Vintage Zack Wheeler, Pitching Risers & Brewers Promote Luis Lara! (7/8 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

[Kuulun muuut] [Kuulun muut] [Kuulun muut] Kun mietin tulevaa, ajattelen minulle tärkeitä ihmisiä ja sitä mitä haluan tarjoita heille. Nordea Private Pankinniissä omasioitus johtajani auttaa tekemään päätöksiä, jotka kestävät aikaa. Näin perheenipysyy askeleen edelleen. Nordea Pistefi, Kautta Private Pankin. No niin, pelataan tää läpi ja hankitaisuille enkusta eee. Okei? Ja jos se ei nappaa, niin weirdee vantaan rahattakas. Okei, valmina? Ja, alkaa. Käynnä, kestävyys. Ähm, resistens. Melkein, tää on su final boss. Resulience. Yes, hyvä. Woohoo! Nyt on Fannasi Basball Today Podcast ja SbS Sports. Enkustamista. Tää on Fannasi Basball! Mä oon Fannasi Basball. Se on Fannasi Basball. SbSi.com. SbS Fannasi! SbS Fannasi! SbS Fannasi! Fannasi Basball Today on Wednesday tilai 8, I am Franks Apple Join. Bye, Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we have four pitching risers in the rankings right now. Right on her. One, two, three homers here on Tuesday night. The brewers promoted one of their top prospects, Luis Laura. And much more. Let's jump in. Oh my goodness! Unbelievable! Oh my goodness gracious. I'm a player of the night and we will start with Zach Wheeler. Chris, do you think he's a little ticked off that he's not an all star? So I'm wondering if he just turned it down. Because like they've passed on him multiple times now, including for Hazy Shuzardo, who has not been as good. I saw Zach Wheeler. I saw a quote after the game that apparently because he's scheduled to pitch on Sunday, he's ineligible to be in the all star game. Yeah. Which he was complaining about afterwards. Well, yeah, just like, they named him an all star and then picked someone else. Right. Like, isn't it? And I probably should know this, but the whole process has become convoluted. For most of my life, the manager picked the reserves and pitchers. And that was a very straightforward process. The managers picked them. But now it's like a voting system where votes are weighted differently. So a lot of its players, a lot. So I would imagine because it is that way there's not subjectivity. I mean, there's subjectivity in the voting, right? But not in the counting of the votes. So if Wheeler had the most, was the next one up in terms of voting when they were selecting alternates, he would still get credited with an all star selection, even if he wasn't allowed to pitch. And that's important for career accolades in Hall of Fame voting and all of those things, getting that credit that you were selected for an all star game. So I don't know that the fact he can't pitch in it should prevent him from getting that accolade. I remember last year when Jacob Mizorowski got picked for the all star game in Christopher Sanchez, didn't. And I think that was the explanation that Sanchez had pitched in the last game before the all star break. And so he wasn't going to be able to pitch anyway. So they just went with Mizorowski, but I don't know if that's actually what it works either way. Zach Wheeler should be an all star. And I just, like, there's not really anything actionable here. He got double to just strikeouts for the second start in a row. I think it's the third time since he came back. 14 swing stri- 14 strikeouts in seven innings of one run ball against the reds. The reds are obviously a very good matchup. 20 whiffs on 104 pitches. Five different pitches got multiple whiffs. I don't really have a lot to say here as far as fantasy goes. He's a top 10 starting pitcher, maybe. I don't exactly know what the specific number is, but it's up there. And as long as he stays healthy, I don't think that's going to change. I just have to highlight. And I know we've said it multiple times this season, but what he's doing as a 36-year-old, coming back from a significant arm surgery, even if it's not as significant as the usual thoracic outlet syndrome, he still had surgery to remove a rib and like move the vein around in his arm. And he is back. And it's like he didn't miss any time. He has a 29.4% strikeout rate. He has a 228 ERA. His peripheral stats are all within the same ballpark of where they've been the past few years. When we started talking about him as a guy who was likely headed to the Hall of Fame, and we were worried that this injury was going to derail that. The way he's pitching right now, I mean, I know a couple of years ago he said he didn't really want to pitch beyond either this year or next year, whenever his contract runs out. The way still very much at the top of his game and it is genuinely I've been watching baseball. I'm 38 years old. I've been watching baseball since two years old to the Wheeler. Yeah, he's a spring chicken. Since the Marlins became a team. So 93 was when I started watching baseball. So 35 years. 33 years. I've been writing about baseball professionally for 15 years. This is one of the most remarkable things I can remember seeing. Just one of the most genuinely unexpected things I've seen a player accomplish. It's astounding. I did not think Zach Wheeler would be anywhere near this good. I thought a successful return from this surgery would be like a top 30-ish starting pitch. And he's blown that away. He looks as good as ever. It's astounding. I hope he reconsiders the retiring after next year thing. It's his life. You only get one of them obviously. It's his life. But it may be the difference between making the Hall of Famer nod. If he's still pitching at an ace level in 2027 and doesn't come back for more. I think I'll follow a little short. Charlie Morton was retiring for like three years in a row and he just kept coming back and pitching. It's not impossible. But yeah, I just looked at the contract. It's supposed to expire after next season. Just another reason for baseball next season. Let's get another season of Zach Wheeler in there. That would be pretty awesome. I agree with everything you said, Chris. I just wanted to highlight again the vintage part of this. Because I think when Zach Wheeler kind of went on this initial run, we're like, "Alright, he looks really good. I'm not sure if he's going to get back to the Zach Wheeler of old." You could point to the swinging strikes and the strike outright not being as high as it was in the past. He now has a 16% swinging strike rate over his last four starts. That's why I'd like to highlight vintage Zach Wheeler. Or the season. We're talking semantics where. Yeah. I think you can make an argument that he's like a top five or six starting pitcher rest of the season. He has the second highest strike out rate of his career now. For the season. Yeah. Last year was like 33%, he's not there, but he's basically at 30% right now. He's at like a 24% K-Walk ratio. This is by any measure one of the best pitchers in baseball. And he's doing it after significant arm surgery at 36 years old. It's just. it's incredible, man. It's unbelievable. So he was one of the four pitchers I wanted to mention as someone who has been rising up the rankings. Another one is Justin Robleski. Now, Scott, I don't know which way you're going to go with this. I'll just start over to you, but Justin Robleski just had another great start where he racked up a bunch of strikeouts. Well, it was against the Rockies, obviously, in LA, but your thoughts on Justin Robleski. I owe Justin Robleski an apology. I was not familiar with his game. Not really. He changed his game. Yeah, you were very familiar with that. I was very familiar with Robleski's game. I was just doing the shack thing. Yeah, so, you know, dominated the Rockies. Nine strikeouts and seven innings. One run and a loud. He got 13 whiffs on 94 pitches. That's plenty of whiffs for the number of pitches. Fastball was up 1.1 mile per hour. And I think that's the key. He just started throwing harder. The velocity jump came on May 29th. That was the first time. It was just shy of 95 miles per hour on the fastball. 94.9. Before that, though, it was more like 94.94 and a half. Now it's more like 95.95 and a half. And that first started again on May 29th. So in seven starts, beginning with that May 29th start. Justin Robleski has a 221 ERA and a 0.90 Whitt. Now his ERA and Whitt were good prior to that. So let's not focus so much on those numbers. I just want to point out they're still really good. What I want to focus on more is the K-Pernine and the swinging strike rate. Because that is what's made the leap here. So, So prior to that velocity jump on May 29th, in nine starts, Justin Robleski had 5K per nine and a 7.2% swinging strike rate. Those are about as low as you'll see in 2026. The guy who has those numbers is barely hanging on and about to get demoted. In the seven start sense with that velocity jump, Robleski has 8.5K per nine and 11.8 percent swinging strike rate. Those are still fairly average, but you can have a good career with numbers like that. It also helps since over that same period of time, the seven starts with the better velocity 47% ground ball rate as compared to 37% previously. So even when he's allowing contact, it's the less damaging kind. So he's allowing a lot less contact, a lot less contact. And it's the less damaging kind and he pitches for the dodgers. I don't know. I think Justin Robleski might be worth keeping around after all. It's probably still over achieving, but it's not like the next time he has a bad start, you should be thinking about dropping him. I think he's earned some runway here. Yeah, I agree with that completely as well. It was pretty aggressive in moving Robleski up last week after that big start. I think it was like 11 strikeouts and that one. And I moved them up to around like SP 64. I think he should be closer like I'm not inside the top 50, but probably somewhere in that like 50 to 60 SP range. And Scott, you mentioned that he's still kind of over achieving. I think he might be able to continue doing that somewhat just because of the defense that plays behind it. If you look at the Dodgers defense by any metric, they're like a top three defense and all baseball. So that's something we used to say this a lot for like the Cubs pitchers back in the day. They still have a great defense, but or the Cardinals pitchers this year. When you have a great defense behind you, it allows you to kind of get away with more things and more balls and play turning into outs and things like that. And now he is starting to get more whiff. So all that combined and getting the run support that he does with the Dodgers, I think he's like a top 60 starting pitcher. Do you agree? Yeah. I want to check where I have him most recently. It's a do for an update, but yeah, I think I could get him inside the top 60 pretty easily. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now and I'm going to do my big update tomorrow. But just eyeballing it, I think like 57 ish, I think I'd go ahead of him ahead of Emerson Hancock ahead of Will Warren. Oh, yeah. Probably ahead of Warren. Probably ahead of Ryan Weathers, although that one's a little tougher just because of the strikeout upside. And then you've got like, I really love what we've seen from Schoenberg lately. I think there might be a higher ceiling there with him than Justin Rebelski. So I might go with Burke. I think I'd go with Logan Henderson over Justin Rebelski, but I think that's the right range. One guy I'm having trouble with is Taj Brad. I don't know if he's one of the four you wanted to talk about Frank, but he is. I have no idea what to do with Taj Brad. Yeah, we'll get to Taj Brad, little bit later on. What a match in my player tonight. That is Ryan O'Hern for three, four for five with a triple dong 10 RBI in this game. I saw a hilarious tweet from either an Orioles fan or someone that's just trying to mock the Orioles, but in this game alone, Ryan O'Hern had three homers in 10 RBI. He most recently played for the Orioles before he signed with the pirates. Tyler O'Neal on the season has three homers and nine RBI. So Ryan O'Hern beat that in one game today. Yeah. He moved up from, I believe, 23rd in the majors in RBI today to seventh. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Two multi-homer games in his last eight. Ryan O'Hern does. And on the season, he's now hitting 293 16 homers 61 RBI in 851 OPS. His updated pace numbers obviously helped out greatly by this one. 88 homers, 106 RBI. I think I would pretty comfortably take the under run both of those, but just goes to show. I mean, the type of season he's having when he's played, he's just been awesome this year for the pirates. Great signing by them. The underlying stats, the quality of contact, the expected stats, do not buy what Ryan O'Hern is doing. So you can make a sell high case here, but realistically, I don't think that you can demand much in a trade for Ryan O'Hern. So as somebody who, one of your last picks, the RBI Frank, come on. One of the last picks in the draft or likely picked up as a waiver wire hitter early on in the season, I would just continue riding out, man. He's been very, very good all season. Yeah, I think he's going to remain a solid starter, even in three outfielder leagues. The pirates haven't been platooning him the way previous teams did. And so correct me if I'm wrong, but their home venue is favorable for left handed. I know it's one of the worst for right handed, but it's favorable for left handed hitters, right? So yeah, his home always splits. Was this game at home? I believe it was. It was. Yeah. So 12 home runs at home versus four on the road. So that between that and a career high pole air rates, technically how to hire one in his rookies season, I guess, but close enough. One of the best pole air rates O'Hern has ever had and a more favorable venue for a left handed hitter like him. I think what he's doing is more or less legit. He may give up a few points of batting average there, but yeah, even in three outfielder leagues, I think you're going to stay happy with Reinhardt. The oh my goodness game of the night, the chiefs defeated the Jets 16 to 12 in a paddle of field goals. Royals against the Mets, just one of the weirdest wonkiest games that you will see, which started with a little league home run, which was allowed by the Royals, which echoed something that you would see in like the bad news bears. It was. It was insane. The most shocking thing about this was that the Jack Caglione throw, where was that going? I have no genuinely have no idea because it looked like he just he's off out in almost in right field, picking up the ball. He throws it basically directly between first home and third base. The thing that's most astounding about that is two years ago, that guy was a pitcher and a pretty good one in the SEC, like not an ace, but he was like, I think the league ERA in the SEC that year was six and he had like a 420 ERA or something like he was an above average pitcher. 20 great command. What? Yeah. I mean, that was that is why Jack Caglione is no longer a pitcher. That was just bizarre. What was that? It was not good there, but you know what? The Royals wound up winning this game and there is I don't think anything we can do with this in fantasy, but we have to highlight Tyler Tolbert, who just tied the MLB record with a hit in 12 straight at bats back to back five hit games. The first player to do this since Roberto Clemente in 1970. So he went five for six with a sock in a shoe. And then on Monday, he went five for five with a homer. I don't think it matters, but it was absolutely nothing there, but phenomenal. Yeah. Incredible. What can happen in baseball? He's only playing because Bobby Witt is dealing with that MCL spring and he's still playing. He's just a DH. Witt is. So they've had Tolbert start a short stop the last two days. He's fast, but there isn't a lot of offense potential there. Otherwise 28 year old, look at his minor league track record. Yeah, there's nothing to get excited about here. Only met side of things a huge game for AJ Ewing. Four for four with a sock in the shoe. Four runs, three RBI and over his last 22 games. He's hitting 311 with five homers, 12 runs, 16 RBI, two steals, three caught stealing as well during that spin. OPS over 900. The biggest key for me is just a 16% strikeout rate during that stretch. Before that, it was up over 30%. So big, big key there. King, AJ Ewing improved as the season has gone on getting those strikeouts down. He has power, he has speed. He's 56% rostered. Scott, how would you rank Cole Carrig, AJ Ewing as Merlin Valdez? Those kind of feel like the young hot outfielders right now. You just did. Carrig Ewing and Valdez. Now Carrig needs to play more consistently to live up to that. I think he will eventually. Ewing, if he starts running like he did in the minors, could overtake Carrig. But this was, was this his second steal or third steal? Well, he doesn't have that many actually. No, a guy who stole 70 bases last year. AJ Ewing, he has nine on the season. Oh, okay. It's more than I thought. It's been, it's been slowed down considerably the last like three weeks. So the steals have come down. The steals have come down for Ewing. He's been caught, he has three caught stealing in his last 