Fantasy baseball: Alex Verdugo leads waiver wire picks
This week offers up a clear case of opportunity knocking, especially when it comes to outfielders. A pair of longtime rivals, both of whom recently moved into his team’s cleanup spot, stand out among the most popular fantasy baseball pickups.
Alex Verdugo, OF, New York Yankees (34.9% rostered in ESPN leagues): In an unexpected development, especially looking at the big names that grace the Yankees roster, Verdugo earned starts out of the cleanup spot both Saturday and Sunday in Milwaukee. Coincidentally, the team scored 15 runs in each game. Verdugo chipped in with five hits and two homers over the three-game series. He is the only Yankee to have played in all 29 games (as well as all 263 innings) and is batting .333 (22-for-66) over his last 19 contests.
To be straightforward, I’m not traditionally a Verdugo believer. His skill set screams “platoon man” — see his .295 career wOBA against lefties compared to .345 against righties. Plus, he makes only modest contact (never a better than 38th percentile Statcast Barrel rate and only twice greater than 39th percentile hard-hit rate), which might mean he’s still a situational, matchups-type fantasy play. That said, Verdugo has shown much better selectivity against lefties (15.9% walk and 21.2% chase rates compared to his 16.9% and 24.5% career numbers against that side). He’s also showing a hint of elevation in his swing, which is a good thing for a lefty who calls Yankee Stadium his home.
Perhaps Verdugo is a short-term add, best traded at the peak of an upcoming hot streak. However, as his skill set is well-suited for points-based leagues (currently OF8 in fantasy points), perhaps he’s ready to deliver something more.
Wilyer Abreu, OF, Boston Red Sox (17.0% rostered): The most disappointing of Boston’s many outfield combatants this spring, Abreu was fortunate to make the Opening Day roster after hitting just .127/.286/.270 with a 33.8% strikeout rate over 77 Grapefruit League plate appearances. Trevor Story‘s season-ending injury, however, coaxed the team to shift Ceddanne Rafaela to shortstop to compensate, allowing Abreu to sneak into regular corner outfield duty.
Abreu, thus far, has given the team plus-defense and similar power metrics to his brief 2023 stint, and his patience at the plate is another positive. Abreu brings much more power to the table than either Rafaela or Jarren Duran, having posted a .216 ISO while averaging one home run per 19 at-bats between the majors and minors from 2021-23. That’s probably why he has become attractive enough to the Red Sox to earn cleanup-spot starts in six of their past seven games. He’s another “universal add” thanks to his expanded opportunity.
Pay attention: One more “outfielder,” or at least an OF-eligible player to consider is Houston Astros prospect Joey Loperfido (5.6%), reportedly set to join the team for the start of their series against the Cleveland Guardians. Eric Karabell will have much more to say about Loperfido’s fantasy potential on Tuesday.
How are they still available?!
Mason Miller, SP/RP, Oakland Athletics (56.6%): A sensation during the past week’s series against the Yankees, Miller has quickly emerged as a top-shelf closer, armed with a 100.7-mph fastball and slider, each of which has a 50% whiff rate thus far. He has notched the save in each of his past seven opportunities, striking out a stunning 17 out of 24 batters faced while allowing only one hit over that time.
My mea culpa: I did not expect the Athletics to regard him as a traditional, single-inning closer this year — and certainly not this quickly. I likened his probable role to that of Garrett Whitlock‘s for the 2021-22 Red Sox. Well, Miller looks the part, and this year’s Athletics team is nowhere near as terrible as last year’s, on pace to shave 99 runs off their run differential (although admittedly, they’re still likely to be beneath minus-200 in that department).
Riley Greene, OF, Detroit Tigers (40.4%): I was a huge Greene backer in the preseason and remain one today, not that that’s a difficult stance to take when he’s one of those players whose Statcast page is a sea of red — that’s the color you want to see there. Though his surface-level rotisserie numbers appear ordinary, among batting title-eligibles, he has the seventh-best Barrel rate and is the MLB leader in walk rate (19.2%). Greene still seems destined for a 2024 breakout. On a side note, what is it with Tigers outfielders with stunning metrics and so-so back of the baseball card stats (see: Castellanos, Nick while with Detroit)?
