Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Mayday! Mayday!

So. Many. Injuries.

My esteemed colleague Dave Funnell writes a daily injury column for us here at FantraxHQ. And he never seems to run out of material. That is because every single player in Major League Baseball suffers an injury every single day. OK, perhaps that is a slight exaggeration on my part. However, it does feel that way sometimes. Over 40 percent of the players currently on my benches throughout my leagues carry an injury designation at this moment. Granted, that includes some early drafts and Best Ball leagues. But I know I am not in this boat alone. It feels like many of us are setting our lineups based on who is available as opposed to trying to find favorable matchups. It also makes updating my rest-of-season fantasy baseball rankings an interesting experiment.

Several high-profile players went down this week. Chief among them (or so we thought at the time) was Mike Trout. Trout underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus this week. No timetable has been set for his return, but the team says the issue is not season-ending. Because of that, I feel like I can’t remove Trout from my rankings completely. He’s still Mike Trout, right? Even though he’s already been out several days and carries a .220 batting average, he still enters the weekend as a top-50 player year-to-date. So, I do have him ranked, because I do think he can carry some fantasy value between now and the end of September. Having said that, I would trade him for the proverbial bag of balls in Redraft leagues.

Trout’s injury news was upstaged somewhat in fantasy circles by the injury to Trea Turner. Turner scored from second base on a passed ball on Friday but suffered a hamstring injury in the process. It was initially thought that Turner would only be out for a couple of days. But unfortunately, that is not the case. The Phillies are now saying that Turner is likely out for at least six weeks. This is a tough blow for fantasy managers to navigate. Turner is in the top 10 in both batting average and stolen bases. Try as we might, there is no way we can replace that type of production on the waiver wire.

If we consider Turner a $30 fantasy player over a full season, that probably means he is roughly a $15 player going forward. He is out for 30 percent of the fantasy baseball season, if not more. That removes $10 of value right off the top, give or take. Hamstrings can be notoriously tricky in terms of reinjury. And even if Turner has no setbacks, I am not sure how aggressive he will be on the basepaths upon his return. He can still carry fantasy squads even without running wild (see last August as a prime example), but there is certainly some risk there. I am holding him where I have him. However, in terms of ROS rankings, I had to drop him out of my overall top 100.

Below are the rest of my rest-of-season rankings for the 2024 fantasy baseball season. Circumstances are constantly changing, so make sure you keep up with the latest goings on from around the league before making your roster moves for the upcoming week. And hopefully, no other players got hurt while I was writing this.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings