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Speaker 3♪ I know, value's so high, but ADP's so low. Frank loves him some kind of joe. Now let's get on with the show. ♪
Speaker 1Happy Cocoa Bowl Friday and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball Today on September 11th. I am Frank Stamfel, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, Jared Jones is on fire. We had a vintage day for Jacob deGrom. We'll preview the weekend for those who play in daily lineup leagues. I have a whole bunch of hitters to stream, good matchups, players if you need steals. We'll talk to stream or not stream. And what went wrong in the first round this year? A lot. We'll talk about it. Let's jump in. Can you believe it? Wow! All right, the players of the night. And I will kick us off with Jared Jones because I mentioned him up at the top. And he took a no-hitter into the game. The seventh inning here at the Nationals, he has been lights out over his last two starts. Seven shutout innings in this one. One hit, two walks, eight strikeouts, 20 whiffs on 90 pitches, 12 of those on the slider, six on the fastball. If you look over his last two starts, it is 13 shutout innings with 17 strikeouts to three walks. In those two starts, he has 12 and 19 whiffs only on his slider in those respective starts. So the slider is performing very well. And even on the season, entering this start, 40% whiff rate on the slider, 40% whiff rate on his changeup, too. So just gets whiffs up and down. And it feels like the Pirates are kind of letting him go a little bit here. Towards the end of the season, he's gone 90-plus pitches two in a row after not throwing 90 pitches in a start all season. He is 63% rostered. He gets the Brewers next time out, which is a bad matchup. They are very good against right-handed pitching. They put the ball in play. But I think if Jared Jones is on... And he's pitching like this, it might not matter who the matchup is. What do you guys think?
Speaker 4I don't think it's enough for me to be willing to start him against the Brewers.
Speaker 5I mean, I'd be willing to. I don't think I would. I just... I would have to not have, like... I would have to have, like, a bad alternative, I think.
Speaker 4Because it's not like we've never seen Jared Jones dominate over two-start stretches before. Like, he has really good stuff. It's just a consistency issue. And, uh... He's thrown a ton of strikes these last two starts. I imagine his location has peaked. Because it doesn't look like the stuff itself has changed that much. So, you know, hopefully it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully he can ride this momentum into sleeper or breakout status for next year. But the Brewers seems like too formidable of a matchup that I'm going to be looking to start him next week.
Speaker 5And I think... It is tempting to take a couple of good starts in a row and say, ah, he's building forward momentum. Sometimes that's how it works. Not all the time, though. Yuri Perez had, like, three good months in a row. And he's been awful for the last, what, like, three starts in a row? I think Yuri's been bad. Andrew Painter had a great month. And he struggled right when everybody was finally starting to... to add and start him everywhere. Like, we say it all the time, but progress is not linear. There are starts and stops along the way. And some of the most famous last words in fantasy baseball analysis are, ah, he's turned the corner. I would like to believe that Jared Jones has just figured it out and will be great forever more. And maybe he will run through the finish line and give us... I don't know, three more great starts is probably what he's got left. And that would be awesome. I'm definitely rooting for that. But we've certainly seen great starts from Jared Jones before. We had a three-start stretch from July 8th through the 24th where he had... Let's see if I can do some quick math in my head. 22 strikeouts to two walks over 17 innings. He followed that up with a quality start at... Versus Arizona. He followed that up with a 740 ERA in the month of August. And so it's just to say, it might be that Jared Jones is figuring it out. But this is not the first great stretch we have seen from him. And it certainly won't be the last. The question is, how many bad stretches are in his future? Certainly some. He's probably not the best pitcher in Major League history. So there will be a bad stretches at some point in the future. Is it a half season of bad stretches ahead? Is it three starts in a row? I have no idea what the answer is. I hope he's figured it out. But even before the injuries, we saw great stretches from him. And he was never consistent. So I hope he finishes the season out strong. I think if he does, his price is going to be very, very high next season. I think it's probably going to be very, very high anyway. And I think you just have to look at Emmett Sheehan and Uri Prokofiev. Perez and a lot of those guys this year who were breakout picks and had forward momentum. And things can go wrong for young pitchers without the track record. That's not to say you shouldn't pick on them. That's not to say you shouldn't bet on them. But it is to say that some skepticism is warranted.
Speaker 4Why do you think it's going to be very, very high, the cost? A guy with a 450 ERA who isn't even two-thirds rostered on the platform. Where a starting pitcher often is over-rostered.
Speaker 5It's very, very high. I mean, like Emmett Sheehan's price last year. You know, around SP 35 to 40. It's not going to be that high. Maybe not quite that high.
Speaker 4I think so. There's no way. There's too many. Like he's never, in my rest of season rankings, Jared Jones has never come close to that. Maybe when he first came off the IL.
Speaker 5There's too many good pitchers for him to be that high. In that meatball draft that we talked about last week with KC Bubba, he went 105th. That's a sample size of one. That's a sample one. I agree.
Speaker 4That person could be Jared Jones' childhood friend for all you know.
Speaker 5Sure, it could be. But I'm just letting you know.
Speaker 4Would you take Kyle Harrison over Jared Jones? I'm not saying what I would do. Well, would you expect Kyle Harrison, who's had many, many more successful starts and has been universally rostered for most of this season, unlike Jones, you'd expect him to go ahead of Jones next year?
Speaker 5I would. But we'll see how the rest of the season goes.
Speaker 1Cavalli will. I think Logan Henderson will. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But I think Jones versus Harrison is really close. I think Jones is going to go pretty high next year. And I know, Scott, you referenced the 450 ERA. We know that ERA isn't everything. I know that you know that as well. But he has a 370 FIP. His XERA entering the start was...
Speaker 4But even that's not that great.