22 games. He's just hating a lot better during that track. Okay. I think I was thinking of Cole Carrig. Cole Carrig is stolen only two bases, even though he had 30 in the minors just this year and 46 last year and 53 the year before. So Carrig needs to get back to feel running like he did in the minors. I think to remain ahead of you, but I think he will. - But I will point out, you and has started, I think it's 47 of 53 games since his promotion, including 10 out of 15 against lefties, so they're not really platooning him. It's not every day, but it's increasingly looking like it. And he's been hitting at the top of the lineup lately. I think it was two games in a row at lead off. It seems like it's maybe when there's a righty, he's a lead off hitter or in that range, and then they drop in like fifth or seventh against lefties, but yeah, there's a lot of runway here for AJ Ewing to really take off. I think he's gotta be viewed as like a top 45-ish outfielder. - Yeah, I think definitely Moss Ross are the way that he's playing right now, the upside that he possesses, and just, you know, the names that have let us down this season, just veterans that come to mind, George Springer, who has come off the emergency, family emergency list, and has started two games in a row, and he just hasn't been good this year. Jaren Durand, having a terrible down season as well. So, you know, the veterans and obviously all the injuries that we've suffered as well, like, yeah, AJ Ewing, I think definitely Moss Ross at this point. And man, lineup protection of Wandsoto hitting behind you. It's just huge, huge upside, I think, there for AJ Ewing. Before we hit our first break, just a reminder to subscribe to the FBT newsletter. If you haven't already, if you're watching on YouTube, you can scan that QR code. It will take you right to the website, cbsports.com/newsletters, where you can sign in for free, and you will get all of Chris's work delivered right to your email inbox every weekday of the season. Let's take that break. We'll be back right after this. 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 to Coma, 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. 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And we got big prospect news here as the brewers promoted outfielder, Luis Lara. He is 21 years old. He was having a great season at AAA, hitting 321 with a 432 on base, nine homers, 24 steals, a 902 OPS in 78 games. He had more walks and strikeouts. And he made his debut in game two of the double header here. He hit second in the lineup. He went one for four with a walk, a run and two RBI. He's 30% roster. It's a widely available. But Scott is there, a spot. Is there consistent playing time here for Luis Lara? I think there could be. It just depends on how committed the brewers are to playing. And Garrett Mitchell has held up pretty well in center. So I doubt they're just going to remove him from the equation. He doesn't really play against lefties. Right? Yeah. I don't think so. But obviously, we want Lara playing every day. He's going to be of use in fantasy. So Jake Bowers, they've seemed reluctant to play in the outfield. But that's the only way to play him in the outfield. But that's the only way to get him and Andrew Vaughn in the lineup at the same time since yellich is occupying DH. If they remain in more of a split role there and not the two of them, not if the brewers aren't committing to Bowers as an everyday outfielder, then it's pretty easy to see Luis Lara taking South Freelix spot. Freelix already, they've already started to face him out. I think Lara could be really good. He's lacking particularly at age 21, the sort of power you expect from an outfielder in 2026. But he did have nine home runs in 78 games of AAA. Thing is, he's young, like I said, five foot seven, the exit velocities aren't that impressive. The contact skills are insane. And he walked more than he struck out and he's very fast. He has shown that he can have some over the fence power. It's just a question of how much he gets to at this point in his career. I think it could be similar to AJ Ewing, frankly. The offensive skill set looks comparable. I think the fact that Luis Lara immediately becomes the best defensive outfielder the brewers have gives him a chance of securing every day at bats even if there is a bit of a crunch there. So five outfielder leagues definitely somebody to target. We've been talking about Luis Lara for a few weeks now on the bonus. What do we call that fantasy baseball express? The podcast one Frank and I do every week. He's been one of the top prospects to stash for a while now and now he gets his chance. I have to imagine he's behind the names we just mentioned, right? Just because we've seen them do something at the major league level so far. Yeah. I still am of the opinion as Merlin Valdez is not going to remain in our sights for long. But until he until he bottoms out, I think he deserves to be rostered in five outfielder leagues because there's always that chance that he doesn't. I'm just expecting well and Lara will be more valuable in the long run. All right. Connor Griffin was placed in the aisle with a torn tendon in his left ring finger. And apparently he's going to wear a split for six weeks and is expected to be sideline for eight to ten weeks. And that brings us to early to mid September. So look, you could always beat timelines right. I saw people talking about how similar injury to what Yuri Perez was dealing with. And he came back a lot sooner than expected. Was it Yuri Perez? Maybe someone else. Maybe it was Yuri Perez in a different season. Could potentially be back sooner than this, but it's not a guarantee. So I'm not sure that we'll see much more of Connor Griffin the rest of this season. And if it's, you know, well, we've got so far 276 five homers, 20 steals. Obviously, looks like he's going to be a very dynamic player for fantasy. Wonder what his 80 P will be for next season. I know it's like very early to talk about next season. But considering we might not get much else from Connor Griffin the rest of the way. He'll be an interesting case for draft season next year. I use a top 50 pick and Roto at least. That's where I was leaning as what like I was just. If Roman Anthony was a top 50 pick this year and Connor Griffin has, you know, more, I guess, Roto skills than Roman Anthony, then I absolutely see that happening. Yeah, I think he could end up a third-ground pick by the time it's all foam. I think you can see that at least at least occasionally. I'm not going to say yeah, I don't know. You may be right. And he was impressed. He was kind of low key impressive as a rookie. Connor Griffin. I'm using past tense. It does sound like he's going to contribute a little at the end of the season. So maybe I shouldn't say was, but he has been low key. Go to his a rookie. He hasn't blown the doors off in a way. That you know, would make him like, oh, he's a top five shortstop now. But he did enough, I think, that there's going to be plenty of enthusiasm for him. It's. It's just there are so many stars that are more established. That's, well, that's where I get a little squeamish in putting him that high. I was thinking round five maybe, but. You know, it might depend somewhat on how Gunnar Henderson closes out the season among others. How Francisco Lendor closes out the season. How Vladimir Guerrero closes out the season for not to Tatees. Is Connor Griffin going to be able to leapfrog those early round stalwarts? I think their own performance will say a lot as far as that goes. I think how his, you know, rookie cohorts close out the season could factor in as well. Kevin McGonagall and JJ Weatherhold obviously they've had fantastic seasons, but if they keep that up in the second half, I think those guys will probably be considered top 50 picks next year as well. So we shall see Jacob DeGrom left his start after five innings and 80 pitches because he was dealing with a hip slash like thing. And he said he's not particularly worried and thinks he'll be fine before his next start. He threw five innings of two run balls, seven strikeouts, 13 whiffs on 80 pitches. He was solid all around, but yeah, something to watch and see if Jacob DeGrom makes his next start. The twins plays Byron Buxen on the aisle after re-aggravating that hip injury over the weekend. It kind of felt like this is where things were headed. We'll see if he is ready to go right after the all-star break. Walt Weiss said Ronald Acunia could begin a rehab assignment next week. And if that goes well, Sky, you think we could see maybe Acunia first game after the break? That seems a little aggressive to me. He's about a week away from rehabbing is what Weiss said, right? So you know, you would imagine he'd need three or four games down there at least. I'm not long after the break. Certainly before the end of July, it sounds like barring a setback. White Langford ran at high intensity Tuesday and hopes to be reinstated before the all-star break. He again left his start on Tuesday after just four innings and 61 pitches due to an illness. His velocity was way down between two and a half and three miles per hour. So hopefully it was just illness related and nothing arm related with JT. Ginn Hunter Goodman was scratched from the lineup Tuesday due to a wrist injury. Ranger Suarez who left Sunday start with left adductor tightness is hopeful that he will avoid the aisle. Good morning, I'm Mark Springer. Despite being active from the family emergency list, is it performance based? They want to see what other players can do? Do you think Springer is just legitimately losing playing time? It's kind of weird. Could be. Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be undeserved despite his track record. The Blue Jays are, you know, the Triton lines 23 days away, the Blue Jays are like eight games under 500. They're having a pretty bad season, seven games under 500. My preseason world series champion pick. Yeah, they kind of got to figure out if they have anything here. At least try to try some guys out and see if someone can catch fire. So yeah, I do think it's possible that they're just kind of phasing them out or at least giving some other guys a look just because he's been kind of useless all season. We had some A's news. Jacob Wilson was activated after missing two weeks with right thumb inflammation. Tyler Soderschrom is progressing well from his hip injury and could be activated. Quote very soon. Nick Pavella has progressed to during bullpen sessions. He's 68% rostered. I'm not sure if I should ask you guys about Nick Pavella because last time I did a YouTube chatter laughed at me. Do you have any tips? They're laughing at you every day. Frank. I know. There's nothing. I know. They were commenting on the way he'd hot dogs the other day. I don't know what's going on. Do you know hot dog on the podcast? No. Somebody said Frank looks like he's hot dog sideways. And I just thought that was funny. I know what that means. Exactly. Well, we'll file that under the file that the same same conversation as Nick Pavella. I guess Tommy Edmund returned to the lineup. I've ever seen one bite of it and it would you'd have two hot dogs at that point. Right? Like how do you? Well, I mean, you can't. You can't. You can't. He did sideways for long. I had a corn on the cob. I mean, oh, like that. But then you're just getting tired of a bite. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't think it really makes sense. I don't know. Tommy Edmund returns to the lineup after missing two games following that hit by pitch on his right foot. He went one for four with his second stolen base, two steals in his last four games. I think that's pretty encouraging. Yeah. Tommy Edmund. Any Rodriguez was added a lineup Tuesday as he deals with that hip issue that he suffered on Sunday. The met activated a Jorge Polanco from the 60 day I L 31 percent rostered any interest in Jorge Polanco. I'm curious to see how he does. We were kind of excited about him coming into the air at the state of second base and first base is such that you have to be a pretty deep league for you to invest a roster spot in him at this point. Yep. I don't think there's much reason to do it until he shows us a reason for it. And here's a deep reliever name to watch Felix Batista has apparently looked really good in his bullpen's. He had surgery to repair a torn labor in his shoulder last year. And we know that Ryan Helsley went down again on the I L with elbow inflammation. He's seeking a second opinion. So that doesn't sound very good. Tyler Wells picked up two saves over the weekend. He's looked really good. So it might not matter if Tyler Wells is really good. Maybe he just kind of runs away with the job. But if he falters, maybe Felix Batista former amazing reliever for fantasy. Yeah. I will say that he's probably at least a month away. If not more. Yeah. I want to say he did a live BP or a may he did a bullpen recently. Yeah. I don't think he's face titters yet. So he's still a ways away. And I do want to point out. Okay. Bobby Whit as a rookie had 20 homers, 30 steals and a 308. Woa. Entering his second season, he was 10.6 in ADP. Connor Griffin. He only ended up, you know, he's only played 59 games so far. Five homers, 20 steals. So much better stolen base pace, although in an era when stolen bases are less valuable, was probably a better hitter than Bobby Whit as a rookie, less power, but 325, woa, but to a 308 for Bobby Whit. And yeah, top 50, probably under selling where Bobby Whit's going to end up in. Connor Griffin. At least in those NFVC drafts, because they really, they really get excited for the young guys. How did you get Connor Griffin in your rankings this year? I think what's new, he was making the team or close to it. He was like, no, no, no, I'm not talking about preseason. I'm talking about in season. How high did you get Connor Griffin in your ranks? He was totally playing. 10. I think I got him up to like 12 or around. Yeah, 10 to 12. He was eight before the injury for me at shortstop. So what will have changed between now and then that you're going to rank him that much higher? What changed between the end of Bobby Whit's rookie season and the start of his second season? The biggest difference though is that Bobby Whit played 150 games in his rookie season. Well, I think the biggest difference is the fantasy baseball landscape was very different than. And we were more starved for five category performers. Look, it worked out in Bobby Whit's case. So it's hard to, I know, I know none of us, I don't think any of us were, no, we're thrilled with them being a friend. I'm not saying I'm going to rank him there. Yeah. I think Bobby, Connor Griffin is going to be a second round pick at least next year. Second rounder. Hmm. Plant in the flag. I don't, yeah, I probably would still lean closer to Scott, like fourth or fifth rounder. That's where I would rank him. I'm not saying that he's going to go. Yeah. Those are separate discussions to be fair. I think I think he, at least in NFBC drafts, which tend to be those younger hyped guys, like, look, if Connor Griffin's a third round pick next year at the start of spring training and he hits one home run, he's a second round pick, you know? And one of my first questions with that is the NFBC, you know, that platform has its own biases. Yeah. But it, people are playing for an overall title. So they're, they're going to aim for, if Connor Griffin can be a 2040 guy next year, that might not be the likeliest outcome, but they're going to, yeah, for that, you know, but because it's some of the earliest available ADP data, it gets, it kind of sets the, it kind of, it kind of sets the narrative. It kind of, it kind of locks in. We're all discussing where players should go and drafts based on how they're going in early NFBC drafts. So that might serve to inflate Connor Griffin's value in a way that there's no coming back from. So yeah, I mean, I should probably prepare my heart for that and then be in the unfortunate position of having to speak against Connor Griffin, which it's an unfortunate position. You don't want to be there because he's insanely talented, but you know, you only get, you only get one first round pick, one second round bit, one third like how big of a gamble do you want to take with it? Yeah. And we'll find out soon into the offseason because if hopefully we're out at first pitch Arizona again in November, I always do at least one draft when I'm there just to see what is the first draft board look like in the offseason. And so we'll, we'll find out pretty, pretty soon into the offseason pitching risers. We spoke about a few already Zach Wheeler rising up the board, Justin Robleski the way he's pitched. Todd Bradley, he's a name we already mentioned, but he was awesome against the Guardians again, very good matchup. Seven innings of one run ball 10 strikeouts to zero walks 25 whiffs on 101 pitches back to back starts with double digit strikeouts here. He used more cutters and splitters and that's now two starts and row he's done that. I think it's a fantastic decision for Todd Bradley. I still think he comes with his own volatility with like command and things like that, but it's hard to argue with how he's look lately. So where you guys at on Todd's Bradley? I mean, for me, it's tied to the splitter, especially, and maybe that's just where my focus has been. And so, you know, I haven't observed the change in the usage and the other pitches as much. But it was leaning on that splitter heavily early on before going on the IEL. First first eight starts was throwing the splitter. 