Bryce Miller Breakout & Buy-Low Trade Targets! (7/3 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

[Music] Happy Cokamo 4th of July, Chris's birthday Friday. And some fantasy baseball today on July 3rd. I am Frank Sample, joy by Chris Towers today on the show. We have trade targets who will provide fireworks in the second half of the season. I have three starting pictures who might be cooked. And I'm fairly certain this is the best version of Bryce Billor that we have ever seen. Chris, the birthday boy. birthday here on Saturday. Happy birthday, bud. What is the plan? Actually, we know the plan. What song are you singing at karaoke? I got a whole list of new ones that I've never done. We got Debra by Beck. See if I can do a little falsetto. Don't know that one. Little goodbye Earl by the chicks. Everywhere by Michelle Branch. I might break out all my life by Casey and JoJo. I got a whole list. We'll see what the vibe is. That's obviously I'm going to karaoke for my birthday. I got some friends coming into town. Should be a good time looking forward to it. I went to a concert tonight. There's lots of you going. Well, yeah. I'm tired. I'm tired. So I knew Beck from just one song. I don't know if they're obviously they're probably their most popular song. I don't know that I know another song by them. Did you ever see a baby driver? You probably didn't. Maybe driver. I don't think so. I feel like you brought this up recently. John Bernthal. It's an Edgar right? Great movie. Real fun. Jamie Foxx. I remember looking this up recently because you asked me about it. Real, real good movie. And that song's in there. It's a weird song. I don't know if I can do it. To be clear, it might be a disaster. He gets real high up in the register. But I'm going to try it. If you sing all my life by Casey and Jojo, please have your wife at least film part of it because that was my wedding song. And I would love to see a video of you. Oh, man, I'm definitely doing it now. Yes, that would be amazing. All right. Let's talk about players of the night. We'll get to all the fun stuff a little bit later on. Let's jump in. I don't believe it. I don't mind. All right, Chris. I think that the big pitching performance is here on Thursday. And I will let you kick it off, man. Bryce Miller. Dude, looks like a stud. Yeah, I think that that was the wrong audio drop for this because I believe it. Bryce Miller is just. He's mowing people down. I mean, he had a career high in strikeouts in his previous start. 11 goes out this time around. Not as good sweat strikeout stuff, but pitched even better. He had seven shutout innings against the angels, eight strikeouts, no walks. That is four straight starts without a walk during which time he has 33 strikeouts. The start before that he did walk to he had nine strikeouts in six shutout innings. The ERA is down to 171. The XERA is around 220. He is generating tons of strikeouts. He's not giving up any hard contact. I don't think Bryce Miller will pitch this well moving forward because if he does, that means he's the best pitcher in baseball, right? Like that we're legitimately talking about he has a 30% strikeout to walk ratio entering this start. It's got to be even higher now. That's probably not going to sustain. I think that's like what Jacob DeGrom was doing at his best. I don't think Bryce Miller is that good. I think he's really good though. He's doing this right now with the best four seamer of his career. He's always been a good one, but now he's just generating so much we contact. The splitter has just become an absolute monster pitch for him. He threw it as his primary pitch today. It was 40%. He's got a lot of pressure on the ball. I mean, Amazon Hancock is trending, that problem might take care of itself. It is a legitimate problem for the people who want to see Kate Anderson. I just, I have a really hard time seeing how that works. They need two guys to get out of the way. What? Unless there's an injury? But even then, there's six starting pictures right now. They need an injury and a trade or two, it's just, it's really hard to make that work, unfortunately, because I'm as excited about Kate Anderson's anybody. But, yeah, well, not necessarily that's not true. I've seen some people say they think he's already like a top 10 pitcher in the majors. And that's, I think we're taking it too far. But I am excited about Kate Anderson. I don't, it's hard to see where he fits in in this rotation, unfortunately. I updated the rankings over the past couple of days and I have Bryce Miller and SP27. That just feels like it needs to be higher. I moved into 20 just now. I was looking at SP20 exactly that range. Now I put him just ahead of Nolan McLean, Kyle Harrison and Parker Messick. Would you be on board? Kyle Harrison stuff because obviously he's having a breakout season two. Those guys should just be back to back, both top 20 pitch. Yeah, I think Miller has a longer track record. I don't know. Are there less injury concerns with Miller? He did have bone spurs in his elbow that he didn't get removed last year. So that could become a problem at some point. I don't know. Yeah, I feel a little more confident in Bryce Miller. And for what is worth an appointment, I think I'd have Nolan McLean a little higher than Miller as well. I just feel a little more confident about him going deep into games consistently. But yeah, on the whole, I think that's the right range. Whether you want to go 20 or 25, I'm not going to quibble, you know? Yeah. And you mentioned some of the injury stuff that Bryce Miller dealt with last year and we just talked. There will be some regression. So there is a sell high case need for Bryce Miller right now. But you got to get a little bit more. I feel the way pitching is trending right now. And we've seen like even some of the best pitchers in baseball have had some blowup starts recently. I don't know that I would do it. Like if I have Bryce Miller on my team, I would have to really be blown away to think about moving him and maybe I'll come to regret that. But I kind of just think I would hold on. Go reach out to the Paul Schienz guy and see if you could do something like that. You know, Bryce Miller plus something for Paul Schienz. I think that's worth trying. Like I understand there are some concerning signs there with Paul Schienz. The velocity's been down. The spin rate was way down in this start as well. It's still Paul Schienz, you know? Like if he's right, you'd much rather have him the Bryce Miller. So I don't want to overreact to the Paul Schienz thing. I sent you and Scott. Yeah, I read that. day. And let me see if I can pull it up. But uh, based on ballman who used to work with us at CBS Sports, actually. Yeah. So he pointed out one of the first things I asked when I walked into the high performance department with the blue jays, what's the best indicator of injury? It's forcing fastball spin rate decrease. And basically as a season has gone on, it just keeps dropping for Paul schemes. And it was down to 1,987 RPM on the fast, super low for a force. Same. Yeah. On his, uh, in his most recent start on July 1st. And that was like pretty clearly the lowest of the season. Now I don't want to alarm everybody. But you know, it is something that is trending down his spin rate. So like we're trying to all collectively figure out what is going on with Paul schemes. And right now that is one thing that is standing out. His velocity has been dropping a little bit and his spin rates have been dropping as well, I hope it's nothing. I hope it's not injury related. But you know, whenever you throw that hard, you, you can never rule it out. So we've, we've something to monitor. We'll, we'll pack that one away for for Paul schemes. My player the night is going to be Ian Seymour, who was great once again, this time at the royals, six innings of one run ball, eight strikeouts to one walk. He had 15 whiffs on 83 pitches, seven on that sweeper, four on the fastball, three on the changeup. And he used his sweeper and his four scene more in this one. Both of those pitches were really good for him. And he's just looked really good in five games, three starts since being stretched out recently, 252, ERA, a 0.76 whip, 27 strikeouts to six walks over 25 innings. And I mentioned this before, I'll mention it again. I like the Ian Seymour a lot, this was all season. And I was pretty bummed when I found out he was, you know, going to be in the bullpen for the temp year is obviously, I understand things change throughout the course of the season and plans change and people get hurt. And so obviously, Ian Seymour has found his way into the rotation here. 34% rostered, he's a sparp for those who play in point sligs lined up for two