Temperature Check on These 8 Pitchers! (8/7 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

What is Toyota Fortability? It's buying smart. Right now your local Toyota dealer has great deals available on some of the most reliable trucks on the market, like the off-road Ready Tacoma, rugged, full-size Tundra, and legendary forerunner, all with the space tech and features to handle it all. From the work site to the trails, it means driving for less, with efficient hybrid options available, extending your overall driving range and delivering great MPGs, meaning bigger savings at the pump without sacrificing power. And it means trading for more. The Tacoma and Tundra are ranked number one and number two in resale value over all vehicles according to Kelly Bluebook, which can mean thousands more than average, right back in your pocket when it's time to trade in. That's Toyota Fortability. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. Shop Toyota.com or your local dealer for deals and details. Vehicles projected resale value is specific to the 2026 model year. For more information, visit Kelly Bluebook's KBB.com. Toyota brand average resale value is 53%, versus the average vehicle at 45%. Toyota, let's go places. [MUSIC PLAYING] Happy Cuckoo Bo Friday and welcome in to Fantasy Vs. ball today on August 7th. I am Frank Samphold, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers today on the show. Who's hot and who's not? Hit her addition, temperature check on eight, confusing pictures. We had a wacky two-homer game from Ronald Acunia, and much more. Let's jump in. Holy cow, how about that? All right, let's begin with-- actually the Red Sox, man. The Red Sox-- I'm going to mention this every day. Day-- Day are on fire, man. That came between the White Sox and Red Sox. That was great. Incredible theater. It was back and forth, back and forth. And the Red Sox are on a new streak. They've won eight in a row. They are 31 and 5 in their last 36 games, which is just insane without Roman Anthony, without Garakrache, wild stuff. But let's talk about Bryce Miller. Chris, what's the latest? Nothing good. Nothing good on Bryce Miller. It was what, five innings, four on runs today. Struck out five, gave up two hits. 10 lifts on a three pitches. It wasn't a terrible start. It certainly wasn't the worst start of this little stretch he's on. But it was just another one where his fastball velocities down a little bit. And he just has not been nearly as effective lately. It's the-- well, let me make sure I get the numbers in front of me. His fastball velocity dipped below 96 miles an hour for the first time in his first start in July. That actually was pretty good, 95.8. And I think you struck out eight in six innings. Since then, last five starts, he has a 5.801 ERA, 133 whip, only 17 strikeouts in 26 innings, 26 in the third innings. And that's a big deal for Bryce Miller, because this fastball is a big part of what makes him good when he's going well. And the whiff rate on that pitch has really, really fallen apart lately. I think it's down to 17% in this stretch. It wasn't bad in this one. But then he just didn't have anything else to go along with it. The splitter was OK. But the rest of the arsenal, the sweeper, the curve ball-- I mean, he's largely shoved the curve ball, the slider he didn't throw much today. And that's always been kind of the thing with Bryce Miller is the fastball's good. Splitter's really good. Everything else can be pretty iffy. He's a guy who tends to have to change his arm slot to be able to throw his breaking balls. And they've never really been super effective pitches, despite rating out pretty well on the various stuff metrics. And so he needs an overwhelming fastball. And he's only down about a mile per hour since the first month and a half or so of the season. But that's really important. It seems to be a crucial mile per hour. And I'm not totally giving up on him yet. But it's been a long fall, and it's hard to recommend him as a starter for next week. It's at New York. Not the toughest matchup in the world without Aaron Judge, but they can still hit homers. It's a tough place to pitch. And I think I'm leaning towards having to sit, Bryce Miller at this point. And then I think he's got-- I think it's Milwaukee after that. Milwaukee and then the Cubs after that. So the next two weeks are looking pretty tough for Bryce Miller. And when we're talking about week 21 now next week, you're running out of time for him to turn it around. Now look, if he goes out and has a great starting into the Yankees, maybe we reconsider. But right now, it's not looking great for a guy that I think we all had as a top 30 starting pitcher a month ago. Yeah. This has flipped upside down very quickly for Bryce Miller. You read off the last five starts. We all had him inside our top 30, and that number has dropped precipitously. Scott had some down at SP69, Chris down to SP53. I have him at SP44. So perhaps that number needs to drop even more for me when it comes to Bryce Miller. This was just a weird start, because he actually did get whiffed on his fastball through a lot of his pitches for strikes. Really didn't give up that many hard hits. There was only three hard hits again. So he really just got ambushed in that first inning where he gave up three runs. And then obviously couldn't really put together a great start after that. But this is kind of a weird start here for Bryce Miller. He talked about the matchup next week. Scott, what do you think about potentially dropping? Bryce Miller. I had someone earlier today tell me they dropped Bryce Miller for Noah Cameron, who's on that crazy run right now. Like I get it in a shallow enough lead. Like you got to make a-- because it's week one and two week 21. Like Chris said, like I've been saying, for the past couple days, you don't have a lot of time to wait around for a hypothetical. Anymore. What I like to avoid it, I moved Bryce Miller as far down as I felt like I could. You said I'm 69th in my starting pitch rankings. I moved him down as far as I thought I could without suggesting it's time to drop him. It's not a Davis Martin situation. Yeah. Yeah. Because the fastball did play a little better in this one. It was a little higher in velocity than in this previous couple outings. Maybe it's trending up. But-- Still like even that. It's a 25% width rate on the four-seamer, which is pretty good. But for your best start in a month in regards to that, that's not great. It's just OK. I'm not optimistic. But I also wasn't optimistic at May. And obviously Bryce Miller looked really good soon after that. So things could change quickly. But yeah, I can't say I'm optimistic at the moment. All right, Scott. Let's go over to your player the night. Dylan has ceased to maintain his velocity. But he was still amazing. He was amazing. Yeah, 10 strikeouts in 7-2 hit innings at the Cubs. Tough matchup. Revenge game. Kind of. Used to be a Cubs prospect. Wow. That was completely out of my memory. I had no record. Election of Dylan ceased being a Cubs guy. How did he-- Did he even get close to the major? In the Cubs. Not being on the Cubs. They traded into the white socks in the Jose Cantana deal, I want to say. Oh, OK. Anyway. Yeah. So Cees struck out 10 in 7-2 innings, even though his fastball and slider were both down more than a mile per hour from a season average. His changeup was down about four miles per hour. And both of those things have been true for more or less true for three starts in a row now. The changeup being far, far lower in velocity and the other pitch is being notably lower in velocity. And yet they've all been awesome. They've been arguably his best three starts of the year. It's been really impressive. I can say for sure that in the first of those three starts, which I believe was the no-hip bid, and then this most recent one, even though the average velocity was down more than a mile per hour, it started low, even lower than that, and picked up over the course of the game. And that was true in this one, too. He was averaging more like 94 on the fastball in the first inning, and it was back up to like 97 later on. So he hasn't-- He's a good sign, yeah. I haven't found a-- it does seem like a good sign that-- I feel better about that than if it was the other way around, like if he was losing velocity over the course of the game. I haven't seen C's comment on that part specifically, but it makes me wonder if it's intentional. He's clearly changing the way he pitches with the blue jays. And he did comment on that overall. Just the overall changes he's making. He says, "I feel like I'm mixed." sing in more variety of pitches, and I feel like I'm getting them to better spots, too. It feels like some days in the past would really just be very slider fastball heavy. And if I didn't have one or the other, it would be a massive grind, where now I can mix in a first pitch curveball and go to the sweeper and go to the sinker and things like that. But I haven't historically done very well in the past, and that's helping me just diversify my pitches and be less predictable. And so he is speaking to some of the wholesale changes he's making, and maybe dialing it back a little, particularly early in games, so that he can bring out his A grade fastball later once he's going through that line up for the third time, also to keep him from going out too early in the start. I don't know. I'm just theorizing what's going on with the velocity here, clearly though it's working for him. And I feel like this is the best version of Dillon's these we've ever seen. It's a little bit of what Justin Verlander used to do. This is kind of like a little bit of the old school mentality. Justin Verlander, I was looking it up just now, 2015, in the first inning of his starts in 2015, so long time ago, he was averaging 92.7 miles per hour in the first inning, which think about hard throwing ace, averaging 93 miles per hour with their fastball. That's how much things have changed. In the seventh inning, it was a much smaller sample size, but in the seventh inning, through 114 pitches with his four-seamer, there were 94.2. So that's as hitters see you, they're going to be a little more effective against you, unless you can improve your stuff as the start goes on. Maybe that's the thought process there, but it's clearly what we're seeing this season. The rough contours still look a lot like the previous versions of Dillon's Seas, but I think we're seeing a different, better version of him because, like Scott mentioned, that changeup has gone from being a non-factor. It was a joke pitch before. He basically threw an e-fist when he threw his changeup and it required him. He would just slow his arm angle down. It was completely different pitch. Now that's a real pitch. He's throwing the curveball a little more even. Despite the fact that the curveball has gone from his third most-use pitch to his fourth most, he's also still throwing it more. I think you added all up, and it's just, I really do think this is the best version of Dillon's Seas that we've seen. Now, that has hurt us in the past. Dillon's Seas has never been consistent and it's possible that he's about to go on a two-month run that spoils a lot of the good that he's done this season. We've seen that from him before, but I don't really see it coming. He's got a 277XERA. He's limiting hard contact. The walks are bad, but typically bad. The strikeout rate's better than it's ever been. He's tied with Gavin Williams for the second-most double-digit strikeout games in the majors. Now he has 10 or 8, sorry, including 3 out of his last five. Yeah. So it's been very impressive. I think the only way that it could go wrong is if the control gets even worse. Yes, it's 3.7W for the season, but we've seen stretches where the control is untenable for Dillon's Seas. I think in terms of everything else, the way he's pitching his feel for pitching, the new pitches that he's mixing in, I agree. I think this is a different version of Dillon's Seas, the best version that we've ever seen. Over his last six starts, a 0.84ERA 0.67W. 57 strikeouts over 43 innings. He has been awesome. Pretty good. That is Dillon's Seas. I know this won't really help anybody, and it's like, whatever talking point at this point in the season. But I kind of feel like Dillon's Seas should just be ranked over Paul Schien's at this point. It's hard to know what to do with Paul Schien's. So I'm not going to argue against it. I've been resisting moving Paul Schien's down even more than I have, which right now is just 6th, but I think Seas is 10th. You could justify moving him down a few more spots behind C, sure. My player tonight, I'm going to go a little bit deeper here, and that is Nate Lowe. Welcome to Cleveland. Two for four with his 13th home run, three RBI. And it's quietly having a pretty good season, and he's going to have more of an opportunity here with the Guardians. He's hitting 269 13 home runs 831 OPS in 86 games this year. The expected stats look pretty good. His bat speed, way up this year for Nate Lowe. It's up almost two miles per hour. His fast swing percentage is up from 24% to 46%. He's got a career high 17% pulled air rate. So this is more of a deeper name if you need a quarter in-fielder in a 15 team league, maybe a 12 team league. If you're kind of desperate, I know we've talked about first baseman who are slowing down, and there's been a lot of injuries at that position recently as well. But yeah, I like the changes that Nate Lowe has made the season, and I just think he's going to play more in Cleveland. So I'm kind of interested. I agree. You think he's going to play against lefties? I don't know if he'll play against every lefty, but he wasn't. I don't even think he was playing its every righty with Cincinnati. He was kind of like a part-time player. So I just think he's going to play against every righty, and then maybe against some lefties in Cleveland. Yeah, I'm asking because I know I looked at it at the trade deadline when I was writing about winners and losers and thought about Nate Lowe as a potential winner. But then I looked at the bench and I was like, "I still not going to play that much." And then I got a position that's like 32 deep and usable fantasy options. That's the hardest part. It's hard to make a case for Nathaniel Lowe when Ty France still can't even be rostered. I guess maybe he's about 50% roster now. Yeah, I mean, he's about 50% now, yeah. Barely. Yeah. Now I get that. I think it's a deeper league name for now, but yeah, I just wanted to highlight Nate Lowe and some of the underlying stuff. I didn't realize how good it was for him this season. Ronald Coonia, we've got to mention, man, this was awesome. Just an unforgettable game. Two for five with a double-dong, three-rbi. But the first home run he hit in this game was Jose Kinseco style. It was awesome. It was on the warning track. It was about to land. Two Marlins, outfielders combined with each other. And then it hit off both of their gloves, bounced off. It was never going to be a home run, bounced off of them and then went over to the fence. So it was just one of the more improbable things. I've ever seen on a baseball field. I mean, that's the re-home runs like that this season. There was the one off Joe Adele's head, if I remember correctly. Yeah, that's true. And there was another one that bounced off someone's glove and into the. That's weird. My favorite part wasn't even so much that it happened. Just the reactions of everybody were great. Like the fans in the stands, the way they went after the ball, the two Marlins outfielders, how dejected they looked. Ronald Acunia just like stopped once he rounded first base because he had no idea what happened. And the brave broadcasters were like, "Go, go Ronald." And Dekalton had a great call. It's worth watching the clip because there was a lot going on there. But that was actually. So it theoretically shouldn't have been a home run, right? It stopped short of the fence and was knocked over. It was the much better struck ball. It was the other one. He was the other one. He was about 337 feet. That one traveled about 60 feet further than the actual home run. Yeah. That was funny, yeah. So again, that's Ronald Acunia to home or game. In 10 games since returning from the IL, he's hitting just 205. He does have four home runs. Thanks for tonight. Zero steals. Not sure how much he's going to run here in the second half coming off multiple hamstring injuries. And he has a 29% strikeout rate. So nice to see a good perhaps lucky game for Ronald Acunia. And we could use more of those down the stretch. Before we hit our first break, just want to remind everyone that we will have our week. What do we have coming up, Scott? Week 22. Week 21. Week 21. FBT Express preview. That will be out on Saturday. And all of Scott's articles will be out this weekend as well. So if you're looking for sleeper hitters, two star pitchers, whatever you need, make sure to check those out on the website and also our FBT Express episode. And 21 of 27, by the way. So this is the seventh to last week. It's moving fast. What, cheerio? Yeah. It still sounds like a lot when I put it that way. I mean, I was hanging out with fantasy football guys this week for the Scott Fishball and Flex Traffs. And it was like, oh, how's baseball? Well, it's a week 20. We still got two months left. You know, yeah, let's guys don't know. They don't know. They don't get to. The grind every day for six months. Here we go. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back fantasy baseball today. Let's hit the news and notes and Hunter Green, who was placed in the aisle with right elbow discomfort has just a slim chance to pitch again this season realistically, probably not going to happen. The reds are four and a half games out of a wild card spot. They're not really playing for much. Do you guys think it's okay to drop Hunter Green if you need that spot? I think so. Yeah. I dropped into about a hundred in my starting pitching rankings, which is a total guess. And if you wanted to just take them out entirely, I think that would be reasonable as well. Until we know for sure, I'll stick, keep them in. But yeah, I think it's, you know, maybe he, if he's cleared to pitch in September, maybe you just start them out there for a couple of earnings just to, you know, get one last look. But yeah, I'd be surprised if he made any, any kind of impact the rest of the way. Joe Ryan has been diagnosed with a mild left glute strain and an aisle stint is likely for him. So make sure to get him out of your lineups for next week. Traeus Savage has been diagnosed with meniscus damage in his left knee and will visit a specialist on Monday. John Schneider said that surgery is possible. That happens probably the end of the season for Traeus Savage as well. Jose Ramirez returned to the lineup after missing two games with soreness in his surgically repaired hand. Vlad Jr has missed two straight with hamstring tightness and general fatigue. And just the way the season has played out, I mean, I think it's totally defensible. You could have been betching him for a while now. People have been asking us for a while if they can drop Vlad Jr. I mean, is that crazy? What if we've been saying all week, man? It's not crazy. I wouldn't be able to do it, but I will admit that that is probably a fly have as a fantasy player. I'm just always worried about and it's probably not going to happen. But someone else picking him up and him just going off for the final like six weeks of the season, which is impossible, but it could happen. I mean, he could happen. If I'm remembering correctly, he kind of went on a, he wasn't nearly this bad last season, but I remember there being like a disappointment and then he kind of salvaged it. And this, I remember, I think it was two years ago and I think it was Matt Olson. Oh yeah. I wrote an article saying, you know, it's enough already. It's time to move. It wasn't like a dropping situation, but like it's time to lower expectations, move and wait down the rankings. And then his last two months, he had an OPS over 900 in each of them. It was about this point in the season. To that point, he had about like a low 700s OPS and then an OPS over 900 in the final two months. So I mean, something like that could happen with Vladimir Guerrero. I don't think like this is a permanent decline for Vladimir Guerrero. I think he's very likely to be back and back to studliness next season. My theory with him and it's not without basis is that he's been playing hurt. And that's not going to stop until the season stops. So there have been no glimmers of hope along the way. And so I think by now, it's fair to assume that he probably needs to rest up this off season and then we can reassess next year. It was 24 and 24, by the way. He had an 8, 18 OPS in the first half and 11, 27 in the second half. So I wouldn't be shocked if Vladimir Guerrero went on a crazy run the rest of the way, but I can't say I expected at this point. And obviously, just to cover all our bases here. It's not even a thought in a road, O League. You have to go too deep into the hitter pool. Like even who are you going to drop him for Nathaniel Lo? Right, exactly. So it's not even a thought in that. We're talking about the shallower head to head formats where there are actually always decent hitters on the way ever was. That was me dropping Vladimir Guerrero. You know, I've got this sort of like from my scuff fishball draft over the weekend. I've got this little coin with like this. I think it's super Mario wearing a helmet. Nice. And it's very heavy and I keep wanting to fidget with it. And I'm like, no, don't do that during the podcast because it's going to be like 10 times louder than that. So all right. Continue on with the news. Nick Lidolo will return to the reds on Tuesday against the white socks. Apparently Lidolo has been using a modified grip for his curve ball to avoid that blister. And my expectations are very low for Nick Lidolo. Jackson Joe will rejoin the Tigers and start Saturday in San Francisco. It's his first start back from Tommy John surgery. We last saw him in May of last year. He threw 69 pitches in his most recent rehab outing. He is 34% rostered. What is your interest level in Jackson Joe? Is it say, must add for the final two months? No, not must add. I mean, we saw him at the major level last season. He wasn't very good despite the good stuff. But I'm very interested to see what he looks like. And if you're in a deeper league where you know, you're just taking flyers on on anyone who's interesting, his velocity was up in the one. He only made one start. And I think it was only like two innings in front of the stack-ass cameras. So take it for what you will. But I think he averaged 97 with his fastball. In that, it was up like 1.5 miles per hour. Again, small sample size, one start, short start. But sometimes you will see guys come back from surgery throwing harder with better stuff. Terrence Kuhl rather famously came back from from elbow surgery looking much better. So I'm not saying I expect Jackson Joe to be a difference maker, but I'm open to it. He's still, I think he just turned 24 a week ago or something. Let's see. Moderately excited. All right. Next up, Jake Bowers has missed three straight within abdominal injury. And the hope is that he will return on Friday. Trevor story will be re-evaluated this weekend to determine when he can begin a rehab assignment. He's been out since May with hernia surgery. Scott, are you interested in stashing Trevor story in an IEL spot? I haven't stashed in a couple deep roto leagues. One where I lost Conor Griffin and okay, how am I going to come anywhere close to replacing Conor Griffin's production and leak that deep, I guess, Trevor story maybe in September. He could do that maybe. It's not like, it's not like there's a high degree of confidence in him performance wise even though I had him as a bust coming in. Obviously, it was good last year, but in a way that was a bit confounding. Didn't get off to a good start before the injury this year and even that good performance last year was like the only one in a five year span. So not a high priority at all, but if you're in a deep enough league where there's nothing but scrubs middle infield, okay, story could be better than that. Can I ask one related question? Yes. All right. Have you guys noticed where Franklin Areas has been playing lately? Trouble like in the world. Yeah. I've worked where Chester, I believe, Worcester. I don't know how they pronounce it up there. Worcester? I don't know. Worcester? Yeah, I don't know. Someone from Boston just had an aneurysm either way about one of the ways we just pronounced it. No, he's been playing second base, which I thought was interesting because he is viewed as far as I know as a long term second base, and at least in the medium term, but the weaker spot in the red socks lineup, I think either second base or shortstop would be a weak spot, but I just thought that was interesting because he's at Triple A. He's been logging some time at second base. It's not every day, but it's been a few times lately and just wanted to highlight that. I actually thought he rated well defensively. I think so too. Yeah. Yeah. It might just be, well, like you said, it might be think a short term. It might just be teams like to add versatility as prospects make their way further up the ladder. It's not. It was interesting. You may be stress testing him. Yeah. That's second base a little bit. See what it looks like. Franklin Areas, by the way, in 10 games at Triple A is hitting 326 with three homers and 12 RBI. He's having an awesome. See, he's been I think one of us. He's been one of the biggest breakouts at any level this season, I think. There is a non-zero chance that we see him before the end of this season. I mean, especially with the run, the red socks are on. Obviously, they're in a wild card spot. I mean, they have hopes and dreams of going even further than that. I mean, if Adley Rutchman comes back, they could potentially push for the ALE. So yeah, non-zero chance. We see Franklin Areas before the end of the season. We don't need to be in the five on the verge. I think maybe we are getting confirmation in the chat is Worcester Worcester. Worcester. Worcester. They wrote it with like 16 O's. Worcester. Worcester. Who are the five on the verge right now, Scott? I'll let you know. If Franklin Areas deserves to be in there. I mean, I skipped that. Yeah, you didn't do the prospects report this week. So let's do live on the air. Five on the verge. I don't know that Charlie Condon and Zach V need to be in anymore since the rocket. Can you introduce the number one Josh bias number two? There's another guy who next Clark got called up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He got called up. Let's see the last time I did it. Sounds like it's Franklin Areas. He might be third on that list. Jenkins. Walker