Nationals Promote Lucas Giolito: Fantasy Fallout
By Bill Pivetz
In the wake of the Stephen Strasburg injury, the Nationals will call up top prospect Lucas Giolito, who will start Tuesday against the Mets.
The Washington Nationals finally called up one of their pitching prospects as a replacement for the injured Stephen Strasburg. The team could have gone in one of two directions. Nationals management ultimately went with the 21-year-old Lucas Giolito. He will face division rival New York Mets on Tuesday, which is a favorable matchup.
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Giolito began the season as Baseball America’s No. 5 prospect. With the success he’s had in Single- and Double-A, it’s not hard to see why. In 22 starts in Double-A, he is 9-5 with a 3.42 ERA and 1.40 WHIP. He also has 72 strikeouts in 71.0 innings.
His stats rival those of his now-teammate Gio Gonzalez, 4.73 ERA, 1.37 WHIP and 88 strikeouts in 85.2 innings. Lucas Giolito could easily replace Gonzalez or Joe Ross in the rotation as the Nationals look to win the Nationals League East. However, that likely won’t happen.
Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com tweeted that even Nationals manager Dusty Baker has no idea how long Giolito will be up on the main roster.
Dusty said it's "impossible to answer" how long Giolito will be here, will just take it start-by-start.
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) June 27, 2016
With that news, it’ll be tough to gauge Lucas Giolito’s value for the rest of the season. He is definitely worth an add in all leagues, even as a streaming option. As I mentioned earlier, this matchup favors Giolito, even if it is his first MLB start.
The Mets are hitting .235 with 23 home runs, and 76 RBI this month. All of those totals rank in the bottom five in the league. If there was ever a team to make a debut against, this is one of the teams to do it against.
Fantasy owners are already adding Lucas Giolito ahead of his start on Tuesday. He’s been added in 1.1 percent over the last week. Most of his ownership is a result of keeper/dynasty leagues or deep re-draft leagues.
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Giolito underwent Tommy John surgery shortly after he was drafted in 2012, but there doesn’t look to be any lingering affects. Though, I do expect the Nationals to place an innings limit on Giolito, similar to what they did with Strasburg.