Week 21 Sleepers & Two-Start Pitchers! Jacob Lopez Picking Things Up! (08/08 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

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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. Let's preview week 21 up next on Fantasy Measement All Today Express. (upbeat music) Welcome into FBT Express on Saturday, August 8th. I am Frank Stample, join by Scott White and let's start things off with the schedule. For next week, we have 24 teams with six games, we have six teams with seven games. That includes the Red Sox Angels, Dodgers, Brewers, Rangers, and Blue Jays. What about the Rockies? Six road games. (mimicking) Start or set these friends to start pictures and my goodness, how am I even asking this question? Brian Wu, two starts on the road at the Yankees and at the Astros massive home road splits this season. And tough places to pitch. He's not must start. I'll say that. I would still lean yes because there's two of them. And obviously your mileage will vary as far as that goes. If you're in a category's league and you're less concerned about the counting stats than the ratio stats, maybe you still stay away. But I think that's gonna be a small percentage of the audience. What about Ranger Suarez? He has not thrown more than four innings. He hasn't completed five innings basically since he's returned from the I.L. He hasn't looked right. He's at the Blue Jays, at the Pirates next week. Yeah, I think I would still take two starts from a guy with about a 330 ERA, about a 115 width. It has been a little shaky lately, short outings. Last four, less than five innings. But one of those was good and then he left with an injury. So there's been some injury reasons for those short outings. I don't think it's been a long enough span of time to abandon somebody who's had a year this good when he's in line for two starts. Like Ranger Ron Harris-Wares is. Show to Emanaga is pitching better as of late, but the strikeouts haven't really been there. He's at the Nationals and home against the Cardinals. Yeah, I think he's fine to use in pretty much any league, not excited about it. But if you can't use him for a week like this, then why have you Emanaga around? Am I right? I think you are right. Casey Meyers is coming off a terrible Padre's debut. His worst start of the season, he gets the Brewers and he's at the Guardians. Yeah, I didn't see any red flags in that start of bad result, obviously, but it doesn't seem like there was anything wrong with the process for a month. And one of these two matchups of coming is really good. So I adviseable in most cases, I would say. All right, next up we have Ryan Weathers, who has been pitching much better as of late. He gets the Mariners and he's at the Blue Jays. And there's been a change to the process there, coinciding with this improvement for Weathers. Fading is fastball, which was a pitch just getting hit very hard. Going deeper into starts, having more success. Two good matchups, I think Weathers is, I can strongly recommend Weathers. I wish he was more available so I could call him a sleeper pitcher. All right, and the last name on the list, Freddie Perolta. Freddie and Tampa, well, not actually, he's at the Athletics and Home Against the Reals. I got to see it to believe it, you know? I think there's a chance the race get him back on track. Certainly didn't look that way in his first start with him. It wasn't Colorado, so I don't know that we can take much of anything from it, but I need to see something. So it's a shame that the two-star week is coming up now. I don't think I could do it. All right, horse of two-star pitchers that you were looking to add and stream this upcoming week. It looks like it's an interesting mix of very rostered and widely available. Yeah, some different names than we've been discussing in recent weeks. No cameras at the very top of the list coming off three amazing starts. And there has been a change to the process there. He's calling his own pitches, throwing fewer forceymers, throwing with more conviction is what the beatwriters are saying. Hey, it's working, whatever he's doing. The first matchup is against the Dodgers, so that's unfortunate. Seconds again at the Angels, though. So I will take the one bad matchup with the one good matchup, especially with the kind of run, Noah Cameron's been on. Then we go to Jacob Lopez, who's only 16% rostered, but he's coming off. I think the last four starts have been pretty good, but the last two especially, he's gotten the big strikeout numbers that we were seeing from Jacob Lopez down the stretch. Last year, an unusual pitcher, he doesn't have amazing raw stuff, but very deceptive delivery, low, low induced vertical break on the fastball and that causes it to play up. And I'd be willing to gamble on it at least in a points league. I