Last week I spoke about Mike Moustakas rising in the rankings due to being returning quicker than expected from the DL. Well unfortunately he has completely fallen off the rankings as he is done for the season. A torn ACL is the culprit and it is very unfortunate since he was having a great start to the season.

One thing we don’t do here at lot is talk about the regular season standings, but after almost two months of baseball I wanted to visit these with a few notes I wanted to point out.

• The Astros, a lot of people’s AL Champion pick this season are dreadful at 23-29.
• The Orioles, picked by  many to finish last in the AL East trail the division and league leading Red Sox by two games.
• Those same Red Sox have an insane 302 runs scored already. To put that into perspective. The highly touted Blue Jays last season scored 891 runs. They are on pace to beat that by 68 runs.
• The Cubs are still off to a torrid and near historic start, losing just 14 of their first 49 games. Could this finally be the year?
• In that same division, this looks like the first time in four year the Cardinals will not win the division.
• The Phillies are actually competitive, sitting one game above .500. Who saw this coming?
• Looks like the Nationals are finally putting it together, after a very disappointing 2015 season.
• Be careful though it is an even year. The San Francisco Giants are lining up to make the playoffs after starting 32-21. If you don’t know what this means, the Giants have won the last three World Series in years that ended in an even number (2010, 2012 and 2014)

OK enough talk about real baseball. Let’s get back to some Fantasy Baseball!

Stock Up

Clayton Kershaw, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers

I have had Kershaw ranked No. 8 or No. 9 all season, but he is absolutely dealing right now.

He has the lowest ERA in all of baseball at 1.56, lowest WHIP, 0.65 and most strikeouts 105 (15 more than the next three pitchers)

The craziest number of all is his gaudy strikeout per walk ratio. You’re gonna need to sit down for this one. Is is at 21.00. Yes you read that right, Kershaw as struck out 21 batters for every one he has walked. Just to give you the total number it is 105 strikouts to five walks.

I have seriously thought about putting him No. 1, but I just can’t do it. I value hitting just that much more, so unless he keeps this historic pace up for another month, I doubt you will see him jump Harper or Trout.

Jackie Bradley Jr., OF, Boston Red Sox

I may be a little late to the party here, but I was just waiting for JBJ to drop off. The drop off never came.

That mixed with the fact that the Red Sox offense is straight ballin’ right now, I had to move JBJ up in my rankings.

Now I don’t think he will bat .300 the rest of the way like he was doing on his hit streak, but he can be very useful the rest of the way.

Leonys Martin, OF, Seattle Mariners

I know, I know he just got hurt, but he should return next week.

For those of you who know me, I for some reason have a soft spot for Martin. I always thought he could take the next step and become the next 15 HR/ 30 SB player, but it never happened and 2015 he completely fell off.

This year before the injury he was on fire. Already having hit nine home runs and stolen eight bases (maybe a bit off 30 pace, but still good).

I expect good things for Martin once he returns.

Stock Down

Prince Fielder, DH, Texas Rangers

It has been a baaaad season for the Prince. He is hitting under .200 and only has three home runs. The one thing you could always count on Prince for was a pretty good average and now 20+ homers.

That seems like a real reach for him to get to those numbers now and it makes you wonder if there is another injury looming for Prince. The last time we got these horrible numbers from him was back in 2014, when he eventually missed the rest of the season with a neck injury.

This really goes farther back than this season. Just look at the tweet below… its not good.

Prince Fielder over the last 365 days: .253/.334/.370, 704 OPS
Elvis Andrus over the last 365 days: .272/.322/.382, 704 OPS

— Adam J. Morris (@lonestarball) May 26, 2016

Perhaps it is time the just cut the cord and use Joey Gallo at DH.

Francisco Liriano, SP, Pittsburgh Pirates

I’ve always been down on Liriano. His high walk rate always scared me away.

Since moving to Pittsburgh though he has figured out a way to pitch well despite a rather elevated walk rate, so I bought in a little. I even drafted him in an NL-only.

This year however his walk rate has spiked to 5.25 per nine and so has his ERA. He is pitching more like the Twins version of Liriano than than the Pirates version. Not good. He needs to get his control back down to the 3.5-4 walks per nine before we can expect any improvement elsewhere.

Kevin Pillar, OF, Toronto Blue Jays

Pillar gets the distinction for being the first player mentioned twice this season in my Rest of the Season Fantasy Baseball Top 250 Rankings.

That’s cool… right?

Wrong. He has been mentioned both times in the stock down section and this time he is close to falling out of the rankings all together, sitting at 239.

Things are just not going well for him, after it looked so promising to start the season as the leadoff man in this powerful lineup.

He now sits at .244 with just two home runs and four steals. Other counting stats are not there either, especially since he has fallen to eight most nights in the lineup.

He has been worse over the last two weeks, hitting .148. There is still potential given the lineup he is in and they should start to get hot all-around any day now, but its really worrisome what we are getting from Pillar this season so far.

Fantasy Baseball Top 250 Rankings

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Joe Bond

Founder at FantasySixPack.net

Not just another "Average Joe" when it comes to Fantasy Sports, Joe is the fantasy brain trust behind the up-and-coming FantasySixPack.net. For years now Joe has been spreading his love and addiction of fantasy sports there and many other sites such as FantasyPros.com and FanDuel.com. You can often find him waiting by his computer for your questions on Twitter too.

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