15 to 25 percent of the time had a 287 R1 19 whip 10 K. Prenine came back from the IEL was hardly throwing the splitter at all more like 10 percent less than that sometimes got crushed. Last four starts, he's gotten that splitter usage back up over 15 percent. It was 32 percent in this start. And since doing that four starts 225 R8.88 whip 12 K. Prenine. So like, okay, he throws the splitter a lot. He's putting up borderline A's numbers. The problem is even when he's doing that, it's with high exit velocities, it's with a high flight ball rate. That is a dangerous combination. And it has me one foot in one foot out on Taj Bradley. Like I see, I see the path here for him to be a impactful fantasy pitcher. But I don't want to undersell the downside risk. Can I make a comp that may make Scott mad? Of course, you know, maybe like mildly in order. Like, ah, you're being unfair. That's my Scott way impression. Is he just Gavin Williams? Come on. Is he? Gavin Williams data is at that bad. Like in terms of his average EV and barrel rate are really really fast. 91.1 mile per hour average exit velocity 455 to R.A. He doesn't put the ball on the air nearly as much. Does he? He puts more of a ground ball. He's more of a ground ball pitcher. Yeah. So the bad ball profile is different. But I do think they're both very volatile pitchers. Yeah. I mean, I think it just I will never be able to buy into Taj Bradley as like a dependable must start fantasy option. I'm not sure I feel great about trusting Gavin Williams as that. But if you if you set your expectations at like where they're both at, which is right around a 380 390 ERA for the season, a lot of strikeouts, some really, really good starts and some really, really bad ones mixed in. I think you'll probably be okay with having them around. And to be clear, I have Gavin Williams rank much higher, but the scussets aren't that much different. Williams. I think a little more strikeouts this year. Little fewer walks, but yeah, it's it's close. I I could see him going on a run here too, because so far in Taj Bradley, all we've known is streaks. He goes on really hot streaks, really cold streaks. He's had both of those already this season. And so perhaps he's getting ready to go on another one of these hot streaks. And he I think as long as he can get those secondary pitches in the zone enough, I think he could be pretty effective as fat like his cutter was just discussing it at 17 whiffs on that cutter. So really, really nice direction here for Taj Bradley. The last pitching riser I want to mention is Ian Seymour, huge strikeouts here against Yankees, five and a third. Three runs allowed. He did give up a three run homer to Ben Rice, but 12 strikeouts to zero walks 17 whiffs on 94 pitches. And now in his last three games, it's 18 innings, four runs, 27 strikeouts to two walks. He's 67% rostered. I don't know if you guys agree, but to me, he has vaulted to the top of all the waiver wire pictures we've been talking about in the past couple weeks. I think Ian Seymour is at the top of the list for me, really close with Sean Burke, because I like what he's doing too. But to me, Ian Seymour is at the top. I think he's right there. I think my top 60s at starting pitcher sounds right to me. And I do before, after Justin Robleski, probably after, I think those are weird. Those are weird prepositions to use higher or lower. That's a tough one because I think I would go with Robleski. And I think part of it is the Dodgers weirdly do trust him to pitch deep into games. Like he has racked up a couple of like, he's had a couple of starts go like close to 100 and I think that pretty strong. He got like 111 pitches or something. So they give him that row. But I do. I think there's a chance Ian Seymour is the second best race pitcher in fantasy the rest of the way. Because he has already thrown 90 or more pitches twice in what four starts, I think he's made or one of them was a relief appearance. But basically since he moved to the rotation four starts ago, he has thrown 90 pitches twice. That is as many times as Shane McClanahan and Griffin Jacks combined this season. And they've been starting for a lot longer. So I don't know if there's that much of a difference in talent between Griffin Jacks, Shane McClanahan and Ian Seymour at this point. And if they're going to give Ian Seymour a longer leash, I think he might be, yeah, I think he's got that chance. I mean, that is the if and you're saying there early indications that there would. My biggest hesitation with Seymour is just I don't necessarily trust the race. Yeah. To do the best thing for his fantasy value. I agree. Obviously they did it at the start of the year. Yeah. And this is only a recent development. But it's gone as well as it could have gone. Seymour's obviously done his part. It's always tricky with these sort of non-prospects who dominate in the miners. Unconventional type pitchers like Seymour. I use dominant in the miners. But he was never much of a prospect because it was unconventional. I'm just repeating myself at this point. What makes them tricky to assess for fantasy is you just don't know how the parent club is going to implement that. You know, it's it's it takes. You don't know what their own internal marks are for him. You don't know how how seriously they're going to take him out how how well they say he translates to a particular role. And with Seymour, I got the impression early on okay to raise. He's not a big deal to the race. But you know, he's done as well as he could to change that over these last three appearances. Would you guys put him ahead of Sean Burke? Do you agree that he's near the top of that list? I think I'd get Burke the edge. Well, Seymour points like he's a spark. Again, it's hard because like Sean Burke has a spot in the white sucks rotation. He's not losing it. Seymour, I think I think I would have to give Burke a slight edge because of that. All right. Let's take our final break. When are you turn? I've got a temperature check here on Paul's schemes. I have a potential picture to buy for the second half of the season. We'll do all that right after this. World Diving Avikursin Avulla, Trena Teocausti Engungirjotoksin, Engusta E tai Rahatta kaisin. It's a great Avikurses to have World Dive Pisteko. Temperature check on Paul's schemes who turned in a quality start against the Braves. Six innings of two run ball, four strikeouts to one walk. He did allow hits in this game, eight hard hits as well. He had 12 whiffs on 95 pitches, eight of those on the fastball, average 97 miles per hour on that fastball, which is right as at his season's average, which is down 1.2 miles per hour from where it was last year, which is also down a little bit from where it was the year before that. But there has been a lot of Paul's schemes propaganda on the interwebs over the past week or so, rolling charts of his velocity throughout his career and his spin rates on his fastball. Just wanted to check in with you guys and see where you at on Paul's schemes right now. I think he's the third best pitcher in fantasy. What did you call that stuff that's come out about him, propaganda, propaganda, mythology is Paul II propaganda. I find some of it, I find some of it compelling. I don't disagree. I'm susceptible to propaganda, apparently. Particularly, what was that tweet you shared? It was the one about the spin rate. Yeah, it was John Baulman who used to work for Sportsline. He worked for the Blue Jays. As a data guy, he said one of the leading indicators of impending arm injury was a drop sudden drop in spin rate. His spin rate was back to normal on this one. Yeah. Was it? I thought it was down from his career, up from his season average. It was down 42 RPMs. It was down a little bit from his season average, but it was up like 200 RPM from his last time. So, look, isn't it normal to lose some spin rate when you lose some velocity too? Because his fastball is down slightly more than a mile per hour from last year, right? There are so many directions I could go with this. One of them is, okay, has, he reached, like he still has a ton of velocity. But for every picture, it's not apples to