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[email protected]. Get ready to win your lead! (Avallistus) (Avallistus) (Avallistus) No, here's Frank Scott and Chris. What's up, and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, July 22. I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers today on the show. We have waiverwire pictures who made some interesting changes to their pitch mix, arsenal, some velocity as well. What do we do with Kevin Gossman and Fran Barraaldezz? For Valdezz, it's been a question basically all season long. For Gossman, really the past month, six weeks, it's been very, very bad. And we will have some fill-in-the-blank rankings edition if you are watching on YouTube. Thank you for being here. I just realized right before we went live that I scheduled the stream for 12.55pm tomorrow. That is not- We noticed that the comments were pretty quiet. Usually there's a discussion going on beforehand and- We're here! We're live! That will explain it. Yeah, yeah. We are not recording this at 1pm. Yeah, you know, sometimes- What about you a little more lucid if we were recording at 1pm? Yeah, I probably- I mean, actually, honestly, that's not long. That's not long after you and I get out of bed. I'd only be awake for like an hour at that point, so. Anywho, let's jump in. In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened. And one of the improbable talking points of the season, Chris, has been Justin Robleski, who- Yeah. Keeps getting it done, man. Yeah, I was one of the bigger skeptics about Justin Robleski early on in the season. And for a while, it looked like that was the right call because he started to run into trouble in May. And it's just as simple as you can't succeed in as a major league pitcher with like a 14% strike outbreak. You can survive, you know, you can be an average guy maybe. But you can't put up a sub-3ERA like he was doing. Well, over the past three starts. And he started to unlock quite a bit of strikeout upside. He's got 11, 9, and 7 strikeouts over the past three starts. And, you know, even going back a little longer, I think it's the past eight starts. It's a 212ERA, 49 strikeouts and 51 innings. And that's the thing. He doesn't need to be a great strikeout pitcher. Even average would be really good for Justin Robleski, because he's backed by an elite defense. He's got really good command. He generally does a good job of limiting hard contact. And so the version of Justin Robleski who's getting close to a strikeout per inning, even if it's 8k per night, I think is just a significantly more interesting pitcher than the one he was early in the season to the point where I moved him inside my top 50 rest of the way, which, okay, you might be listening to this and seeing, oh wow, you moved a guy who has a 270ERA and pitches for the Dodgers into your top 50 in July. Well, yeah, he wasn't actually as good as his ERA for a long time, and now he might be. Or, you know, I would still expect an ERA over three moving forward. If I thought he was a 270ERA pitcher, he'd probably be a top 20 pitcher, even without the strikeouts. So I still think there's plenty of room for regression, but this looks much, much more legit than it ever has before this. And it's not super actionable because he's 100% rostered or very close to that. But I'm not pounding the table for Justin Robleski as a sell high candidate now. Yeah, and I think the Otani pitching injury kind of builds in some runway here for Justin Robleski because Blake's nails working his way back and Tyler Glass will be back at some point. Obviously, they can always give Emmett Sheen the boot because he has not looked the part in the rotation. That's got to be the call this point, right? So I just think Robleski has earned his stay and he has built more confidence as the season has gone on. So like you said, it's, you know, we're not breaking any news here by moving him up the rankings, but he's earned it by changing things up. The velocity being up over the past, you know, month or so, the swinging shrikes going up as well. Over his last three starts, he has a 13% swinging shrikes. Earlier on in the season, that was routinely in the single digits, right? He just was not getting whiffs at all. So 13% is actually a huge mark for Justin Robleski. And over his last eight starts, you mentioned some of these numbers, two 12, the R.A. 90 whip, 49 strikeouts, just seven walks over 51 innings. So he's right around a strikeout per inning. And during that eight start stretch, it's an 11% swinging shrikes. So even that is manageable here. And he's got one of the best defense behind him, one of the best offenses backing him up as well. And he just outduled Zach Wheeler, who's like a top five starting pitcher rest of season. Yeah, poor Zach Wheeler, man, made one mistake to run home at a max months. He great starting nonetheless, but outduled here by Justin Robleski. And honestly, the Phillies had a chance to tie that game in the ninth inning and just terrible base running to end that one. It was like one of the worst base running mistakes you will ever see. JT Real Muto. I can't remember that it was the ball was hit right to third base. JT Real Muto is on second. Someone was on third and the runner at third gets caught and pickle JT Real Muto smartly advances to third. And then as the runner is it is backtracking to third base, Real Muto, the runner is about to be tagged out. Real Muto decides to run back to second and gets thrown out for the final out of the game. Incredible. Yeah, it was it was very weird for sure. I guess his thinking was that Justin Crawford running back to third. There was a chance that he could have beat the run down and would have been safe. And if that's the case, then JTR has a run down between second and third anyway. But yeah, it was great. That's my thing. That's great. Worst case scenario, you have a runner on third and two outs. Yeah. That's the worst outcome for well, no. The worst outcome for the Phillies is one JT Real Muto. Yeah, the actual outcome was the worst outcome there for the Phillies. Oh, that was that was a, are we all familiar with Tut plan acronym? That sounds thrown out on the bases like a NINCAMPUP. Okay, yep, yep. That is that is an all time game ending Tut plan. Yeah, yep, not great there. But for Justin Robleski, I have a fill in the blank rankings edition coming later on. It sounds like you are going to slot Justin Robleski inside your top 50 starting pitchers. I was updating it early. That's where I landed as well. But I really thought about getting him inside the top 40. And I think I'm just going to make that swap. You know, I have a couple of injured guys just ahead of him. I have, you know, Fravival Des, who, gosh, should be lower at this point. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say, top 40 starting pitcher rest of the season here for Justin Robleski. And he has earned that. My player the night is going to be Tatsuya Imae. And I was debating this one because it's like, all right, we come on here. Every couple of weeks. And we talk about how Tatsuya Imae had an awesome start. And then he goes out and he gets destroyed his next two outings. So it's usually one step forward, two massive steps back for a my. So we'll see if he could build off this one. But I wasn't tricked by some of the things he did here against the Marlin six innings of one run ball, eight strikeouts to three walks. He had 15 whiffs on 96 pitches. 