Speaker 1I'm not saying he should. - That's good. all love we all love whiffs he has a 14 swinging strike rate and i i don't know who else has a
Speaker 4swinging strike rate that high that got the player the pitcher i'm about to talk about i'm not saying
Speaker 5jared jones should go this high i just think he is going to be a very very popular breakout candidate next season that may be but like and i would definitely if you set you over under at 140
Speaker 1i would take the under yeah he'll be inside i think he'll be a sing i think he'll be a single
Speaker 4digit round pick i think i'm gonna be here for it too you think he's gonna go ahead of braxton ashcroft like i think so let me see some of the pitchers i have well not necessarily but what
Speaker 1what the offseason brings with his injury will i think yeah we'll see what the arm do you think
Speaker 5he's gonna go ahead of yuri perez no no but i think yuri perez might be a carlos rodon yes oh
Speaker 4definitely i think taj bradley yes yeah uh michael king probably yeah
Speaker 5troy melton uh yes i think once we get a little distance from troy melton and we the skills are so good skills are better yeah well i i don't know if they are like i think the swing and miss skills are definitely better i don't know if the rest of the skill set for jared jones is but scott i'm just warning you i'm just warning you that's fine like i i think this
Speaker 4is what's gonna happen and i don't have to take them like if if i have any influence and i'd like to think i do i don't know uh it's gonna be that's gonna be uh it's gonna be a hard one to get jared
Speaker 5jones that high like he never ranked that high this year i agree with you why would we do that i don't disagree with you i am just i i think you need to um you need to protect your heart on on jared jones and his 2027 price because it's going to be higher than you think yeah and i think
Speaker 1i'm gonna be here for it uh against the brewers next week it's tough i totally get that um i also might add him just to keep him away from whoever i might be facing in my league too it looks like he might line up for two in the final week uh he gets the cardinals and he would be lined up to start the final day of the season really hard to predict that far out if the pirates are out of it they might just shut him down so it's hard to say but he might also be a two-star pitcher cardinals and tigers final week which is a pretty good matchup so uh i would still be looking to add jared jones even if you're not using him
Speaker 4next week scott over to you for your player of the night well i'm gonna i'm probably gonna sound more positive talking about this guy like he's not as good as jared jones but i think it is time to give christian javier his flowers he had a really good start here against uh against the phillies of all teams one run in six innings struck out five had 14 whiffs on 79 pitches so obviously his last start against the diamondbacks was also a good start really good one and run a five inning struck out eight one hit allowed he has the highest swinging strike rate of his career right now christian javier does which is really saying something because remember he used to be good his fastball his average fastball velocity this year is the highest since 2022 you know what happened in 2022 christian javier had a 254 er a 0.95 whip and 11.7 k per nine everybody was on board with him as an up-and-coming ace and things fell apart after that but i'm saying he is now throwing the hardest he has on average since that year and he has the highest swinging strike rate of his career it's obviously a small sample but i think christian javier is making a case that he might matter again uh one other detail not as significant but i think christian javier is making a case that he might matter it's the ones i've already presented but noteworthy his uh arm angle was 33 degrees average arm angle in 2022 it climbed to closer to 38 in the years that followed it's back down to 35 now so he's got his arm angle closer to where it was at his best and then all those other facts i offered he's facing kansas city next week i'm more likely to start christian javier i think than against kansas city than jared jones against milwaukee
Speaker 1that makes sense uh we'll see what happens with jack caglione i know he's been out of the lineup with a flexor strain obviously that would help but still not a great lineup overall and yeah javier's last two starts look great massive swinging strike rate i looked into the whiff rates on specific pitches fastball 28 sweeper 40 change up 32 here um and his pitch mix and pitch movement was very different in this start here as well uh at the philly so start for javier uh last two have looked good pretty good matchup here against the royals uh yeah i was surprised when i dug in on christian javier but very very fair points on him chris over
Speaker 5to you for your player of the night yeah and uh i i took this player because i'm the noted yankees hater on the show and i didn't want frank to be accused of being a homer but let's talk about anthony volpe who was pretty dominant down at triple a his most recent stint there we have like 10 homers and 40 games or something 10 homers in 28 games since getting said even better he was great and uh this is a little little bonus for those of you watching the show on on youtube youtube.com slash fantasy baseball today uh but i'm gonna share a a little swing analysis of our our boy anthony volpe here because someone posted uh just random clip of him swinging the bat earlier in the season and then today and it's just night and day like he looks so much more athletic with his current swing if you're watching it's the one on the bottom and um i don't know if this means anthony volpe is suddenly great i would bet not but um i don't think that it's impossible that he can be a useful player we have seen stretches in anthony volpe's career where he's been a good player and he's been a good player for a long time he has been a useful player remember last season he was 19 homers and 18 stolen bases 212 batting average is pretty bad but there have been useful stretches in anthony volpe's career and maybe the yankees have unlocked something here um i think it's very unlikely that anthony volpe is going to matter but he's going to play short second base the rest of the way unfortunately i don't think there's going to be enough time yeah he hasn't this was his first appearance at second base in his major league career so there won't be enough time for him to gain eligibility for next season but jazz chisholm isn't a free agent there is a world where anthony volpe plays well enough down the stretch that he enters next season as the second baseman for the yankees and he's only what 24 25 maybe there's some juice left here again i think it's very unlikely but given what he did at triple a given that he is a former top prospect i'm open to the possibility that there's something here i don't think it's a superstar outcome at by by any means but could he be a 2020 guy yeah he was really close to that last year uh it's just a question of can he give you a batting average that only hurts you a little bit instead of kills you like he did last season yeah i will repeat myself i think it's very unlikely anthony volpe is going to matter much for fantasy but he hit a home run today he hit a grand slam he had three hits he stole a base let's open our our minds to the possibility that he could be decent a grand sock and a shoe
Speaker 1is what we like to call it here chris grand slam and a stolen base same game five rbi for anthony volpe and uh the numbers the full numbers since he got the 28 games since he was sent down to triple a before returning 284 10 homers eight steals 10 23 ops and i heard some people talking about the you brought up in that batting stance if you watch that clip closely he now lifts his back foot a little bit before the pitcher throws the pitch and it's kind of like a timing mechanism his hands are a little bit higher in his stance as well so it's a sample of one you know we'll see where it goes from here but uh very deep league name is volpe 10 rostered he should play with uh jazz on the il and if you're looking at matchups this weekend it's noah mclean zach thornton and christian scott so mclean is tough the other two not so much and then six road games next week dean kramer zebby matthews taj bradley brandon fought erod corbin burns so i think those matchups are okay i don't hate the matchups next week yeah yeah i think it's a decent uh deep league name there in anthony volpe all right let's uh hit our first break when we return i gotta mention big day for aces or should be aces zach wheeler jacob degrom logan gilbert lots of big starts there so we will uh talk those we'll get into news and notes we'll do all that and then we'll get into the next one we'll get into the next one after this hey before we jump back into the show let's take a quick break but not just any break this is a refreshing break with snapple we all know about snapple's iconic real facts so let's take a minute to go over some of my faves snapple real facts 14 17 before 18 59 baseball umpires sat behind home plate in rocking chairs snapple real facts 14 83 more than 100 baseballs are used during a typical professional baseball game snapple real fact 253 the first baseball game first tv remote control introduced in 1950 was called lazy bones snapple real fact 210 2005 professional athletes used to perform in vaudeville in the off season so grab a snapple take a second and enjoy the moment because let's be honest this might be the most refreshing part of your day snapple make your break more interesting all right now let's get back to the show baseball has always been a game of inches now it's also a game of seconds t-mobile and mlb have teamed up to bring abs challenge to all 29 ballparks across the u.s this isn't a minor upgrade this is the most significant new technology in the history of the sport and it's powered by t-mobile with every pitch thrown abs challenge uses real-time precision to verify the call giving them the support they need no delays no guesswork just accuracy at the speed the game demands thanks to abs challenge t-mobile is helping power the moments that define the game when performance and reliability are non-negotiable mlb turns to t-mobile that's not a coincidence that's what happens when the most innovative network in the country powers the most data-driven sport in the world t-mobile powers mlb's most ambitious technology and america's best network powers your connection to baseball homer away every pitch every game every day t-mobile it's better over here major league baseball trademarks and copyrights are used with permission of major league baseball visit mlb.com t-mobile best mobile network in the u.s according to ukla speed test based on analysis by ukla of speed test intelligence data first half 2026 ukla trademarks used under license and reprinted with permission you know that thing where you get an amazing pair
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Speaker 1welcome back fantasy baseball today big day for the aces or should be aces and we got vintage jacob de grom even down to the fact that he did not get to the win which is about as vintage jacob de grom as we could get six shutout innings one hit 12 strikeouts to zero walks at the mariners 20 whiffs on 92 pitches and uh i know he's been mixing some other pitches in lately but this one he was back to the bread and butter ten of the whiffs on the slider seven on the fastball uh the velocity up around one mile per hour on each of his pitches and uh last three starts now since he allowed eight earned runs back on august 25th 19 innings two runs 27 strikeouts to one walk so scott we know it's still in there for jacob de grom we don't get it as consistently he gives up a lot of hard contact you know some home runs now at this point in his career but it's still there sometimes
Speaker 4i mean look it's it's still there most of the time uh he's had three awesome starts in a row double digit strikeouts in two of them one hit allowed i believe in two of them right so he had a he had a a hiccup there coming out of the all-star break uh that got his era over four briefly but i i don't think i ever dropped de grom out of my top 20 and rest of season rankings like they're still i don't think i ever dropped de grom out of my top 20 and rest of season rankings like they're still i don't think i ever dropped de grom out of my top 20 and rest of season a lot of talent there he was throwing harder in this start it was only his third start with where his fastball averaged more than 98 this year so that was kind of interesting i guess but he dominated in the previous two without a fastball averaging 98 so i don't even think that's
Speaker 1required going forward i think just the expectation for de grom at this point in his career obviously you know pushing 40 years old he's still very good don't get me wrong but with the hard contact that he allows i think we should expect an elevated era still a really really good whip 108 whip this season uh the underlying numbers are still awesome but i think i think he's gonna run higher eras is he gonna go ahead of jera jones next year i don't think so oh you're hesitating oh that was sarcasm that was sarcasm okay just throwing that out some good pitchers are gonna have to if he's if he's what did you say
Speaker 4top 36 yeah some some pitchers are gonna have to go behind him for that to happen i think i think
Speaker 1de grom will still be drafted as like an sp2 i think it'll be a top 20 20 yeah i think so i think so too somewhere in that like 13 to 24 range for for jacob de grom i'm not sure he's an ace anymore but uh i think he still could be a very serviceable uh sp2 what about zach wheeler who is finishing strong this one against the astros seven innings one run nine strikeouts he had 18 whiffs on 110 pitches he only allowed six hard hits in this game through a bunch of pitches for strikes and uh he's finishing strong last three 19 innings two three runs 24 strikeouts to seven walks and uh chris this was very much needed because we had that stretch where you know some velocity fluctuation starting to think all right uh i don't know is this thoracic outlet thing starting to pop back up on uh zach wheeler the age as well
Speaker 5but looks like he is finishing strong as well yeah i like with um like with de grom i'm not sure i ever okay i know i did move zach wheeler outside of my top three runs but i think he's top 24 maybe that was an overreaction but it was a i think a reasonable one given look he was he looked like a top five pitcher in baseball again uh through the first like what three months that he was pitching but given everything he's gone through it was reasonable to be pretty worried when things got ugly for him now that he's turning things back around i think we do have to recalibrate again and and i think the thing with excuse me de grom and wheeler and i'm sure garrett cole will have some some rough stretches at some point i know he had one earlier in the season but when you're talking about older players it's not that they can't dominate anymore um i think the analogy i used last time we talked about jacob de grom was uh there's a quote from duane wade late in his career that i always loved that it's not that i can't get up and dunk anymore it's that landing hurts a lot more and and i think that's a good way to think about how how players age these guys are still capable of looking like themselves for long stretches it's just the recovery is a little tougher and you don't bounce back quite the same way and you're not always going to have it every day in the same way you might at your best and so i think it was reasonable to react to what we saw from wheeler i think it's reasonable to react to what we're seeing from wheeler right now and so three great starts in a row from him three great starts in a row for de grom they're kind of mirroring this season and i think you you look at it all and it's probably you're drafting these guys as top 20 sps next season probably not drafting them as top five sps which they can still look like at their best and i would take wheeler over to grom for next season to be clear um but it is to say that i do think you have to bake in a little more uncertainty and a little more downside and a little more a few more stretches where yeah everything doesn't always go the way it's supposed to and that's okay
Speaker 1the last thing i wanted to mention here the uh should be ace logan gilbert big bounce back start for him seven innings three runs 11 strikeouts which was a season high 24 whiffs on 100 pitches 15 of those on his slider four on the fastball three on the splitter and uh look he's coming off a start where he gave up seven earned runs four homers allowed he hadn't completed six innings in uh four straight before this we've said this a lot this year i kind of feel don't overthink it just kind of simplify the process if you look at logan gilbert's pitches his fastball slider and splitter are all really really good and i feel like he should just focus on those three pitches in particular uh but oftentimes he mixes in you know a change up and you know he's got a lot of good pitches and he's got a lot of good pitches some other things but it's the whole mariners pitching staff man it's i i do wonder if they're
Speaker 5not gonna make some changes to the coaching staff this season they're gonna replace their manager for sure i think so they have they have a fort or this was over the weekend i don't know if it's changed but probably hasn't changed much they have a 420 team era last i checked for a team with that talent pitching in t-mobile park there's no way they should have a 420 era like it's just
Speaker 4and you look at the the step backs that i think the braves with all their scrubby pitchers
Speaker 5there you are it's like a run lower than that like and everybody except amerson hancock really has taken a step back this season um and in gilbert's case we had you know he's kind of ditched the cutter for the most part but like he introduced this cutter this season he started throwing a change up for some it's just like yeah it my question and i haven't seen a good explanation for this either from gilbert himself or just people analyzing it is what was the goal like the change up in a vacuum hasn't been a bad pitch but he already had this awesome splitter that is one of the best put away pitches in baseball and the cutter didn't seem like it played a part in any way and so it's just i i understand that there is this philosophy within the seattle mariners organization of and i'm sure part of that is just like competitiveness within the team you know like those guys all want to one-up each other and that's great but you can tinker your way out of success once you find it and it just feels like specifically with gilbert that was the case this season kirby yeah well let me tell you about kirby just lost something right like i think he had the shoulder injury last season and just kind
Speaker 4of kind of hasn't been the same guy let me tell you about kirby because this was one of my bold predictions for the articles out there on the site 12 bold predictions for 2027 george kirby it's a sample of four but i think it's a telling sample the four starts this year in which kirby has thrown his fastball 40 or more his four seamer which was always a really good pitch the four starts where he's thrown at 40 or more he has a 106 era 0.95 whip at 9.2 k per nine yeah and i know i know uh nick pollock's on board with this too like get him out of that organization because there's still a lot to
Speaker 5redeem there and there was some talk about that around the trade deadline that teams around baseball specifically looked at george kirby as someone who's just his approach doesn't fit what the mariners want to do and a lot of teams around baseball seem to believe that that was a change of scenery candidate i i do think to a certain extent the mariners guys do would benefit from just simplifying things um and focus on what you do well and you know with gilbert especially it's so frustrating because he's been so good in the past that it just didn't it didn't make sense why he started tinkering this season um they were so
Speaker 4preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't think if they should yeah exactly like i quoted that quite right but you know what i'm coming from that and um then it stopped to
Speaker 5think if they should yeah i just yeah i think logan gilbert look i don't know who am i i'm nobody i'm an idiot so like like logan gilbert knows himself better than i do but that that's all that's been my thing all season he's just he has not looked comfortable for most of the season in a way that shouldn't be true for a guy that that's this talented just give me uh a way too
Speaker 1early ranking for next season these three gilbert degrom and wheeler i think all three of them are
Speaker 5top 24 sps for next season i agree i'd probably go wheeler gilbert degrom i don't know i don't know
Speaker 1i think i think that's the order that's what i was thinking also yeah if you uh drafted george kirby this year it was uh death to your ratios unfortunately news and notes as we mentioned mid-podcast yesterday shohei otani will officially be placing the il on friday and the dodgers are calling up one of their top prospects hoseway depaula additionally dave roberts said freddie freeman is absolutely not going on the il despite dealing with right knee discomfort and part of my weekend preview for later is that i i do like the matchups for hoseway depaula right out of the gate maybe this is part of the reason why the dodgers call them up but they face uh three marlins right-handed pitchers this weekend ryan gusto tyler phillips yuri perez who's struggling so i i'm legit interested in streaming depaula right away if you are in a daily lineup
Speaker 5league he's top five prospect in baseball he's put up huge numbers he's got the got the tab over at least one hitter who is a very good prospect in his own right who's at triple a already so james tibbs and mike serota yeah james and but serota's at double a still i think tibbs is at triple a and having a very good season there um and the dodgers the smartest organization in baseball what does it say about the dodgers they didn't call up or what does it say about james tibbs they didn't call him up um no that's that's a little joke for people who listen for a while um yeah i think you have to be excited about depaula especially because look there's 17 days left in the season and shohei otani is going to be on the aisle for at least 13 of them i think yeah so yeah i i think he's got the runway to make a big impact and boy if he's good the next couple of weeks and into the playoffs i mean this guy's gonna be potentially a top 60 pick next season if he's good
Speaker 1again that is hoseway to the top 60 depaula aaron judge was out of the lineup which was scheduled as part of his ramp up process he should be back out there on friday corbin carroll also expected to return to the d-backs lineup on friday against the rangers he's been battling some back discomfort this next one out of nowhere braxton ashcraft placed in the aisle with right arm discomfort and the pirates are four and a half games out of a wild card spot my guess is we probably don't see braxton ashcraft again this season but you know he had that mid part where he was struggling he was mostly finishing strong here so a nice little bounce back in season for braxton ashcraft he'll be an interesting one to pay attention to in the offseason and just make sure everything is right and uh pay attention to spring training and see how the velocity looks and all that fun stuff for ashcraft if you are looking for replacements for next week a sneak peek of scott sleeper pitchers the top five names on the list you guessed the top two jacob lopez and andrew painter followed by quinn matthews cal quantrell and emmett sheehan and i guess as a deeper name um we could throw christian javier out there as someone coming off a good start and um i have since added him yeah since i sent you that email um but he wasn't in the top five all right brandon marsh left early after fouling a ball off of his right foot the braves are planning to place lane thomas on the aisle with a left side injury connelly early is tentatively lined up to make a rehab start at double a on sunday he threw 30 pitches in a bridge league game on tuesday the nationals placed nassim nunez on the bereavement list he has really cold off and he has been losing playing time as uh as of late and this was interesting mark feinstein reported that the braves discussed sending spencer strider to the rangers in exchange for jacob degrom at the trade deadline we had heard previously that the braves had a trade lined up for jacob degrom degrom uses no trade clause to to void that one we didn't know it was for spencer strider so i thought that was pretty interesting
Speaker 4scott yeah doesn't bode well for strider obviously if the braves are willing to use him as a salary offset piece i presume they weren't proposing a straight up one for one deal there strider for degrom uh but he was included as a way to offset salary so uh that suggests to me that they are less than bullish on his chances of coming back to anything close to what we knew him to be and that kind of fits with where our
Speaker 1sentiments are too yep that makes me very sad yeah yeah for sure let's take our final break when we return i have some waiver names i've got a weekend preview what went wrong with the first round outside of everything we'll talk about that right after this now that the school year is officially underway
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Speaker 1some waiver wire hitters and again looking at things in perspective of this weekend's matchups matchups for next week as well so regardless if you play in a daily lineup league or a weekly lineup league we'll talk about uh both both different types of formats but spencer jones had another three hit game he had a run two rbi four batted balls over 104 miles per hour in this one he has started nine straight i think he's gonna play every day with trent christian down last 30 games 313 batting average four homers six deals 927 ops still a 34 strikeout rate he is going to strike out a lot uh and he's 67 percent rostered noel mclean zach thornton christian scott this weekend and i mentioned earlier with volpe the matchups for this uh for next week are good as well so i i kind of just think even in a three outfielder league like i i understand the strikeouts in a head-to-head league but i mean if you need help in the outfield spencer jones is hot he's got
Speaker 4good matchups i i would be fine regardless of format yeah i think he's okay he he didn't make the sleeper hitters list for this upcoming week darn it and as you point out in any leagues where strikeouts count against him then uh it's probably a no-go but he's done a lot better than i thought he would and he for categories leagues he can make a big dent in a short period of time and two of the biggest most important ones so if you know depending on your needs i want to be opposed to
Speaker 1starting him in a categories league yep uh cam smith has homered in three straight and uh here on thursday was a go-ahead shot off of yoan duron in the ninth inning so clutch home run there for cam smith if you are looking at the matchups he has three on the road this weekend at tampa bay uh pretty tough pitching matchups on paper next week he has six home games he has been better on the road so chris i don't really like cam smith for this weekend or for next week but i still think that he remains a very interesting kind of post-hype sleeper breakout name for next season
Speaker 5yeah um um free free article idea for every fantasy baseball analyst in america because we're all gonna write the same thing who is this year's jordan walker cam smith is this is this year's jordan walker i've already put it out there that is the bold predictions space on the board i win one is going to write that article it's probably not going to happen but it's a very similar situation very young super physically talented player showed flashes but never put it all together maybe he does next season maybe he is right now he had a couple of weeks around the beginning of or the end of july early august where he was also very productive and it fell apart pretty quickly for him as it has for most of his career i am skeptically optimistic about the smith is the
Speaker 4like it it is worth saying that prior to this three homer game he had a 22 game stretch in which he hit 129 and so like you know it's ice cold but the 12th of my 12 bold predictions reads that the subhead reads this way cam smith will have a breakout akin to jordan walker's
Speaker 52026 so i'm not like i i'm not making fun of you for doing that i had the same exact thought weeks ago um he's clearly the best fit for a jordan walker s career path the thing is um and i i come to this a lot when like old-timey baseball people are like why doesn't everybody pitch like greg maddox and it's like well if you've got one example of an outlier that probably means that that guy was doing something that nobody else can do like if you've got well like there hasn't been a this year's christian yell it's since christian knowledge you know like that that kind of thing just doesn't generally happen but if it's going to happen cam smith is the likeliest candidate to be next year's jordan walker for sure
Speaker 1uh i did i i have one more name here but i also wanted to point out chris that according to you every old person has a western accent and so i did really enjoy that so that was sure yeah kyle caros destroyed a home run off of max freed he hit it was his 11th home run 109 exit velocity 431 feet he just returned from i believe the concussion il he has started three straight uh he's quietly had a solid season this year and he has seven home games next week so i am pretty interested in kyle caros not this weekend he's on the road but for next week do like kyle caros as a potential corner infielder he is among my sleeper hitters love it some deeper names victor mason jr came on as a pinch hitter and he homered it was his 12th home run nine games since coming off the il 419 batting average two homers two steals ops over 1100 you know he's quietly done some things as well he's got some power speed if you are in a this would be very niche but if you are in a deep daily lineup league victor mason jr has three righties on the schedule this weekend and i think you could use him there uh next week he has four lefties so yeah would not want to do that um and then jock peterson quietly has 26 home runs like what uh he has not been playing a lot lately because they have just been facing a ton of lefties he also is coming off an awful august but he does have two home runs in eight september games he has two righties this weekend and uh six games next week four of them being righty so i don't don't love the matchups for him so i'm going to jock peterson but hey wanted to give him a shout out he's got 26 home runs some waiver wire pitchers martin perez shut down the raise seven shutout innings four strikeouts scott shout out to you you were uh you were all over that one for to stream or not to stream uh yesterday on the
Speaker 4podcast although although i did put martin perez ahead of jared jones so is that a win really yeah
Speaker 1well you know i gave jared jones so combined we're two for two let's do it yeah i mean look we didn't have many options so we just kind of threw out
Speaker 4we didn't really want to start either of them yeah and they were both great and now we're patting ourselves on the back now by the way like just getting back to that jared jones conversation at the top of the show we weren't willing to stream him yesterday and now he's a top 36 pitcher i had
Speaker 1him at the top of my list my at the top of your list what do they say what do they say about
Speaker 5messengers you should always shoot them and not the person who sent the message i want to make my prediction i am not saying how do you know because i i'm just you talk to people you just got there's a lot of jared jones buzz i got my finger on the pulse scott yeah no the streets are ablaze it's a
Speaker 1jared jones hype it's a vibes thing for sure jared jones is going to be bold prediction next year jared jones is next season's cam schlittler you heard it here first i think jared jones
Speaker 4i have a prediction like that i have a prediction like that and the bold predictions but it's it's peyton toley i i like peyton toley a lot i like that one a lot more than jared jones uh martin
Speaker 1perez had a great start he is at the cubs next week do not use him against the cubs woof uh and hagan smith i just want to wanted to mention he made his first career start it was more as like an opener so he was good two shutout innings three strikeouts zero walks he had five swinging strikes on 33 pitches i think he makes for an interesting kind of sleeper break-in for the outie type guy next year he's a great in a relief role uh but i he's just not really getting a real chance to start this season i hope he does next season starters sit these starting pitchers for next week uh nick martinez had another strong start here and he has four straight quality starts after a pretty rough stretch he is home against the athletics next week and then max freed uh he had seven strikeouts only recorded 10 outs um one over three and a third he's just on a very strict pitch count right now they took him out after 80 pitches but he needed 80 pitches against the rockies so that was kind of weird um and his velocity was down so he is at the twins next week what do you guys think about using nick martinez home against the athletics and max freed on the road at the twins neither is a must yeah they're both acceptable yeah i'm a little worried about the free thing it's his pitches are slowly getting built up 63 72 80 but in two of the three starts since coming back from a second injury to his elbow this year his velocity has been down in two of those three so um but he's
Speaker 4been good yeah and the pitch count is going up he managed to go five and two-thirds innings in his previous start even with the lower pitch count so it's not like like he's a really efficient pitcher and probably he'll throw more than 80 next time so again it's not a must but uh i i i think in most instances i'd lean yes on max freed unless you know unless volume is paramount
Speaker 1agreed one lonely hitting leftover o'neill cruz has been awesome since coming off the il he hit his 18th home run 117.4 exit velocity 433 feet 20 games since returning 315 4 homers 6 steals 939 ops and his 162 game pace it's a lot of fun 34 homers 108 runs 120 rbi 52 steals so another fun player to rank for next season is o'neill cruz 40 percent striker right against lefties now yeah that is a big number this is uh starting next week i'm
Speaker 5going to be doing my uh toughest players to rank as i start my rankings for next season and oh no cruz will definitely be featured in the outfield toughest players to rank because it's literally a 40.3 percent striker right against lefties and an a41 ops i have no idea
Speaker 4what to make of that fact o'neill cruz before or after jared jones oh o'neill cruz is gonna be a
Speaker 5top 40 pick and roto probably yeah gotta put my ear to the ground uh 40 top 50 for sure yeah
Speaker 1the call to the bullpen for the braves ricel glacius got the ninth inning with a three run lead he allowed a solo homer he walked one he picked up his 30 second save for the phillies yohan deron allowed a solo home run with the game tied he took his sixth loss on the other side josh hater picked up his 25th save for the mariners andres muñoz got the ninth with a one run lead he walked two but he picked up his 27th save and mason montgomery who was also featured in scott's bold predictions for next year i actually think we mentioned it on the podcast yesterday uh he picked up his 12th save
Speaker 4he is awesome it's really good i like that we've talked about my bold predictions article like six times already when the plan comes in and you're like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm coming in was to talk like chris and i each had on a light day like we each submitted oh we could talk about what i wrote and chris is one chris we're gonna talk about chris's so far we haven't
Speaker 5talked about chris's at all and we're we're gonna talk about yours in the ineffable future yeah we