Deeper-league add
Jo Adell, OF, Los Angeles Angels (3.3%): Could Adell, the No. 10 overall pick of the 2017 amateur draft (as well as Kiley McDaniel’s No. 10 overall prospect entering his 2020 debut season), finally be breaking through after struggling through four disappointing big league years? He has hit .400 (8-for-20) with two home runs in six games over the past week and, while such small sample sizes carry minimal weight, what stands out in his season-to-date profile is a more all-field approach (career-low 35% pull rate) — especially against fastballs — along with a greater lift in his swing (career-low 32% ground ball rate) and a greater quality of contact (career-best 51% hard hit rate).
It’s not the first time he has enjoyed some very short-term success as he managed to hit .300/.344/.533 over his final 16 games of 2021, for example. However, it wouldn’t be a complete shock to learn that this is the “figuring it out” phase for a player whom scouts said might struggle initially due to his free-swinging ways. Adell is well worth the speculative stash in any league larger than standard.
Two-start streamer
Bailey Falter, SP, Pittsburgh Pirates (15.1%): Any pitcher who draws matchups at the Athletics and at home against the Colorado Rockies is a seemingly automatic start for fantasy purposes (despite my earlier comment about the Athletics’ year-over-year “improvement”). The Forecaster grades both of those opponents as a top-five matchup on either the home or road side of things, for both run prevention and strikeout potential.
What stands out with Falter, however, is his amount of extension with his pitches, releasing his fastball 7.4 feet in front of the pitching rubber, which ranks among the very highest numbers in baseball and gives his 91.3 mph pitch the look of a pitch noticeably faster. He averaged 92.0 mph with the pitch while striking out eight Milwaukee Brewers in his last turn, which was a solid stepping stone toward these advantageous matchups.
Feel free to cut: Jackson Holliday (35.7%), although certainly not in keeper/dynasty formats; Triston Casas (64.0%); Adbert Alzolay (54.2%); Gavin Williams (14.9%).
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Bill Connelly
In 93 days, it all starts again. From Week 0’s Irish Farmageddon (Iowa State vs. Kansas State in Dublin) in mid-August to the national title game in late January, the 2025 college football season looms. And with transfer portal movement finally slowing down — including spring moves, FBS teams have averaged more than 19 transfers this offseason, up more than 40% from last season — we can finally take a semi-confident look at what’s in store this fall. That means updating our numbers.
Below are updated SP+ projections for the coming season. A quick reminder: Preseason projections are based on three factors.
1. Returning production. The returning production numbers are based on rosters I have updated as much as humanly possible to account for transfers and attrition. The combination of last year’s SP+ ratings and adjustments based on returning production makes up about two-thirds of the projections formula.
2. Recent recruiting. This piece informs us of the caliber of a team’s potential replacements (and/or new stars) in the lineup. It is determined by the past few years of recruiting rankings in diminishing order (meaning the most recent class carries the most weight). This is also impacted by the recruiting rankings of incoming transfers, an acknowledgment that the art of roster management is now heavily dictated by the transfer portal.
3. Recent history. Using a sliver of information from the previous four seasons or so gives us a good measure of overall program health.
(One other reminder: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.)
Here are the updated rankings:
This time around, I am also experimenting with what you might call a fourth projection factor: coaching changes. Using data discussed in this March column, I have incorporated some adjustments based on who changed head coaches and/or offensive or defensive coordinators and how those teams performed against historic norms last year. Translation: For teams or units that underachieved significantly against their 20-year averages and changed coaches or coordinators (example: Oklahoma’s offense, Purdue’s entire team), that means a slight bump upward. For teams or units that overachieved and lost their coaches or coordinators (example: UNLV as a team or Louisiana Tech’s defense), that means a bump down.
The adjustments aren’t enormous, but when you see that Oklahoma’s projected rating has risen since February, that explains it.