11 came on that. I guess it's a slider, but it's it's classified as a slider. But sometimes it looks like a slider. Sometimes it looks like a splitter. Sometimes it looks like a change up. It has all kinds of funky movement based on the handedness of batter that he's facing. And it is just such a unique, awesome pitch. And he proved that again here in this one. And it's been great all season long. It's far and away been his best pitch this season. But what I'm intrigued by is that he used his splitter more. And it was different in this start. So entering this one, he only used a splitter 4% of the time. He threw a 13% of the time. He got two whiffs on the splitter. It was a 50% whiff rate, 58% CSW. So performed really well in a small sample size. The velocity on the splitter was up 2.1 miles per hour. And it had nine less inches of drop. So just two very big changes to that splitter here. And he's barely used it, used it this season. But when he has, it has an 86% whiff rate. So, you know, if his fastball is not very good so far. And maybe he can get better. His splitter is awesome. But now if he can have a third pitch that he can also use to get left these out and get chase on that pitch, like, yeah, it's just another weapon for Tatsiimi. So, like, he's been up and down. I understand, like, people who have been burned by him picked him up. You know, he gave you terrible numbers in your lineup. You don't really want to go back to the well. I totally get that. Se on 45 % rostu. Ja se on se, että se on. He lines up at the angels and against the Rangers next week, which are great matchups. But we say this for probably a handful, maybe you like 10 pitchers every now and then. It's like, doesn't really matter what the matchups are for this certain pitcher. And I feel that way about a mile. Like if he's throwing strikes and he has that slider and that's blitter working and his fastball just isn't getting destroyed, I think he's just going to be good against whoever he faces. That's, can he do that consistently is the biggest question for Tatsugi. So I think he's kind of in that Roki Sasaki conversation where like, yes, we see the flashes upside, but we just don't get it consistently enough. Yeah, I don't think you can trust Tatsugi. I don't think trust is the word that I would ever use. I would need to see intrigued. Yeah. And one thing I want to keep an eye on it and it'll probably just be, you know, see if Lance Brostaski puts out a newsletter tomorrow because he's usually good on this kind of stuff. But in my, it was originally classified as a splitter. Now if you go on baseball, Savon, it was the changeup. Okay. I don't know how distinct those two pitches are. He throws the change up a little harder with a little more IVB. So it could have just been a classification thing. But he did three. What whichever pitch it was, he threw it 11 to 12 times. Yeah, that would definitely explain the velocity difference and the movement difference, though the changeup still had slightly different moves. Yeah, it had three less inches of drop. So for whatever that's worth. But yeah, I mean, if he has a third pitch, I mean, that's, I think that's the more important thing. Yeah. And yeah, I think it's, if you are in a league where you are using every pitcher on your bench regularly. So like, especially a daily lineups league, you can't really have four televons. I think it's really hard to just to justify rostering a player like Tatsuyu Migh because he could just, he could give up seven runs and three innings at his next start, right? He had to start not long ago where he didn't get out of the first inning and another one at the beginning of July or he didn't get out of the second. He just, there is as much ruin your weak potential with Tatsuyu Migh as any pitcher in baseball. I'm 100%. But if you're in a more typical weekly lineups league where you can justify just kind of some speculative players on your bench, you're not going to start them every week and you just, hey, let's see what the next two starts look like from Tatsuyu Migh. Then I, I think you can justify having him and I do have him still on a couple of teams like that. But even if he's really good against the Angels and Rangers next week, are you going to be able to trust him for the following week? I have no idea. I guess not, but if we see him the next two starts, throw 15% changeups and command that pitch well or splitters, whichever one it actually is and command that pitch well, then yeah, maybe. But my, my sense is we're a long way from being able to trust Tatsuyu Migh. Yeah. So I think we're kind of entering this new group of waiver wire pitchers. I think we've moved past the Sean Berks and Kate Cavalese and Jared Jones. They just feel too roster at this point, at least in CBS leagues. So now we have this group that's emerging of Rocky Sasaki and Tatsuyu Migh and Christian Scott and maybe Zach Thornton is in that mix. We'll talk about him a little bit later on. Someone like Shane Drillin, I think, could be in that mix as well. Where would you put, let's just say it's Imi Sasaki, Christian Scott and Shane Drillin. Where would you put Imi on that list? I think I'd go Drillin Sasaki, Imi Scott. I think so too. Yeah. So. Yeah, it's tough either way, I think. Really intriguing start and like some of the underlying stuff from I'm still really good. He gets a ton of whiffs like can he throw strikes? Nobody can answer that question, but really good and interesting start here from Tatsuyu Imi. And our first break I did want to mention some Padre's bats waking up. I know I've talked a lot about Mani Machado just yesterday, but he just had another two home or game and his updated numbers last 35 games 271 batting average 11 homeers 27 RBI OPS over 950 during that span. It's a it's since I believe June 9th. So we're going on about, you know, almost six weeks now where Mani Machado has basically looked like himself. He's hitting the ball hard. He's putting in the air a lot. So obviously that's how he's getting the power and that's basically enough for me. He's now on pace for 35 homeers and 94 RBI. It's just can he get that batting average to respectability? What will that be? Like he was so bad for so long that it's not going to get to it to big on Machado season, but can he get the batting average to 230 by season's end? I think I think he's going to be hitting 230 at the end of the season. We'll just have to remind ourselves for 2027 drafts that it was really just a bad two months and look. He's what 34. Yeah. Yeah, he turns 34 35 next July. Just turn 2434. So it might be a case where I don't think you can look at Mani Machado and say, ah, but from June 9th, that's what he did. And you just take that at face value. I think you probably just look at the whole season and whatever he ends up with, you know, 3035 homeers 90, 95 RBI. That'll be what you expect. The batting average will be it is 202, right now. He had two hits on Tuesday and his bat bit went down. Yeah, because they didn't have any balls in play. So yeah, I mostly just Mani Machado's back. Yep. I agree. Fernando Tate's junior looking like a man. He might be ready to go off here in the second half, three for five with his eighth home run, three RBI, the Homer in this game 111 miles per hour off the bat, 474 feet. And yes, it went to the pool side. Thank you. Longest home run in baseball this season is now owned by Fernando Tate's five games post all star break. He has nine hits, three homeers, six runs, nine RBI and two steals. So off to an awesome start in the second half. And again, you kind of marked that day. He hit his first home run on May 30th in 45 games since he's hitting 405, 305 with eight homeers, 11 steals in OPS around 850. And his 162 game pace from May 30th on is 28 homeers and 39 steals. So he's another one where the full season numbers are not going to get to what we expected. But basically from May 30th on, he might just wind up being Fernando Tate's junior for the rest of the season. Look, I just want to talk to whoever told him to like change his swing and make it like his batting stance was closed off early in the season. We'll talk to them. Yeah. And make sure that they don't talk to Fernando Tate's anymore. Because he very much changed his batting stance since May 30th, his batting stance has been 35 degrees open, which is basically where it was last season. Or that. Let me see if I can do this real quick. But yeah, we have his batting stance was I think messed up before that stretch. And now he looks more or less like himself. And I don't know if it was exactly May 30th when the batting stance changed, but yeah, he had his batting stance before May 30th was 12 degrees open. So 35 degrees since, which is basically where he's been in the past 12 degrees before him. It just I don't understand what the thought process there was, but he was completely unable to hit the ball with authority in the air to the pole side. He has been able to sense and he's looked like himself. It was just a mistake. And hopefully one he he learns from this and doesn't make it again. I thought Scott's hypothesis yesterday about the whole analytics conversation with Mani Machado was a fair one. I mean, again, it's like we don't know for sure. But perhaps the first two months of the season, this new coaching staff that came in, they wanted to try something different and maybe it just didn't work until these guys just went back to what works. And you know, since the end of May early June, they've looked much like themselves. And let's not forget about Jackson Merrill, who went two for four with a walk in his 13th home run. He has three homers in his past three games and his last 36 games, which is a very similar time period, 258, seven homers, 10 steals and some of the underlying stuff, not as great, but like, yeah, like a 36 game stretch with seven homers and 10 steals. It's awesome. Take that every day of the week for a or every month of the season from Jackson, Merrill himself for sure. Yeah. So he's been much better as well. Before we hit our first break, just a reminder sign up for the FBT newsletter. If you haven't already, if you're watching on YouTube, scan that QR code, it will bring you right to the website, CBS Sports dot com slash newsletters where you can sign up for free and get all of Chris's work delivered right to your email inbox every single day. Let's take that break and we'll be back right after this. What is Toyota for ability? It's buying smart right now. 