Jenkins to just had his first career to Homer game today actually. And that's a AAA too, right? Yeah. Okay. He might be ahead, but yeah, he's been there for a while to a AAA. I don't know. I think Franklin Arya's probably would be on that list. I think he'd be on that top five. So something to think about for next week. The nationals paused Connolly Earleys throwing program after he felt forearm tightness during his latest BP session. And he's been out since early July with elbow inflammation. And once I saw the early trade for Curtis Mead, I just assumed that this injury was way worse than we the public actually knew. Yeah, it definitely felt like a little selling low on Connolly Earleys. So we got to think there's some semblance of damage goods. I mean, he's a young pitcher who's currently hurt. I think that's, yeah. There's only so good you can ever feel about a pitcher who's currently hurt. And again, the red socks trade history recently. They're really willy-nilly about trading. Greg Braslow seems to go for his guys. I will give him that. Yeah. You know, I can't criticize every team for prospect hugging and then criticize Craig Braslow for prospect bunting, I guess. Robbie Ray will make his Padres debut on Friday, Andrew Painter who left Wednesday with hamstring tightness is expected to make his next start Monday in St. Louis. The angels plan to call up George Klausen to start Friday against the Marlins. And his last 12 starts at AAA at 257 ERA 117 Whip over a strikeout for ending also four walks per nine. Very widely available. Christiane Evan Interest in Angels pitching prospect George Klausen. I can't say I have zero interest. I can't say I have much interest. I think it's a very deep, deep, easy question. It's definitely, well, part of it is just he's pitching in the PCL, right? Like they're in Salt Lake, I think the angels. So it's just hard to know what to make of any pitcher in AAA, especially in the PCL because there's so many ball parks and elevation or in weird climates that it just, he could be good, but his underlying numbers are not particularly impressive this season. So I would, I would need to see something at the major league level from George Klausen. It seems like a related time to bring this up. Do you guys know what Reed Debtmer's record is this year? It's either surprisingly good or surprisingly bad. I'm going to guess 10 and four. I'm going to guess it's like three and 11. It's not three and 11, but it's three and eight. For as well as he's pitched overall, three and eight. That is the Reed Debtmer's experience. I can't give it. And obviously the angels are worse now than they've been all season after the trade deadline. So I, given the concerns about him as a pitcher and then add that to it, I don't think there's much reason to pursue George Klausen. All right. Spencer Aragetti left his rehab start early after re-injuring his right foot. He's been dealing with a nerve issue in that foot. I do have some line up stuff here. I wanted to mention Moises by Astero's got a start at Catcher on Thursday for the angels. That was his ninth appearance overall. So we need 11 more before the end of the season for him to have Catcher eligibility for next year. That would be great. So hopefully it happens for by Astero's. And on Hell Hennau was in the Guardians lineup once again. And looking at the way this lineup shook out, it was Hennau at second pin. So he has one-start at second, one-third. He already has shortstop eligibility. It was Jose Ramirez at third. Brian Roqueo at short. Travis Pazana actually was the DH here. Chase the lottery in right field. No Steven Kwan. He got banged up the night before and no Joe Adele against the righty. So I'm kind of wondering if Joe Adele is more of a shortside platoon player. But I think they're going to just kind of shuffle things around and you're probably going to see one good Guardians hitter out of the lineup like once per week if they want to actually get on Hell Hennau in there consistently. Let's do a temperature check on these starting pictures. We'll have some starter sitting here as well. But let's talk about. We already did Bryce Miller. I he was like the top of the list. But Christopher Sanchez. Look Christopher Sanchez still ranked as a top five starting pitcher by all of us. But he's been shaky as of late. Five innings six hits two runs two walks six strikeouts here mixed outing couldn't locate his change up his sinker got hit hard. Surprisingly the slider was his best pitch in this start. But over his last six he has a 496 ERA 168 whip. There was one really, really bad start that's doing a lot of the carrying in there. But he also has a bad bit over 400 during that stretch. So where you guys at on Christopher Sanchez. Like just what's gone wrong here with this. You said it's a 496 ERA over the last six starts. I think it's like a 270 ERA over the last five. I'd be interested to see what the whip is. I think the whip is really high. Yeah, he has his last three starts is 10 walks three five and two. So the control's been a little shaky lately for sure. Yeah. And it's not the first time we've seen a stretch like this from Christopher Sanchez. He is normally an excellent control pitcher, but he throws very hard and sometimes just seems to lose that awesome control. So his previous two starts he had to combine eight walks, which is very out of character. They still end up being decent starts for all the walks, but not up to the level we were seeing from Christopher Sanchez. He had just two walks in this one, but still only through 57% of his pitches for strikes, which isn't very good. It shows he's still going through it. I think it's going to be a short term thing. His season long strike percentage is 67% and that's been very consistent, like fourth straight year of it being in that 67% range. Even for stretches like this where he kind of loses it, I want to freak out about it. He's managing again to be respectable even, even while going through the stretch with the exception of that one star where he got blown out. Now in the season, it's a 265 ERA over 10k per nine, 122 whib. I mean, that is a killer. That's partially, he gives up a lot of hard contact on the ground at times and the defense behind him is just not good. So I mean, I think he's going to run higher whips. So I think that's just part of I think it got better. I think losing bone at third base helps for. It depends on the whole pitchers, especially. It depends if Luis Ryes can carry this over, I think. It's a price, price, price, price, price, price. I think Ron Washington was credited for Luis Ryes' defensive improvement as has been true for many infielders who've worked with Ron Washington and obviously Ron Washington didn't come over in that trade. So yeah, hopefully the gains stick, but I guess that's not a guarantee. It is. It is. Sanchez is seventh in the player-rater on the season. Might dip down to, "Hey, well, I was going to say it's kind of surprisingly low," I would say, given that he has an MLB best 14 wins at a 265 ERA. Yeah, that's the way that's all that. That's all that. That whipple-killing, yeah, that's an undervalued thing. I think a lot of people when they're building their teams, I don't think about the fit. Yeah, don't win. That was the only thing that I was worried about with Sanchez coming into the year because he has run some higher whips in previous years as well. Let's talk about Ranger Suarez, not great against the White Sox here. Three innings, three hits, four runs, three of those earned. He has not completed five innings in the three starts since returning from the IL. Not sure that he's completely right at the moment. He dealt with a groin strain in July and remember he was going to come off the IL and they delayed him a few days. Yeah, so I'm not sure that he's completely healthy right now. The problem is that he lines up for two starts next week, really good matchups at the Blue Jays, at the Pirates. Do you guys throw Suarez out there despite him not looking right and not going deep into starts right now? Yeah, I mean, at this point, can you even count on him for six innings across two starts? I would bet on more, but this is always the thing that's a little scary about right around her Suarez is just that when things are going well, they tend to go really, really well. But there's always, almost always. I think last year there wasn't, but most of the time there is a point where it stops working and it's usually around an injury. I want to say a couple of years ago, there was a back. I think most years it was a back. Yeah, he's had recurring back issues and it just kind of sets him off a little bit to where nothing looks terribly wrong, but he just isn't as effective because he doesn't have the stuff to overcome when he's not executing well. In the way that Christopher Sanchez does, you know? And so that's the one thing I would say with Suarez is just, I want to have faith that he'll turn it around. Well we have gone through this before where seemingly minor things like missing two weeks and then a week, two weeks with a groin injury I think it was. And then he got pushed back an extra week because of the illness. That could be enough to throw him off just because his margin for error seems really slim. And I think I said that I'm not sitting a two-star guy. I agree. With a 332ERA. in 117 web. In my two-star picture rankings for this week, I don't put Ranger Suarez in the must-start tier, but I put him in the advisable in most cases, tier, in between know a camera and then show to Emanaka behind camera ahead of Emanaka and head by B and Casey Meijs and Ryan Weathers. That's the placement for the two-star Suarez who. Yeah, you could say it's four-stars, obviously four-stars where he's gone less than five, two or just before the injury two, just after the injury. One of the four was really good. He just left with the injury. I don't want to overreact to what in the grand scheme of things is just a little rough patch. Alright, let's take our final break. When you return, I have one, two, three, four, five more pitchers to talk about. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back, fantasy at baseball. Today we'll continue on with a temperature check for some confusing pitchers right now. Next up, we have Foster Griffin who had a rough Guardians debut against the Metz. Four innings, seven hits, five runs, did have six strikeouts, two homers allowed in this one and he has a lot of five plus earned runs in back-to-back starts, two homers in each of those as well. He has just a 7.4% swinging strike rate over his last four starts. 75% started. He's at the Tigers next week. What do you guys think about Foster Griffin's and recent struggles? Are you using him next week? So two homeruns and back-to-back starts and he, that seemed like the main area where he was, where we were going to see that ERA come in line with, more in line with the expected ERA. Like I've been saying for months now, I think Foster Griffin is good. I don't think he's low threes, ERA good. And so eventually there has to come a stretch like this where he gives some of that back. And the homeruns seem the most likely way for it to happen. Against the Tigers next time out, I still think that's pretty attractive. I'm not going to say he's a must. I would start a two-star Ranger Suarez over it or Ron Harris, excuse me, Ron Harris Suarez over him, for instance. But back-to-back bad starts isn't enough to make Griffin radioactive to me. I will say the strikeouts have disappeared lately. There was a stretch where it was like nine strikeouts, nine strikeouts, two strikeouts, nine strikeouts. I was like, okay, well that's kind of weird. But then it was after the third nine strikeout game and four starts, it's been two, two, three. And then six today, I guess that's a good sign. But yeah, that's the one thing that stands out is since the start of July, it's 24 strikeouts and 35 innings. So that's concerning. I've been more skeptical of Griffin than you guys all along. So I'm a little more inclined to believe that whatever is happening here is a little more indicative of what will happen moving forward. But I'm not going to say you should drop him. And even like a sit, you know, it's going to depend on what you have. I don't think to try to match up your avoiding for foster Griffin. I just felt that whole time that we were talking about foster Griffin Chris going through your mind was the clip from Brooklyn 9.9 where he yells vindication. No, no, that was that we're out of order. He has his last start. That's true. Let's talk about Braxton Ashcraft. Not great at the Brewers five innings four runs two more homers allowed for Ashcraft. And he actually got a lot of ground balls in this one. He had seven ground ball outs. It was like a 57% ground ball rate still managed to give up two homers. Does not have a quality starts in June 24th. And over his last seven six 81 ERA 135 whip 11 homers allowed over his last seven starts. So 67% started at the Marlins next week. What are we doing with Braxton Ashcraft? I'm starting him. Oh, okay. Yes, the Marlins. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, this is this is a what how many starts were we talking about seven start stretch? We're only I guess two of them you could say we're good. And the rest were like terrible. So that's obviously a lot of terrible. And I don't really get why you did mention he was started getting ground balls again. He actually threw more sinkers in this one than he had in the start since June 17th, which was right around the time this rough patch began. But prior to this start, the last time he had thrown his most sinkers since June 17th was the previous start when he allowed two hits in one run at five innings. So he doubles down on that. And it's a lot worse. So I don't know that that's the fix has a lot a lot of information to say that. I don't know that that's the fix. So I sorry, I got distracted. Did you drop something? No, I didn't drop something. There was an earwig crawling across my desk. I tried to smash it, but I just knocked it on the floor. So now there's an earwig crawling across my floor. I'm telling you there's a lot more bugs. I don't get a line of that I know what to do with I don't like it. I'm awake. Didn't one time we were like recording in a fly went in your mouth while you were talking. Yeah, I breathe in a fly was that happened to me recently like into my nose. And it was real upset. Never, never happy about that. I want to get that earwig. Where'd it go? I want what there it is. I see it. You won't get this content anywhere else. Yes. Now it's a dead earwig. I got it. What is an earwig? What is that? It's a creepy little I'm not not a fan of what I just saw. So the the urban legend or old wives to what everyone is to describe it is that they crawl into your ears and feed on the earwax. And that's why they're called earwigs, but they don't actually it's not that is that is not a pretty big in BD not a pretty looking creature. Yeah, yeah, very so that's very anti bugs. I don't miss it. It's got right at me. So you can understand what like I don't know how it ended up on my desk. Yeah, I don't like that. I don't know. I guess I'm a gross guy. Yeah. What were we talking about Braxton ash craft? Braxton ash craft. These things. They are they vary in size. The most thing seeing this probably like an inch and a half million like that. Yeah. My theory for ash, ash craft is that he's tired. I think that's like and that's not going to change. It's a long season. You know, we we we stand a relatable king. Yeah, he's he's got a lot more innings than he's used to and he's tired and I don't know that he's going to get right. I could bring myself to drop him, but even against the Marlins, I don't want to start him. Yeah, he's about 15 innings above his career high, I believe. So yeah, that's a concern. I am looking at your sleeper pitcher, Scott. I would use any of the top five over ash craft next week. That includes Noah Cameron, JT Ginn, Roki Sasaki, Bulberterania and Dustin Bay. I would use any of those five over ash craft next week. No, I might use any of the 10. So now we're now we have that discussion about bugs and now it's like anytime you feel like a little wisp of wind across your leg, it's like, oh, God, I got out of here. The thing is like we hire a pest control company. It's huge business. I have people who follow me on Twitter probably know the story I told about Flash and the Black Widow's. If not, you can do a little search on that. Since we moved into this house, we've probably had like six different pest control companies door to door soliciting for our business. And we're signed up with one, but like it's just they built a neighborhood in the middle of the forest and they don't know. The bugs don't know it yet. I found a black widow two days ago on the outside of my house. I'm not a bug guy. Bugs freak me out. I need my wife's always like, take care of it. You take care of it. Protect me. What is this? No, I handle the bugs. I understand chivalry, but like I don't want to. I also don't want to kill them. You know, like I feel the police. Don't love killing. Please. I will leave the the chivalry. I'm going to step away from the chivalry conversation because I'm not the one who kills bugs in my house. I'll just say that right now. Forever about days. Great. And I'm here at the Mariners 7 shutout innings with five strikeouts. But a weird one. Only four whiffs on 95 pitches. His velocity was down across the board. Not really sure what to make of it. He's looked better in his last three starts. He gets the guardians next week. They're really bad against lefties. So I think if you hold on to Valdez, you're probably just running them out there. I did have a question. What are the chances he can get down to a 375 ERA and a 125 whip by seasons end right now. It's 417 and 137. Okay. So he'd have to lower his ERA about. He would probably have to pitch to about a 340-ish ERA. the way to finish with a 375 Whip, the