Minimal changes near the top
Thirteen teams moved up or down at least 10 spots compared to February’s rankings, due to either transfer portal addition/attrition, the coaching adjustments mentioned above, or simply me getting a much better read on returning production after official roster releases. At the very top, however, not a ton changed. The top four teams from February continue to occupy the same spots, though Texas hopped Notre Dame and Oregon into the No. 5 hole. Clemson and Michigan rose a bit, Tennessee dropped five spots after Nico Iamaleava’s transfer, and Oklahoma eased into the top 15. (With their ridiculous schedule, however, the Sooners’ projected win total still isn’t great.)
The overall conference hierarchy hasn’t changed much either, though with the Sun Belt getting hit particularly hard by spring transfer attrition, the AAC moves into the top spot among Group of 5 conferences.
Average SP+ rating by conference
1. SEC (15.3 overall, 33.1 offense, 17.8 defense, 60.7% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 2 Alabama, No. 4 Georgia, No. 5 Texas
2. Big Ten (9.5 overall, 29.1 offense, 19.6 defense, 56.7% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 1 Ohio State, No. 3 Penn State, No. 7 Oregon
Both the SEC and Big Ten boast three of the projected top seven teams, but if we measure conferences by average ratings, the SEC still has a commanding lead due, as always, to the lack of dead weight. Only two of 16 SEC teams are projected lower than 43rd overall, while the Big Ten has six such teams, including three ranked 70th or worse. That helps explain why, despite playing only eight-game conference schedules, SEC teams occupy 13 of the top 15 spots in the strength of schedule rankings.
3. Big 12 (6.3 overall, 31.0 offense, 24.7 defense, 61.8% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 18 Kansas State, No. 22 Arizona State, No. 26 Texas Tech
4. ACC (5.0 overall, 30.8 offense, 25.8 defense, 59.2% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 8 Clemson, No. 12 Miami, No. 20 SMU
We see a similar dynamic with the Big 12 and ACC — in terms of the quality of its top teams, the ACC (three top-20 teams) seems to have an advantage over the Big 12 (one top-20 team). But the Big 12 has eight top-35 teams compared to the ACC’s four, and while no Big 12 team is projected lower than 66th, the ACC’s average is dragged down by three teams ranking 79th or lower.
5. AAC (-7.8 overall, 26.0 offense, 33.8 defense, 49.4% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 48 Tulane, No. 53 Memphis, No. 63 UTSA
6. Sun Belt (-8.1 overall, 24.9 offense, 33.0 defense, 46.3% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 49 James Madison, No. 74 Louisiana, No. 76 South Alabama
7. Mountain West (-8.6 overall, 23.5 offense, 32.1 defense, 46.5% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 33 Boise State, No. 75 UNLV, No. 83 San Jose State
Three G5 teams are within one point of each other on average, though again, the distribution varies significantly by conference. The MWC is propped up significantly by Boise State, the best projected G5 team, but its average is dragged down by three teams ranking 119th or worse. The Sun Belt has only one such team. The AAC, meanwhile, has a solid five teams in the top 70 … and four teams projected 120th or worse.
8. Conference USA (-13.0 overall, 20.4 offense, 33.4 defense, 50.7% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 69 Liberty, No. 85 Western Kentucky, No. 104 Jacksonville State
9. MAC (-13.7 overall, 19.8 offense, 33.5 defense, 41.1% average returning production)
Top three teams: No. 72 Toledo, No. 80 Ohio, No. 91 Buffalo
No conference was hit harder by the portal than the MAC, which has only three teams ranked higher than 94th in the returning production rankings below. That’s going to wreck your averages, though Toledo and Buffalo both escaped too much damage in this regard.
An approximate CFP contenders list
My SP+ strength of schedule ratings are based on a simple question: How would the average top-five team fare against your schedule? Oklahoma’s schedule currently features five of the projected top 11 teams and nine of the top 25, while Notre Dame’s features only two teams projected higher than 30th; SP+ SOS says a top-five team would average a 0.757 win percentage against OU’s schedule (equivalent to 9.1 wins in 12 games) and a 0.894 win percentage against Notre Dame’s (10.7 wins). That’s a pretty big difference.