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They'll play a double header on Wednesday. That's not really the big news. The big news is Chris will be there. So you are at Yankees Stadium for game one of the double header. Make sure to tweet at Chris, blue sky, Chris and try and find out where he's at and meet up with him of course. But other than that, Max Fried is back and he'll be starting. That was a good one too. Game two of the double header. He was originally scheduled to make another rehab start at AAA on Wednesday. Instead, he'll start here after just one rehab start where he threw around 50 pitches. So it seems aggressive to me, Chris. I hope my guess is he had to relate to them like, hey, I'm good. I feel good. My arm is all right. Just throw me out there. He's only going to throw 60 to 70 pitches, Max. I would imagine. But nonetheless, I mean, hey, we're getting a hopefully top 15 starting pitcher back. So yeah, I saw some discussion that the plan on his rehab start was the throw around 60 pitches. So I would guess it'll be something similar. But it's a lot like what happened with the Uri Perez where, you know, I remember he was on his rehab assignment. I think he only made one rehab start as well and then came back just because the team needed him. And they'll probably handle Max Fried with kid gloves for the first starter too. And, you know, I think the risk of injury isn't so much the issue here. It's more the, you know, I don't know if you could hear that. It was me knocking on Formica or whatever this is. But it's more how deeply be able to pitch in the games, how effective will he be with the rest? I would guess you don't want to start Max Fried. But it'll be nice to see him back. And, you know, hopefully he looks like himself and it's just another starter too before you can trust him. There was a report earlier on Tuesday that Jake at Mizriereowski would not start again this week and then it changed. And so the Miz is expected to start Sunday against the Rockies. It was just kind of a weird report. I don't know, man, I just don't know what's going on with Mizriereowski right now. It's like the way they handled him yesterday and the quotes that were at, I know we spoke a lot about it, but I moved him down to my SP7 over all the rankings, which might sound crazy to some, like even saying it out loud, I understand when he's pitched a season on a per-ending per-star basis, he is the best pitcher in baseball. I just don't really know like what his usage is going to be a rest of season and whether or not he's going to remain healthy for the rest of the season. So it's, SP7 is still really, really high in the rankings. It's just I trust those other six names out of him right now. So. - I still haven't won, but when we did the redrafting the first two rounds last week, I think I had him like eight overall and none of the other pitchers were, I think within the next nine or 10 picks. Now he's back at the pack. And now I have, you know, I do the trade values that'll be out on Thursday, probably this week. And I have him, Sanchez, Schienes and Scoobal, all right in a row. And so he's moved back to the pack for me. I can't really disagree with what you're saying. Sticking with the brewers, Kyle Harrison is scheduled to throw a live BP Saturday. And hopefully begin a rehab assignment on July 31st. So some good news. Hopefully no setbacks there with Kyle Harrison. Ranger Suarez was scratch from his start Tuesday, but was thankfully cleared of any setbacks. I saw that he just over did it the past couple of days. I guess kind of like ramping up for this start and so they just wanted to give him an extra day. It sounds like he could actually start one of the double header games here on Wednesday. So hopefully. It was weird that they had him throwing on Monday to get clearance. And then we're going to have him start on Tuesday. That felt a little weird, yeah. Probably going to be an abbreviated start if I had to guess. I would guess so, yeah. Yeah. Well, there was one of my sleepers for the second half. Jack Flarety was placed in the aisle with right flexor inflammation. So obviously that's not good at all. Bobby with junior was out of the lineup Tuesday. As his back was still feeling pretty stiff. Julio Rodriguez also out of the lineup after leaving Monday with a leg injury. Corbin Carroll returned to the lineup after missing Monday with a hyper extended elbow. Otto Lopez was back in the lineup after missing the past two games with a finger injury. Christian Walker returned to the lineup after missing two straight with a right hip injury. Samuel Basayo has missed two straight with right shoulder discomfort. Jack Caglione left early with right shoulder soreness that he appeared to suffer on a diving attempt in the outfield. So maybe get today off here on Wednesday. If you play in a daily lineup, we just check to see if he's in the lineup. My guess is he'll probably get a day or two. Casey Meyers drew before Monday's game and expects to make his next scheduled start. He left his previous one with groin tightness as well as taking a comebacker off of his wrist. So the groin has been an issue for him. He's been on the aisle twice the season with an adductor strain. So that's all kind of the same region. So hopefully he's all right because Casey Meyers has pitched really well when healthy this season. - A doctor and groin are the same muscle I think. It's just groin is the more general term and doctor is the specific term. - Will Smith was transferred to the 60 day aisle which means he can't return until mid August at the earliest. He's dealing with that neck injury, sprain, whatever it is, but it's kind of unknown right now. Just weird injury for Will Smith. Kyle Tio was placed in the aisle. They left ankle sprain and it is a bad one. He's expected to miss six to 12 weeks that could be the end of the season here for Kyle Tio. Nick Lidolo will attempt a bullpen on Wednesday. He's dealing with that blister once again. And oh my goodness, we mentioned it yesterday. Poor Joshua Karota grower. He was placed in the aisle after having surgery for a ruptured testicle. - So now what you want. - For. - And it sucks. - It's something like a really solid player for the athletics in his first 16 games or whatever. - Tons of contact. - That sucks for him. - Tons of line drives. I didn't actually watch the iPad. Apparently you got a single even after that happened. - Yeah, he ran out. Yeah, I have no idea. - The Giants placed Trevor McDonald on the aisle with a right elbow strain. Perhaps Carson Wiesenhunt gets another chance in the rotation. He looked pretty good in his last start in the majors and could be a deeper name to pay attention to there. Again, that's Carson Wiesenhunt. And the D-bags called up one of their pitching prospects, Cole Drake to start here on Tuesday. He actually came over in the Merrill Kelly trade last year. So from the Rangers to the D-bags, and then the D-bags resigned Merrill Kelly in the offseason. But Cole Drake was having a brutal season in the minor. 692 ERA 164 Whip, 8K per nine over four walks per nine. It's a really tough pitching environment. I understand that at AAA for the D-bags affiliate there. But he was pretty solid in this debut here against the athletics five innings, one run, five strikeouts to two walks. He had 13 whips on 85 pitches. He used five different pitches. Only averages 91.4 miles per hour on his fastball from the left hand side. But he has a decent arsenal of like secondary pitches that he can go to. His change up looked pretty good. They had four whips on that pitch in this one. Chris, you have any very deeply interest in Cole Drake of the D-bags? I think it's an end to keep an eye on. I imagine he's incredibly happy to get out of Reno because he made four starts their last season with a 918 ERA and has a 692 ERA and 17 appearances this season. So Reno's been a bad place for Cole Drake. But he's putting up some pretty interesting numbers before that last season. So it's an end to watch. Yep. All right, let's get into some waiver wire pictures from Tuesday's action. I mentioned it up at the top. We had three different pictures who made some notable changes to their pitch makes. We already spoke about Tatsu Yemi. The other two, Kumar Rocker, a great outing here against the White Sox, six shutout innings, six strikeouts, two walks, 12 whips on 75 pitches. Seven of those came on a slider, four on the four seam fastball. And that's the pitch I want to focus on here. He more than doubled his four seam fastball usage. It was 11% entering. He threw a 23% of the time in this one. And on the season, his slider is awesome. It's his most used pitch. But his four seam fastball is actually his second best pitch. Sinker and cutter have been pretty bad for on this year. I just wonder, Chris, if, hey, let's try this. Mixing this four seam fastball, which has been his second best pitch all season. And maybe it can help Kumar Rocker find some consistency. He has had some good starts to season, some eye opening starts, but he's also had lots of blows.