starts against the Yankees and the Mariners next week. So absolutely to add him for those matchups, but I kind of just think Ian Seymour is a legit good pitcher. And I know that we're kind of like reacting in real time. So all these waiver wire pitchers we've talked about recently, the Troy Melton's and Joey Cantillos and Tatsuemise. Yeah, some of them have fallen on hard times. I think, I think I would put Ian Seymour at the top of that list. Um, hmm. Yeah. Well, well, I think Troy Melton's really close. I would put the two of those Rogers has been really good lately. Two. Yeah, I would put Melton and Seymour, certainly I had to be my we can I think we're done with that one. And that was something we talked about when he started pitching well was like, well, there wasn't really a good explanation for it. Besides, he started pitching well, you know, which is always hairy. Like Bryce Miller, Velocity's up. He's been good before. I think it's just he's healthy. Tatsuemise was like, well, you know, you can tell yourself the story about him getting settled in and not being comfortable early on. But two of his last four starts have been disasters. So I think you can be pretty skeptical of it. Seymour, we had the really successful run last season. Um, obviously this season was a little rocky or especially out of the bullpen, but he's looked really good since getting back to the rotation. He misses a lot of bats. He's got a a four seamer that limits damage. He's got to change up that misses bats. The sweeper has all of a sudden become a real weapon after he barely used it last year. I think he's more good. And I think there will be some headaches being a member of the race because he got to six three six endings, but it was only like 70. That was 83 pitches. They let him go a little bit lately. Yeah. Yeah, his previous outing, he went up to like almost 90, didn't he? So yeah, I'm I think you can see more look at he threw 90 pitches in his last outing 80 or more pitches in three straight. So it's, it's pretty encouraging, I would say it's really tough. It's really tough because all of these pictures, we have very small sample sizes on. And I never I don't want to just flip flop back and forth and react to every good or bad start and say, ah, he's a must must must roster. And now he's a must drive like, I don't, I don't want to do that. But you kind of have to like, that's the whole thing with pitchers is their fortunes can change so quickly, positively or negatively that you do kind of have to over react when they show interesting skills. I'm not talking about like a Michael McGreevy where he's outperforming his peripherals by like two runs. But when guys are showing legitimate skills, like Ian Seymour is missing a lot of bats, limiting hard contact. I think you there, there is value in just over reacting, even knowing that, yeah, the likelihood of outcome is this is just a pretty good picture rather than a dominant one. Yeah. Look, it's a good point that you bring up to like, I definitely don't want to flip flop too much. But that's why if people have ever wondered, we talk about pitching more than anything else on this podcast on a daily basis because that's what you could take more away from on a daily basis is so much can change in one start for a picture where not that much can change for a hitter in just one game, right? They're going to play 162 of them and most pictures are only going to make 30 starts in a season. So there's just there's much more to react to on a daily basis with pictures than it is with hitters. Unless, of course, you're Dan's, we sponsor and you're putting up like three homers and eight RBI in a game. But that is why we tend to focus a lot on pitching here. The update is stats, by the way, for Ian Seymour, he's now made nine career starts, 316 ERA 0.98 with 10.7 K per nine, 1.9 walks per nine. So and that dates back to last year. So whenever he's been given a new start, he's he's look really good and was excellent throughout his minorly career. Huge strikeout numbers like a 34% strikeout right guy last year. So yeah, he might just be good. All right, before we hit our first break, just a reminder, the week 16 sleepers and two star picture articles from Scott are live on the website and our FBT express episode covering week 16 will be out on Saturday, July 4th. I know many people will be busy, but check it on that either on the 4th of July, the next day before setting your lineups here on Monday. Let's take our first break when we return. We will hit the news and notes. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back, fantasy baseball today. Those did not see we were just in a commercial break. I had to run, take my cat and throw her out of the room. I told you not to throw, you know, no, no, gently place her out of the room. But I was experimenting today because when I started the podcast, she was napping in the corner. I usually never let her in the room while I'm podcasting because I just don't know what she's going to do. You know, she's kind of a wild card. And then she started once I started up and I'm yelling, I'm screaming about Ian Seymour. She's, you know, scratching my claws and what all this kind of crazy stuff. So what's with the closet? Why do they always want to go in the closet? What's up? I just want to do everything they're not supposed to do. So if you have a closet that's locked, they're going to try to get in it in it. Meanwhile, I've got a mosquito in here. This is a disaster. What is what is wildlife doing to us? Here we go. This is a this is a Friday podcast for you. Let's hit the news and notes. Will you Rodriguez left in the third? Any after taking a throw off the back of his helmet earlier in the game? So I'm sure he'll go for some type of concussion testing. Something to watch there with Julio Rodriguez. We both have him as a player to buy heading into the second half of the season. So hopefully he's all right. Victor Robles also left early with a right forum injury. So he came in for J. Rod and then he also left with an injury, which resulted in Luke really playing center field. I was watching this game. I saw a fly ball center field. I said, who the heck is playing center field? This is crazy. Luke Rayleigh. Yeah, that one called me off guard. But I I guess it just had nobody else to use. So that's what happened. But yeah, hopefully hopefully J. Rod is all right. Will's the Contreras and Kate Cavali were both given seven game suspensions for their benches clearing fiasco earlier in the week. And I saw Contreras got to find as well for throwing his helmet. It's interesting because I don't know. I haven't seen if either of them or both of them are going to appeal. But Kate Cavali was supposed to be a two star pitcher for next week. So depending on when he starts this suspension, he probably will not be a two star pitcher next week. Yeah, I don't think he will be because suspensions are usually lowered in appeals. I won't say always, but it feels like that happens pretty regularly. But sometimes it takes a few weeks to like get from it though. But they're never taken away. And I think what whatever you do is you just appeal until his next turn, the rotation is up and then drop the appeal and start serving the suspension after he makes his next start because the all star breaks coming up anyway. So you could end up having him miss effectively zero starts. So I would guess that's probably what they're going to do. And I think deservedly for both of them suspended. Miles Michaelis was also suspended five games and someone else suspended for a couple games as well. All right, Moona Taka, more economy, we kind of have an update. He's viewed as day to day with that hamstring injury. Apparently he's sprinting at about 85%. But they haven't yet revealed when he will go out on a rehab assignment. So we're starting to hear a little bit more about it. We're getting, you know, numbers 85% health at this point. But he'll need a rehab assignment. My guess is he's probably back after the all star breaks. just kind of conservatively guessing here on Morakami. Dustin May left after recording just two outs after taking a line drive off of his right ankle. X-rays came back negative. And unfortunately, he was charged with five earned runs on five hits and two walks before leaving. It's been a really weird go of things lately for Dustin May. I don't think people should drop him, Chris. I understand that he was on this crazy run, which was most likely unsustainable for Dustin May. But it's last couple of starts, like, one of them came after the complete game where he threw a bunch of pitches, and then he had a back injury. And now he left early with this ankle and it was a bad start. So I think people are gonna