With Shohei Ohtani's lingering knee, biceps, and neck injuries continuing to force him out of the lineup in addition to keeping him off the mound, the Dodgers finally had to accept reality and place him on the IL after Wednesday's game. They kept trying to keep him active while nursing the injuries, but his discomfort at the plate became tough to watch over the past week, and the team announced they are putting him on the IL.
The good news is that the Dodgers have no shortage of potential impact bats biding their time in the minors, and they're calling one of them up all the way from Double-A. The Dodgers are promoting outfielder Josue De Paula, arguably the team's top prospect and one of the very best prospects in the minors, and he'll join the team Friday. As a 21-year-old at Double-A, he has hit .302/.400/.539 with nearly as many walks as strikeouts and 31 steals to go with 26 homers in 123 games.
De Paula has the look of a future star, and the Dodgers have a natural opportunity here to get his feet wet. It's probably a more accelerated timeline than they were hoping for, but between Ohtani's injuries and Andy Pages' hand injury – plus, Freddie Freeman was out of the lineup Wednesday with a knee injury – the need cropped up. It's a big leap for De Paula, but he absolutely has the talent to hit the ground running and should be added in at least all five-outfielder leagues. The one thing to know here: De Paula hasn't played center field since 2023, so if Ohtani's IL stint ends up being a minimum-length stay, De Paula might find himself without a spot in the lineup after 15.
Still, with just over two weeks left, you might as well shoot for the upside and hope De Paula lives up to expectations. He certainly has the talent to make an impact, and now he has the opportunity.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
Prospects report. Scott White highlights 13 under-the-radar sleepers to look for in your Dynasty leagues.
Trend watch. The Cubs' elite defense and Mason Montgomery's emergence as a relief ace highlight Mike Axisa's look at the top trends around MLB.
Hot seat. Which managers could be coaching for their jobs in September and October?
Free agency preview. Ranking the top 10 free agents ahead of the offseason.
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from Wednesday's action:
Coby Mayo, 3B, Orioles (31%) – For the most part, Mayo has been pretty easy to figure out this season: He's mashing lefties but has looked largely overmatched against righties. But he homered off a righty for the second time in three games Wednesday as he continues to put together a very promising close to the season. He's hitting .274 with 10 homers, 28 runs, and 25 RBI in 44 second-half games (37 starts), and he's starting to show the upside we once hoped he would. It's true that the second-half schedule has been unusually left-heavy, which helps prop those numbers up, but we shouldn't ignore some signs of life against righties, either, even if we should remain skeptical that he's suddenly figured this out.
Anthony Volpe, SS, Yankees (10%) – You're laughing. Jazz Chisholm is on the IL,the Yankees are turning to Anthony Volpe in a playoff race and you're laughing. Look, I get it: I'm skeptical too! Volpe hit just .240/.325/.322 in 56 games earlier in the season, and while George Lombard hasn't actually been any better, nobody really thinks the Yankees made a mistake in making that switch. But Volpe has hit .260/.342/.508 with 11 homers and 12 steals in 46 games down at Triple-A, so maybe there's something happening here worth taking note of. Probably not, but he's going to get some run down the stretch, so let's see if there's any post-hype sleeper appeal here.
Leo Bernal, C, Cardinals (7%) – It wasn't exactly clear how much Bernal would play when the Cardinals called him up, but he just started his ninth straight game Wednesday, so they're just throwing him in the fire. He hit his second homer and drove in three runs in this one and is hitting .278 with 10 RBI in nine games so far, with an .822 OPS. That's not dissimilar from what he did in Triple-A this season, and with the playing time he's getting right now, Bernal looks like a decent No. 2 catcher option right now.
Will Warren, SP, Yankees (72%) – Warren fell on hard times for a while there, but the Rockies away from Coors Field are always there to lift struggling pitchers up when they're down. Warren dominated Thursday, striking out eight over six one-run innings, and it looks like he's in line for a two-start week in Week 26, against the Twins and Diamondbacks, a decent pair of matchups. There's plenty of risk here, obviously, as Warren had a 4.50 ERA and 1.42 WHIP in the second half of the season entering this one, but there's a chance he ends up useful for at least one more week.
Three Up, Three Down
Three big performances that have players trending up, and three that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.
Three Up
Jackson Merrill may have figured it out
Players who are as good as Merrill was as a 21-year-old usually end up being stars. He was one of just 16 players to get at least 590 plate appearances in a season as a 21-year-old or younger since 2011, and his .826 OPS was the seventh-best. The hitters who bested him? Junior Caminero, Ronald Acuña, Giancarlo Stanton, Juan Soto, and Mike Trout (twice). So, basically, the best young hitters of the past 15 years all went on to become superstar-caliber players.
And Merrill might end up being one too. His overall numbers for 2026 don't show it, of course – his two-homer game Wednesday just got his season-long wRC+ above league average. But those numbers are dragged down by how abysmally awful Merrill was early in the season, and he is hitting .278 with 18 homers, 55 RBI, and 15 steals in his past 81 games with an average exit velocity of 92.2 mph in that stretch. Merrill isn't a perfect hitter – he's way too aggressive on pitches out of the strike zone, especially, in a way that makes you wonder if, like Michael Harris before him, these slumps may just be a fact of life. But when he's locked in, he's a terrific hitter, and he's been on a 30-30 pace for half a season now. What if this is just what it looks like when he figures it out?
