Three up, three down: Konnor Griffin's injury leaves Fantasy managers scrambling for solutions

The shortstop position is deep until it isn't. That was the case coming into the season, and it hasn't become any less true as the season has gone on. Sure, we've seen a huge breakout from Otto Lopez along with the expected but still needed emergence of Kevin McGonigle and JJ Wetherholt, who have reinforced the top few tiers of the position, which still has star power basically nowhere can match. But, with Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, Geraldo Perdomo and Jacob Wilson disappointing and Bo Bichette likely being used at third base in most leagues, you could make an argument that the top few tiers at shortstop are actually a little shallower than they were coming into the season.

And we got another hit Tuesday with news that Konnor Griffin is dealing with a torn tendon in his left ring finger that could cost him much of the rest of the season. He went on the IL Tuesday and will opt for rest and rehab rather than surgery to fix the issue, which could involve wearing a splint on the finger for up to six weeks. After that point, he'll have to ramp back up for baseball activities, so we could be looking at up to 10 weeks before Griffin is back in the lineup for the Pirates.

And there just aren't a ton of good options to replace Griffin on the wire. And certainly nobody with the kind of upside you were hoping Griffin could provide in the second half of the season. So, we'll look for some waiver-wire targets who could help, but also some trade options you should be trying to pry away from their teams who could make as big an impact as you were hoping for from Griffin.

Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:

IL Stash rankings. Scott White ranks the top 50 players to keep stashed on your IL heading into the second half of the season.

Bullpen Report. Tyler Wells looks like the top option in the ninth inning for the Orioles. Who else is working their way into the ninth-inning situations? Scott White looks into it.

Top 25 trade candidates. Tarik Skubal could be on the move, and he's not the only big name who could be traded by the end of the month. Mike Axisa ranks the biggest names on the market.

Caminero for MVP? Matt Snyder looks into how Junior Caminero has played his way into the AL MVP conversation.

Deadline buyers' guide. Where every team stands less than four weeks out.

The top waiver-wire targets from Tuesday's action:

Luis Lara, OF, Brewers (27%) – The Brewers called up top outfield prospect Lara Tuesday, about a month after he signed a seven-year, $31 million deal that seemed to pave the way for his promotion. And he's a potential Griffin replacement for Fantasy, if not in position, potentially in skill set. Lara is very fast and was enjoying a breakout season in Triple-A, hitting .321/.432/.470 with 24 steals in 78 games. There isn't a ton of power to speak of here, either in-game or with the underlying raw power, but he isn't a total slap hitter either, and in typical Brewers fashion, he is highly optimized as a hitter, especially with regards to his plate discipline. The biggest problem with adding him is that I'm just not 100% sure where he is supposed to play on an everyday basis unless the Brewers are ready to just pull the plug on Sal Frelick. They might be, and Lara is talented enough to get hot quickly and force their hand, but the uncertainty about his role is the biggest thing making it hard to suggest adding him in all leagues right now. It's more of an upside flier at this moment.

Ian Seymour, RP, Rays (64%) – The relatively slow growth of Seymour's roster rate might be because Fantasy players just don't trust the Rays to let him pitch consistently deep enough to really be an impact pitcher, even if he's capable of it. That is a misread of the situation, I think – despite not being moved into the rotation until early June, Seymour has already topped 90 pitches twice, as many times as Shane McClanahan and Griffin Jax have done all season. Seymour struck out 12 in 5.1 innings against the Yankees Tuesday and has 27 strikeouts in 18 innings over his past three starts and should pretty much be rostered in all formats at this pace.

A.J. Ewing, OF, Mets (54%) – Ewing isn't quite an everyday player, but he's not far off – he has started 47 of 53 games since his debut, including 10 of 15 against lefties. The production has been hit or miss, but on the whole, he's been quite good, hitting .272/.355/.428 after he went 3 for 3 with a homer, a steal, and a walk Tuesday against the Royals. He has an OPS north of .850 since the start of May, is improving his contact skills, and has strong underlying metrics to back it up. I think Ewing might just deserve to be rostered in all Fantasy leagues these days.

Dominic Canzone, OF, Mariners (64%) – Canzone has started to play more regularly and it sounds like that's going to stick moving forward, with Mariners president Jerry Dipoto telling reporters Tuesday that Canzone has played his way into an everyday role. That's a double-edged sword, of course – it means more opportunities and a higher ceiling for counting stats, but it also carries some downside as he'll be facing more lefties, which could presumably hurt his numbers. Canzone has been incredible this season, hitting .273/.349/.551, but he also has a career .682 OPS against lefties and just hasn't gotten a lot of reps against them, so it's asking a lot for him to make this transition without impacting his overall play. Still, the higher ceiling here makes him worth targeting, especially with the leap he has seemingly taken as a hitter over the past couple of seasons.

Tyler Tolbert, OF, Royals (1%) – Cards on the table: I don't really think there's anything here. Tolbert is a 28-year-old who has basically never shown anything at the MLB level before he put together a stretch of 12 straight hits over the past three games, including a 5-for-6 performance with a homer Tuesday. It's an incredible run and it should get him some more opportunities in the short run. But I don't think it's especially likely to lead to him actually being Fantasy relevant in the long run. He's worth an AL-only flier at best.

Three big performances that have players trending up, and three that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.

