RADIO
Welcome back to the Cut List. Each weekend from now until the end of the season, I’ll be offering my thoughts on players who don’t deserve to keep drawing a nonexistent salary on your fake baseball teams.
A column like this can be a tricky thing so early in the year. While the sample sizes are growing, they’re still small enough to be subject to plenty of noise. There’s a lot of season left, after all.
In addition to the players on the Cut List, we'll also spotlight a player on the Hot Seat: Someone who may not be a cut yet, but whose situation is worth monitoring.
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The Cut List: Week 8
Ben Zobrist, 2B/OF, Chicago Cubs
Last season's World Series hero will turn 36 this week, and he may finally be showing his age. Zobrist has always been a better real-life player than fantasy asset, and he simply hasn't contributed much this season. The veteran is batting just .246 with three home runs, middling run production, and no stolen bases. With Ian Happ hitting well enough to force the Cubs into keeping him at the MLB level, Zobrist could see a drop in playing time.
Kole Calhoun, OF, Los Angeles Angels
Calhoun has long been an underrated player, which happens when you're good at everything but not great at anything (just ask Zobrist). Unfortunately, Calhoun has forgotten to be good at anything this year. He's slashing a pathetic .219/.286/.337 with five homers, though he's still on pace to match last year's run production because Mike Trout isn't human. Calhoun has given back all the gains he made in plate discipline and contact quality a year ago, and he's also sitting on the worst contact rate of his career.
Masahiro Tanaka, SP, New York Yankees
Tanaka has allowed 13 homers in just 48 innings of work, including seven (!) in his last two turns, covering less than five full innings. His walk rate has also noticeably spiked. Hitters have always had success against his fastball, but now they're teeing off on literally every one of his offerings. That includes his splitter (the best in baseball over the last three years, per FanGraphs' pitch values) and slider (top 10 over the same span). It may be that after years of coping with arm trouble, Tanaka's magic is running out.
The Hot Seat: Week 8
Aaron Sanchez, SP, Toronto Blue Jays
Sanchez was already a guy I was lukewarm on compared to most coming into 2017 before he turned into Rich Hill Jr. A recurrent blister has limited the 24-year-old to just five starts, and he hasn't looked much like the guy who led the American League in ERA last year. Sanchez's already pedestrian K-BB% has dived back down into the single digits, and he's not coaxing ground balls at nearly the same rate as he had previously. There's plenty of season left, of course, and you could argue he hasn't really been healthy. But as we saw with Hill last season, blister problems can be a season-long slog. Given Sanchez's limited upside, it may not be worth the hassle.
Last Week
Eduardo Nunez probably reads this column, because after I pointed out that he wasn't running anymore, he stole four bases in three days. He also has four multi-hit games and eight RBI in the last week. Baseball!
Carlos Beltran barely played this week, and that could be a bad sign for his rest of season prospects. The Astros have no shortage of DH types.
Neftali Feliz hasn't pitched since last Sunday, and Corey Knebel locked down all three of his save opportunities. He hasn't allowed a run in almost a month.
Vince Velasquez continues to struggle with walks and homers, making him difficult to trust.
