Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Max Pain

Immediately following his 87th pitch on Wednesday, Max Scherzer gestured towards the Mets dugout that he was done for the night. Considering Scherzer’s bulldog mentality, we knew there was something wrong. Sure enough, Scherzer will miss the next six to eight weeks with an oblique strain. His absence is a crushing blow for fantasy managers. But where does he land in my latest rest-of-season rankings?

First and foremost, do not drop Scherzer if you have him on your roster. Scherzer has been a top-tier starting pitcher by nearly every statistical measure. He is in the top-10 in most pitching categories including wins, innings pitched, and strikeouts. And though his Statcast metrics have seen a slight dip from last year’s thresholds, he is still in the upper echelon of hurlers no matter how you slice it. The issues that fantasy managers will have to take into consideration are the injury itself and the timeline.

Oblique Outlook

Oblique injuries are notoriously difficult to deal with and come with a high risk of reaggravation. This is when you must take Scherzer’s age into account. He will turn 38 in July. I had lost any semblance of my oblique muscles by my late thirties, but I can tell you that any muscle strains I did have took a lot longer for me to get over than the ones I encountered in my teens and twenties. I would aim towards the latter end of the projected 6-8 week timeframe. Even if there are no setbacks, he will still have to ramp up his workload upon his return. Though this is not an injury to Scherzer’s throwing arm, I can’t imagine that he will come back and throw 100 pitches right away. This is when the schedule could come into play.

Scherzer’s Schedule

Eight weeks from this coming Tuesday is the MLB All-Star Game. I would not expect the Mets to rush Scherzer to come back before the break when there is a built-in rest period for him to take advantage of. New York returns to action the following Friday (July 22), then has two off days the week after. The Mets could theoretically go with four starters until the end of July. I would not expect to see Scherzer until the very end of that month. In this scenario, he would not be back to a full workload until early-mid August. Barring anything unforeseen, I would expect that at that point he will return to ace status. But it is a less than ideal scenario for fantasy managers to have to navigate.

I had Scherzer ranked third among starting pitchers in last week’s rankings. (Fourth if you include Shohei Ohtani). This week, he is outside my top-30 at the position. Keep in mind that my ROS rankings are based on Roto scoring. If you are in a Points league, he would be even lower. For example, I would not expect Scherzer to outscore Tarik Skubal going forward in a Points format. In Roto, however, I think what Scherzer brings to the table in terms of innings pitched and ratios still make him worthy of a relatively high ranking moving forward. Once he returns, I would expect him to reclaim top-10 status. For now, though, managers will have to make do without Mad Max.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings