TWINS USE DISABLED LIST
Trevor Plouffe is heading to the DL with an intercostal strain on his right side. No one seems to think that Plouffe will be out much longer than 15 days, but the hope in fantasy circles was that this injury might allow Miguel Sano to play some third base. While it’s still possible, it doesn’t sound like the plan is for Sano to move back to third base. So the team will leave Sano in the outfield and use Eduardo Nunez at third base. The 28 year old owns a rather unimpressive line of .272/.314/.394 slash line over 423 games, and Eduardo’s also hit just 18 homers in that time. The only thing he’s done to this point is steal a few bags, though he’s stolen a total of 20 bases the last three seasons. Nunez isn’t likely to produce much mixed league value, though it’s hard to ignore Nunez when he’s hitting .545 through nine games. Don’t buy into the hype.
REDS PITCHING MOVES
Jumbo Diaz has been sent to the minors after allowing eight hits and four runs over 6.2 innings. He was demoted so that the Reds could call up Robert Stephenson to start for them Tuesday (Alfredo Simon is dealing with some minor tendinitis in his biceps). I’ll get to Robert in a second. Diaz should be back up soon, this is likely a short-term demotion, but it shows how dicey things are in the Reds bullpen. J.J. Hoover is the only guy on the team with a save, but he’s the owner of a 13.40 ERA, 2.14 WHIP and .300 batting average against. He’s done nothing to engender any faith. My dark horse pick to lead the team in saves, Tony Cingrani, has a 3.38 ERA and 1.31 WHIP through seven outings. He’s pitching the best of a motley crew right now.
Stephenson is the Reds top pitching prospects. Robert has a plus fastball that can hit 95 mph, he used to throw a bit harder but he now focuses more on location versus velocity, but it’s his elite curveball that gives hitters fits. However, he had some issues locating the pitch effectively last season which many missed cause of the changeup success he tossed at hitters last season (he went back to the split/change up that he had thrown in high school but had been blocked from throwing for a few years by the Reds in an effort to protect his arm). The one real issue for Stephenson is throwing strikes. Most of the time he’s fine, but every once in a while he completely loses the strike zone and falls behind batters to disastrous results. Unless the injury to Simon is more significant than we think, this might just be a one start outing for the potentially dominant righty who should be up for good later in the year.
OUT OF THE LINEUP TUESDAY
Cesar Hernandez is on the bench for the Phillies. It’s not that surprising. Cesar is batting just .269 on the year with a pathetic .298 OBP on the campaign. He’s also been caught stealing in three of four attempts. He’s been a terrible mess early in the year. Not sure things are going to improve that much either.
Tyler Naquin is out of the lineup for the Indians. Everyone’s darling in spring training, he’s hit .333 in the early going. So it’s all good, right? Well… Tyler has only 15 plate appearances all season and he has only five singles leading to a walk and an RBI. He’s only playing against righties and Michael Brantley is close to returning which could such away even more playing time.
Domingo Santana of the Brewers has plus power and profiles best as a 5/6 hitter at this point of his career. So the Brewers have him batting leadoff. Every start he’s made has been out of the top spot in the order. Through those 13 games he’s scored seven times and gotten on base at an impressive .351 clip. Most impressive about his early season start though might be the fact that he’s really cut down his strikeout rate from 33.7 percent last season down to 21.1 percent. It’s early, but you really have to love all of that.
MINOR LEAGUE WORK
Jung Ho Kang went 0-for-3 Monday in his first game back from knee surgery down at Triple-A. "He is so far ahead of where we thought he would be coming off the traumatic injury he sustained," GM Neal Huntington said. "It's an injury we've never seen before in our time in baseball. I'm not sure there are many people that have seen this injury.” Sounds like Kang could be back by the end of the month. When he does he will enter the starting lineup trying to build on his impressive first season of .287/.355/.461 with 15 home runs. Check waivers. If he is out there now is the time to add him, before he returns and the hoopla increases.
Mike Zunino has hit a homer in 5-straight games down at Triple-A. That run is two short of the PCL record of 7-straight games held by Claude Westmoreland and Dallas McPherson. A Quad Four player, the quintessential AAAA guy that is too good for the minors but not good enough for the big leagues, is the owner of a .193/.252/.353 slash line with the Mariners over 1,055 plate appearances. He’s not close to the bigs with Chris Iannetta off to a hot start.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).