ERA. That's not impossible. I'm not really not positive. This is one of those starts where it's like, yeah, the result was really good. You know, seven shut out innings. And then you look into it and it's like, I don't know if it makes me feel any better about Framber Valdez. You know, only four whiffs, like you mentioned, five strikeouts. It's given how mediocre he's been for most of the season. I think we'll take it certainly, but it's not like I can look at this start and say, aha, he figured something out. You know, the curve ball was okay, but it wasn't, you know, a classic Framber Valdez curve ball start. So I. He really just had that curve and nothing else. Yeah, I'm. I haven't ranked around 50, I think it's starting pitcher. I don't feel good about that ranking one where the other, but I can't really bring myself to move him any lower even though I know, you know, some people would like me to. Yeah. The last two names on this list, I'm going to go very quickly through these. Nolem McLean had a rough outing. I think we just give him a mulligan. Previous six starts before this one, 140 ERA, 113 Whip, 10.4 K for nine. And Michael Waka, he was okay, but he had three walks. It's only one strike out against the twins. I just wanted to highlight that he's at the Dodgers next week. So you probably don't want to use Michael Waka and should probably lean on one or multiple of Scott sleeper pitchers for next week instead. Who's hot and who's not hit her addition? And I have four names. Very hot right now. Alex Breggman, two for four with a sock and a shoe. And last 31 games. He's hitting 270, six homers, 23 RPI, and an OPS around 850. So very welcome site there for Alex Breggman. Kevin McGonigal, he's picking up the slug in the second half where he now has four homers, 16 runs and an 870 OPS. Dylan Dingler will not stop. He is homer than three straight and four of his last six and 19 games post all star break 346 seven homers, a 10 68 OPS and Matt Olson also on a heater, 30 second home run and 20 games after the all star break for him, 280 seven homeruns, a 10 13 OPS. So four hitters, streaking, trending up any thoughts anything stand out on those four Breggman, McGonigal, Dengler, Matt Olson. McGonigal so McGonigal first McGonigal and Dengler, I think it's just awesome. I think the one that stands out most is Breggman. He's done nothing all season. So it's just good to see him doing anything. That's the one that he's been a lot better lately. I don't know if the underlying numbers really back it up, but the underlying numbers are never great for Alex Breggman, but this season I believe maybe it's changed, but the last I looked, the underlying numbers are not just bad, but bad for Alex Breggman. Yeah, 308 X-Wobba is the worst of his career since 2016, which was his rookie season. Other than that, he had been at least 325 every year, including the previous two seasons, which weren't great. So he is outperforming his underlying numbers, but the underlying numbers are still not where they have been in the past. So I think Alex Breggman is still a pretty if he's starter in a roto league and even in a points league, which is his better format, he's a fringe top 15 guy, not a top 10 guy, I think. I looked the other day, I think last 28 days, he was like over three fantasy points per game. So that's a good mark for Alex Breggman. That's where he typically is when he's just Alex Breggman. So perhaps whether he in up, Riggly, the rest of that lineup is really good. So hopefully he can kind of carry this, but yeah, the underlying numbers even during this stretch, it's like a 3% barrel rate. It's really, really bad. So his last 100 played appearances, it's 277 X-Wobba. So he's gonna wear me that. That's last 250, it's 289 last. Let's see, maybe the last 50, hey, last 50 is 342. So if you cut it up that small, yeah, that'll, that'll work. Yeah. If trading was still available in leagues, I probably say, hey, you know, if you could sell based on this recent run from Alex Breggman, go for it. But I doubt you'd even be able to get much for him anyway. Two big name hitters who have been scuffling as of late. Zack Netto did hit his 20th home run. His first home run since July 5th, 23 games between homeers. He hit 217 with a 33% K rate and a 559 OPS. And Jackson Churio mentioned this one the other day with you, Scott. He is homeered in two of his last three games, but in his 24 games before that, 219 zero homeers, 557 OPS for Jackson Churio. It's just as part of the ebbs and flows of the season or anything that you're actually worried about, Zack Netto and Jackson Churio. I mean, probably ebbs and flows of the season though, that's, that was a, so I wrote down different numbers than you have for Zack Netto. Previous 35 games before this 2 for 5 performance with a home run. Previous 35, he had just two home runs in three stolen bases in that 35 game stretch. His batting average was pretty typical for Zack Netto. I think it was in mid two thirties, but not giving you any of the counting stats you signed up for. And for the season now, it was never his best format head to head points, but right now he's at 2.75. That's actually the lower than Herald O'Pardomo. It's lower than Nico Orner, who hasn't been very good. It's not that different from like Mauricio Dubon or Ezekiel Duran. It's definitely not what you signed up for. And I'm disappointed. Look, that he's probably going to end up with close to 30 home runs in about 20 steel still, I would guess. But I don't think he's going to live up to his draft status, which was about a third rounder in Roto. I'm sure it was a little lower on points. I'm some kind of big informats here. I think basically what I'm trying to say is I think Zack Netto last year was closer to the high point we're going to see from him than his baseline outcome. And this year is kind of showing that. Yeah, feels like he's really just sold out for power this year, Zack Netto, the K rate the last three years, 23% 27%, 32% this year, and the five all rate has gone up too. So it just kind of leans toward Zack Netto selling out for power this year. And obviously it has not been the best season. The season that we were hoping for for Zack Netto bombs away for the reds. They hit four home runs as a team here on Thursday and Ellie hit his 19th home run. He's actually been very good since coming off the aisle with that hamstring injury. South Stewart hit his 25th home. And he is slugging for more power here in the second half so far. Nice to see that. JJ Blit Day. So when we haven't really talked too much about lately, but he went two for three with a walk in his 20th home run. He was awesome in May. He was awful in June. And he's just kind of been okay since the start of July. It's a 216 batting average, 339 on base. So we still walking a lot that's good for a points league. But the quality of contact is way down during that stretch. 64% roster. Does that number sound right to you guys for JJ Blit Day? So it's I think it's fine. Probably just rostered in five Alpheler leaks at this point. Yep. And I think he's decent in points league still. Let's look at what is last 28 days. It's 2.5 fantasy points per game for Blit Day. So which for as bad as he's been is respectable. I'm looking at the fast swing rate because that was a big part of our enthusiasm. It's still more than double what it was last year and the year before average bat speed is still up more than two miles per hour from last year. Big improvement there. And the power is mainly what we're seeing him sustain. So I do think I do think he's more than just a flash in the pan. But obviously not as good as he looked in. May he said, right? That was the last month. Yeah. Yeah. So I think he'll remain somebody we stream when the matchups are right. Yeah. I think the overall production 814 opus bad batting average decent power. I think that's probably a reasonable expectation for him moving forward. Maybe I'd take the under on the 814 opus. Maybe it's more like a 780 or something. But that's still a useful player. It's just there's a lot of guys who do that at the in the majors now. And the last reds Homer here was Tyler Stevenson who hit his 10th home run. And he's quietly been really good. Last 31 games, 335 homers and OPS over 950 during that spend hitting the ball hard, expected stats. Great. 38% rostered as a second catcher. How would you guys rank? Andy Rodriguez, Tyler Stevenson, Joe Mac and Augustine Ramirez. I think in that order. So Andy Stevenson, Joe Mac. Andy Stevenson Mac Ramirez. What if I throw me by a steroids in there? I think he started a catcher today, DH the day before. Hopefully he's going to play every day, but I have a little less faith in that. I'd probably put him ahead of Ramirez just as I really don't know how much Ramirez is gonna play. He got picked off today on a play where he had like a four foot lead. I've never seen anything like it. He like just guessed wrong when the pitcher lifted their leg and tried to get a secondary lead and got picked off. It was real bad. Yeah, I know we were all really excited about Ramirez earlier in the season, but he wasn't very good at triple A. So I think I'd actually put him fifth behind by a Starris, but by Starris would be fourth for me. - Who were the other three? Tyler Stevenson, Andy Rodriguez, and Joe Mack. - I definitely put by Starris ahead of Mack also. - Yeah. - Like the advantage by Starris has over all those guys, even Andy Rodriguez, as it looks like he's gonna be a true everyday player. He started all three games, it's joining the Angels, including two against lefties. - That was my next question. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah, I think that's reasonable to put him third and it wouldn't take much to put him ahead of Tyler Stevenson, who is fine. I think Andy Rodriguez might be legitimately very good. So that's the reason I put him ahead, especially with the Stollin basis. I won't point out two things. One, all four of these guys who homework only had one RBI, that's just weird. That was just a weird looking box score. And do you know how many players in Major League Baseball have more RBI than South Stewart? Three. One, do you know who that player is? - CJ Abrams. - You're not on it. - CJ Abrams and South Stewart are the top two. I mean, I guess I don't know if you're on an Alvarez, might have had two or three RBI today. I don't think he did. - Ashtray's didn't play today. - Ashtray's didn't play, so no. Yeah, CJ Abrams and South Stewart lead the Major's in RBI. And Jordan Walker and Luis Garcia and Alec Burleson. - Actually, man, the total whole top 10, or at least the top eight. - CJ Abrams, South Stewart, Yordon Alvarez, Jordan Walker, Luis Garcia, Alec Burleson, Dylan Dingler, and Andy Pahez are the top eight in RBI right now. That is bizarre. - Wow. - That is weird. - That is weird. That is baseball, Susan. We do have some waiver hire names, but we're kind of up against it here. So I'll just mention all four. You guys give me a quick thought, but Royce Lewis hit his 13th home run, 66% rostered. We bring up his name like every day. I moved him up all the way to my 13th ranked third basement. It's just a really, really bad position. Bryson Stott, he's been hitting well for a while now. Over his last 50 games, he's up over 300, two homers, nine seals. He is 67% rostered and looks like he's on his way to gaining third base eligibility. So that's helpful. Alejandro Kirk, 16 games post All Star Break, 346 with two homers and an 886 OPS, and Chase Majrauth, Revenge Game, against the Red Sox, the team that drafted him and traded him. Three for five with a double-down, two walks for RBI, last 21, 319, five homers, and an OPS over 900. Any thoughts, any size leagues that you think these names need to be rostered in? Royce Lewis, Stott, Kirk, Chase Majrauth. - I think the most rosterable is Royce Lewis. - Agreed. - I think Majrauth is the most predictable, but it just doesn't have that high of a ceiling. And so it have to be a pretty deep league, at least a league with middle-infield spot, required to really make use of him. He hasn't been much of a base stealer this year. And the power, okay, he hit two homeruns today. It's not a big part of his game either. You know, I think Stott is a passable middle-infield option, particularly if you need steals in a roto league. And Kirk is a fine second catcher. It's nothing revolutionary here. I, Lewis may be quietly emerging as a, at least a borderline top 12 third-baseman again. - I think he's the most roster. - Okay. - With how bad that position is, I mean, I guess where-- - Well, in a point league, in a roto league, I think you could take him over E-Suck Paradeus and Alex Bragman in a roto league. I think you could make the case for him as high as 10 with the, with the steals that have been there. - Yeah. - I wouldn't actually take him over Bragman and Parade isn't a point's league, though. - No, no, that's what I'm saying. I would take Bragman and Paradeus over him and up against him. - I got you. - In a roto league, I think it might be the opposite. You might take him. Okamoto, I think you'd rather have him in a roto league, but maybe the other two in a point. So, I think he's right around that range. - But I moved Lewis ahead of Bishet, Austin Riley, Colson Montgomery, and anybody else, like Suarez, anyone else. So I moved Durbin and Royth Lewis inside of my top 13 third baseman, just 'cause they're performing and there's like no one else in the position that is. - It's defensible. It's defensible. I don't know that in the long run, Lewis is gonna be better than those guys, but as we've been saying, the long run doesn't really exist right now. - Yeah. When Bryson's not Gaines, third base eligibility, would you take him over either Royce Lewis or Caleb Durbin? - I wouldn't. Maybe Durbin, I think they're very similar, but as good as Stott's numbers are that you mentioned, Durbin's are just flat out better. - Yeah, he's a 900 OPS guy since the start of June. - So I think he just take Durbin, yeah. - Yeah. All right, some waiver wire pitchers here, mostly streamer types, Dustin May look good in his Brewer's debut, Quality Start. And next week he's at the Padres, mentioned earlier, he's one of Scott's sleeper pitchers. I do think that the, as of now the Brewer's are running a six man rotation, and I haven't really heard much of an update outside of that. So we'll be hard to get to start weeks out of those pitchers. Andrew Abbott, Quality Start for him. The walks have just been way up lately for Andrew Abbott. He gets the white, he's at the White Sox next week. They're pretty good against lefty, so I, I don't know, I just, I'm not really into it with Andrew Abbott. Bailey Ober, a Quality Start, but like zero strike. - No, sir. - I don't think you can do anything. Like the only one that really matters here is Dustin May, in my opinion. - Yeah. And he went through a stretch, sort of like Ron Harris-Wars is having now where he couldn't go deep into games, and there was, part of it was health related, part of it performance related, but his last three starts, he's been great again to him in Quality Starts, and I think he's back on the right track. Because it was his first start with the Brewers, it's probably worth mentioning. He threw his cutter a lot more, 35% versus usual 22%. Even though on the surface, it's not a great pitch for him, but the Brewers know what they're doing with pitchers, and we'll see if that's part of the grand plan or if it was just a fluky thing to happen, this one start. All right, wanted to quickly just mention Luis Castillo's White Stocks debut, it was not very good, five runs over four innings, but he did get whips in this one. 12 swinging strikes on 71 pitches. That is a 17% swinging strike rate, and his last four starts very bad, but the matchup next week is against the Reds. They're not really a great lineup, they're bad against Rides. Chris, can I talk into Luis Castillo against the Reds next week? - I don't think it's the worst streamer in the world. I'd rather do that than whatever Bayley Overs got going on. - Yeah. - And Bayley Overs is more widely rostred, so. - That is so weird. - I don't understand Bayley Overs. - Bayley Overs, 58% are rostred. - His results since coming back from the IL have not been bad, but it's been like-- - His three strikeouts or fewer in three straight houses. - Yeah, there's just been no, it's all, it's all bad but block. I don't have any faith in Bayley Overs being anything better than like a four or five year A guy. - I have one lonely hitting left over, and that is Francisco Lendor, who hit his 10th home run, and since returning, nope, that's not true. In the second half, he's looked better. - Two sixty five homers, 16 RBI, 856 OPS, that also comes with zero steals, and I'm not sure that we're gonna see Lendor run much, just because the mets aren't playing for anything, and he had a calf injury earlier in the season, so could just be home runs, accounting stats for Francisco Lendor the rest of the way. - The call to eight home runs in 35 games since returning. - That's pretty good. - Yeah, I think the power, I think as a hitter, he's back, the batting average is a little lower than we want to see during that stretch, but that's small sample noise, I think. The data's look good for Lendor all season long. I think you can feel pretty good about him again, and I have him fifth in my rest of season rankings, a short stop, and I am not inclined to change that. No, actually fourth in my rest of season rankings, a short stop. - All right, the call to the bullpen for the Angels, it was left the Samine Neterra Jr., who got the final four outs for his second save, Ben Joyce pitched the night before he threw 16 pitches in his season debut, and I highly doubt the Angels are gonna throw Ben Joyce in back-to-back games, back-to-back days, rather. Samine Neterra, his numbers are awesome. We mentioned him towards the end of that trade deadline extravaganza that we did. He's only 3% rostered. I'm not really