apples, but for every picture, there comes a point where if there's a tipping point or if they lose enough velocity, they become much more hittable. And is skiing verging on that tipping point? Is it, is it, was it ever reasonable to think he could average 98 miles average, 98 miles per hour on his fastball for more than a couple years? Just because who does that? So, skiing is one of the rare pictures that I do think has more in the tank than he lets on. Like I think skiing's could, my sense of skiing's at least has been, he could average 99. And he's just intentionally holding back 'cause he's more, for a guy who threw 98.2 miles per hour last year, he is, I think, more of a command picture than a power picture in his approach. He just, he's a command picture who happens to be six foot six, 260 pounds. But I think his approach, he's not like a chase strikeout, guy all the time, you know, we see stretches where he, he seems to be deliberately pitching to contact, throwing his non-swing and mispitches. But I guess my thing about all of the Paul Schien's discussion has been, last, what, seven starts, nine starts, whatever it is, bad. And there have been some warning signs here with the velocity dropping again and the spin rate and a couple of starts. And then you look at the season long numbers and it's a 30% strike at rate and a 5.6% walk rate and a 276 XERA, which is basically dead on what he did his first two seasons. And I just think the width rate on the fastball, for all to talk about the fastball, 29%. Same as last year. And so I just, I'm not gonna say there's nothing there. As long as he's healthy, I think he's going to figure it out. And it's an open question, I suppose, whether he is healthy, there are certainly some red flags there. There is no concrete evidence that he is not healthy. So I'm just gonna assume he's healthy and is still one of the best pitching baseball. - I was on a podcast earlier today, fantasy baseball now with Sean Martin and Mike Nelson. And I think it was Mike who brought up the idea that skiing's fastball is so good. Like is the problem just that skiing is taking this kitchen sink approach with his arsenal as his common of the day to have six, seven pitches. Yeah, thank you. Like we've talked about with all the Mariners pitches, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller, their fastball so good, why did they have to broaden their arsenal out that much? And it actually ended up working against them. It could something be similar, something similar be going on with skis. Maybe I don't have a good, I don't have a good sense for why things have gone wrong for him. So it's possible he just lost his feel or was dealing with something, but I think on the whole, all of the indicators suggest that he's still an absolute monster. If you wanna have Christopher Sanchez and Jacob Mazzurowski ahead of him in your personal rankings, I'm not gonna argue with it. I haven't that way too. If you wanted to have Tarek's scuba ahead of him, that's the one I was thinking about. I think I'd argue with that because Tarek's school has been really good since coming back from his elbow injury. But it's been a lot of five inning starts. Yeah. So I just was the most encouraging start. Yeah, though. Oh, and I'm not, like Tarek's school is my number four starting, I try not worry about him. But I have not seen enough. I think you could put Cam Schletler up there for sure. I mean, you could put Zach Zerker. Wait, Aguilar, yeah, that's the next talking point. Yeah, I think those guys, if you wanted to, I've had sale in Yamamoto in my top five. I think I'm gonna move them down. I think I'm gonna bump them down. Yeah, sales being, his starts are being spread out so much. We brought it up the other day with fantasy feud that we were surprised not having 120 strikeouts. The K-Pronine rate's great. It's just a lot of five inning starts and a lot of like seven day periods in between them. So I don't think Chris sale needs to be anywhere near the top five. I mean, he needs to be in the top 10. So maybe anywhere near. It's not the best way to put it. But yeah, I think the lowest you could justify ranking skeens is five with scuple and slitler and Mizurowski and Sanchez being in. And even that, I just, I think it'd be an overreaction. It might be, for all this talk about the fastball, I mean, you guys brought it up entering this start, his batting average, his slug, his average EV, his X-Wolba, all better this year with this fastball than it was last year. And it's, it was really good last year. It's still really good this year. So, kind of feels like maybe it's being overblown a little bit, but when a pitcher throws this hard for two or three years in a row, like your mind is always going to wonder a little bit. And I mean, I think we could do that with any pitcher, but obviously a pitcher who throws this hard, it's like, all right, you know, let's, let's pay attention. But, you know, obviously turned into quality start his first win since like, I didn't like early June or late May. So that was pretty wonky for him. But good to see Paul skeens back in the win column there. A potential pitcher to buy for the second half, Matthew Boyd. He looked great here at the Orioles six shutout and he's seven strikeouts, 15 whiffs on 93 pitches. His fastball velocity was up one mile per hour in this one. It was pretty good for him. His slider and curve were both really good as well. His slider was a little bit different. The velocity was down ahead four more inches of drop. And the overall numbers still don't look very good, but the swinging strike rate, the K percentage is up the season. It's a really good defense behind him. Questions about whether he could stay healthy. I think those are always there with Matthew Boyd. But based on the underlying stuff, I think he might be a pretty good pitcher to buy for the second half. Matthew Boyd. Yeah, I think he's like a 350 year egg. And I think you'll be happy to have him around. I was surprised his roster rate is still close to 90%. Yeah. Which is good. I think it should be. So I'm proud of everyone for not giving up on Matthew Boyd. I do have some waiver options here. It wasn't the greatest night for waiver names outside of AJ. Youwing, who he spoke about earlier, but Henry Bolte, Homer, off of Terrick's school, will his third home run. And he has started every game since June 15th. He is playing more with Tyler Soderschem on the aisle. And he's been solid, hitting 292, 373 on base three homers, 11 steals 45% roster. Do you guys think that number needs to be higher for Henry Bolte? I don't really think so. Is he clearly behind all the other outfielder's we've talked about so far? Yes. Yeah. He's not there. Just cold carry. Bolte or Luis Lara? I mean, Lara, but obviously the playing time is a big enough concern that if you wanted to go, Bolte, I think that's OK. What is it about Bolte? Because every time you bring him up, I'm always surprised to see how good his numbers look and that he's playing every single day. He hits the ball hard and he's very athletic. But why does he not feel like he's that impactful? And the run in RBI totals are pathetic. I don't know what's going on there. And he's-- He also-- He's on like a nine-homer pace. That's toward the bottom of the line up, too. So that probably affects the run production. So he's played about 50 games. So just triple this. Well, I mean, he has fewer than 20 runs and RBI. So that's less than 60 of each over a full season pace. Yeah, really, it's batting average install and bases where the two places he's been impactful so far. And his XBA is 236. That's why I've been a little iffy on him. I think he's a fine ad. But I think Luis Lara is probably more talented player. It's just a question of the playing time. I definitely think, well, as Merlin vault is, is mostly just a, well, he's hot now. Let's see if he can keep it up. So if you wanted to go with Boltay over him, I think that's fine, too. But yeah. I would lean Valdez over Boltay, but I do think it's close. And yeah, I think Boltay is interesting. He was one I was-- when I was kind of digging in a little bit, yeah, the underlying number is on Pia, but he is really athletic and he'll be an interesting one to see how he finishes out the second half. But I think for next season, too, there's a lot of really young, exciting hitters to consider for next season. Obviously, you've got to-- so a whole 'nother half of the season-- to get through. I do have two middle infield types here who are hitting well. I just don't think they're that impactful for fantasy yet. Cole, young last 23 games, he's hitting 286 with six homers in OPS over 800. And Colt Keith, all seven of his homeruns have come in the past 20 games, only hitting 237 during that stretch. But seven homers, two steals, OPS, over 850. They're hitting better. I just I still don't see enough impact yet. Yeah. And Colquith is like one of the the most true platoon guys in baseball. He has 17 played appearances against lefties. So there's just not a lot you can do. Guess who dropped Cole Young from his first place to out wars team a week before losing Connor Griffin to a long injury. Um, this guy. Oh, okay. You I avoided the bad drop in that league all year, which might be part of the reason why it's doing well. But I think that has to go down as one because I'm not going to find a middle and fielder as good as Cole Young and a 15 team wrote a league. Spent some of that fat. Get him, get him back, Scottie. The ship is sailed. I tried. I tried, but I got outbid. Gotcha. Frank, can I name one more? Yeah. Everware header? Yep. Yep. Uh, we did not mention. Did you mention Dominic Kinzone? I did not know. Okay. Jerry DePoto. Uh, he's Dominic Kinzone's been playing more against lefties lately and Jerry DePoto. Jerry DePoto came out and said, they're he's going to be basically an everyday player moving forward, which I've seen a lot of excitement about for good reason. Dominic Kinzone has been awesome this season. He's got like a 900 OPS for the season, I think. Um, he's probably going to be worse now that he's playing everyday against lefties. You just hope the, the counting stats make up for what he loses in the pace stats. But yeah, that's, that's one, you know, I think he's 60% or so rostered in CBS leagues. Now that he's getting, he's going to be pretty close to an everyday player. I think that probably should be a little higher. All right. Some waiver wire pitchers and two streamer types, Andrew Abbott and Shane Bosn. They both turned in quality starts and Abbott over his last 13 starts has a 286 ERA a 126 whip underlying numbers do not buy it at all. But that's kind of just what Andrew Abbott does. And Shane Bosn over his last 10, a 330 ERA a 125 whip. Uh, they're both between like 75 and 80 percent rostered. I think they're fine. I think they're, you know, okay, streamer types, but not much more than that. They're both in a category where it's like, yeah, they're good enough to roster, I guess. But if they imploded tomorrow, it would not be the least bit surprising. We got a big start from Robert Gasser. I'm just not sure that he sticks around seven and two thirds innings, two runs, four strikeouts here in game two of their double header. And uh, yeah, he got called up for this specific reason to start the double header. I just, I don't know if he sticks around. Scott. I don't know either. I was just fact checking myself. You know, it would be surprising if Shane Bosn and Drapid imploded tomorrow because they just pitched today. I got to pitch two days in row. Be very surprising if they imploded tomorrow. So just a little correction there. I have a couple drop candidates here. Will Warren, a big old stinker at the raise for innings six runs allowed three homers allowed only had three swinging strikes total in this one. And in his first seven starts, he had a two 39 ERA in his last 11 534 91% rostered feels way too high for a war. Yeah, I mean, we couldn't really understand why he was getting so many strikeouts early on in the season. He's always been a pretty average swinging misguide and as it turns out, low average. Yeah, as it turns out, he's really come back to earth. So yeah, I think will Warren is someone who can I'm pretty easily be dropped. And Hurston Waldrup, he's not rostered many leagues at all. But if you picked up in a deeper league, he got destroyed. Velocity was down in this one and he has not had that splitter working so far, which was a really good pitch for him last year. Pretty much has always been his best pitch. So I think if you picked him up in a deeper league, you probably can go ahead and move on from Waldrup. He might matter at some point, but obviously not right now. Some pitching left overs, aces being aces. The Miz Jacob Mizierowski, another double digit strikeout start. Seven innings three runs, 11 strikeouts to zero walks. And Tarrick Scubull, he racked up the whiffs against the athletics five innings, one run, nine strikeouts, 22 whiffs on 96 pitches, anything on the Miz or Scubull. I mean, they're great. I mean, Mizierowski, if you were watching it, it kind of looked like this was going to go sideways for him pretty early. You give up two runs in the first inning. I think a double on a homer. He ended up with seven innings and 11 strikeouts. He's ridiculously good. He's the best pitcher in baseball. I don't really. I love that the control, the poor control that defined his whole professional career. It's gone just suddenly disappeared to like, yes. Two straight starts, I think, with 10 walks, no 10 strikeouts, no walks. I didn't look at his previous one, but what it surprised me. But he's partly been walking anybody all year. And it do be like that sometimes. I feel like Clayton Kirschah was sort of that way too. Famously, a tremendous control pitcher. He wasn't in the minors. Yeah. Yeah. That is a consecutive starts with double digit strikeouts and zero walks for Mizierowski and three of his last five with double digit strikeouts and zero walks. He also had one about five starts before that. Scott has already taken the plunge and he has moved the Miz up to his SP one overall on the season. I don't think I could fight it anymore. Chris, are you moving the Miz up to SP one? That is my number one starting pitcher in at least Roto at points. Probably we'll figure that out tomorrow. In Ace, who was not in Ace here, another subpar outing on the road for Brian Wu at the Martellins five innings, nine hits, four runs, three of those earned five strikeouts to one walk, the updated home road splits for the season 210 ERA 0.7 O whip at home, 628 ERA on the road with a 143 whip. I say whip to my 628 ERA 143 whip. I don't really know how to explain it. Like, yes, obviously team mobile park, great place to pitch, but the split should not be this dressing. It is just annoying. One of those things that happens, I think, I don't really think there's any, any there there. Like, maybe he's more of like a four ERA guy on the road. And even then, this is way out of whack. So I have no real concerns here. He is struggling with runners-on basses season, which feels kind of fluky. Like, typically that is something that just regresses to the normal as season goes on. And 62% left on base percentage last year was 80% for his career at 74%. So, I just think maybe he's had some bad luck with runners-on basses season for Brian. Well, it's weird about that is one thing he has continued to do well this year is not put many runners-on-bays. So even if it has gotten worse, his home run rate is way down this year, which normally explains the discrepancy between ERA and whip if the ERA is much higher while the guy's giving up a lot of home runs. That's usually what it means. But none in Woo's case, there's a lot of conflicting data points here that makes me think like Chris is saying, okay, this is all bound to regress. And I would consider Brian Woo and obvious by low-candidate at this point. I do have four other pitching leftovers. I won't read off the lines. Just mention the names here. Max Meyer, Joey Cantillo, Jose Soriano, and Peyton Toley. Do you guys have any notes anything you'd like to mention on those four? Toley, Soriano, Cantillo, and Max Meyer. Toley's been very hit or miss lately. But good to see him bounce back. Nine whiffs on the four-seamer. That's always going to be the key for him. When that four-seamer's working, he's awesome. Did he have like one whiff or something on his four-seamer on his previous start? It was a weird. The remember it being a weirdly bad start. So the previous start was his biggest miss during this hit or miss period. And now he gets his biggest hit during this hit or miss period. What I had observed after that really bad start last time is the collapse in his swinging strike rate, which was 13.8. Amazing. In his first eight starts, but then in his next five, 9.1. It was pretty bad. So I was especially encouraged by him getting all those whiffs in this start. 15 on 91 pitches, including nine on the fastball. Like you said, Chris, a very encouraging start for Toley. Very encouraging start for all of them, frankly. I mean, Soriano's velocity was down by more than a mile per hour on most everything. But he limited walks and is a great ground-pilot. So he got a good result. That's two starts in a row, where, you know, if he's not beating himself with walks, Jose Soriano, I think he's pretty good. Obviously, you can't predict going into start a start. How that's going to go with the control. But it's definitely justification to hold on even for his rocky as his June was. Kentillo continued to lean on that curve ball. He continued to throw it harder in five starts now, since making that that harder curveball, his primary pitch. Joey Cantelo has a 155, he already 110 whip, 10.2 Kpernine. Still walking too many guys, which is why that whip is a little high relative to everything else. But, you know, if you picked up Cantelo, I'd say you're still happy about that. And that's it. That's everything I have to say about this group. - So I'm hitting leftovers. Jordan Walker, a nice double header, 348 with his 21st home run, two runs to RBI. Last eight games following up that slump that he had, 346, three homers, nine runs, 11 RBI and a steal. So nice to see Jordan Walker bouncing back. Ben Rice looks like he might be picking things back up. He hit his 26th home run, it came off of a lefty, it was off of Ian Seymour. He has four homers in his past seven games. Say down, Ron. - Joey, while you can, Frank. - Joey, what? There's nothing to enjoy. Enjoy Ben Rice being good while you can. - Oh, the home run derby's gonna wreck his season. - Well, home run derby perst now. - Oh, home run derby's gonna get his season back on track. - I'm very annoyed that he's doing the home run derby just 'cause like he's not a 941 OPS bat. And he's gonna have like an 850 OPS in the second half and still be an awesome player and him to, oh. - Home run derby ruined him. - Well, I mean, well, James Wood got ruined by the home run derby last year, Chris. - Here's the thing. - Okay, I know we're an hour, nine minutes into this, but I gotta get this off my chest. - Uh-oh. - People are gonna be very disappointed in the home run derby this year. - I agree. - Very disappointed. Because I remember the before times, before they introduced the clock. I understand the frustration with the clock. Oh, they threw another pitch before the last one landed. Okay, get a spotter. That's easy enough to adjust for. Changing back to an out system where you're counting outs. The hitter gets a certain number of outs before they're done. Means there's gonna be far fewer home runs, far fewer, many multiples, fewer home runs, and there's gonna be a lot of dead air by hitters taking pitch after pitch after pitch. It's gonna be a snooze. And it's going to mostly eliminate this narrative of a home run derby tires out the hitters 'cause they're not gonna take nearly as many swanches. - I hope you're right. - Good bomber. - Ben Rice, keep it going. - Do you hope I'm right? I hope you're right about half of that. - Yeah, I hope you're right about, you know, I don't think that's obviously gonna affect the hitters, but I hope they're going back to the clock. - It's probably not going to, yeah, I agree it's not gonna be as enjoyable of an experience. I do agree with that part of it. - Show you, Otani hit another home run his 20th of the season, the 300th of his career, and he is the fifth fastest to 300 home runs behind only Aaron Judge, Ralph Keiner, Ryan Howard, and Juan Gonzales. Show you, Otani, pretty awesome. Call to the ball pen for the Brewers in game one, with Trevor McGill working Tuesday, Monday night. They went to Abner, Irrebae, who got the ninth with a one run lead. He walked one, but picked up his sixth save. For the Cubs, Jacob Webb entered with two outs in the seventh, bases loaded, a four run lead. He gave up a two run single and then struck out Connor Henderson. It was Trent Thornton, who got the ninth with a three run lead and picked up his second save. And since Daniel Plenty, I went down with injury. Jacob Webb has two saves. Trent Thornton has two saves. Jordan Wicks has two saves, and Ryan Rawlison has one. So the Cubs do not have a closer and they never will until Daniel Plenty is back. For the arrays, Brian Baker got the ninth with a two run lead. He picked up his 24th save for the Astros Josh Hader, came on with two outs in the ninth. And one on a three run lead. He gave up a single in a walk, then struck out Dylan Cruz to pick up his tenth save. For the Phillies, Yawanda Ron picked up his 22nd. For the twins, Taylor Rogers started the ninth inning with a two run lead. Two of the three hitters coming up or lefties. He got the first two. He walked chase the water. And then Yawendry's Gomez came on and struck out Gabriel Aureus to pick up his tenth save. I guess this is just a slight reminder that the twins might still be a little annoying here and there, but Gomez is still mostly the guy. And then for the Padres, Mason Miller picked up his 23rd save. And for the Rockies, that's right, man. He is back. Jordan Romano got the ninth with a one run lead. No idea how he got out of this. He gave up two bass runners to start the inning and a one run lead. And then was facing the top of the Dodgers order and retired them in order. So, Jordan Romano's what a guy. Second save in a row with the Rockies. They yeah, and only leads leagues fairly. But I think he's there closer. I saw a video where they had the whole closer style entrance for him when he jogs out to the mound. Jordan Romano. Yeah. He just got to the team like a week ago. They already have an entrance for him. They already do. What? That's crazy. By the way, we brought up Felix Batista earlier. I think that's still my favorite closer entrance fall time. I hope he gets back to closing just so they can bring that back. Yeah. I don't I think you want to Ron comes out with like the Undertaker theme song and a big like white horse up on the screen. Am I making that up? I feel like that's a thing. But I might be making that up. Maybe someone else. I do. But I am. I have to admit I don't know either. I mean, the Mason Miller one right now is top notch. That is amazing. Like whenever I see him coming out, I just have to stop everything I'm doing with the run down and just watch it happen. I'm actually never I've never heard of him. It's based on fantasy feud. I think we're doing this too much. Well, like I'm sorry. Journal of Anna does not need. Yeah. A big entrance. P Fairbanks does not need a big entrance now. It should be like the the the closers who make the all star game. You're allowed to do a big light show entrance and everyone else. You can just play a song. I almost think that it should be a requirement that if you are one of the lockdown closures in baseball, you should have some kind of sick entrance. Why not? Yeah, but like bad. No, it does not get one. It's it's you can't manufacture the height. Yeah. I had to renegade, but yeah, it's nothing crazy. The dramatic entrance needs to trickle down from the pitching. Yes. It's not going to trickle up the dramatic injury and make him a great closer. One can hope. One can hope to stream or not to stream on Wednesday. We have Dean Kramer against the Cubs, Troy Melton against the athletics, Grant Holmes at the pirates, Christian Scott against the Royals, Connor Prelyp against the Guardians, Michael McGreevy against the Brewers, Jake Bennett at the White Sox, Walbert, Aranya at the Rangers, Roki Saki against the Rockies in LA. Troy Melton's the only one I trust, but I would also be fine with Walbert, Aranya. I know you guys like him more than I do and Dean Kramer. Jake Bennett, man. Oh, yeah, yeah, Jake Bennett. Yeah. I would put him ahead of Dean Kramer. Yeah. I like Melton. I don't trust Dean Kramer against the Cubs. I will reiterate. Melton, Bennett and Aranya. I could see. Could you say Prelyp? I think that could be okay. I was just saying him and McGreevy. I could see having okay starts. Yeah. Then on Thursday, we have Merrill Kelly at the Padres, Brady Singer against the Phillies, Andre Pellante against the Brewers, Anthony Kagan, some Red Sox, Sean Monaya against the Hills, Mitch Keller against the Braves. Yeah, this is almost a full slate of games on Thursday. I think it's and 19 13 games, 13 games on a Thursday. And that's all that I guess. Yeah, not enjoying. Well, yeah, I have a concert week. Thursday night. I'm not going to be here. I, if I had to choose on Thursday, I would say Pellante and Merrill Kelly, proceed with caution. Yeah. I would not be shotry in the first place. I like Wednesday more than Thursday. All right. We are going to ride there for Scott and 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. [MUSIC] Final season now streaming only on Paramount+.