blow ups and just short outings this season. So it's a deeper name, but I was at least a little intrigued by this change in pitch mix here. Yeah. I think from our rockers, a one pitch pitcher. Yeah. Like the four-seamer is probably the best pitch beyond the slider, but it's a 344X, but it still gets hit pretty hard, a lot of flyballs, decent whiff rate, 22%, but that's only a little better than average for four-seamers. So I'm glad to see him tinkering and tweaking, but I need to see more before I buy into Kymar Rocker. Yeah. 22% whiff rate on the four-seam fastball is good for a fastball. So that's something that stood out to me for Rocker. And to your point about him being a one-pitch pitcher, a lot of people were worried about him just being a reliever long term. And that's why he was such a divisive player, also the injuries as a prospect in the MLB draft way back in the day by the Metz and then the next year by the Rangers. But that was also, that was always part of the calculation and the projection here for Kymar Rocker. So I mostly agree, deep league name, but I think something to pay attention to with him. And then Walbert Arania, a strong outing here against the Cardinals, six innings, one run, five strikeouts to one walk. I mean, the walks are just pretty much the key here for Arania. He threw 68% of his pitches for strikes, which is an awesome number. He had 15 whiffs, 98 pitches in this one, seven on the sinker, four on the changeup, three on the four-seam fastball and one on the sweeper. And he more than doubled his four-seam usage in this one, 41%. Starting to start, it was only 20%. The four-seam fastball actually wasn't great for him in this one. Chris, if you look at his individual pitch characteristics this season, his changeup is disgusting. His four-seam and sweeper are actually both really good and his sinker, not so much. So I think if he just focuses on those three pitches, change up four-seam sweeper and could throw strikes, I think he's a really intriguing pitcher, man. He's another one where it's like, okay, we'll get two good starts in a row and then it's like, all right, four plus walks for the next two starts after that. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. I don't know. Maybe there's a pitch mix that he could make that would make him throw strikes more consistently, but I ultimately think that the biggest thing is just can he throw strikes. He's pretty good without it. I mean, it's a 27080RA or 270-- 270-- 2708 for the season. XERA is actually like 330 because he's so good at limiting damage on contact. I mean, guys just cannot barrel him up. And so it really, like, it's the strikeout or the walk rate needs to get better. And I think that's when he starts to get really interesting. I will say, very surprised, he's only 54% rostered. Do you think that should be higher? Higher, well, you would think based on having a 270. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's an odd distinction. If he was 90% rostered, I might have more negative to say about Warbird Aranha because that's the kind of thing that usually happens. Guys have unsustainably low ERAs, but with peripherals that don't necessarily back it up. It's usually like, okay, we got to pump the brakes on this guys. This is probably not this good. But Aranha is 54% rostered. I know it's a 131 whip, which makes it harder, but I'm genuinely surprised he's not higher. I think he's talented. I'm kind of think he does need to be rostered a little more widely than that. Yeah. And it is interesting what he's done this season too. Like the angels, like they do with many prospects, they've pushed him pretty hard. He's only 22 years old. He only made two starts at AAA this year. He only made one start at AAA last year. So I mean, three total starts at AAA and he's 22 years old and he's been up in the big leagues all season and he's managed a 278 ERA. I mean, when you add the context, it's like, all right, this is actually a really impressive thing that he's done. Obviously, what we care about for fantasy is, you know, can you do it consistently? Can you help us this season? But it is incredibly impressive what he's done as a rookie this year. 54% rostered. Would you take him ahead of all the names, any of the names I mentioned earlier that was in my Sasaki Christian Scott and Shane Drone? Probably not, but it's interesting. Like I struggle with it because I think he might have more upside than at least a few of those guys. I think he's more usable than Sasaki and he probably fair. But when those guys are on and at their best, I think they're upside as higher on a per-star pace, but their floor is lower. And Aranya has a low floor as it is. But yeah, if you just wanted to tell me, like, hey, rank those pictures for the most usability right now, I would probably put Drone and Walbert Aranya at the top. That's reasonable. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that specific order, but I think it's fine. Next week, by the way, for Aranya, 54% rostered does have some tough matchups. Looks like he's in line for the Astros and the Brewers. So pretty tough two-star week, but yeah, just tough matchups there for Walbert Aranya. A streamer type, but looks like he also has a tough matchup next week. That is Luis Castillo, who gave us a quality start. Seven innings of three run ball. Only three strikeouts, two homers allowed in this one. But over his last nine games, that includes seven starts, two of those being like piggyback appearances. Three, 35 ERA, 112 Whip. The, I mean, the strikeout rate is down a lot during that stretch, but he's managed to keep runs off the board. I think he's in that now. Shane Bos, Michael McGreevy, streamer conversation, but he's at the Dodgers next week. So. Yeah, don't want to use him against the Dodgers, but I think he's fine. I don't think he's as bad as he was early on in the season. I think we, if we were talking about leaving him for dead, I think he's, you know, it's, I wanted to make a reference, but Frank, there's no way you've ever seen Monty Python in the Holy Grail, right? I love that movie. Movie? I think it's. I, that's one Scott. I like, Scott's like, because like Monty Python in the Holy Grail is like a very specific type of nerd movie. And I think Scott is that kind of nerd, but I'm not 100% sure. If I had to bet, I would bet on Scott having seen that movie. I mean, it used to be on like Comedy Central all the time when I was growing up, but there's a scene where, you know, the black plague is happening and the guy's like, bring out you dead and he's like, I'm not dead yet. I'll text him right now and let you know if he answers. Is it just Monty Python? Is that the name? Well, I mean, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they had several movies, The Life of Brian, History of the World. No, that was, that's Mel Brooks. What's the Monty Python one? All right. I texted Scott if I get the answer. The Ruttles was a Monty Python joint. I'll let everyone know here live in the air. Anything here with these, how many three pictures, three deeper, waiver wire pictures, Zach Thornton, who has now dropped the H. It's just ZAC Thornton. Another strong start at the brewer, six shutout innings with two strikeouts. He has not really been able to miss many bats, but he's keeping runs off the board. He's keeping runners off base as well. His first major league outing was rough at the Nationals. I mean, it's a pretty bad landing spot. They're the best team against lefties. But in his three start since it's 19 innings one run, 14 strikeouts to four walks. Looks like he's in line for two start next week against the Braves and the Marlins. Luinda Avila of the Royals, a quality start here against the Giants, six and a third, two runs, seven strikeouts to one walk for him. Six starts, 348, ERA 129 whip. He is also a sparp, so a deeper sparp name for point leagues. And David Peterson pitched well against the Tigers, six and two third shutout innings with four strikeouts. And since joining the Cubs, three of his four starts to our runs are fewer. The one that wasn't ten earned runs in three and a third innings for David Peterson. So anything here with these three, Chris. David Peterson, Luinda Avila and Zach Thornton. Uh, yes with Thornton, maybe with Avila, but probably not. Peterson, I mean, we have seen very useful stretches from him last year. His first, probably first 20 starts of last season. I think we're very good for David Peterson. He was pitching deep consistently in the games, but I don't, I don't have a ton of confidence in it. Thornton. You know, I, I think there could be some Justin Robleski there. It's like, he's probably not going to strike a ton of guys out. He needs to limit free passes, which he's done so far. Wasn't as good at it in the minors, but then, you know, maybe, maybe he can get away with something and, you know, put up a sub for your a, I don't have a ton of faith in Zach Thornton, but it is notable. I think I said this last time we talked about him, but among the players that the Metz declared off limits in trade talks, according to, gosh, who's that report from? I know the report. I don't know what it was for. It was the report last week about the Metz.
at the trade deadline and it was basically, they're open to trading everyone, but AJ Ewing, Carson Bench, Juan Soto, Nolan McLean and Zach Thornton basically. - No, Christian Scott is the one that missed you. - Did he even mention Zach Thornton? - Oh, it wasn't Zach Thornton, you're right. - All right, so that's the thing. - After this start, he might be thinking, I think he's, you know, interesting, but I don't think there's a ton of upside there. - Yeah, he is kind of a funky lefty, right? The way he goes about it, it's like mostly the cutter that he throws and he mixes in a sweeper and he doesn't throw very hard, but I think it's like, it's all stuff that's moving away from lefties and moving into righties and it's just kind of a different look than we're used to seeing from a lefty. Admittedly, I don't know if this happens to you often, Chris. And I don't, I try not to let it affect my analysis, but I picked up Zach Thornton into leagues that I, I'm, you know, Towers and a labor that, you know, I'd love to win both if possible. So I just find myself rooting for Zach Thornton, like I hope he's good, but, you know, objectively, yeah, like he's not getting strike out so far, he's done a good job, but yeah, I think in leagues that deep, obviously, like 15 team rodeo leagues and only like, he should be roster just to see. And in 12s, I think it's kind of a, wait and see, like draw him on your scout team. Let's see where this goes for, uh, for Zach Thornton. A potential drop I have here as a Ronaldo Lopez rough outing here against the Padres, four and a third, nine hits, five runs allowed, still had six strikeouts, still had 13 whiffs on 85 pitches. And the velocity was up a little bit in the start. He, his last two starts have been banned. His two before that were pretty good. It was five innings, one run in each. 48% rostered. He's a spark. So I think he's a hold in points leagues, but I think in 12 team category leagues, I'd probably be all right, letting go over in all the Lopez. I've never been much of a believer in Ronaldo Lopez. Um, so I'm, I'm totally on board with that. I think he's a fine spark because I think basically any spark is worth rostering ahead to head point league, but not in, uh, not a readily, I don't think I do have an answer from Scott. Would you like to guess whether or not he has seen my team on to I'm going to say yes. It was an in fatic. Yes, he texted me with, of course. So I'm sorry. Uh, he definitely would have understood your reference, but me meaning of life is the other one and not not history of the world. Part two, that's a Mel Brooks movie. I apologize to my fellow nerds. Uh, yeah. You know, Chris, part of the reason why, look, I just, I missed out on watching these movies growing up. It's, it's kind of hard for me to go back and watch older movies now. I don't know if you feel that way, but having not seen. We spoke about Jurassic Park for years, right? I watched Jurassic Park, you know, earlier this year and it was fine. Like I enjoyed it. I understand why people love it. But only calling Jurassic Park fine is like one of the most defensive things I've ever ever. It's a perfect movie. I'm sorry. But, you know, going back to that, I don't disagree going back to watch the terminator movies. Like I don't know. I just, it's hard for me to kind of get up to watch older movies. Now I don't know why it depends. It depends. Like, you know what? I watched the first terminator recently and I kind of agree. It's a little slow. It's a little hokey in some spots. Terminator two. Oh, that movie, that movie cooks. I understand these are movies that I should have seen in my life. And I just, no, the terminator two is fun. I mean, that, it just depends, right? Like I, you know, like have you seen Raiders in the Lost Ark? Of course, I love that movie. Yeah. I mean, of course you haven't. But like, that is a movie that's just like, man, it zips along. It's fun. It's funny. Yep. It's like the template for every action movie made since I know that I should watch these movies. It's just, it's hard for me to get up for it. And instead, every weekend, I just find myself watching some weird horror movie with my wife that like nobody's ever heard. Like we all have our, we all have our thing. Right. Uh, let's think our final break. When we return, I have three waiver wire hitters to ask about what do we do with Kevin God's minute, friend of all days, we'll fill in the blank with some rankings and we'll do all that right after this. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back, fantasy baseball. Today I have three waiver wire hitters to ask about and Jacob Wilson looks like he's heating up one for four with his seven home run, a game tying home run in the ninth inning. He has home run in three of his last four games. So flashed some power here. Last nine games. He's sitting 421, three homeers, seven runs, six RBI, 78% rostered. So I mean, this is the shallowest of leagues. But do you think Jacob Wilson is just a must roster player? Like should that number be closer to 100%. Sure. I'm not a huge fan of his, but he obviously has his uses. And the thing about the shortstop position is, man, if you were, if you're ranking like the top 400 players, let's say, you probably have, I don't know, 15 short stops in the top 120, let's say. And then after that, it is just a wasteland. So anyone who might be interesting is, and is available is rare. So yeah, I think it's okay to add Jacob Wilson, where available? I think specifically in points, leagues two, just because that's his main format. He barely strikes out. He hits a lot of line drives. He gets on base. And now we're starting to see a little bit of power. It's like, all right, how real is this power? I understand some skepticism with that. But I mean, even, even in a point league, I have, you get up to 15, like I have boba shit as my 15th ranked shortstop. Just ahead of him, Nico Horner's, if you're Edwards, Jeremy Pena, Dan's, we swanson is in that mix too. So it's, I can understand in a shallower point league why it might be harder to get Jacob Wilson in your lineup. Maybe as like a utility bat, if you have a really good shortstop, but it does feel like that's his best format and where you should be using him. Luis Robert demolished a baseball here on Tuesday. It was his third home run of the season. Obviously he's only played 26 games, but 112.2 exit velocity, 451 feet. I don't know about that calculation. It feels like it looked like it went longer than 450, 69% rostered, but he's another one where it's like, all right, any higher, we're talking about three outfielder leagues for Luis Robert. Yeah, and I think it's just three outfielder categories leagues, five outfielder categories leagues, definitely. And I would say even in points, leagues, again, if it's a daily league where you're just putting guys in your lineup every day, maybe not because you want a little more