Speaker 1will have lots of opportunities to talk about bold predictions uh if you need saves in a daily lineup league this weekend some names in shallow leagues i cannot believe mason montgomery is only 68 rostered but he is yo interest go is only 59 rostered again if you need saves in mid-sized leagues kodai sanga at 39 ben joyce at 33 jordan romano at 20 and then in deeper leagues take your pick of the athletics i i would lean elvis alvarado uh there's stephen cruz with the royals there's dylan smith with the giants and then do you guys have a d-backs pick right now it feels very up in the air it's between three
Speaker 4and like brandon garcelle garcia is the one of the three who absolutely won't be the full-time closer because he's the only leveraged lefty but because it's so jumbled right now i think he's the one of the three i'd be most willing to use in fantasy the other two being kevin ginkle and uh juan mario that's his
Speaker 1name right yep yep juan mario yep yep quick uh little weekend recap here for recap preview that's the word i'm looking for weekend previews it's been a long season we're uh we're close to the end here but if you play in daily lineup leagues and you need hitters to stream this weekend the a's and the mariners are both playing in sacramento it is henry bolte above all else the mariners have uh three right-handed pitchers going so i think lawrence butler jeff mcneil makes some sense the athletics have three lefties going so no lazaro montes i i guess i i wrote down taylor ward's name but you should not use him i'm just i'm gonna no i'm just gonna x him off the list uh i do like the guardians left-handed batters this weekend they are facing uh taj bradley bailey ober and joe ryan so all three are home run prone so travis bizana nathaniel low the dodgers i mentioned that they are facing three marlins right-handed pitchers so legit interest in hoseway depaula i like the pirates right-handed hitters in chicago against the cubs they're going up against shotu imanaga matthew boyd i know that if the wind's blowing out that ball flies both of those guys are home run prone so as merlin valdez and rafael flores i think are in play uh tigers left-handed hitters they're going up against three rockies righties and that is in detroit so max clark if you're in a deeper league cold keith i don't think he's very good but whatever he plays against righties if you need steals in particular this weekend zach geloff and henry bolte have five steals each over the last 14 days a deeper name is jonah cox who has five steals last 14 days he has started five straight and then uh here are the teams that have given up the most steals this season the reds astros rockies and white socks so the teams that they are facing the brewers david hamilton and cooper pratt again only if you need steals the blue jays andres jimenez and brett bateman the tigers max clark and john peck and then the cardinals nathan church josh baez and thomas ajacy so that was a lot of information all at once but if you need steals if you need hitters to stream
Speaker 4those are the names to look at i imagine people are going to hit that 10 seconds back button multiple times if they're listening to this podcast and setting their lineups for this weekend
Speaker 1to stream or not to stream on the pitching side on friday we have yusei kikuchi at the nationals chris bassett at the blue jays max scherzer home against the orioles seth lugo at the red socks andrew abbott at the brewers anthony k at the cardinals matthew liberatore home against the white socks jeffrey springs home against the mariners kumar rocker at the d-backs and merrill kelly home against the rangers
Speaker 5i um don't really love anyone here it's a rough day anthony k against the cardinals is okay you know merrill kelly i was looking it up after you mentioned jock peterson having 26 homers rangers actually offense actually been pretty good this season um the rangers yeah kind of kind of surprisingly they are like
Speaker 1i think they're middle of the they're really good against lefties they're bad against righties
Speaker 4they well i'm just looking overall they're 26th and run scored
Speaker 5that's surprise they're sixth in wrc plus so the home ballpark must be really dragging them back but that's surprising i would guess they're uh maybe they rank better on the road than at home and run scored they do not they're 24th who knows
Speaker 4merrill kelly merrill kelly's my favorite to stream friday because they're facing the rangers but uh you know corey seeger's been hot it's it's not like it's foolproof i'm not thrilled to do it
Speaker 1oh jock peterson revenge game too against the d-backs
Speaker 4and who did i say yesterday frank when we were doing this i listed off three i said merrill kelly okay jeffrey springs against the mariners but that no his last start was good and obviously that's the best matchup
Speaker 1and he fixed the mariners last time out and he has an era over seven at home so yeah uh yeah there are other names on other days this weekend i would much rather stream if you really need streamers on friday merrill kelly and then i'll throw out there max scherzer the orioles have really struggled the last 14 days and kumar rocker you should not use those names you should not use scherzer and rocker but if you are desperate those are the ones that i would throw out there on saturday we have zach thornton at the yankees walbert arania at the nationals andrew alvarez against the d-backs and then we have the d-backs and then we have the angels randy dobnak at the red sox peter lambert at the rays brady singer at the brewers tyler malley home against the phillies luis castillo at the cardinals gauge jump home against the mariners
Speaker 5and bailey ober home against the guardians well there are two i like here more than i think anyone on friday i don't know if i like anybody else but i like walbert arania at the nationals
Speaker 4and i like tyler malley versus philadelphia it's not even a matchups thing for either it's just they're just pretty good
Speaker 1yeah and then uh yeah if you need a third on saturday i would throw andrew alvarez out there against the angels but it's again it's in that risky kind of scherzer kumar rocker bucket so
Speaker 4peter lambert it's facing tampa so it's not a great matchup but i have more confidence in him
Speaker 1than most pitchers in the streamers section on sunday we have jackson job against the rockies in detroit grayson rodriguez at the nationals christian scott at the yankees andrew painter at the braves andrew alvarez against the angels trent holmes home against the phillies hayden wesneski at the rays shane drohan against the reds joey cantelo at the twins michael mcgreevy home against the white socks bubba chandler at the cubs jacob lopez home against the mariners cal quantrell at the d-backs and nick pavetta at the
Speaker 4giants sunday's a good day yeah better streamers overall i think jacob lopez against the mariners is super obvious andrew painter at the braves is obvious enough man i know
Speaker 5man i know quantrell's bad man i know quantrell's bad man i know quantrell's bad good results i i guess arizona's a a decent matchup but i yeah they're really bad against right yeah i just i really don't trust what he's doing right now but i guess
Speaker 4but relative to the other choices yeah you know beyond lopez and and uh and and painter um and nick pavetta at giants i might be willing to chance that if i'm feeling super streamy shane drone against the reds doesn't seem terrible yeah okay yeah i like
Speaker 1uh lopez painter quantrell as the top three but i'm also okay with mcgreevy against the white socks the white socks offense struggling last 14 days jackson job gets the rockies in detroit i think that could be fine like in a five innings two runs kind of way and uh nick pavetta at the giants i think is okay as well let's wrap up here uh i i meant for this to be rapid fire anyway so that is how we will kind of go about it but what went wrong with the first round this year everything has gone wrong but we will run through this is chris's art very quickly and chris does have a newsletter an article coming out on friday and chris you really had some eye-opening opening data to show just how bad the first round was this season yeah so defining first round picks
Speaker 5as any player with an adp below 15 you could define it in a different way that's just the way i decided to define it this season or for this exercise players with an adp below 15.0 i'm looking at 2026 through 2021 data okay the median first rounder based on the fan graph player rater was worth 10.30 this season the average was 1261 last season the average first rounder was worth 28 more than double almost triple almost triple like two and a half times what uh they were worth last season the lowest before this since 2021 was 2021 when the average first rounder was worth 19 dollars and even then the median first rounder was worth 19 dollars was worth 25 so two and a half times the median first rounder in 2026 that i understand there are still two days two weeks left in the season there will be some additions to that but no first round pick in 2026 has earned 30 dollars yet this season for comparison's sake piquor armstrong has been worth 48 dollars this season so no first rounder has been worth within 20 dollars of piquor armstrong this is and one thing i thought was there were a lot of old players like we haven't had a lot of turnover in the first round in a while right like the of the top five picks what three of them are like 32 or older entering this season shohei jose ramirez and aaron judge so i thought maybe this was like just an unusually old first round in this group 21 through 26. this is the oldest on average at 27.6 years old but that's not abnormal like for the most part they've been around 26.5 to 26 to 27 years old so this one's a little older but it's really just shohei aaron judge jose ramirez i think those are the only guys over 30 in this group so that that was my first thought was oh it was just a bunch of old guys and we should have seen it coming not really you know