Schedule strengths obviously vary quite a bit within conferences — not every SEC schedule is Oklahoma’s — but it’s worth acknowledging that when it comes to potential College Football Playoff-worthy résumés, the bar can be set in a different spot based on a team’s conference.
Average strength-of-schedule rating per conference
SEC 0.799 (9.6 wins for a typical top-five team)
Big Ten 0.846 (10.2)
ACC 0.891 (10.7)
Big 12 0.902 (10.8)
AAC 0.956 (11.5)
Sun Belt 0.958 (11.5)
MWC 0.959 (11.5)
CUSA 0.964 (11.6)
MAC 0.965 (11.6)
When it comes to how a top-five team would fare, the average SEC schedule is about one win harder than the average ACC or Big 12 schedule. The Big Ten, with its deadweight teams, is about a half-win harder than those leagues but is still more likely to get lumped in with the SEC than the others in the Power 4.
Long story short: We can confidently say that any 10-2 or better team in the SEC or Big Ten would be a likely playoff contender, just as any 11-1 or better team in the ACC or Big 12 would be. We can therefore create a loose list of likely CFP contenders by looking at the teams most likely to hit those marks.
Odds of an SEC team going 10-2 or better: Alabama 65% (SOS rank: 11th), Texas 61% (12th), Georgia 61% (13th), Ole Miss 38% (23rd), Tennessee 33% (24th), LSU 30% (ninth), Florida 18% (second), Auburn 13% (15th), Oklahoma 9% (first), Missouri 5% (25th)
Odds of a Big Ten team going 10-2 or better: Penn State 82% (SOS rank: 29th), Ohio State 77% (21st), Oregon 73% (32nd), Michigan 62% (38th), Illinois 29% (40th), Nebraska 13% (35th), USC 10% (20th), Indiana 9% (31st)
With a particularly weak nonconference schedule and a particularly good team, Penn State might be in the driver’s seat in terms of playoff qualification, while Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, Michigan and Georgia are all over 60% likely to finish the regular season with two or fewer losses.
Odds of a Big 12 or ACC team (or Notre Dame) going 11-1 or better: Notre Dame 52% (SOS rank: 44th), Clemson 37% (34th), Miami 23% (36th), Kansas State 17% (57th), BYU 7% (64th), Texas Tech 7% (62nd), SMU 6% (45th), Arizona State 5% (61st)
Odds of a Group of 5 team going 11-1 or better: Boise State 37% (SOS rank: 84th), Liberty 17% (136th), Toledo 11% (133rd), Memphis 8% (121st), James Madison 7% (104th)
Notre Dame starts the season with games against Miami and Texas A&M, and while the rest of the schedule features plenty of solid opponents (five are projected between 30th and 47th), if the Irish are 2-0 out of the gates, they’re staring a second straight CFP appearance in the face.
Updated returning production rankings
With updated SP+ projections come updated returning production figures. A reminder: While returning production doesn’t correlate with pure quality, it does correlate well with improvement and regression, particularly at the extremes.
(Note: The production of incoming transfers is mashed into both the numerator and denominator of the returning production formula — so if you lose your starting quarterback but bring in someone else’s from the portal, your returning yardage is probably somewhere around 50%. The production of transfers from schools below the FBS level get half-credit.)
As was the case in February, Clemson leads the way here. And with the way that talent trickles upward in the transfer portal era, it’s probably not a surprise that nine of the top 10 teams in returning production (and 22 of the top 26) are power-conference teams. The P4 boasts 59.6% returning production overall, while the G5 is at 46.8%. That’s a pretty massive gap, one that isn’t likely to shrink anytime soon.
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Kristen Shilton
Jeff Blashill has been hired as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, it was announced Thursday.
The veteran bench boss steps in to replace interim coach Anders Sorenson, who was promoted after the Blackhawks fired Luke Richardson early in the 2024-25 season. Sorenson was thought to be a candidate for the permanent role, and Chicago had also shown interest in University of Denver coach David Carle.