Kade Anderson showed us what he can be
We've been tough on Anderson around these parts. He was one of the most hyped pitching prospects of the past decade, and he flopped in his first three starts. There's no way around that. But almost every player has an adjustment period when they first get called up, and the story of his career won't be written after three starts, no matter how dispiriting they were. Anderson didn't change up much in his pitch mix, and his movement profile and velocity mostly looked the same Wednesday – if anything, his fastball shape was a little worse, generating two inches less rise than it had previously – but he commanded his arsenal well, pitched efficiently, and tossed six one-run innings against the Rangers. It's a beatable matchup, but hey, he did what he's supposed to do, and that's all we can ask right now. I still find Anderson's raw stuff underwhelming, so he'll need to command everything well to avoid walks and generate weak contact, which is what he did here. Anderson isn't an ace yet, but Wednesday was the best he's looked yet.
One thing to note here, though: He's a two-start pitcher next week, with his second scheduled start set to come in Coors Field. Yikes. I'm probably still starting him in H2H points leagues, and perhaps if I'm chasing wins in a Roto league, but if I'm worried about my ratios, I don't think I can put Anderson in my lineup for that one.
Carter Jensen's turnaround continues
It's been an up-and-down season for Jensen, who opened the season with an .818 OPS in March and April, slumped in May, was red-hot in June and then was so bad in July and August that it looked like he might not even matter for Fantasy anymore. Well, if you kept the faith, he's rewarding you in a big way. He went 3 for 5 with a homer Wednesday, his 23rd of the season, and he's now hitting .314 with six homers and 24 RBI over the past 26 games. That stretch has seen him walk more than he has struck out, so it's been the whole package from the 23-year-old catcher. Inconsistency comes with the territory for most young hitters, and that's especially true for catchers, who have a lot more on their plate than your typical player. However, Jensen continues to show big-time upside. While his overall numbers for the season are just okay, if he can cut the strikeout rate down to the 25% range, he still has the skills to be an absolute difference maker. Jensen looks like he's trending toward being a top-12 catcher for 2027 drafts.
Three Down
Cristopher Sanchez had an ugly one
We're going to have to have a discussion about the impact this Phillies defense is having on Sanchez. He allowed six runs on 10 hits in six innings Wednesday against the Astros, and it's the fifth time he has allowed at least 10 hits in a start this season. Trea Turner's defense has collapsed after a renaissance season in 2025, and they rate out as one of the very worst defensive teams at first base, too, a problem for an elite groundball pitcher like Sanchez. Honestly, it's a testament to how good Sanchez is that he has managed a 2.79 ERA despite the poor defense behind him; the 1.21 WHIP, though, is a different story, and it's a drag on Sanchez's value. He's still an elite pitcher for Fantasy, but the margins are slim enough at the high end of the pitcher rankings that he was actually down to SP8 in the FanGraphs.com Player Rater before Wednesday's clunker. Are we certain he's a top-five SP in drafts next season?
Kevin Gausman is flailing
There have been some high points, but overall, Gausman's time with the Cubs has not gone well. He was tagged for seven runs (six earned) on eight hits in just four innings Wednesday, less than a week after he held this same Brewers lineup to just one run over seven innings. And he's now up to a 4.84 ERA in eight starts with the Cubs, a tough look given the quality of the defense behind him – of course, if you give up nine homers in 44.2 innings, the quality of the defense behind you doesn't matter very much, does it? He's still showing flashes of difference-making upside, but if he's going to struggle like this with the Cubs, it's hard to see how Gausman is going to have much value wherever he signs this offseason.
Foster Griffin is finished
It might be that Griffin is just running out of gas – he only threw 78 innings in Japan in 2025, and his 162.2 innings on the season are 40 more than he threw in either 2023 or 2024, too. Given that, some benefit of the doubt is not unreasonable. But I kinda think this is just good old-fashioned regression to the mean. Griffin was one of the most pleasant surprises in baseball when he put up a 3.06 ERA in 22 starts with the Nationals, but even that came with a 4.13 xERA and 4.09 FIP that suggest his success was unsustainable. And now in seven starts with the Guardians after Wednesday's dud against the Orioles (eight earned runs in 2.1 innings), he has a 5.94 ERA and 1.59 WHIP. His ability to miss bats has completely disappeared (7% swinging strike rate in 10 starts since the All-Star break), and at this point, I don't think Griffin needs to be rostered in most leagues. And I'm not really sure he'll end up needing to be drafted in most leagues in 2027, either.
Extra Innings
The Dolphins and Mets played a wild one
The NFL season kicked off last night and the Dolphins and Jets played a nail-biter, with the Jets coming out just ahead, 15-14. Wait, I'm being told that was actually the final score for the Mets win over the Marlins, in what had to be one of the wildest games of the season. The Mets jumped all over Janson Junk for an 8-0 lead after the third inning, but the Marlins chipped away and actually tied the game up, 8-8, after a five-run sixth inning … At which point the bullpen collapsed and promptly gave up the second six-run inning of the game.
And yet the Marlins still somehow made it close at the end, with the tying run on second base and the winning run at first when the final out was recorded. Amazingly, Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and Bo Bichette combined for just two hits (one of which was a Lindor homer, at least) in a game where the Mets had 15 total. The Marlins have now lost five of their past six games to effectively kill their postseason chances. Nonetheless, there is something fitting about the Mets being the team to drive the final nail into the coffin, given that it's usually gone the other way around in this rivalry.