look at the game log and just kind of think, uh, maybe I could just get rid of Dustin May. I think I would still hold on to him. - Yeah, I mean, I do have a lead where I, I just traded him for Caleb Killian. Because-- - Must need saves. - I really need saves. I have like 18 saves on the season, and that's my biggest drag. So I did make that trade. It's also just a lead where that guy's annoying to deal with. I've talked about this in the past with you, maybe not on the air, but you just give in though, Chris. - I know, I'm bad about that, but whatever. But that is to say, I think Dustin May is mostly just a guy. So I had to choose between him or Rocky Sasaki. I'm not sure I made the right choice there. Rocky Sasaki looks pretty bad too, but I think Sasaki has more upside at least. So I don't think Dustin May certainly as bad as the what, 11 earned runs in two and three in the third innings, I think over the last two starts, he's not that bad, but I don't think he's as good as the 13 starts prior to that as either. I think it's like weird the way it's worked out, but his overall numbers are probably not that far off from where I'd expect him to be. I guess his ERA is probably super high. What is, I didn't actually write down what the ERA is up to after this one. - Like 480 now, right? Yeah, 480 exactly. I'm good. Oh, that was good. - Wow. I think he's better than a 480 pitch. I think the most likely outcome is that he is a streamer type, but he has to be changes this season to the pitch mix. And he has a really, really good defense behind him with the Cardinals. So I still think we're going to get a lot of very useful starts from Dustin May in the second half of the season. Connolly Early, who went on the aisle Wednesday was diagnosed with a left posterior elbow inflammation, not with A, with just left posterior elbow. - I guess just that would be A. You only have one left posterior elbow. - That's true. Do you have anything on this injury type, Chris, or how long we might be looking at a timeline for Connolly Early? - I mean, it sounds like there was no structural damage. So I would think something like a month, any time you're dealing with any kind of elbow, even relatively minor, that's probably the timeline. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Moody Betts was back in the lineup after missing Wednesday with wrist soreness. He had at least a couple of hits in that game when I last checked. Salvador Perez was out of the lineup Thursday due to a sore left elbow. Brandon Nemo was out again, making that four games in a row with that AC joint sprain in his left shoulder. Chris Babitch received a Cortezone injection Thursday and will be shut down from throwing for seven to 10 days before a reevaluation. I'm starting to get the feeling we might not get anything else from Chris Babitch to rest of the way. Emerson Hancock is scheduled to a piggyback Logan Gilbert on Saturday, but they said the same thing last week. So who knows? Grant Holmes will start Friday against the Metz, even though it sounded just a couple days ago, like he would remain in the bullpen, but now scheduled to start on Friday. Connor Prelip will have his next turn in the rotation skipped as the twins monitor his workload. And Yankee's pitching prospect Carlos LaGronne was placed in the aisle at AAA with a right shoulder injury. Chris, when it rains, it pours. It is pouring on the Yankees right now. Not only are they on a seven game losing streak, but arguably they're two top prospects. Probably, I mean, maybe not arguably, but Lombard and Carlos LaGronne are both in the aisle in the minors right now. So it's-- - And haven't the raise one eight straight? - That sounds right. I think the Yankees over the past week have gone from three games up to like four and a half hours. - Yeah, I think the raise have not lost in the last, since the last time the raise, the Yankees one. - It's crazy, man. Those two sides have kind of just been flip flop in first place. - Yeah. - It's been pretty crazy. Three starting pitchers who might be cooked, and this first one, Chris, I think I know what you're gonna say. But this is now bordering out a really long sample for Framber Valdez, who at the Rangers, five innings, nine hits, five runs allowed, two walks, only one strikeout, only three whiffs, only a 17th percent CSW. This was against the Rangers lineup that did not have Cory Seeger, did not have Wyatt Langford in it. And that curveball just remains a massive problem. He had just one whiff on his curveball, just a 10% whiff rate. The whiff rate overall on that pitch is way down the season from 44% last year, 31% this year, 10 hard hits in this outing. And his last 28 starts now, dating back to last season. It is a 493 ERA and a 144 Whip, 7.1 Kper-9, 3.4 walks per nine. He might be cooked. - Might be. Yeah, he might be. I don't think so. But he might be. So entering this start over his previous, okay, let's just do the whole. Let's look at it. All right, he's got a, was a 429 ERA, 429 FIP over his last 18 starts. Yeah, he's had worse stretches or at least comparable stretches. He had a stretch in between 2024 and 2023, where he had 18 starts with a 423 FIP and a 451 ERA. He had a similar stretch a little later that season with a 410 ERA at just, I don't know, it doesn't, this is not a total outlier for a framer fall, it has his career. And it's always peaks and valleys. It's always bad good, bad good. And so it's possible that at 32 years old, this was one of the reasons I thought he was a risky free agent. It's possible that at 32 years old, he's just taken a huge step back. It feels like many other teams also thought he was a risky free agent. That's why he kind of settled on this deal here, settled, he's still making a lot of money. But it was, I think a three year deal that had player options or team options after each year deal. So I mean, it's far from a certain thing entering the off season. All the talk was that he would get a five, six, seven year deal, right? That's what he was looking for. Ranger Suarez got the five year deal all of it guaranteed. Framer Valdez did not get that. He's got this kind of, you know, one plus one plus one deal that a lot of players have been settling for. So it just, I don't know if there's any correlation or reason for why his second half was so bad last year. His first half has now been really bad. Like typically, he does have stretches where he struggles. Now maybe his second half is going to be really good. Like he was in the first half of last year. But there is nothing in the underlying numbers that say that is for fair name. Yeah, it's just the name and the track record. And that might, might not be enough. You know, when we talk about hitters, hitters are a lot less mercurial over the course of, you know, on any, even day, obviously, anything can happen with any hitter. But over the course of weeks and months and years, they tend to be a little more predictable than pitchers. And so I'm a lot more confident in tray turn for bouncing back than I am for Ampharamphaldez. And tray turn has already kind of started it. So I can't say I'm 100% certain that Fraamphaldez is bouncing back. But if someone dropped him, I mean, I would definitely add him. And if someone called me up and nobody's calling on trade offers, but, you know, offered me him for Michael McGreevy or something. Yeah, I'd absolutely do that. Yeah, I mean, something crazy like that. But I don't know that I would, unless it's a really, really low by low trade, I don't know that I would confidently give up, like a, I don't know, top 50 or top 60 starting pitcher to get Fraamphaldez right now. Yeah, I would want to buy low. Low-ear, yeah. Yeah, but like, okay, well, Ryan Weathers, would you rather have Ryan Weathers or Fraamphaldez? Yeah, I would take the shot on Valdez. How is this Soriana? I would have had Valdez. I would take the shot on Valdez as well. Redemers? I don't think I would do, I don't think I would give up my debt merge to get Valdez. So the thing with debt merge is the underlying numbers are a lot better than Valdez. I know the track record, like I don't like the, we don't have any. Redemers, but he's, he's also just ditched a lot better than he was. Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, there's are much better too. Those are guys in the 50 to 60 range for me. So like, you know, I'm looking at it like Casey Meyers, I would not, but that's also, I just need to move him up. He's just way too low in Marankings. I had an updated it. I moved him up like 45. I have him right behind Valdez now. That's, that was what I was thinking. But yeah, I think Valdez probably needs to be ranked in more like the 35 to 40 range now. Yeah, I think I had my four top 47. And I've been pretty stubbornly keeping him inside the top 30. So he's 71% started. he gets the athletics next week. They're eighth in WoaBug and lefties. I think if you can avoid it, I would try to. That's fair. Yeah. Let's talk about Davis Martin who looks like it might be fallen apart here at the Guardians who again, on paper, that should be a good matchup right now. I we've been saying that a lot lately. Maybe it's like those pesky Guardians are just going to keep proving us wrong. But three and a third innings six hits, two runs, five walks to zero strikeouts here for Davis Martin. And it's been a tale of two seasons. His first 11 starts to ERA 0.99 whip. The biggest standout skill for him was 1.9 walks per nine. And his location plus was 100 during that span. His last six starts, including this one, five 65 ERA 180 whip, nearly five walks per nine and 92 location plus. So clearly the gains that he made. And I know you've talked a lot about this Chris where like, I don't know how sticky that is from like start to start or month to month, right? Just someone having command and not, but we did have a longer track record where Davis Martin was not a very good command pitcher. So I don't know is he cooked? Is it falling apart? Probably. Yeah. But what's funny is the last six starts have been bad five 65 ERA you said, yep, it's two and a half bad starts really. Yeah, out of that six because today, that was bad star, five walks. But really in terms of their ERA, it's the six runs in four and a two thirds and then nine runs and three and a third. He actually had only allowed one earned run in three of his five starts before this one. Yeah, combined. So it's going bad. It's going really bad. Yeah, when it's going. And but I think the key thing to take to keep in mind with Davis Martin is he's never been good before this season. I don't want to be harsh. He's a majorly pitcher. There's value in that. But like, he's never been a fantasy relevant guy and all of a sudden, he was for two months. Two months isn't a very long time. And this was a situation where the underlying numbers largely backed it up. Sometimes guys just get hot for a couple of months. And that happens with hitters, but it happens with pitchers a lot more. And when you don't have something concrete, when you don't have something tangible to grab onto, you know, a big change in the pitch mix or a big change in the quality of the stuff. And there were some changes in the pitch mix for Martin the cutter, the curve ball were both up. But it wasn't like completely new pitches or completely new look or two miles per hour velocity. So it was mostly just that he was pitching really well for a couple of months. And sometimes guys do that. But there wasn't much tangible to hold on to. So yeah, I think at this point, you can probably give up on Davis Martin, but it's not a shock if he goes on another good run here. He's 95% rostered still. He's only 73% started. He gets the red socks next week who might be without Wilson, but their lineup has looked better as of late, but on the season, they haven't been a good lineup. I would not start Davis Martin the way the start that he's coming off of and his recent stretch. You talk about dropping him, right? Like would you drop him for you and see more? Yeah. Yeah. I think I would drop him for those other names too, like Trevor Rogers and Cantillo and. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Try, try, try meltin' especially. All right. Let's talk about Rocky Sasaki who another does terrible outing against the Padres three innings six runs allowed three homers in this one as well. The biggest problem for him is like walks in homeruns. It's just a terrible combination, right? Seven hard hits in this game, only through 60% of his pitches for strikes. On the season, 3.8 walks per nine, two homers per nine, which is just massive. And his last four starts, 1006 ERA 188 with. I'm not ruling out the possibility that Rocky Sasaki can figure things out again later on in the season and have a stretch where he is useful for fantasy, but right now he is very not useful. And I think he's an easy drop at 68% roster. Yeah. I mean, 540 ERA on the season now, the XERA is bad. He's never had a sustained stretch as a good major league starter. So I remain intrigued. He is a name I will keep an eye on as the season continues to move on. But yeah, I don't think there's any reason to hang on to him right now. All right. Let's take a break. Our final break. I've got some waiver names. We've got trade targets for the second half of the season. We'll do all that right after this. And you are probably tired of hearing about these hitters. I think I have mentioned them every day this week. It's it's kind of a running bit at least for Cedric Mullins who I will mention once again, by the way, as Merlin Valdez, he keeps on hitting two for four with a triple three RBI nine games since being recalled. He is 15 for 30 hitting 500 four homers 10 RBI clearly very hot right now. Not sure exactly how sustainable it is, but 36% roster. Someone who comes with prospect pedigree. I think in all five out of the other leagues, at least Chris, like you need to take a shot here just in case he's, you know, some big break out the rest of the way. Yeah. Likeliest outcome is this is a reshine situation where he just gets hot for a couple of weeks and it falls apart. But the strike at rate is down to 33%. That's still too high. But I think a couple of days ago it was 40%. So we're starting to see the improvement there. He hits the ball hard. There he was productive in the minors. I think any five out of literally, I think that's the right way to put it. Just check and see. Tommy Edmond, a name we have also been mentioning a lot lately, when two for four with a walk to runs an RBI here on Thursday. He also added his first stolen base of the season and originally was not in the lineup, but I saw Alex Reeling God scratch. So Edmond gets thrown in there. He's 35% roster. The Dodgers have six games next week. And Scott has the Dodgers with the fifth best hair matchups for next week. So I think he'll he's been kind of a streaky hitter the past couple of years. Maybe he's just finally healthy. I like the fact that he ran here, Chris. But if nothing else, I like using Tommy Edmond for next week. Yeah. I think the speed is the key thing we talked about him the other day. And Tommy Edmond's career high OPS 724. This is not a guy who has ever really had any fantasy appeal when he wasn't running at a decent clip. I guess last year he had that stretch. Was it early on last year? We hit for a bunch of power. Yeah, I think it was like six home runs in the first month. But outside of that, he's just never been a strong enough hitter to to be fantasy relevant without being at least a 20 steel guy. So that's what I want to see if he if he's going to run more. But it was good to see here at least. What do you like more between Valdez and Edmond just taking a shot? Probably Valdez. Admittedly, it's just the mystery box appeal, but I think the likely style come for neither is that they're very good. But Edmond's likely style come is probably likelier. Yeah. That makes sense. And he Rodriguez keeps doing his thing one for four with a walk in his fifth home run. Again, he's only started four of the past eight games. Seems like the pirates don't want to completely give up on Henry Davis, which I get he was first overall pick. So I think he's still going to work in here and there. But again, two catcher leagues. It's an interesting time because we've had any Rodriguez pop up and Joe Mac has looked really good over the past month or so and Cooper Engle getting called up. I do think any Rodriguez is at the top of that. Yes. You catcher league discussion. If you need to add one right now. Cedric Mullins. I mean, it's it's kind of just it's like a running bit now at this point, but he keeps doing stuff like last 36 games. He's hitting 287 with eight homers, five steals, an OPS over 850. He's got seven games next week. There's only one lefty on the schedule. To me, he's clearly behind Ezra Lin Valdez and Tommy Edmund, but like a hot hand. Got a bunch of games next week. Only one lefty on the schedule. Razor hitting well right now. Like why not? Deeper league. I could see it. Yeah. I don't think it's particularly likely that Cedric Mullins remains a starting caliber player. Moving forward, but he's clearly playing like one right now. So why not add him and see. Yeah. Like he has a bad week. You drop him, but I don't think there's any reason not to. I know you'll love this one. Chris, maybe the rays are working their magic on Cedric Mullins once again. Maybe. Carter Jensen, not much you could do with this in terms of waiver wire, but he hit his 13th home run last 22 games. He actually just had a 20 I think a 20 game hit streak or 21 game hit streak came to an end his previous game out. Then here hits another home run, but last 22. He'd off home or two. 337 home. 337 batting average. Six home runs. 17 runs scored. 19 RBI and OPS around 1000. He hit that home run off of Ian Seymour as well. His numbers are actually better against lefties this year than they are against righties, which I always like to see that from a young hitter. The if you show your team that you can hit as a lefty against lefties, that will there's nothing else that you can do to make yourself an everyday player than that. And that is exactly what Carter Jensen has been doing. So Kudos to him looks like he is he's taking off. A lot of people had him as a breakout this season. Other waiver wire hitters that I have here, Jake McCarthy. He has been hot for a while now. Last 30 games. He's hitting 317 five homeers, four steals. An OPS right around 900. He's 63% rostered. So that number has really climbed up there. Seven road games next week. Three lefties on the schedule. I don't know. Not sure about using Jake McCarthy for now, but he's actually been pretty good against lefties, but it's mostly babbip. Yeah. I think Scott mentioned yesterday that he's he's actually been pretty good on the road this year as well. Like he doesn't have the crazy home road splits. Yeah, 767 OPS on the road, a 51 at home before this. Yeah, 84 now at home, but 767 on the road, not not terrible. Yeah. I.e. I don't think he really needs to be rostered anymore than 63%. You've got I am. You know, this is the first week where they've played five games at Cores Field. That's probably why he's reached this high watermark. I can't imagine really adding him into points league outside of weeks when they're all at home. Yeah. So it's strictly a road. Oh, thing. And I think 63% roster is probably about the ceiling. Taylor Simpson is coming back around here a little bit. He just picked up another steal last 11 games. He's hitting 400 with six deals. Also three more caught stealing terrain that's banny. He has 20 steals and 11 caught stealing the season, which is just. It just goes to show that it's more than just speed, right? It's like there are things that you need to pick up on just to be a good base runner and a good base dealer, right? Like Josh Neller is the complete opposite. You know, Josh Neller. Taylor Simpson had Josh Neller is like instincts on the pace paths. Who knows how many bases he would steal. But he's down to 69% roster. I think that number is fine. I don't think he needs to be rostered in points leagues, but probably still should be rostered in all category leagues. The playing time has ticked back up for Simpson as well. So that's good for him. One more deeply outfielder here is Nathan Church who hit a seventh home run. He is homeward in two of his last three games. And in 21 games since returning, he's hitting 271 two homeers 10 runs at a steal. Single handedly keeping Joshua by his down in the minors right now. I guess 9% rostered. Chris, would you put church behind? You know, Mullins and Edmund and as Roland Valdez. Yeah, I would. I would put them behind all those. Yes. All right. Some waiver wire starting pictures outside of Ian Seymour. Again, I think would be at the top of this list. I'm about to mention, but Walbert, Arania, nearly unhiddible at the Marlins five and two thirds. One hit, one run, took a no hitter into the sixth inning, four more walks, six strikeouts, 17 whiffs on 107 pitches. And we're talking beforehand, Chris. He gives me Edward Cabrera vibes where his secondary stuff is so good. His four Seymour is actually pretty good too, but his sinker just gets hit really hard. And I think it's just really difficult for him to command his fastball and sinker. And so that's why he does throw his secondary pitches as much as he does. But 58% rostered at the Rangers next week. I kind of just feel like that number should be higher. And I would be all right using him in that matchup. Yeah, I guess. So here's, here's the problem over the past five seasons and during this one. So 2021 to 25 past five seasons. There have been one starting pitcher who qualified for the ERA title and had a higher walk rate than Walbert, Arania's current 12.1%. Can I guess who it is? Sure. Blake's now Blake's now 2023 when he was at the year he won. Sion. I just remember because he led the league and walks and he was on the same season. And the thing is that if you go through the pitchers who have, there have been five pitchers in those five years who have had any a walk rate over 11%. And they've all been good actually. It's code I sang in 2021, Lance McCulloch's in 2021. Charlie Mornin 2023 Gavin Williams in 2025. They all had an ERA of 364 or lower. There's, I mean, the thing there is you basically have to strike out a ton of batters and run really hot in terms of your results on balls and play to survive with a walk rate that high. Walbert, Arania's doing that right now and he's generating a ton of week contact contact on the ground. He's got a pretty good strike out rate and he's doing it right now. It's just really hard to do this for a full fine line. It's a very fine line. There's a reason that the next two are Jose Sorgano who has had stretches where he was good. But it's just really hard to be an effective major league pitcher with a walk rate over 10%. I'm not saying Walbert or Arania needs to be dropped because of his walk rate or anything. I think even adding him 58% rostered. I think that's that's fine. It's just I like the matchup makes me to add Texas, but it's just, it's hard for me to fully buy in with a 12% walk rate. Fair. Yeah. I totally get that. Hurston Waldrop a mixed bag in his first start here against the Cardinals five in a third, three runs, four strikeouts to one walk, nine whiffs on 76 pitches here. 24% rostered. I'm not sure how the braze rotation will kind of shake out and how they're going to stand out. But he could be a two star pitcher next week. It could just be one start at the pirates. I think in deeper leagues where Hurston Waldrop is my guess is available because, you know, he's only 24% rostered. I would think it's shot in a deeper league and just see where it goes. I'm not sure we're there on like 12 in 12 teamers yet, but you're really so I'm pretty intrigued. This is Waldrop, right? Yeah. Yeah, I was just looking up to see. Why is it so hard to find this? It should be easier. Okay, because he barely threw his splitter in this one, which is weird because that's kind of always been his go to pitch. I think it was his third most use pitch in this one. He only threw it fourth most use pitch. He only threw it seven times on 76 pitches. That hadn't been the case entering this. He had thrown it about 17% of the time in the minors, 27% in his first couple of his first appearance. So I don't think there's any change there. I think he just didn't have the feel for the splitter and I like the way he bounced back. You know, he had the tough first inning gave up three runs, but ends up after that four plus innings, four strikeouts, one walk. I think you're pretty happy with that. So I think Waldrop's talented. 24% rostered. I think I'd drop Rookie Sasaki for him. Yeah. If that's the best guy available. Yeah, just see what's there with Waldrop. I mean, this was a former first round pick. He looked really good down the stretch last year as well. And there will be inconsistency. We say this a lot with splitter pitchers. Like it's it's a very hard pitch to command. But last year that splitter was. Good. Waldrop. And his he had other pitches here that kind of picked him up. His sinker worked really well. His curve ball looked really, really good for Waldrop. His curve ball was good last year too. Like his splitter and curve are two legit pitches. It's just can his sinker be just okay enough? Like can it not get hit really like too hard to the point where it's just like serviceable with those other two really good secondary pitches? That that to me and the command is are the biggest questions. But I I'm intrigued by her. So Waldrop. And then the last name here is Jared Jones who had a better result at the Phillies. Four innings one run six strikeouts. 11 whiffs on 73 pitches. I thought it was a step in the right direction. Chris, I think we still need to see a good amount. A good bit more before we are actually adding re adding or using him in our lineups. He's still only had one start in seven with more than 77 pitches. That was when he got to 81 in his previous start. And that was a start where he pitched into the fifth inning. And then they pulled him mid inning when his pitch got count got too high. So like he had if he had finished that inning with 75 pitches, that would have been it for him. They just seem to have a pretty hard ceiling on how many pitches they're going to let Jared Jones throw. Maybe that'll change in the second half. Maybe that's the plan. But right now they're still basically picking back him with Carmen Maginski. And it's it's hard to trust Jared Jones for fantasy as long as that's the case. All right. Here we are. If you clicked on this video, you're probably wondering where are the trade targets? That's what the thumbnail says. We're going to be talking about. Well, you know, it took us 49 minutes. But here we are. We have players who will provide fireworks in the second half of the season. Again, happy Fourth of July to everybody out there. Stay safe this weekend. I know things could get a little bit crazy Fourth of July weekend. But these are players that you should be looking to buy that we think are going to have really, really big second halves of the season. And with that, Chris, why don't you give me a couple of hitters first that you are. You'd be looking to buy low on that you think could go off. So a bunch of obvious names, Ronald Cunio, whenever he's healthy. He was one of the biggest underperformers by X-Wobba before the injury. For another Tatees, obviously, we're starting to see him pick it up. I think we already have. Julio Rodriguez, one of the most obvious ones. He's always better in the second half in the first. And I think that'll continue to be the case. Kyle Tucker, we're already seeing it. He's reached base. I believe nine straight played appearances. As of Thursday night, I know it's been a disaster season for Kyle Tucker. And a lot of people have, I think, given up on him. I don't know, dude. He's still 29 years old. He still has this incredible track record. He's still on the Dodgers. As bad as it's been, he's still on like a 90 run, 87 RBI pace. If he hits anywhere close to himself, he's going to be a monster in the second half. We're starting to see. He had five hits, four hits in a walk. Today, he had four walks on Wednesday night. I think Kyle Tucker's going to be my favorite. much better in the second half than the first. I'll take, you know, set the OPS at 830 in the second half. He's at 743 right now. I'll take the over on that. But my actual pick is Mani Machado, who I think we've already started to see it. Over his past 21 games after Thursday, he has six homeers, his strikeout rate below 20%, average X velocity up to 91 miles per hour. Badding average has been a little low, but the overall production starting to look like what you expect to see from Mani Machado. And it's Mani Machado, you know, that's part of my optimism. It's just, yeah, Mani Machado's gonna be better than this moving forward. That won't be true eventually. He has 33 years old, age catches up to everyone, but I'm gonna bet on this dude being a 790 OPS 25 to 30 homeer guy in the second half of the season, because that's what he almost always is. If you look at his pace numbers in terms of homeers and run production, it's actually right there. The only thing that's lagging is, I don't know that he's gonna run much anymore, but the badding average has just been, he got off to such a bad start that despite him hitting well over the last 20 games, it's still just not enough to pick it up to where it should be. One or he will get it to where it needs to be by the end of the season, but all we care about now as looking to trade for someone is that can he hit to his numbers the rest of the way? Can he hit to a 260 badding average the rest of the way? Probably could. - 1.93 Babib. - Well, that is just, I don't care how, like, either a 1.93 Babib is a total fluke or you are not a majorly caliber hitter. And nothing about what Mani Machado is doing so far suggests that he is no longer a majorly caliber hitter. So I think he'll hit, you know, maybe it's more like 260 moving forward. Okay, you know, we're in the decline phase, that's reasonable, but the power's been there, he's not striking out significantly more than in the past. I think Mani Machado is gonna be the guy you expect him to moving forward. - All the projection systems on Fangrass have Machado for between a 240 and 260 badding average, 13 to 15 home runs and like 40 to 50 runs in RBI. - It's a must-start player. - So yeah, hitters that I'm looking to buy as well, you mentioned a few of them, right? Julio just makes so much sense, he goes off in the second half, assuming that there's no like concussion issues going on here. But it did look up the last 30 day X-Wobba leaderboard. And Julio has actually been really unlucky over the last 30 days as well. He's hitting 258, 340 slug, 307, Wobba, last 30. And his expected stats, 308 XBA, 503 X slug. Underperforming that by like 160 points and a 382 X-Wobba, which is like 75 points off. So he has been really, really unlucky based on the expected stats the last 30 days. Tateesi mentioned he's already got it going, but the overall numbers just don't reflect it yet. His last 30, 95.1 average EV, 14% barrel rate, 11 degree launch angle, which is much better. 312 XBA 517 X-Lug 378 X-Wobba. And I'm pretty sure that coincides almost perfectly with him changing his setup in the box. He made some mechanical adjustments, opened his swing up, and I think that helps for sure. And this is kind of an aside, I don't spend too much time in it, but I just, I wonder how things like that happen for hitters, because there was a game recently, like an ESPN game where, oh, I think it said Warro Perez, right? He does the broadcast on ESPN. He did like this great side by side breakdown of like Tateesi swing last year and his swing this year. And it just seemed so obvious, right? Like the things to change. And he said, I brought this to Tateesi and I showed him, like, hey, man, this is, this was your batting since last year when you hit for a bunch of power and this is it now. I just wonder how hitters kind of get in a funk like that and just kind of get so off mechanically. Yeah, that's why I'm always hesitant to like, offer that kind of solution because I'm nobody. I'm not like, I'm a dough, they know infinitely more. Yeah, like, like, I, I'm able to figure something out. I guarantee you someone in the Padres for an office, someone in that coaching staff is already on top of it. There's no way, no reason to believe that I, I am ahead of the curve in that way. And so, but these things are hard and it's hard to make changes mid season and it's hard to like, you get into a comfort zone and a hitter can feel good and like in Tateesi's case, he was hitting the ball really hard all the time. So who are you going to tell him, like, oh, the ball's just not dropping in is his view. I mean, you know, I assume, but I think it's good that he's already started to make those changes. And yeah, I'll be, I'll be very surprised if Fernando Tatees is not one of the 20 best players in fantasy in the second half. Some hitters in the mid tier that I would be looking to buy for the second half, Riley Green, last 30 days, 94.5 average EV 17% barrel rate. And I think big power is coming here in the summer months, you know, typically early on in the season, playing in Detroit and some of those like AL Central ball parks like ball just doesn't travel as well. I do think we could get a big power summer here from Riley Green. And I mentioned Wilson, Catreras, no, William Catreras, excuse me, the catcher William Catreras a few weeks back. And I'm sticking with this one. His ground ball rate is down quite a bit. The season, his pole air rate is up to a career high 18%. So he's another one where, again, as the weather's heating up, juice ball, all the stuff, I could see some big power months coming here from William Catreras as well. Even though like, Catreras are pretty loaded. Yeah, that's the thing I've been struggling with when I'm doing my rankings. Like, I don't really want to move William Catreras down. I, I still have a lot of faith in him, but, but it's just, there's a lot of good catchers out there. Yeah, I updated the rankings today. I kept them at four in my catcher rankings. You have them in the same spot, but. I think in Roto, he's five. It's loaded, man. It's yeah, you look at the top. I lowered Cal Raleigh to 10. I haven't been able to get there yet, but I get it. Yeah. You know, it's just like, dude, Dylan Dingler, breakout season hunter Goodman, already has like 27 home runs and. I did move Dylan Dingler ahead of Cal Raleigh a couple of weeks ago, which I know is too late for a lot of people, but whatever. I'm slow. Ivan Herrera, you know, breakout season for. Oh, yeah, he's, he's been awesome. Yeah. And then I do have two lower end names that I'd be looking to buy as well. Another catcher, right? It's just like catcher so talented right now. But Gabrielle Moreno, he's having a solid season overall, but similar to Contreras, his ground ball rate is down two years in a row. And he has a career high barrel rate. And his pulled air rate has been up two years in a row. So I do think we can get a big power second half from Gabrielle Moreno. And Lars Newport, which could be out there in some like, you know, on the way to wire still. And I get it. And he's not playing against every lefty, but. It's always kind of in the case, but man, like his, his stack has stuff and his quality of contact is just really, really good early on. And just kind of wondering like, is he finally healthy? Right? Like he had this surgery that he needed for a while. And maybe, maybe it's just finally coming together. By the way, like Lars, if on her 10th in the majors, and OBP right now, 10th in the majors, I think he's like top 30 overall in X-WOBA this season. His walk rate is way up. He has also been hit by a major league high 23 pitches. That's weird. Although Sam Antenach is going to catch up to him. He's already a 17. Ivan Herrera 42nd among qualified hitters in X-WOBA. Now he's really good. He's going to have a 2010 season. And I think if the, he could very easily get hot and get the 25 owners, I think. On the pitcher side, Chris, we don't have as many names as we do for the hitters, but we both landed on the top ace to buy for the second. Brian Will. I think that one's fairly obvious. There's no good explanation for why he's struggled. We have still seen some really, really dominant starts from Brian Will. He's still doing a really good job of limiting damage on contact. His strikeout rate's a little lower than last year, but it's within three percentage points. I don't think that's really a worry. None of the underlying stuff with the pitch mix looks all that concerning. I think the 332 XERA, that's a lot more like what I expect from Brian Will moving forward. Yeah. He was the exact one. I think this is your last chance to buy. I think we could talk about Brian Will a month from now. His ERA at this moment is 417. I think it could be a full run lower than that a month's time from now. He could just get it all the way down. It could be more than a four. I don't know what the math on that is, but it doesn't sound unreasonable to me. If he goes on a stretch where he has a sub-2 ERA for four or five stars, I don't think that would surprise anybody. The home road splits have been really weird this year. I totally get that if you have Brian Will, it's been frustrating. But if you don't have Brian Will, I would try to pray on those who are frustrated by Brian Will. I think we're both in agreement there. The other name I had was E and C. Maritz wanted to give him another shout out. If he just remains in the rotation, I think he could be a really big second half here. Maybe someone we're talking about, you know, pie in the sky, right? If he just remains in the rotation, he could be talking about him as like a top 40, top 30 starting pitcher by seasons end. Eramah. He reminds me of Chris Boobitch last year. Lefty doesn't have big velocity, actually below average velocity. I think he in Simor sits around 92 miles per hour, but just the pitch plays up for whatever reason. It's the arm slot of the left handedness. He, I think he's pretty good. I do wanna add Yuri Perez is another choice here. He's been pretty disappointing this season, and the underlying numbers are not great because he does give up a lot of hard contact in the air. His walk rate has been really, really bad, but he's 23 years old. He's got some of the best stuff in baseball. If you trust any of the stuff metrics, he writes out, like right there at the top of the list with anyone. The control's been bad, but it's been much better lately. And I like the fact that he went on the IL at the end of May. I don't like that he went on the IL at the end of May. But I like that since going back, he had started to show much better control. The past two starts before going on the IL. He goes on this weird one-start rehab assignment comes back way sooner than anybody expected. And the control has mostly been pretty good. - And he pitch well in course field. The one start where the control was bad was at course field, I think that's understandable. So I continue to think, given how young he is and how good the stuff is, Yuri Perez is going to be an ace at some point. I just, let's bet on it being in the second half, right? - All right, I did have a segment set up here. Chris Towers appreciation day for his birthday weekend. I was gonna go through some of the players you've been most right about so far this season. I did go through all of your sleepers, breakouts, and bus articles. - I'm sure there were some real bad calls in there. - Well, we don't have to talk about those. But I think it just starts right at the top. Nobody in the industry, at least from what I saw, put their neck out there more for Yordon Alvarez than you did this year. And that has paid off handsomely. - They were just given him away. There were 15 team drafts where you could get him in like the fourth round at times this year. It was just, I passed on him in the third round of TGFBI and I'm pretty sure you laughed at me the next day. - Yeah, that is a mistake. - I thought they're green who literally got hurt the next day. - Look, there is still, there's a lot of season left. He could still get hurt. I think if Yordon Alvarez doesn't play another game, he was worth the pick. Given how good he's been so far. - He is the leading AL MVP candidate this year. - Past me, yeah. - Although Junior Kevin Eros making a, is making a bit of a, - Ah! - year. - Yeah. - Not coming Eros. - We played the full song yesterday. - Chris, I love that. - Yeah, yeah. - Six games in a row with a homer? - Six games in a row, nine home runs in his last eight. That was the fourth Thursday, which is just crazy stuff. Some of their sleepers and breakouts that you've been dead on so far this season, Kate Smith, Chase Burns, Cosima Okamoto, Parker Messek, Jack Caglione, mostly June, but we'll give that one to you. Ivan Herrera and JJ Weatherhill, those are all names I saw in your sleepers and breakouts. - Right. - That's really good so far. And then Bust, that you got right so far. Lots of injuries on here, but I didn't read the articles, but I would imagine that like injuries were probably a reason why you were worried about these pictures. - Oh, very much so, yeah. - Like Snale, Spencer Shrider, Carlos Estes, I think we, that was kind of like the free square. - Was everybody in the industry? - Luis Robert, who just can't stay healthy. And then Chandler Simpson, who I think you've mostly been right about so far. - Yeah, I love it when we say nice things about Chris. - Yeah, there you go. Make sure everyone completely floods Chris this weekend on Twitter, on X, on Blue Sky, just send him all the birthday wishes. Hitting leftovers, South Stewart took the Miz deep and he's picking things back up last 15 games, 300 batting average, four homers, 17 RBI at 928 OPS. Mickey Moniac is getting hot as well. He is homered in three straight. Brian Roqueo hit his sixth home run, three RBI, a walkoff against Grant Taylor, more on that a bit. But this was Brian Roqueo's first home run since June 6th, in 21 games in between. He hit 234 with a 597 OPS. So kind of think at 66% roster, that number is too high for Brian Roqueo. Jordan Walker hit his 19th home run, but we should mention that this is his first home run since June 13th. And in 14 games between homers, he hit 235 zero extra base hits, 32% strike at rate, 521 OPS, 53% ground ball rate. Are you worried about Jordan Walker? - Yes, I know. Yes, I am worried. No, I'm not worried. No, look, the underlying numbers have gotten worse as the season has gone on. Over the past 100 played appearances, it's something like a 330 X-woaba, which is still playable, but it's not like he was looking like one of the best players in baseball for a couple of months there. And I don't think he's that, but that's not really a knock on him. If he's a top 50 player in fantasy the rest of the way, that's still a huge win for your fantasy team. So I think you'll take that from Jordan Walker. - Yeah, I'm not worried about it, especially when it's the strikeouts and the ground ball rate that is kind of climbing up here for Jordan Walker, those are things that have been issues for him in the past. He went through a stretch in May where he struggled and then he got back out of it and he bounced crazy. - And now we need to see him do that again. Like, pictures are making adjustments to him. We have to see Jordan Walker make that adjustment back. It is, I'm not gonna say, like I don't think it's completely black and white. Like, we're at a fork in the road where this kind of determines his season. But I could see like, if he doesn't get out of this slump soon, that maybe it's kind of extended and maybe he starts to get in his head a little bit. So we'd like to see, obviously this is a good game. Good first game. - Yeah. - But we need to obviously see him get back on track here. That's Jordan Walker. Some pitching left over, Chase Burns, out dual Jacob Mizierowski, six innings, two runs, four strikeouts here. Jacob Mizierowski himself, he looked a little bit more human, five innings, five hits, five runs. Only one of those was earned, but it was till 10 strikeouts to zero walks. He gave up a three run homer after an error that started the inning. And there would have been three outs in the inning if it wasn't for that error. So off a 102 mile per hour pitch, by the way. - Who hit that off of him? - A South Stewart. It was that homerun? - I believe so, yeah. - I think no, it's South Stewart hit his in the first inning. So I think it was-- - Oh, okay. - There were two other players at Homer in that game. I think it was like TJ Friedel and Jose Trevino. - Yeah, TJ Friedel did Homer today, yeah. - I don't know which one of them hit it off of the Miz, but one of them did. - Yeah. - It's just kind of weird, but he's still has double digit strikeouts in seven of 17 starts this year. - He's awesome. - I moved him ahead of Paul Schien's this week, which sounds obvious now, but I don't know. - Yeah, okay, that is not the hardest hit ball, or hardest thrown ball that has been hit for a Homer. There have been nine homeruns off of pitches, 102 miles an hour or a harder. - I think say a Suzuki hit one off of them last week, that was like 102 or 103, something like that. - It doesn't say here that that's happened, but apparently Mason Miller gave a 104, a homerun on 104 mile an hour pitch to someone in 2025. I don't remember that one. Me neither. - And the last leftover here is Nathan of Aldi, who had a mixed start against the Tigers. Five innings, three runs, nine strikeouts to one walk, two homers loud, 18 whiffs on 85 pitches. You dig into Nathan of Aldi, Chris, it's kind of a weird season for him, because the ERA is elevated, but the strikeouts have been awesome this year. His swing, strike rate is by far a career high, 14.5%. His home runs per nine are up from 0.7 to 1.6, despite his fly ball rate and his barrel rate being very similar to last year. So I don't really know what to make of the home runs being up for Aldi this season. - Yeah, I wanted to see if maybe it's because he's leaning in on the all that kind of oops, all secondaries approach. His fastball usage is down to 12.5%, the lowest of his career. - I think the exit velocity on his splitter is up quite a bit this season. - Yeah, he's given up multiple home runs on all five of his pitches, four on the splitter, four on the cutter, five on the four seamer. So that doesn't really seem to be the explanation, just maybe the effectiveness hasn't been where you want it to be, but I think on the whole, you're still pretty happy with Nathan of Aldi. It's just, maybe he's certainly not the two ERA guy who was last year. Well, this sub two, I think it was sub two. - I think I just found the issue. His four seam fastball this season has a four, 15 adding average against and a 774 slug. - That's bad. - Last year it was 266 and 457. - Yeah, that's bad. - So, I mean, he hasn't throw the fastball very much, but I know it's whenever he does, it kind of gets clobbered. The call to the bullpen for the pirates with a five run lead Gregory Toto got the eighth inning facing the top of the Phillies lineup. He tossed the clean inning and then it was Mason Montgomery who got the ninth and he struck out the side to close it out. Mason Montgomery has now closed out two of their last two wins in a row, I guess. And he's only 3% rostered. If you are speculating on saves or you have Gregory Toto, I mean, I think Mason Montgomery's probably the guy to add. - I would also add, they were up by five by the time he pitched, but they were only up two, heading into the eighth inning. They scored two in the top of the eighth. I think Soto was just lined up to get the hold there. They scored two at the top of the eighth. Montgomery was likely already warming up for the ninth anyway when they scored another run in the ninth. So I think that's probably, it's speculative, but I think this was lining up for Montgomery to get a save if they hadn't added those. For the White Sox, Grant Taylor entered in the eighth inning with a one run lead. He walked one, but got out of it. And then he came back out for the ninth. It was a walk in out and then a walk off to run Homer to Brian Roqueo. This White Sox bullpen is just struggling right now. Grant Taylor's stuff, if you watch him pitch, he's disgusting and his underlying numbers are fantastic. But lately, whenever he's been given a high leverage opportunity, he hasn't really come through. I was tweeting about this earlier and some people responded that like, they think the usage of him trying to go more than one inning is kind of what's affecting him. And that could be a possibility. So I would like to see the White Sox just like, man, give him confidence. Use him in the ninth inning, traditional closer and let's see what he could do. Like stop trying to do the multi-inning safe thing with Grant Taylor. Is there anybody else in this bullpen that you would look at right now for the White Sox? I don't think so. And what's really frustrating about this little slump for Taylor, he could have played a way with the job by now. It would, I think it would have been his job if he had just pitched well. I think they were ready to do that. And he's just really struggled over the past two, three weeks. And so that's kind of, that's been the stumbling walk for him. Yeah. For the raise, Brian Baker picked up his 20 second save, what a season 189 ERA and a point eight four with for him. And for the Mariners, Andres Munoz got the ninth with a one run lead. He allowed three base runners, but managed to escape with his 16th save of the season. To stream or not to stream on Friday, we have Andre Palante at the Cubs, Trevor Rogers at the Reds, Anthony Kay at the Guardians, Christian Scott at the Braves, Grant Holmes against the Metz, Jake Bennett at the Angels, Luis Castillo against the Blue Jays. Yeah, Bennett, Rodgers, Kay. I think I was the Luis Castillo. I'd go with over K. Yeah, I like it. I wouldn't be surprised if Jack Perkins had a good start. His underlying stuff is really good. His stuff is good and it gets a course hangover game for the Marlins. So, you know, wouldn't be surprised if they're off on struggling a little bit here. Yeah, definitely like Bennett, Rodgers, Castillo as the top three, but yeah, I could see Perkins and Anthony Kay maybe having some good starts. On Saturday's Debbie Matthews at the Yankees, Jack Flaretees at the Rangers, Kumaraka against the Tigers, Brandon Young at the Reds, Sean Manaya at the Braves, Merrill Kelly against the Brewers. Boy, I think I like three or four different guys on Friday, more than anyone on Saturday. If you were pitching in the majors right now, I would stream you against the Yankees. I don't think that's true. I'm not built up, so I wouldn't go deep into the games. I've got if he control, I don't think it would work out. Frank is frozen, so I'm going to move on to Sunday and we will see if we can get Frank in. Sunday's streamers, Eric Fettie at Cleveland, Matthew Libertor at the Cubs, Javier Assad versus the Cardinals, Aaron Nola at the Royals, Luinda Avila versus the Phillies, Peter Lambert versus the Reyes, Brandon Sprote at the Diamondbacks, Ryan Johnson versus the Red Sox. I don't really like any of these guys either. Yeah, I can't bring myself to trust Brandon Sprote. I can't bring myself to trust Peter Lambert, so I'm going to pass on Sunday, I guess the best option is probably Sprote as a high variance option for this weekend streamers. And we are going to wrap there for myself, for Frank whenever he is. Thanks as always for tuning in to fans of baseball. We'll be back again next week. Bye-bye! [Music] Paramount podcasts. Where are you sending us? This is a fun one. Streaming to light 23rd on Paramount Plus, the hit series Star Trek, Strange New Worlds returns. You are facing the finest crew in Starfleet. Boldly go, one step closer. Any of these missions could be unost. To where it all began. We've seen a lot of strange new worlds. But we'll never see something like this. Star Trek, Strange New Worlds. New season, streaming to light 23rd, exclusively on Paramount Plus.