The Blackhawks ultimately landed on Blashill to be the 42nd head coach in franchise history. Blashill, 51, most recently spent three seasons as an assistant coach on Jon Cooper’s staff with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He previously replaced Mike Babcock to take on his first NHL head coaching job with the Detroit Red Wings from 2015 to ’22, attempting to guide Detroit through a lengthy rebuilding process.
After reaching the playoffs in his first year with the Red Wings, Blashill’s teams never improved beyond fifth in the division and, after six consecutive seasons outside the playoff field, he was fired following the 2021-22 campaign. He left the Red Wings with a 204-261-72 record.
Blashill now joins another organization deep into a rebuilding process, providing experience that Chicago has been lacking. The Blackhawks have churned through four different first-year NHL head coaches — Jeremy Colliton, Derek King, Richardson and Sorenson — since Joel Quenneville’s departure in 2018, and now they’ve targeted a new voice with a developmental background.
Blashill has worked in the NCAA, USHL and AHL throughout his career. His time spent under Cooper — the NHL’s longest-tenured head coach — is another asset.
“Jeff is an incredibly smart and talented coach who boasts more than 25 years of coaching experience across developmental leagues, the NHL and the world stage,” general manager Kyle Davidson said in a statement. “He’s thrived when in a position to develop young players and has shown he’s capable of blending that into overall team success, a vision and philosophy we share for where we are today and where we see our team in the future. We couldn’t be more excited for what’s to come under Jeff’s direction.”
The Blackhawks haven’t been to the postseason since 2017, but they didn’t begin their retooling in earnest until the 2021-22 season. Davidson has been at the helm of Chicago’s rebuild since October 2021 and remains in the thick of it, as Chicago has finished 31st overall in the league standings the past two seasons. The Blackhawks have focused on growing through the NHL draft, and selected phenom Connor Bedard first overall in 2023.
Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals went about as well as it could have for the Florida Panthers. For the Carolina Hurricanes? Not so much.
Following a 5-2 win, the Panthers carry a 1-0 advantage into Game 2 (8 p.m. ET, TNT) on Thursday night.
Will the Hurricanes punch back before the series heads to South Florida? Which players will be most critical to each team’s success? Here are key players, matchup notes and stats to know from ESPN Research ahead of Game 2.
More: Game 1 recap | Grades
Matchup notes
Florida Panthers at Carolina Hurricanes
Game 2 | 8 p.m. ET | TNT
With the Panthers up 1-0, they are now -250 favorites to win the Eastern Conference finals, while the Hurricanes are +200, per ESPN BET. The Panthers now have the shortest odds to win the Stanley Cup, at +160, while the Canes have the longest, at +500.
The Panthers have scored 38 goals on the road this postseason, tied with the 2022 Avalanche for the most through a team’s first eight road games of a single postseason. They are outscoring opponents 17-4 on the road over their last three road contests. The 17 goals are their most in a three-game span on the road in a single postseason in franchise history
The Game 1 defeat was the Hurricanes’ 13th straight loss in the conference finals, going back to 2009. This extends the longest streak in NHL history for losses in the round before Stanley Cup Final; the next highest was the Toronto Maple Leafs with 10 straight losses between 1954-56.
Aaron Ekblad‘s goal in Game 1 gives the Panthers 12 from their defensemen this postseason. That is four more than any other team, and ties the franchise record for most in a single playoff run (both 2023 and 2024).
With goal No. 7 of the postseason, Sam Bennett became the third Panther to score seven or more goals in consecutive playoff runs, joining Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart (who both accomplished it in 2023 and 2024).
The Hurricanes’ penalty kill was a strength leading into the conference finals — they allowed two power-play goals on 30 chances. That wasn’t the case in Game 1, as they allowed two goals on three chances.
Sebastian Aho joined an impressive list with his Game 1 goal: He is now tied for the most goals in series-opening games in Whalers/Hurricanes history (with five). The others on the list are Ray Whitney, Andrei Svechnikov and his head coach, Rod Brind’Amour.
Current scoring leaders
GP: 11 | G: 4 | A: 8
GP: 13 | G: 4 | A: 9
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