s had this season, in addition to the very moderate numbers he’s laid down this season including a mere 8.55 K/9 rate and a sky-high 4.01 BB/9 ratio. He hasn’t allowed a homer this season and his 49.4 percent ground ball rate is solid and a career best, but overall he hasn’t been the shutdown reliever we’re used to. The best reliever on the Royals has been Kelvin Herrera who has a 1.87 ERA, 0.83 WHIP, 11.39 K/9 and a 1.25 BB/9 rate. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he leads the Royals in saves from this point forward, not at all.
ONE ROSS NEARING A RETURN?
Tyson Ross said the following. “Pitching is not like riding a bicycle,” the 29-year-old right-hander said. “You either execute or you don’t. It’s black or white. It’s binary code. I had a lot of non-executed pitches today.” That was the reaction from Ross after he allowed four runs in 2/3 of an inning in his first minor league start. He walked two, allowed three hits and threw two wild pitches. He did hit 93-94 on the gun, and threw a couple of nice sliders, but overall it just didn’t happen Thursday for Ross.
It had been 142 days since the threw a pitch as his shoulder sent him to the shelf after Opening Day. He then hurt his ankle setting him back even further. Even though he looked terrible in his first outing in months, it sounds like the Padres will allow him one more minor league start before calling him up to pitch in the rotation for the Padres in September. Don’t count on him being anything special at all though as it sounds he will likely be asked to do nothing more than to make 3-4 starts of 3-5 innings duration with the Padres. There’s nothing to see with the elder Ross.
BRADLEY SHUTDOWN COMING?
Archie Bradley has been up and down this season, and if being honest it’s been mostly down as Bradley has made 19 starts with a 4-8 record, 5.06 ERA and 1.57 WHIP. Yeah, that’s not good. The strikeout rate of 8.66 is solid and the 46.8 percent ground ball rate works too. However, the 4.63 BB/9 rate is far too high, ditto the 14.7 percent HR/F ratio. No one is leaning on him anyway at this point, but now we also have to worry about a shutdown (for those of you in NL-only leagues). “You look at what they did last year, and then you look at two years ago, three years ago when a guy throws 170, then last year he throws 80,” manager Chip Hale said. “But he’s done it before. A lot of it is going on how they feel.”
Time to move on for 2016… if you haven’t already.
WHAT’S UP ROBBIE RAY
Robbie Ray of the Diamondbacks is 7-12 with a 4.28 ERA and 1.43 WHIP. Those are crappy numbers and shouldn’t illicit any mention. That is the position you take with Ray until you look over at the strikeout column and see 181 punchouts in just 145.0 innings. The result is an 11.23 K/9 mark that is the second best 
mark in the game (Jose Fernandez 12.89). Ray has a 3.21 ERA and 1.15 WHIP in the second half with a 1.71 GB/FB ratio, really impressive numbers (he’s allowed four earned runs his last four start). Alas, he’s failed to go deeper than 5.0 innings in two of his last three starts and last time out, Thursday night, he walked four guys. It’s hard to trust him, I’m certainly not 100 percent in on the second half ratios, but Ray is someone who at least will bring the strikeout ball, even with concerns about his overall performance. He obviously shouldn’t be on waivers.
DFS DIAMONDS
*The following list of players are guys that Ray recommends as daily plays.
CATCHER: Yadier Molina has hit .351 with a .873 OPS in August and going back further he’s batting .360 with a .906 OPS over his last 33 games since the All-Star break. He takes on Ross Detwiler who has a 5.94 ERA, 1.68 WHIP, .329 BAA and just seven strikeouts in 16.2 innings as an Athletic.
FIRST BASE: Albert Pujols has a hit in 8-of-9 games. He’s hit three homers with 11 RBI in that time. As I spoke of yesterday in the Big 3 Video, Pujols entered yesterday with the most RBI in baseball in the second half. He faces Justin Verlander with a .955 OPS over 22 plate appearances.
SECOND BASE: Starlin Castro has hit .364/.383/.432 against Yovani Gallardo over 47 plate appearances. Castro has hit .280 with six homers, 17 RBI and an .851 OPS in August.
THIRD BASE: Alex Bregman has hit two homers with six RBI, seven runs scored and a .448 wOBA his last six games. He faces Drew Smyly with a .286/.364/.500 slash line against lefties this season (33 plate appearances).
SHORTSTOP: Eugenio Suarez has hit .421 with a .542 OBP and .526 SLG the last six games. He takes on Brandon Shipley who has allowed 17 hits, four homers and 13 runs his last two starts (10.1 innings).
OUTFIELD: Justin Upton has two hits in 4-of-5 games. He’s hit three homers with nine RBI and five runs scored in that time. Finally, hot, he takes on Ricky Nolasco who he has a homer against as well as a 1.004 OPS over 24 plate appearances.
OUTFIELD: in 149 at-bats this season Nelson Cruz has a .617 SLG with 14 homers. He blasts lefties. He has two homers and a 1.113 OPS over 21 plate appearances against Chris Sale
OUTFIELD: Dexter Fowler has 15 walks and 15 runs scored in 21 games in August. He has a .388 OBP against righties. He takes on the mess that is Bud Norris with a .556/.733/.778 slash line in 16 plate appearances.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 11 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).