sure who gets the next save, but I think if you're in a really deep league, like 15 team roto and just desperate, I think it's worth a small bid on Samine Neterra Jr. - Absolutely. I mean, the numbers are really good. Joyce is not a guarantee. I don't think it was a rule. I don't even, like I don't like joy. He just started mentioning him. I've been saying him as the guy expect to be the angels closer just because he was what a third round pick and he's had a lot of hype and he has been their closer at points in the past. But yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't miss many bats for how hard he throws. I think he has like one season where he's been pretty good. It's really the only season where he was available for any length of time. It was like a, but it was with less than a strike outper and it was, it was one of those. Okay, the results were good, but not really the data backing it. Yeah, he's a lot more of a Jordan Hicks type than, yeah, like a really great closer. But I've been kind of defaulting to him for a while, but look at it, it might be Nutera. Yeah. Yeah, it's possible. For the red, Emilio Pagan was unavailable. Brock Burke picked up his second save of the year. For the Brewers Trevor McGill and Abner Arebe were unavailable. So Chad Patrick picked up his fifth save. For the Blue Jays, Louis Varlin got the ninth with a two run lead. He gave up a two run homer to Alex Bregman. He took his first blown save and the blue Jays wound up losing in extras. He's just been a, yeah, first blown save. Like his like even really good closures will blow an occasional save or like have one where they were working in a eighth inning for like, yeah, that's wild. Yeah, massive breakout closer season. Just like really deep guys, Louis Varlin, Jacob Lads, just really, really awesome. Yeah. For both of those guys. For the twins, Yoentra's going also, also because I'm sure they're shouting at us, Brian Baker. Yes, yes, what? Yeah. How could I forget my gosh? Yeah, he's, I think I moved them inside of my top five closures for rest of the season, right? He's just, he's earned that. He's amazing. For the twins, Yoendra's Gomez got the ninth with a one run lead. He walked one. He struck out two. He picked up his 15th save. Still not completely sure about this one. I think this was a good sign for Gomez. Jeff Hoffman made his twins debut on Wednesday night. He threw 11 pitches. He did not pitch in this game. The twins took the lead very late. It was in the eighth inning of this game. So I just want to see when they're both rested, both available, a traditional save opportunity. What happens in the twins' bullpen? I think Gomez has built up some respectability, respect, I guess, you could just say, within this organization. So I think they're going to stick with him for a little bit, but it might be a short lease, with short leash, with Jeff Hoffman there. I would think so. That's how I laid it out in the latest bullpen report, which came out yesterday. I don't think Derek Shelton would remove him from the role until he actually gives him a reason too, because he has been stable enough. There are advantages to having Hoffman work in a more versatile role, but I do think Hoffman's the most talented relief for there in any league where saves are scarce. I think he needs to be rostered. And for the White Sox, Grant Taylor pitched two innings across the sixth and the eighth innings. So in a tight game, he did pick up the hold. It was Wascar, Brazaban, who they just recently traded for. He came in in the ninth and he blew it. The White Sox wound up losing this game in extras. But this is just your latest reminder that Grant Taylor is not the closer for the White Sox. I just think he's their highest leverage reliever. He'll get saves. I think he's awesome. He's really talented, but he's not a traditional closer in the sense. I had a White Sox fan tweet at me that he can't become the closer because the plan is to move him into the rotation next year. So I looked into it a little bit and there were reports of that like in April that the plan is have him have him work up to about a hundred innings in the bullpen and then I remember there being something in like May or June about that as well. There have also been suggestions that that could change along the way. I mean, I think at one point in time the Brewers were saying that about Josh Hader and obviously it never came to pass. So you know, these situations evolve and obviously the White Sox are in a much more competitive spot than maybe they thought they were going to be in April and they're make up a point where they really need Taylor as their closer. And he's the best reliever by far. By far. I think ultimately, you know, because this is a 2027 discussion, we're going to know well, well, well before spring training, whether or you know, whatever, you know, summer training, whether Grant Taylor is the closer or is moving into the rotation like if if the Red Sox go out and add, you know, three high leverage relievers this off season. White Sox. Okay. White Sox. Sorry. Yeah. Who do they say? Then yeah, I then if that happens, then Grant Taylor's probably moving to the rotation. But if they, you know, make some moves or like Tyler Rogers, you know, those kind of moves, like clear setup men, then it's like, okay, yeah, Grant Taylor might be the closer. So I think we're going to know well in advance what Grant Taylor's role is going to be next year either way. All right. To stream, we're not to stream on Friday. We have Tyler Malian is Braves debut at the Yankees, Zach Thornton at the Pirates. Tyler Phillips is home against the Angels, George Clawson is at the Marlins. Zippy Matthews. He's back. He's at the Brewers. Shane Drowin against the twins. Shane Boz at the Rangers, Kyle Leahy against the Rockies in St. Louis and Kater Montero at the Giants. Drowin Leahy and then I think Boz would be a slightly more distant third for me. Yep. In that order, I agree. I like those three as well and I will just throw out maybe those names already roster in your league. I think Zach Thornton and Kater Montero could have a few good starts here on Friday. On Saturday, we have Walbert Arania at the Marlins. Robert Stock at the Pirates, Bubba Chandler against the Metz, Seth Lugo against the Cubs. Robert Gasser against the twins. Max and Chob and his season debut at the Giants. Matthew Leverator gets the Rockies in St. Louis. Anthony Kaye gets the Rockies. Anthony Kaye gets the Guardians and Brandon Fought Chris's favorite pitcher gets the Dodgers. Come on. Walbert Arania is the only one I feel good about against the Marlins there. If you're forcing me to pick others, I would say Gasser and Chandler over Leverator. Myself. One must imagine Brandon Fought pitching well. It's all I've got to say. It's a little throwback to Wednesday's pod for those of you. Tuesday's pod? Tuesday's. Not one I was a part of. I'll tell you how much. I think that was Tuesday. Yeah. I'll say Walbert Arania, Bubba Chandler and Anthony Kaye on Saturday. Well, technically Wednesday, you just recorded it Tuesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Well, Wednesday morning. On Sunday, we have Grant Holmes at the Yankees, Breedy Singers at the Nationals, JTGN at the Red Sox. Sean Beniah at the Pirates, Grayson Rodriguez at the Marlins, Connor Prelyp at the Brewers, Michael McGreevy gets the Rockies in St. Louis, Kaye Povitch at the Rangers, Kumar Rocker against the Orioles. McGreevy. Grayson Rodriguez at the Marlins. I would pick it on the Marlins. I scroll, yeah. But I like the way he's looked as last two starts. And my third choice would probably, as hot as the Red Sox are, I like JTGN enough that I could use invagants. I think you might get your standard five and two-thirds innings, two-run runs out of Sean Beniah. I don't think there's a ton of upside-by on that, but it's not a bad matter. Pittsburgh's like 21st against lefties, I think, in Woeba. So. Yeah. I think there's all those. I will throw Brady Singer out there as well. I think you can pitch against the Nationals as long as James Wood has hurt and, you know, they've traded some piece away. So they're, they're a line-up not as much. Yeah, I had an updated that in my mental model. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. That makes sense. Losing two with their three best hitters. Yeah. All right. We're going to wrap there for Scott Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We will back in next week. Bye-bye. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Paramount podcasts. [music] Hello and welcome to Pluto Fo. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV. We're all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch anchor man, the legend of Ron Burgundy. Fantastic. The Matrix trilogy. Welcome to the real world. Mean Girls. Side up. Tite and egg. On the key in the world. And so much more for showtime. Express nothing. They're free 24/7. That is so fast. On Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.