MLB Player News

Bibee will make his first career Opening Day start for Cleveland after Shane Bieber took the ball in each of the last five seasons dating back to 2020. The 26-year-old righty has tossed nine scoreless innings this spring in Cactus League action. He’s a top-30 range starting pitcher for fantasy purposes with the upside to finish inside the top 20 at the position.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Betts, who is back at shortstop and batting second during Tuesday’s Freeway Series showdown, is expected to be ready for Thursday’s stateside opener against the Tigers. The 32-year-old shortstop turned a corner earlier this week in his recovery from a prolonged illness. It’s an extremely encouraging development for Los Angeles, and fantasy managers, since it was looking like he might not be ready for Thursday’s opener.

Nuñez was picked up by San Diego in the offseason Rule 5 Draft and was unable to land a spot on the club’s season-opening roster.

Giolito will make a handful of rehab starts for Triple-A Worcester before making his season debut at some point before the end of April. The 30-year-old righty was diagnosed with a low-grade left hamstring strain back in mid-March.

Mervis’s homer off Will Warren was his first hit since March 14, and he closed out the spring at .212/.255/.481. If he had started it like he finished, he’d probably be looking at another Triple-A stint. As is, he projects as the Marlins’ primary first baseman, barring a late waiver pickup here.

Meyer struck out three and walked none. His velocity gain has held steady at 2-2.5 mph from last year. It’s probably not going to make him a dominant starter, but things are definitely looking up. And, hey, the Marlins probably won’t send him down in April to manage his innings/service time.

Matt Mervis and Graham Pauley homered off him. Warren struck out six. He’ll be in the rotation initially with Clarke Schmidt landing on the injured list. He’ll need to outpitch Carlos Carrasco — maybe by a considerable margin — for it to be more than a brief stay, but he is easily the better bet of the two.

Pauley was sent down nine days ago, but he now appears to be in line to make the Marlins with Connor Norby down. A left-handed hitter, he’ll probably platoon with Eric Wagaman at third until Norby returns.

Bellinger’s excellent spring comes to a close at .423/.464/.750. That’s a 1.214 OPS in the Grapefruit League for a guy who was under .800 in the more hitter friendly Cactus League over the previous nine years. We wouldn’t say it means much — spring training performance for veteran bats just doesn’t have real predictive value — but it hardly seems like a bad thing.

Perez kicked off the scoring with an RBI single in the opening frame before taking Rangers ace Jacob deGrom deep in the fourth inning for his second big fly of the spring. The 34-year-old veteran backstop remains one of the more consistent power sources in the fantasy landscape having surpassed the 20-homer mark in each of the last eight full seasons dating back to 2015.

Rocker authored a dominant performance in his final spring outing, sitting comfortably in the 95-98 mph with his four-seamer and sinker, while generating an eye-popping 13 swinging strikes. The 25-year-old top prospect will open the regular season next Monday with a road matchup against the Reds. He’s worthy of a speculative roster spot in all fantasy formats, even shallow mixed leagues, due to his immense strikeout potential. He’ll need to perform over the next few weeks if he’s going to remain in the big leagues with veteran Patrick Corbin expected to join the Rangers’ rotation by mid-April.