Speaker 4i i think part of it is by the way at least two of those three old guys are going to be top five
Speaker 5picks again next year yes and i think part of it is there were three pitchers in the top 15 which is pretty unusual and then obviously um one of them was a complete disaster garrett crochet worst first round pick you could have made he had a 630 era in six starts and he won't do anything else paul skeens he's been okay overall but obviously you know he's been okay overall but obviously he's been okay overall but obviously he's been very bad in the second half and then tarik scruble got hurt but i think the takeaway from there is even first round pitchers carry a lot of risk relative to other first round picks first round pitchers are generally better bets than second third etc pitchers but relative to other hitters there's you're still taking a lot of risk on and i think next season we're going to see jacob mizurowski in the first round just know i'm not saying he shouldn't be there just know you're going to be taking on some extra risk by taking the guy who's throwing a thousand hundred mile an
Speaker 1hour fastballs in the first round so i will just quickly run through the players in the first round going into this year and uh just a quick thought on what i think went wrong if you guys have anything you want to add go for it i mean again we can make this like pretty quick but um the number one player was otani and he actually has been the 16th best hitter and the 20th best pitcher i wish we just got all of his production as one player but that is not the case i kind of just feel like the pitching is not going to be the same as the first round pitchers are going to be the same as the first round pitchers are going to be the same as the first round pitchers are going to be the caught up to him this year the home runs came way down the steals came down uh the nagging injuries obviously now too i did notice the bat speed down 1.2 miles per hour the fast swing percentage i i still think he's awesome but you know he's getting a little bit older and the bat speed was down so
Speaker 5i think the other thing that people didn't really take into account this season is he's not going to steal bases anymore i think uh he's not at the level of a of a difference maker there maybe maybe look maybe these injuries will just keep him off the mound and he'll run like he did a couple years ago but i think when shohei otani is trying to pitch yeah they're just not going to risk him running he's he's got what 10 steals this season he's probably good i would
Speaker 1expect similar stolen base production from otani and juan soto like around 15 probably yeah and i
Speaker 5think that was something that people when you know because he was the clear one one this season i didn't think he should have been and obviously look i thought it should have been aaron judge i had judge ahead too no but i'm saying in adp he was 1.2 judge was 2.0 2.5 like there was shohei otani was almost unanimously the number one in actual drafts and so um i think you have to account for when you don't have that stolen base floor there are more ways for things to go wrong yeah he only stole 20 last year so i don't know and it
Speaker 4was like nine after if it's true that people were just penciling him in for 30 or 40 they weren't
Speaker 5listening to us he only had nine after he started pitching again last year yeah i think most people expected the
Speaker 1seals to come down the home runs from 55 to 30 i mean it's it's nearly cut in half right like
Speaker 4that's a massive deal for otani uh two-thirds of the way through the season he had 24 i mean it was like performance it was mostly just the last two months when he was obviously playing hurt
Speaker 1yeah the number two player coming in was aaron judge obviously he has dealt with a fractured rib that derailed his season even when he played he wasn't as good he hit 249 he had an 890 seven ops but he has said that he hurt he suffered this injury on a dive in late april so i kind of feel like judge was playing through this for a month before he went on the il2 so i mean handling him for next year will be interesting because like i still think there's a chance for re-injury he's a big body he's entering his mid-30s like 35 yeah there's risk there's risk with judge too so uh he he's an interesting one number three coming in was bobby witt jr and right now he is the 18th best hitter and he's going to be the next best hitter and he's going to be the next best hitter uh he missed some time with injury but he has taken a step back like 18 home runs 54 rbi thank you royals but uh his iso has dropped from 256 to 205 to 172 the last three years so the batting average the steals and the runs i feel very good about i think there are some questions about the power and the rbi for bobby witt honestly he might be the one of the trickiest to rank because
Speaker 4he stayed healthy he had a good year but i don't i don't really know what the upside is anymore because you could just say it was what he delivered in in 2024 yeah but clearly he's shown in the two years since that he's not following up on that um so i think he's really good i think he's a first rounder but i i don't know that he's automatically a top five for me
Speaker 5next year bobby witt yeah it it comes down to how like he he's underperforming his expected stats quite a bit this season 34 points he's a 351 woba 385 x woba 385 x woba if he was doing that it's a 305 xba 516 slug if he was doing that you're probably talking 25 homers 300 batting average whatever their requisite jump in rbi and runs would be and he's an easy top five pick so the question is is there something about the rbi that's going to make him a top five pick bobby witt that makes him underperform i'm not sure i tend to think not it's a tough ballpark
Speaker 4kansas something about playing in kansas city and batting in that lineup i need to move the fences in again remember that storyline right yeah like it it seemed like it should have made more of a
Speaker 1difference than it did yeah yeah uh bobby witt at home this year 895 ops 720 on the road move the fences in everywhere else i don't know i don't know i i i think it's what you know part of it
Speaker 4is just like he he doesn't get any rbi in that line i'm not not nearly as many as you want from
Speaker 1a player drafted that high for sure i just i don't know that the ballpark is actually affecting but
Speaker 4the lineup i think i think so the ballpark is indirectly affecting him by affecting the entire
Speaker 1lineup maybe the number four player coming in was juan soto and i just think it's the calf injury that landed him on the il twice he has been one of the most bankable players who usually is on the 162 game pace 41 homers 94 runs 101 rbi 14 steals i think the 38 steals from two years ago now never happening again clearly an outlier but everything else i still think is legit for once yeah i think
Speaker 5easy top five yeah i i think you know if he's not top five it's just because you'd rather get the steals from ellie de la cruz or something like that but i he's on another 40 homer pace he's
Speaker 1incredible jose ramirez was the number five player and uh the he had the ham eight bone fracture mid-season if you look at his production before the injury it was 10 homers 24 steals he was underperforming his expected stats a lot during that time since he's returned i mean he has been a shell of himself his quality of contact is way down i mostly think it's the hand but i also think it's reasonable that he is starting to slow down he turns 34 in six days from now so i'm
Speaker 4I feel optimistic Because I feel like the 239 batting average, everything else before the injury looked fine. It was just the 239 batting average, and I thought that was bad luck, basically. And then since the hand-made bone injury, we warned about the hand-made bone injury, it can take hitters time to regain their power. It didn't for a lot of hitters. It seems like it did for Ramirez. So I think you can excuse a lot of it. But because of the age and where his final numbers are going to end up, I'm really curious to see how drafters at large treat him, because I think there will be widespread pessimism. And if I can grab Jose Ramirez in round three next year, I'm going to be doing it a lot.
