Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Jazz Banned

When the Miami Marlins placed Jazz Chisholm on the 10-day Injured List in late June, it appeared somewhat precautionary. He had been in and out of the lineup for several days with what was described as back spasms. Reports suggested that Chisholm would be back in a relatively short time. Earlier this month, he was doing normal baseball drills and it seemed that his return was imminent. He even said that he expected to play in the All-Star Game. Though that did not come to fruition, most believed that he would return to action soon after the break. Then he went for a follow-up CT scan, and the results were much worse than most of us had expected. They revealed that Chisholm has a stress fracture in his back. This certainly changes his ROS ranking quite a bit.

Up until this week, I had continued to rank Chisholm as a top-100 overall player. And you can very easily make the argument that I had been too low on him. Despite essentially missing a month, he is still a top-50 hitter according to Razzball’s Player Rater. If you are grading on a per-game basis, Chisholm ranked fourth among full-time hitters. The only hitters ahead of him are Aaron Judge, Yordan Alvarez, and Bryce Harper. That is lofty company, to say the least. However, those with Chisholm will now have some difficult decisions to make as we head towards the trade deadline. This is the sort of situation that makes my rest of season rankings a bit murky. If we take his updated timeline at face value, that will signal a return around Labor Day. That is certainly enough time for Chisholm to contribute to your fantasy team, if…

And there’s the rub. Several sentences can follow the word “if” in the above paragraph. First and foremost, can we trust the updated timeline? If we can, great. But the initial timeline was 2-3 weeks, and we saw how that turned out. Do you hold onto him and hope there are no additional setbacks? Should we assume that the Marlins, likely out of playoff contention by early September, will just run him out there every day to play out the string? That seems unlikely in my estimation. The Marlins have 29 scheduled games following Labor Day. I would set the over/under of additional games he plays in at 22. And I hope I’m wrong about this, but I would lean towards the under. Is that enough for him to help your fantasy team?

Does your league even count all 162 games, or close to it? If it does, great. We know that Chisholm has been an elite performer on a per-game basis, so even 20 games may be enough for him to offer high-end production. But if your league ends in early September, there is no advantage to holding onto him at this point. If you are in a situation where your playoffs start around Labor Day, Chisholm could certainly provide a boost come playoff time. But you may not have the luxury of being able to keep him on your bench or IL spot until then. If you need immediate production to make your league’s playoffs, you may not be able to afford to hold onto Chisholm.

Then there is also the pesky little matter of if Chisholm will be the same player if and when he returns. If he is, great. However, there are no guarantees that his power stroke (his .282 ISO is 8th among 253 hitters with at least 200 plate appearances) will be the same given the nature of his injury. Chisholm gets a lot of his fantasy value via his ability to steal bases. He is currently tied for 21st in the Majors with 12 steals despite the time he has missed. Would the Marlins continue to give him the green light on the basepaths knowing that he is just coming off a major back injury? Let’s say he plays in another 20 games this season. How many steals would you realistically expect? I would be shocked if he stole more than one or two bases.

In my latest ROS rankings, I put Chisholm outside of the top 200 overall. Coincidentally, I ranked him right near where I ranked Chris Sale and Wander Franco. Many of the concerns I have about Chisholm also apply to Sale and Franco. My partner Josh and I just dropped Franco during the last FAAB period. We also retracted what would have been a hefty bid for Sale after last Sunday’s injury. Our entire bench has been filled with nothing but injured players for weeks on end, which doesn’t help matters. But some of you may find yourselves in a similar scenario. If you have him, the decision on whether to cut bait or hold and hope is ultimately team-specific. I truly hope he comes back in September and mashes for an entire month. But I fear that the ending to Jazz’s 2022 fantasy season will B Flat.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings