Fantasy Baseball: Scott White's latest Circle of Trust includes Jake Bennett, Kyle Bradish and more

If you’ve seen The Odyssey, then you know there’s a new Meet the Parents coming out. (Or maybe you know by some other means, but I’m a simple man who only learns of coming attractions passively.) Along with the usual suspects, it stars Ariana Grande, who I think is going to be harder to make the butt of the joke than Ben Stiller was, but that’s neither here nor there.

The point is that the trailer reintroduces the Circle of Trust contrivance that fueled so much of the hilarity of the first three films. (Or the hilarity of the first, anyway. I never got around to seeing the others.) Today, then, seems like a fine time for me to reintroduce it to my pitching analysis as well.

OK, so my circle is more malleable than Jack’s. It has to be when it comes to starting pitchers, who are constantly making and breaking trust as the ultimate chaos agents of our preferred sport. It’s not their fault, really. Just the nature of the job.

This late in the season, the rosterability of most starting pitchers is well established, but trustworthiness is still up for grabs. It’s a measure that relies less on objectivity than feel, but the gist would be how confident I am inserting said pitcher into my lineup in a given week. Or not so much how confident but am I confident? Is he in the Circle of Trust?

Here are my thoughts on a few of the latest headline-grabbers. Note that those in the Circle of Trust aren’t inherently more valuable than those out of it, but I do have a better idea what to expect from them.

Who’s in the Circle of Trust?

Ian Seymour RP TB Tampa Bay • #61 • Age: 27 Circle of trust? Out ERA 4.37 WHIP 1.12 INN 78.1 HR/9 1.4 BB/9 3.2 K/9 10.3 It’s less that I don’t trust Seymour than that I don’t trust the Rays with Seymour. They were hesitant to put him in the rotation in the first place, and then after a couple shaky outings, they had him follow an opener next time out. It worked, but it wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence. Seymour has a 0.97 WHIP and 0.8 K/9 in 10 appearances since he began pushing beyond three innings, which is what makes him so appealing, but he also has a 3.80 ERA during that time. He may be more susceptible to blow-up starts both because he’s homer-prone and more reliant on deception than stuff. Can we be sure the Rays won’t relegate him to the bullpen again if he hits a rough patch?

Griffin Jax SP TB Tampa Bay • #22 • Age: 31 Circle of trust? In ERA 3.74 WHIP 1.24 INN 86.2 HR/9 1.4 BB/9 3.1 K/9 9.6 It’s easy to shrug off Jax’s stat line until you isolate the 17 starts from the 11 relief appearances. He’s actually performed better in the extended role, putting together a 3.24 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 9.5 K/9, and that hasn’t changed as he’s stretched himself all the more, most recently by exceeding five innings in back-to-back starts. I think he’s actually left some meat on the bone, too. His 9.5 K/9 as a starter isn’t bad, but his 14.2 percent swinging-strike rate is more like what you’d see from a Chase Burns or Gavin Williams. Perhaps Jax’s 10 strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings last time out were the start of the correction, in which case I’d be selling him short by merely saying that I trust him.

Bryce Miller SP SEA Seattle • #50 • Age: 27 Circle of trust? Out ERA 2.75 WHIP 0.92 INN 68.2 HR/9 1.4 BB/9 1.4 K/9 9.3 Miller’s movement in and out of the Circle this year would be enough to give anyone whiplash. After a terrible 2025, he came into this year injured, putting expectations at an all-time low. He then came back so dominant that he looked like he might be an ace again, perhaps even better than in 2024. His fastball was peaking at even higher velocities, and he was leaning on it like he did at his best, putting together a six-start stretch with a 1.47 ERA, 0.52 WHIP and 11.8 K/9. Now, though, he seems so far gone that I suspect he’s hurt again. His latest start at Texas (not a good offense, mind you) saw him register zero whiffs on 44 percent fastballs, its velocity dropping about 1 mph from where it was earlier. That pitch is everything to him, so if it isn’t right, all bets are off. Maybe the extra rest the Mariners are giving him this week will help.

Logan Henderson SP MIL Milwaukee • #43 • Age: 24 Circle of trust? In ERA 2.66 WHIP 0.91 INN 44 HR/9 1.0 BB/9 1.8 K/9 11.0 Henderson has now made 14 starts in the majors. Only one has been a miss. He wouldn’t be the first to fake it over that number of starts, but typically when that’s happened, it’s because some mediocre pitcher caught lightning in a bottle. These 14 starts have been anything but consecutive. Five came last year, interrupted twice by return trips to the minors. Henderson has bounced between the majors and the minors this year as well, also missing most of June with a strained back. All the while, he has dominated — and I don’t think that’s too strong of a word for it. Only one of the 14 starts has lasted as long as six innings, which has and will continue to suppress his upside, but whatever he gives us, I feel confident will be good.