would say lean more points leagues for each of these next two start recommendations, Bryce Elder being the next one. He's been fading a slide recently, it was very effective for him early, but he started to run at trouble, so he's changed his process, been more pitched to contact recently, but it's worked. He gets the met's and time of backs, pretty good matchups there. Christian Scott, don't love the matchups so much, at Atlanta versus Washington, but he's been steady lately, not pitching deep enough in the starts to make him a must-ad in all leagues, but I think for a two-start week, Christian Scott, someone you look into, Ret Louder has been, has been okay recently, getting some quality starts. I think kind of a floor play here in a two-start week, especially since one of the two matchups is against the Marlins, they've been an offense that's been easy to pick on lately, and then finally Cody Bradford just came back from Tommy John's surgery and looked really good, it was a short outing, but he looks like the pitcher we were so excited about two years ago before he had the procedure and he gets the angels and the athletics, couple of lineups that don't have a lot of thumb right now. Tough plays is to pitch, but I would still consider them favorable matchups for Cody Bradford. - All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back, FBT Express. We're continuing on with our week 21 preview. Scott, who are some one-star streamers that you like this upcoming week? - Got a few of those. These are more familiar names. They happen to have good matchups this week. JT Gen gets the Rangers. I think he's very reliable. Still, Roki Sasaki gets the Royals. Kind of call him reliable, but there's a ton of upside there and we've seen it more recently. Walbert Arania gets the Rangers. He has been the model of reliability, ground ball pitcher, been going six innings more consistently of late. And then finally Dustin May coming off a really good Brewers debut. He is at San Diego. - All right, let's slide over to the hitters and the best hitter matchups for this upcoming week. We have the Rangers Cubs, Giants, Rays and Metz, the worst hitter matchups, Padres, Tigers, Cardinals, Blue Jays and the Yankees. Who are your favorite sleeper hitters this week? A lot of different names on the hitter side this week. To who aren't different, I'll go ahead and get them out of the way, our AJ Ewing and Bryce Eldridge. I feel like they've been fixtures here. And Eldridge hasn't delivered on it much, but the Giants do have the third best hitter matchups and only one lefty on the schedule. So I'm gonna put him here again, Ewing. You mentioned the Metz have the fifth best hitter matchups, so I don't see how we depart from him either. Some more interesting names, perhaps. Ezekiel Duran has been on fire of late, and you could start him just about anywhere. Rangers have the most favorable matchups as you pointed out. Andrew Vaughn, he has been playing more consistently as Jake Bowers has been kind of banged up. And not only that, but the Brewers have four lefties on the schedule. And Andrew Vaughn against lefties this year, 373 batting average, just 1138 OPS. So you gotta like that. Eldridge's teammate, Jung Hulie, has been hot and has those same favorable matchups. Jake Berger, another Rangers bat. Power production has actually been pretty good this year. very streaky, but hopefully the matchup against the angels and athletics pitching staffs will help them get on the right side as streaky. Nolan Aranatos been hitting the ball well of late and I do like the Diamondbacks matchups this week, even though they weren't the top five, they open against the Rocky's pitching staff in Arizona, but still it's a bad pitching staff. Griffin Konaim has been thumping the ball for the Marlins kind of more or less a platoon player. He hardly plays against lefties, but there are zero lefties on the schedule for the Marlins this week. So not a bad time to try out Konaim, particularly if you need power. Lawrence Butler has been playing better since the All-Star break and he also has platoon concerns, but only one lefty on the schedule for the athletics and all six of their games are home where his OPS, as you might expect, is about 200 points higher for the year. As Lawrence Butler, his teammate also, Jonah Heim, rounds out the list. He also has the benefit of six home games. You may have heard Shay Langleyers is out, so Heim is playing virtually every day for the athletics. He's been pretty good for the athletics overall, but I think especially at home, you could give him a look if you need catcher out. All right, for more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, fantasy baseball today on Spotify Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to fantasy baseball today express, and we will be back again next week. Bye bye!