of a sure thing, he's more of an upside stash. But I still think there's a lot of upside here with Luis Robert. So if he gets hot for the final two months of the season and is awesome, I wouldn't be suppressed at all. It's been a long time since he's been awesome. He was good in the second half last year. He was good in the second half last year, yes. Yeah. So perhaps he can go on a run, can he stay healthy to do it? I mean, that's probably the biggest question for Luis Robert. Last name I'll mention here, if you play in two catcher leagues, I've talked about him a lot, but he's been pretty good. He's just like a fine prototypical second catcher. And that is Joe Mack with the Marlins. He hit his ninth home run. It's back to back games with a Homer. That's 31 games. He's hitting 267 with eight home runs and an OPS over 900 during that stretch. So he is really bad against lefties, but whenever there's a bunch of righties on the schedule, I think Joe Mack is in play in two catcher leagues. Chris, what do we do with Kevin Gossman and Framber Valdez? Kevin Gossman, another rough outing here against the raise. And over his last nine starts, he has a 656 ERA, a 156 whip, too many walks, lots of heart contact, lots of fly balls, which have let the home runs during that stretch. He also has a really low left on base percentage. If you look at his individual pitch characteristics, they are very similar to last season. Everything looks the same. Yeah. I just, I totally get people wanting to bench him right now. I still don't think I would drop him. No, I don't think I would drop him. This was a weird start because he gave up. I think it was 18 balls in play. I guess I could look it up and make sure, but I believe it's 18 balls in play. Of the 18, I think four of them were hit 95 miles per hour or harder. Yeah, 18 by the balls, four bad balls hit harder than 95 miles an hour. average ex of velocity was 74 miles an hour. Now he didn't miss any bat, so it's hard to argue like, oh, he, you know, had some great start. That was just a fluky mess. You know, you look at the individual bad balls themselves and it's a lot of like 86 mile an hour, bad at balls, but they were line drives that had high, you know, expected batting average. He had a 72 mile per hour bad at ball that had a 560xba because of the angle it was hit at. He had a 74 mile an hour single that was a 380xba. You know, so that'll happen. It wasn't just bad luck, but it wasn't like he got demolished either, at least outside of the box score, I guess. And nothing looks that different from last season. Now he is 35 and it's possible that he's just lost enough that, you know, the half mile per hour he's lost.
on his fastball is just making it too too hard to survive that way or he has to push to get that half mile per hour and the command's not as good, you know, but the peripherals are all in the high threes. I think that's what I expect from him moving forward, not a difference maker anymore, not an ace certainly, and it looked like he might be that again early on in the season. But I still think he'll be useful during the second half. And the ERA estimators think that Kevin Galsman is a buy. I know he goes through these stretches. This happens almost every year. He's a splitter pitcher. So he he is very inconsistent at times, but he has a 451 ERA that comes with a 367-5 387-X-FIP and entering the start it was a 388-X-ERA. So it's not amazing numbers, but it tells us that you know, he should do more like a high three's ERA than the 451 that he has right now. So would you try and buy on Kevin Galsman? It would have to be real cheap. Yeah. I would rather have Rob Lesky the rest of the season. Yeah, but like if I had ERA, I'd be down to try to offer ERA for Kevin Galsman, sure. Forevervelle is. Could not escape the first inning at the Cubs. He only recorded two outs. Six runs allowed. Five hits, two walks. He had a hit by pitch as well. He just got ambushed. The Cubs were ready. They were all over him. Three hard hits in this game. 93.6 average exit velocity against. I don't know what else to say, Chris, because like I feel like we get one good start from Forevervelle. Les where the curveball is working and they were like, all right, it's about to happen. And then he has two or three just terrible starts in a row after that. He has allowed four or more earned runs in eight of 20 starts this season. That's 40% of his starts. Last year, four or more earned runs in 32% of his starts. So he's been a lot less, you know, just usable this season. His ground ball rate is down. His K rate is down. The walks are pretty much where they always are, but that's usually not good for Forevervelle. Les I'm just about ready to be done with it. What does that mean? I don't think I would drop him, but like I don't think you could play Forevervelle des right now. Well, but you recognize what the problem there is, right? His previous start to this one was nine strikeouts and seven innings with one earned run allowed. But his previous start to that was five runs and five innings. Exactly. And the previous one to that was four runs and six innings. But the previous two starts before that were one earned run across two starts with 14 strikeouts. It's just. But even if you just had Forevervelle des off your team this season, like, Oh, you'd listen. He has a 457 year A to 138 whip, you know, the thing that I find especially frustrating is usually with Forevervelle des it's easy. It's not it's frustrating, but it's easy. When he's bad, he's bad. When he's good, he's good. And it usually goes like that for several months at a time. And once it locks in, it locks in for good. And usually it's just if that curveball is good, he's good. If that curve ball is bad, he's bad. And it just hasn't been that way this season. It's been he had a really good start. You know, remember, he had a 335 year A at the end of April. And he really only had one bad start at that point. But ever since then, it's just been like good start, bad start, good start, bad start, horrible, hard start, bad start, good start, good start, bad. It's like, it's just been so much more frustrating this season. And he is 32 years old. And it's possible that he's just lost. I'm open to that possibility. But I don't think I can bring myself to drop him. But I think it's fair to say his best days are probably behind him at this point. Yeah. I have no confidence, man. Like I would much rather by low on Kevin Gausman than than Framberval does at this point. It's just I maybe he turns it around, but I just there's not really anything in the underlying numbers that say that like this should get better for Framberval does. It's just I don't have confidence in buying low on him. I have no confidence in using him. So I get people's frustration. If you play in a shallow list of leagues where like Sean Burke or someone like that is still available, like, yeah, I'd probably make that swap. But I don't really think that those guys are really available in many leagues anymore. Let's wrap up here. Fill in the blank rankings edition. I have a bunch of players here who are trending up and just trying to get a feel for how do we rank these guys' rest of season? We spoke about Justin Robleski. Zach Wheeler, another great outing. We've talked a lot about him lately. This one against the Dodgers. One mistake against Max Muncie, a two run homer. So a tough loss here, but seven innings, two runs, nine strikeouts, a zero walks 21 whiffs on 93 pitches for Zach Wheeler. He has nine plus strikeouts in four straight. He has gone six plus innings in 13 of 16 starts the season. Fill in the blank, Chris. Top blank starting pitcher rest of season. Zach Wheeler. Five. I think so too. I can't take him over. Maybe you have him overskins. I don't know because I know you and Scott have been a little more worried about schemes than I have. I can't get there. He probably should be, but I have schemes one spot higher. Yeah, but it's not like I think he's the second round pick of a red, if we're drafting for 2027 right now. Obviously, I don't know what will happen in the next two months. He's 36 years old, but 37, but right now, yeah, I think Zach Wheeler's a top 25 player in baseball and a top five starting pitcher. Yeah, 36 years old. Therefore, Zach Wheeler, next up, we have some hitters, Wyatt Langford, two for four with his 11th home run, two runs, two RBI, 29 games since coming off the IL in early June. So I'm kind of messing with the numbers here because there was another IELston mixed in there. But when he originally came back from that long IELston, he has played 29 games. He's hitting 319 with 10 