Speaker 5The skill set doesn't look very different from where it's been in previous years, but it does feel a little like Mookie Betts a couple years ago, where the underlying skill set doesn't look that different. The production really dipped, and it's like, at this age, can you bet on those trends reversing? I think I will. I think I'll rank him probably as a top 24 pick, not a top five pick, but it'll make me a little nervous, to be sure.
Speaker 1The number six player in ADP was Ronald Acuna. He went on the aisle two different times with a hamstring injury this year. He has dealt with so many leg injuries in his career. He is finishing strong now in September, but it has been a down year overall. 253 batting average, 16 homers, 20 steals, 788 OPS. The pace, 28 home runs, 34 steals. It's still good, but it clearly has regressed as a hitter this year, and it's all the injuries. So I think there will be a good amount of questions on Acuna next year as well.
Speaker 5I can never quit him. In doing this exercise, I realized how bad of investment Ronald Acuna has been for Mookie, most of the past six seasons. There's really probably been one year where he was a really good pick, and outside of that, it's been pretty rough. I'm not going to rank him as high as I did last season, certainly, but the underlying skills still look so strong. He's running a decent amount still. Over the past, since the start of August, he has five steals and six attempts. That's like a 20-steal pace, and I still think 40 homers, 20 steals is well within the realm of possibility for Ronald Acuna. And in that meatball draft, I think he fell outside of the top 30. And I think that's way too low. He went 32nd. I think he's still easily a second-round pick and probably, in a 15-team league, going to be a low-end first-rounder for me.
Speaker 1The number seven player coming in, that was Tarek Skubal, and we know he had that nanoscope procedure on his elbow. The skills have taken a very slight step back, but he's still elite, and he is ace-level. So it's really just the injury for Skubal. The number eight player was Elie de la Cruz. The only thing that you can point to is that he went on the IL once, so perhaps that has held the numbers back a little bit. But even with that, 283 batting average, 26 homers, 25 steals, and it looks like he is legitimately getting better as a hitter every year. Number nine player was Julio Rodriguez, and he's not having that usual big second half. We usually need that. We need to level off his production and get us into the first round. That has not happened. In fact, it has gone the other way. He has a 205 batting average and a 599 OPS in the second half this year. And overall, 21 homers, 20 steals, while hitting just 239.
Speaker 5You know what I forgot about, though? He went on the concussion IL for almost three weeks. That's true. Right at the end of the first half. I think he came back on July 19th. Yep, you're right about that. I forgot about that. And I had completely forgotten about that until I started this exercise. And it's like, I can't say it's proof positive that things went wrong, but concussions are really tough. And missing that much time with concussions suggests that it was a pretty serious one. And you can be cleared to play and you can be quote-unquote healthy, and it can still affect you. I mean, look at the season checks that Merrill's having this year compared to what he did last year for one example of a guy who I think was impacted by post-concussion symptoms. You can look at Brendan Donovan who was cleared from the concussion and then has just continued to deal with side effects. Like, those are really tricky, more so than typical injuries. So that's the one where, man, I get the pessimism around Julio Rodriguez. I get the frustration. I do think I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here, but I understand that we've been giving him the benefit of the doubt for a while and two of the last three seasons have been pretty disappointing now.
Speaker 1The number 10 player coming in was Paul Skeens, and in his first 16 starts this year, he had a 286 ERA, 10.9K per nine, all the ERA estimators below three, and his next 13 starts, 510 ERA, 143 whip. The walks are up. His FIP is still 344. His XERA is 405. We're still trying to figure out who did this to Paul Skeens.
Speaker 4And he is one who, for some reason, because he's a pitcher, it's going to be harder for me to give him the benefit of the doubt and the little bit of drafting I've seen so far. I think I'm not alone in that regard. But part of it is I wonder if he can operate with even the slight reduction of velocity we've seen this year. Because a lot of times, a pitcher loses just a little off the fastball, and the whole thing kind of collapses.
Speaker 5There is no ranking for Paul Skeens in 2027 that you will feel good about. That's the one thing I feel confident in saying, is there is nowhere you can rank Paul Skeens that you will feel like, yes, I got this right. This is definitely where Paul Skeens will finish. I have no idea.
Speaker 1Yeah. And Scott, I know that you are often skeptical of the Stuff Plus metric, but I think it does kind of capture what you were saying about the velocity for Paul Skeens. His Stuff Plus in his first two seasons, 108 and 110 this year, 99, which is just below league average there for Paul Skeens. The number 11 player coming in was Corbin Carroll, and it has been a down season for sure. We know that he has missed the past couple games with a back injury. And Scott, you told us beforehand there was a note way back in April that he had a back injury. So, I mean, there's a chance that this back thing has just bothered Corbin Carroll. All year.
Speaker 4April 20th, he missed a game with the tightness in lower back. That is the first reported instance of it, and it's way back in April. Back issues are not something that's easy to play through. And pretty much every time a player tries, it goes about like this. So, I think Carroll's a strong bounce back candidate for next year, but it's probably not happening in round one.
Speaker 1Yeah. 12, 13, 14, and 15. Garrett Crochet was hurt, Fernando Tatis, one of the best first round picks he could have made. Gunnar Henderson and Kyle Tucker are both cooked. Just kidding, but we're up against it here. So, we'll have all off season to talk about those guys.
Speaker 5I do want to point out with Fernando Tatis, there was a good piece in The Athletic that basically confirmed everything we've said. He switched up his batting stance earlier in the season with the express goal of hitting for more average. And it completely screwed him up. And he's not going to do that. And he went back to his old batting stance, just like we said at the end of May. And he's been himself since. So, there's clearly some inherent volatility here. But I think I'm going to rank Fernando Tatis as like a top eight pick next season.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think he is pretty clearly in the first round. Well, boys, we did it again. Five game slate, hour and 20 minute podcast. Here we are. We are going to wrap there. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy. Baseball Today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.
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