Kyle Bradish SP BAL Baltimore • #38 • Age: 29 Circle of trust? Out ERA 3.74 WHIP 1.36 INN 118 HR/9 0.9 BB/9 4.0 K/9 8.7 Bradish has offered occasional reminders of his upside this season, most notably consecutive June starts in which he recorded 21 strikeouts while allowing just one earned run in 15 2/3 innings. Unfortunately, the most concerning signs have come in his five starts since then. True, three of them have been quality starts, and he’s maintained an ERA around 4.00 during that time, which wouldn’t be cause for alarm on its own. But also in those five starts, he has just a 6.2 K/9 rate and an 8.7 percent swinging-strike rate, which are bottom of the barrel and nothing like the Bradish we were expecting to get this year. The Orioles, for some reason, saw fit to give him a five-year, $90 million deal during this same stretch, so they don’t seem deterred. I have a hard time trusting him, though.

Roki Sasaki SP LAD L.A. Dodgers • #11 • Age: 24 Circle of trust? Out ERA 4.71 WHIP 1.29 INN 93.2 HR/9 1.9 BB/9 3.5 K/9 9.0 What other answer could there be? Sasaki has had our heads on a swivel all season long, doing something to recapture our attention whenever we’ve turned our back to him. His past two outings have been his most promising yet, seeing him strike out 14 while allowing just one earned run in 15 2/3 innings. A velocity bump has fueled that success, and he seems to be at his best when his fastball averages more than 98 mph. But how reliably can he do that? “I do think where he is at mechanically now, he isn’t thinking about that when he is on the mound,” manager Dave Roberts said after Sasaki’s latest start, referencing all the work the right-hander has put into finding that consistency. “It doesn’t seem like he is searching anymore. He is just trying to execute a game plan.” We can hope, but the last time Sasaki had a two-start stretch like this (May 30 and June 5), he followed it up with a seven-run outing on June 12.

Braxton Ashcraft SP PIT Pittsburgh • #35 • Age: 26 Circle of trust? Out ERA 4.05 WHIP 1.19 INN 112.1 HR/9 1.2 BB/9 2.2 K/9 9.9 Maybe it serves me right for patting myself too hard on the back over Braxton Ashcraft earlier this year, but he’s not looking so hot anymore. It could be as simple as workload fatigue — he already has 4 1/3 more innings than he did between the majors and minors last year, which was itself a career high — but I see a more pernicious cause for concern. The ground-ball rate that once bolstered my optimism has collapsed, going from 46.9 percent in April and May to 38.0 percent in June and July. Ashcraft has a number of other fine qualities, but if his batted-ball profile has changed, the shape of the production likely will as well — and probably not for the better.

Jared Jones SP PIT Pittsburgh • #17 • Age: 24 Circle of trust? In ERA 3.72 WHIP 1.02 INN 46 HR/9 1.2 BB/9 2.5 K/9 10.4 Yeah, I’m in, but with a caveat. For as talented as Jones is, sporting a plus whiff rate on all four of his pitches with a 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, I do stop short of calling him a must-start in a typical 12-team context because I’m not sure how prepared the Pirates are to turn him loose. Three of his past four starts have lasted six innings, which is about as frequent as you could expect for a non-ace in today’s game, but the most pitches he threw in any of those starts was 83. That’s his season high, in fact. I don’t know at what point the Pirates let him throw more, but the six-inning starts figure to be pretty scarce until then. Still, I’d need a pretty awesome alternative to sit Jones at this point and believe he’s more or less immune from matchups.

Jake Bennett SP BOS Boston • #64 • Age: 25 Circle of trust? Out ERA 2.74 WHIP 0.98 INN 65.2 HR/9 0.7 BB/9 1.5 K/9 6.3 You might think that a 2.74 ERA and 0.98 WHIP in 11 starts would have proven Bennett’s trustworthiness by now, particularly with six of his last seven being quality starts, but you’ll notice I haven’t mentioned his K/9 rate yet. That’s because it’s 6.3. Now, not every pitcher has to be a big bat-misser. Those who do without generally have a profile like Bennett’s, featuring a high ground-ball rate and low contact quality. But 6.3 is basement-level, a mark that would normally leave its owner struggling to keep his ERA below 4.00. Bennett should remain useful in an Andre Pallante sort of way, but I think a correction is coming and may have already started with his 4.50 ERA and 1.92 WHIP in his past two starts.

Troy Melton SP DET Detroit • #52 • Age: 25 Circle of trust? In ERA 1.75 WHIP 0.93 INN 67 HR/9 1.1 BB/9 2.8 K/9 8.1 Part of me wants to freak out over Melton’s dip in velocity in his past two turns, but it’s actually less a dip than a return to normalcy. For a four-start stretch in late June and early July, everything was up 1-2 mph, and that was the most dominant we’ve seen him, resulting in a 0.77 ERA, 0.77 WHIP and 12.0 K/9. It’s what won me over to a pitcher who, to that point, seemed like he might be getting away with something, averaging well less than a strikeout per inning. But his ERA in the five starts prior was 2.56, and his ERA in the two starts since is 1.50. In his 45 2/3 innings in the majors last year, he had a 2.76 ERA, and his various stints in the minors over that same two-year span were nothing short of dominant. At some point, the success speaks for itself, and knowing now that Melton has that extra gear makes it easier to buy in.