homers, 22 runs, 23 RBI four seals, an OPS right around 1000. So I know it's been frustrating because you miss a large chunk, large chunk of the season, but when he's played, he's basically delivered what we were hoping he would do. Top blank outfield, the rest of season, Wyatt Langford. Definitely 24. I think I could get him as high as 21 because I currently do have Andy Pahez and Jack Haggley on ahead of him. Pahez, he's been pretty bad for the last month or two if I'm remembering correctly. I haven't checked the numbers in a while. And then Haggley owned, we really only have like a one great month from him in his career. So I wouldn't take a ton to convince me to move Langford ahead of those guys. So top 24 outfielder, borderline, top 100 overall player. Yeah. Definitely top 24. I could see getting him inside the top 20. Names I have in that range are Randi Rosalina Brian Reynolds. Both have had great seasons. Yeah, that's they've been so good. Yeah. I have Pahez right around there. Alec Burleson has had a really good season. Say, Asizuki has really come on. Yeah. Asizuki looks like himself. My crowd's been very good. Riley Green's been good. Aaron Judges is another one that just I don't really know where to rank him. So if you if you really wanted to twist my arm and say you'd rather have Wyatt Langford than Aaron Judges, sure. That's fine. Yeah. I'd certainly rather have Wyatt Langford there. Aaron Judges for the next month or so. Langford versus Kyle Tucker is an interesting conversy. I have not buried Kyle Tucker as much as I probably should. I have a a full faith that he will somehow pull out of this. I have Kyle Tucker at 16 and Langford at 24. If you told me those names should be swapped. I really wouldn't have a great argument against it. I wouldn't really argue much against that. CJ Abrams will not stop two for three with a walk. A double-dong four RBI. He is enjoying his time and course field. He has homer'd in three straight. He has four home runs during that spin. He his numbers were down in June, but he has bounced back so far in July 309, six homers, 1040 OPS. He has an OPS over 900 in three of four months this season. I just don't know how high he should be. I think he's a top 25 player rest of season. How high does he get him at shortstop? Third. I agree. I have with and I have with Ellie De La Cruz ahead of him. Yeah. We had Ellie De La Cruz at top six players from it and fantasy for me. CJ Abrams is not on that level, but he's a he was in our redrafting the first two rounds, I believe. I don't think we got him in there. We did. Okay. I had him in mind then. I had him in mind as well. And I don't have Gunner Henderson in there. I don't have Zachary Netto or Trey Turner. So yeah, I think he's got to be third. Him versus Lendora's a conversation. I know Lendora's been in bad, but he's actually picking things up as of late. And he's got such a good track record. And I can see him just having a monster second half, but CJ Abrams has had just a monster season. So at this point, I have Abrams ahead of Lendora. Wrestling. Seeing Abrams pull out of the slide that he had in June is a huge thing because that's been the thing for with four straight years now. Yeah. Gets off to this awesome start and the power just completely goes away in the second half. He usually goes on like two month long stretches where he can't hit a baseball. And now he's been really good for four months. So I'm inclined to just kind of think. And you know, this and the next guy, maybe there is something to be said for like I have no idea if the people running the the nationals and Rockies are like geniuses. But
I'm pretty sure the people who used to be running those two teams were not. Yeah. And so the, the like, just getting, I mean, the kind of what the marlins have gone through the past couple of seasons, just getting, just getting like someone who's competent. Oh, away. Yeah, just average competence. Could be a big deal for the development of a lot of these young players. And, um, yeah, I think that's an underrated thing for the nationals this season for sure. Well, that next name up that you were alluding to is Hunter Goodman who hit a clutch home run his 31st of the season. It was a go ahead, Homer in the eighth inning of that game. He has four home runs in his past three games. He has two three home or games, I think in his last like 10 or 15. So he's up to 31 home runs on the season, which is the third most in baseball behind only Yordana Alvarez and Kyle Schwarber. This is a tougher conversation to have because I his value changes quite drastically and road versus head to points just because he strikes out so much. So I think in, I think in Roto, he's a top four catcher rest of season and in points, he's like top six or seven. Yeah, his points skill set like Ivan Herrera is more geared for points. Yeah, I think you'd still rather have Hunter Goodman in points though. Just how good he's been this season. So it's fill in the blank, right? Yeah. I think, did you originally have it as like how high is too high or something? Yeah, that's what I was going to do. Because if it was how high is too high, then one is the answer. That would be too high for him. He shouldn't be ahead of Ben Rice. But if you wanted to rank him second at catcher, anything after that, I think is fair game. I think the difference between Drake Baldwin, Hunter Goodman, Shay Langaleers is in Roto, especially is basically nothing. I think it's Rachel's in. Yeah. So I have it Baldwin Goodman Langaleers, but I think you could go, it's harder to make the case for Langaleers because he slowed down a lot, but he's still having an awesome season. Yeah. And he just hit another home run as well. Yeah. So yeah, it's, I think that's the three at the end and who the number one catcher for next year is will be a very fascinating thing to debate over the next, I mean, next nine months, but really once the season ends because I don't even Ben Rice is getting 20 games of catcher. I'm not sure he's going to get one game of catcher. No, but I think the rest of the season is what's going to determine who's the number one catcher. It's like, what do these guys do? Drake Baldwin, Langaleers and Goodman rest of season is good men in Colorado, right? Like that's definitely a big part of this equation as well. Although he's been a lot better on the road this year, which is weird. Is Langaleers in Sacramento? I mean, now his name is starting to pop up a little bit in trade rumors too. So yeah, you know, this trade deadline for catchers is really interesting between Goodman and obviously Langaleers and there's Ryan Jeffers who's an expiring deal. I mean, I think he's almost a guarantee to get traded. But there were even some rumblings about I think Rushman before he got her. I'm sure the injury probably changes that, but I could see cable re's getting traded. Francisco Alvarez name has been there. So lots of lots of names that could be on the move at catcher here leading up to the deadline. And one last catcher to mention, I'm Dylan Dingler, man. Just awesome season hit another home run at his 22nd and he has three home runs in his past two games. He's up to 271 22 homers 65 RBI 872 OPS. It's not crazy for him to be in that same conversation as Langaleers and Baldwin. The only difference is that those names have done it for multiple years in a row now. Like Dingler was okay last year. This level, we've only seen it for four months this season. So I think he's just behind that tier. I could get him as high as fifth. Like I think the second tier Baldwin Hunter Baldwin Goodman Langaleers very close. I think the third tier Contreras Herrera Dingler is very close. If you want Dingler at the top of that, it's. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have him at the top of that list. Yeah. Let's ride up here with some leftovers on the hitting side. Yandee Diaz continued his big season hit his 14th home run. George Springer. He's looked better over the past month. He went two for four with a double and a run scored last 30 games. He's hitting 250 with five homeers, four steals a 779 OPS. ESOC Paradeus hit his 13th home run and last 40 games for him 297 seven homeers 29 RBI and OPS over 900. He's really turned things up and said that is a name to keep an eye on for the trade deadline. His name has started to come up and I would not like. I have been all over the past couple of days. I don't know if you're like this Chris, but whenever I'm not doing anything in my house, I'm just always like consuming content, whether it's YouTube or podcasts or if I'm out of the gym or just whatever like playing basketball, I just have headphones in. I have been consuming a lot of trade deadline content and the Astros are just a fascinating one because like they're in the mix. They ain't out that far out. Yeah. West is wide open right now. And basically as long as they've been owned by Jim Crane, he said like, Hey, we're never going to rebuild. We're always going to try and go for it. And it's like, how can you defend selling when you're getting this season out of your dawn Alvarez? So I just I feel like the Astros will be more buyers and sellers. But you know, if they if they lose eight of their next 10, I mean, that that might just determine it right there. So man, you know, it would be really fun. It would require the Reds to eat a bunch of money. But man, he's stuck pray is with the Reds. That would one just be great for the Reds team that should be going for it. And two, he'd be that would fit really well for him. Yeah. Yeah. And Brandon Nemo's the last name on this list. He went four for four with his 10th home run over his last 32 games. He's hitting over 300. It's not a lot of power. But during that spend 94.3 average exit velocity 14% barrel rate. I know the home road splits have been a problem this year. And maybe he just won't get to his expected numbers because of hitting in Texas. And it's just not a good hitter environment. I still think Brandon Nemo could be a good buy for the second half. And best expect the numbers of his career. Yeah. He's hitting the crap out of the ball. Yeah, 92 mile per hour average exit velocity for this is 92.6. I think it's been very impressive. And yeah, I think we're starting to see it normalize a little bit where the expected stats are have been outpacing the actual production, but it's starting to catch up a little bit. Some pitching left overs, Parker, Messick, solid against the twins, five and two thirds, two runs, one of those earned six strikeouts, zero walks. His velocity has fluctuated a lot over the past month or so. But it was back up in this start fastballs up 1.2. His changeup was up nearly two miles per hour and had a good start. Drew Rasmussen was okay at the blue jays five plus innings, two runs, five strikeouts. His two starts before this were terrible. He's looked more human as of late and chase burns strong outing at the Mariners five shut out with six strikeouts for him 16 whiffs on 91 pitches here. Anything to add on Burns Rasmussen or Parker Messick? It's been a lot of just okay for Rasmussen lately, which that's not surprising. He had a sub three ERA for a long time. He looked like a top 10 pitcher in baseball. I don't think he's that good, but I think he's really good. I think he's a top 25 pitcher in fantasy. So I think he'll settle down after this. All right. He called to the bullpen for the guardians. Kate Smith picked up his lead leading 29th save for the royals right back to Alex Lang. With a one run lead, he walked one truck out to for his ninth save for whatever reason. The royals are just Alex Lang is their guy for the ashrows. Josh Hader picked up his 11th save for the Dodgers. Tanner Scott got the final five outs for his 15th save. We mentioned earlier. He was helped out by some base running blunders there by the Phillies for the reds. Emilio Pagan got the ninth inning with a two run lead. He picked up his eighth save. He's a name to watch. He could he could get training. I don't know that there's anybody else interesting in the reds. Pulled in after we just went through that. Yeah. Emilio Pagan, but yeah, he could he could definitely be on the move for the debax. Paul Seawall got the ninth with a two run lead. He allowed a two run homer to Jacob Wilson. He took his second blown save. The debax would wind up winning that game in extras. And for the Rockies, Jordan Romano got the ninth with a one run lead facing nine one and two in the nationals lineup. So he would have to earn this and he struck out two in a perfect inning, including a strike out of James Wood, which was pretty impressive. It was a seventh save overall. He has three of the past four saves with the Rockies. I don't trust him as far as I could throw him, Chris, but I mean, he hasn't been any good since like 2023. And I'm not going to tell you to add, Jordan Romano on the on the Rockies. Don't put that evil on me. You have to decide for yourself and your team whether you need the, I don't know, six saves you might get over the next two months at most more than the six ERA will hurt you because I think that's the likely outcome. To stream more not to stream on Wednesday, we have Mitch Keller and Bubba Chandler both at the Yankees, Seth Lugo against the Giants, Christian Scott is at the Brewers, Gage jump at the debacks, Merrill Kelly against the athletics, Brady Singer at the Mariners. I just saw Michael McGreevy got moved to Thursday. So that's annoying because he was going to face the Angels. So that was a good matchup. Billy Ober is at the Guardians Dean Kramer at the Red Sox. Yeah, I don't really like these options. Christian Scott's okay. Gage jump could be okay.
Marok Halley could be okay. Yeah, I don't really like the options here. - Yeah, I know Scott gave out Seth Lugo against the Giants. - Yeah. - That is a really early, I think it's like 12/30 start time. I always think, I don't even know if you could look this up anywhere, Chris, not that we can find it out right now, but it always felt like early Matt and A games favored pitchers. I just feel like a bad-- - You get a lot of players getting days off in those situations. - That could be, yeah. - Bats are just not ready to go that early in the day, especially like day game after night game type thing. Like the pitcher is just more fresh. Like he pitched five or six days ago, and these hitters are playing a day game after night game. So it just feels like it normally favors pitchers. I don't have any numbers to back that up, but it's just-- - Yeah, it could be. - What I feel like has happened. - I would guess most of the time the starting pitcher for the next game isn't even there. And a day, a night before day game, I would guess. I don't know for sure, but I know teams will often send the pitcher away from the team ahead of time when they have to get out on the day game travel day. So yeah, there might be something there, sure. - If I had to choose three here, I would go Lugo against the Giants, Christian Scott at the Brewers, and I kind of like Brady Singer at the Mariners. He's pitching better. It's a good ballpark to pitch in. It's obviously not a very good lineup. They might be without Julio Rodriguez. - Now he came back today and hit a huge home run late. So-- - Did he? - He got a couple of played appearances in that one, yeah. - Oh, totally. - Yes, that, so. - All right. - Yes, he homer'd in like the eight inning and got two played appearances played center field. So I would guess, I mean, like he might just be off anyway, 'cause it's, but, - Yeah. - Julio Rodriguez was back today. - I still like Brady Singer, but I raised everything else. I just said about Julio Rodriguez. Then on Thursday, Thursday, five game slate, Chris. So I will have something creative to do on Thursday night. We don't have any streamers to choose from, but we have Ian Seymour at the Blue Jays, Shane Bieber against the Rays, Michael McGreevy against the D-backs, and Brandon Fought at the Cardinals. - I think the first three are all moderately okay. I think Ian Seymour, I mean, I know the last two starts especially have been very bad. - Yeah. - Start before that was 12 strike outs. I'm not giving up on Ian Seymour by any means. So I still think he could be good. Bieber, it's really only like one good start so far. McGreevy has obviously been pretty good. So I, I think those three are okay. And by the way, pictures in day games have a 420 ERA in night games. They have a 424 ERA. - Told you. They were much better. - There you go. - Clearly. Yeah. Thursday, I like Seymour and Michael McGreevy. I would not want to use Shane Bieber. I know he's coming off his best start of the season, but especially against the raise. They just don't swing and miss very much. So yeah, give me Seymour and McGreevy on Thursday. - We are gonna wrap there for Chris. I am Frank, thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Vs Ball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. (upbeat music) - Paramount podcasts. - Now streaming only on Paramount Plus. - Chicago. - It's my home. - The acclaimed series The Shy reaches its final chapter. - This is shy. Anything's possible. - The shy. The final season now streaming only on Paramount Plus.
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