O'Hearn has had a solid season, but he hasn't been so good that he has needed to be viewed as a must-start Fantasy option … but man, I hope you had him in your lineup for Tuesday. He had one of the best games anyone is likely to be responsible for this season, hitting a grand slam and a couple of three-run homers to finish his game with 10 RBI. That was enough to push him from 23rd in the majors in RBI to a tie for seventh place with 61 overall, which is a simply massive jump a week before the All-Star game. It's not the kind of game that really tells us anything new about O'Hearn, though with his underlying numbers trending in the wrong direction – .303 xwOBA over the past 100 PA – it was nice to see a big game from O'Hearn. And if you didn't have him in your lineup this week … I'm so sorry.

24 strikeouts in his past two starts. Sure, the previous one wasn't great, but Tuesday might've been his best of the season, as he struck out a whopping 14 over seven one-run innings. He has every pitch working, generating at least two swinging strikes with five different pitches en route to 20 on 104 pitches total, and he did that despite sitting down 0.6 mph on his four-seamer and about the same on everything else. Wheeler isn't quite the same guy he was before the Thoracic Outlet Surgery – his arm angle is a little lower and his release height on his four-seamer is 2-3 inches down, while his velocity hasn't entirely recovered – but he has, rather miraculously, been every bit as effective as ever. After this start, Wheeler is sporting a 2.28 ERA and a 29.4% strikeout rate, with peripherals just about in line with where he was before the surgery. It's one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen in baseball, either in 15 years covering it professionally or 30-plus years as a fan.

I've been pretty consistent in my belief that Bradley isn't worth trusting, but he's putting that lack of faith to the test lately. He struck out 10 over seven one-run innings Tuesday in one of the best starts of his career, and that is now consecutive starts with double-digit strikeouts and three on the season. Bradley is now just the ninth player in MLB to have three games with double-digit strikeouts this season, and with the exception of Cade Cavalli, they're pretty much all at least top-30 pitchers in Fantasy. I don't think Bradley is that good, clearly, but I do have to start asking myself what it would take to convince me to buy in. The problem, of course, is that while Bradley has a 2.25 ERA with 31 strikeouts in 24 innings over his past four starts, he also had a 7.40 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 20.2 innings in his previous four starts. My skepticism doesn't come from nowhere – this is a guy who has always been capable of huge performances, but has never managed to find any degree of consistency. He seems to have taken a step forward this season overall, entering the start with a 3.96 xERA that is almost certainly going to be even lower after this one, so maybe it's just that simple – he isn't quite as good as he looks on his best nights, but he's pretty good. If we're setting expectations in the mid-to-high-3.00s ERA range, I think I could buy into Bradley. Very tentatively.

Warren's early-season success was remarkable, but I'll admit I had trouble wrapping my mind around how he was doing it. He ended May with 70 strikeouts in 64.1 innings of work with a 3.22 ERA and 1.20 WHIP, but he was doing it with just a 9.9% swinging strike rate – just 0.4% higher than his 2025 mark and hardly in line with his 25.8% strikeout rate in that span. Swinging strikes aren't the only way to get strikeouts, of course, but they're the most reliable way to do it, and Warren didn't really have the profile of a guy who was likely to remain a reliable source of strikeouts. Well, in six starts since the end of May, he has just 24 strikeouts in 29 innings of work after another stumble Tuesday, while putting up a 6.21 ERA for good measure, so the skepticism was clearly warranted. His ERA is back up to 4.15 while his peripherals largely match last season's when he was a pretty fringe-y Fantasy option, so it looks like that might have been a bit of fool's gold early on.

I don't know if Waldrep needs more time to get back to full strength after his spring elbow surgery, but he really doesn't look like he belongs in the majors right now. The problem right now is mostly about command, and not just because he has 10 walks in 10.2 innings across his first three appearances/starts. Because Waldrep's best pitch is a splitter, a pitch that is inherently hard to throw for strikes, he needs the rest of his arsenal to be on point so he can get ahead of hitters and put them away with the splitter – he threw his splitter 67% of the time in two-strike counts last season, for example. When he isn't commanding everything well, it's going to be very tough for Waldrep to succeed, and he clearly isn't doing that right now. He's still a talented young pitcher I have hope for in the long run, but right now, he doesn't need to be rostered.

And just like that, it seems like the Goldschmidt revival is over. His season hit a high point when he homered twice on June 24 against the Tigers, but he's been in freefall since; he had two hits on the next day and has been hitless in nine straight games since. In that nine-game stretch, Goldschmidt has struck out 13 times, including seven times across Monday and Tuesday's games against the Rays. It's still a relatively small sample size for Goldschmidt's struggles, though if you look under the hood, the warning signs go back longer, as he has just a .258 xwOBA over his past 100 plate appearances. Goldschmidt made sense to add as a hot-hand play, but with the bottom falling out, it's time to let him go back on waivers.

The Royals offense is lighting it up suddenly

The Royals had one of the worst defensive blunders you'll ever see in the first inning of Tuesday's game against the Mets, but their offense was so locked in that it didn't matter that they gifted them three runs; they still won comfortably. The Royals scored 16 runs Tuesday, one day after they scored 15 in a win over the Phillies. And what's most amazing is that the names you are thinking of barely had anything to do with it: Bobby Witt went 1 for 6, Jac Caglianone went 1 for 6, and Carter Jensen was just 1 for 5. It was Tyler Tolbert who once again carried the heaviest load, though Nick Loftin, Lane Thomas, Michael Massey, and Isaac Collins all got on base multiple times in the win. The Royals offense has been one of the most disappointing in baseball, so this is just a blip on the radar for now. But it's been an impressive run.