Weekend Waiver Wire MUST ADDS! Who Will Replace Juan Soto? (07/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Is Rokis Sasaki finally breaking out? We'll talk about it next on Fancy Baseball Today Express. [MUSIC] Welcome into the FET Express on Monday, July 27th. I am Chris Nower, joy, best of god, light. And they're right at the top. Let's talk about Rokis Sasaki. You know, every couple of weeks, you go through waves in the wave or wire pictures. And sometimes there's a lot of really exciting guys. You know, two or three weeks ago, like Sean Burke was still breaking out. And, uh, well, gosh, I'm sure there are other ones. Jared Jones was having his breakout moment. There was a lot to talk about right now, not so much. I think the most interesting picture who's somewhat widely available is Rokis Sasaki, who 64% rostered in CBS fantasy leagues. And he put together arguably the best start of his career. Seven innings, nine strikeouts, two walks, one earned run against the Metz over the weekend on Friday. Plus, it wasn't up quite as much this time as it was his previous start, but still 98.6 miles per hour. It's, I think, the fifth highest ever for a start in Rokis Sasaki's career. Yet 13 whiffs on 21 swings with the splitter, just absolutely ridiculous. How high should his roster A/B? It's 64% right now. How high does it need to be? Well, I can understand if you don't feel like you have a player, you can drop. I can understand passing up Rokis Sasaki, because there have been some high highs, but there have been a lot more low lows. And obviously, we don't know where he goes from here. We don't have a lot of, we haven't seen this repeated for long enough to think it's durable. But at the same time, it's clear he has a lot of upside. And the last couple starts, of course, there was the big velocity jump two turns ago, fast pull up two and a half. It was up only one in this one, but it was still up. And he's still got a great result. The splitter especially played up 13 of the 21 whiffs came on the splitter. Dave Roberts' explanation was this. He was in really good command all night long. He was efficient. He wasn't stressed. It was good to see him get through that seventh inning. I do think where he is at mechanically now, he isn't thinking about that. When he is on the mound, he is in compete mode. His delivery is in repeat mode. He doesn't seem like he is searching anymore. He is just trying to execute a game plan. And there may be something to what Roberts is saying there, because, of course, there have been a lot of hand-regging over Sasaki's mechanics, the doctors have been working on him with that. And he may have finally made a leap here, where it's just second nature to him. And he can get back to pitching and get to dominating. And that's what he started to do. But since it's only the start of it, I think he's the most interesting way for why I pick up of the week. And certainly at starting pitcher. But again, there's really no telling where he goes from here. If I picked up Sasaki, I'd be awfully tempted to start him right away, because he's got the mariners coming up. His first matchup. It might get pushed back into the Red Sox series and he phases the Red Sox and stuff. But either way, it's a really good matchup. Yeah, either one. So, yeah, I'd like to pick up Sasaki, but I understand if you can. Yeah, the problem is the last time he had the best start of his career on June 5th, that had come one with a couple of pretty good starts in beforehand. And two, he struck out 10 on June 5th in seven shot attings. His next five starts, he gave up at least three runs in each. Only one start was at least six innings. His very next start after the 10 strikeouts, seven runs in four and one third inning. It's really hard to trust Ricky Sasaki, but it's always going to be really hard not to get excited about him. And when you look at the other pitchers on the way, where we talked about on the full episode of the show, you're talking about names like André Palante and Dustin May of the Cardinals, Brandon Young, Noah Cameron. Like, there are interesting things about any of those pitchers. Dustin May had a complete game shut out about a month ago. Palante's been really good this season. Brandon Young's been awesome. 265 year A in his past 11 starts. I don't think any of these guys at their best can touch what Ricky Sasaki's capable of at his best, right? Right. That's exactly it. So I mean, from a shallow league context, you go off to the upside, even if there's more risk attached. All right. We are going to take one quick break and then we'll be right back on Fantasy Baseball today, express. And we're back on FBT Express. I'm Chris Towers here at Scott White. And unfortunately, we've talked about some pitchers. We're usually talking about a Trishon on the pitching side. Well, we got hit by some pretty big injuries on the hitting side this weekend. And the biggest one was Juan Soto going on the aisle with a 10, the 10 day aisle with a left calf strain considered more serious than the one that cost him three weeks earlier in the season. It is a great two-strain reading that. It just makes it sound like you might not be back until September. And you look at the trajectory of the Met season. It wouldn't be a shock if that gets delayed and it's just decided. Yeah, we're going to shut Juan Soto down. It's too early to say that you certainly should not drop Juan Soto. But I think there's some risk of that here, which is really concerning. Yeah, I just knowing the way Soto has responded to injuries before, I would bet against that. I think he's going to push to come back as soon as possible, no matter where the Met's are. But it's on the realm of possibility that he just gets shut down. We also lost Cody Belinger to the aisle with a hamstring injury. The Yankees recalled Spencer Jones. I think he's got to show us something before Ben Tengenham at this point. So in some shallow reliefs, we've got two guys right around 65% roster in Asia, Ewing and Colt Carrick, who I just think there is a ton of upside here. Asia Ewing, we're kind of already seeing it. He's hit for more homers so far this season. I think than any minor league season before. He's showing off speed. He's playing every day. I think Asia Ewing is 67% roster. That just feels way too low. And then Colt Carrick is 65%. His makes a little more sense because he's not quite playing every day. But I think that's going to change at the trade deadline. He's hitting like 280, the OPS is like 860. It's just he's not quite playing every day. He's not quite hitting for a lot of power. Only three stolen bases in around 40 games. But I think Colt Carrick just has a ton of upside. I think both those guys are great fillings for Wonsato if you need one. Yep. I agree. Those are the top two outfielders to add. Just if you're thinking rest of season or you're thinking long term, like losing Soto, I think Ewing and Carrick are the most promising in terms of their overall potential. I do have some recommendations just for the week ahead. Let's hear them. All right, JJ Bladey. It's had more down than Upslay. Leigh, but the overall line is still strong and the split, especially in his favor this week with a bunch of varieties on the schedule and nothing but home games. Stephen Quann has been hot, batting over 400 in July. And the Guardians have good matchups this week. Obviously some on base potential there. You could at least replace that aspect of Soto if Quann is back. Trent Grisham has underperformed, is expected batting average by like 30 points and expected slug by about 50 points. So one of the biggest underachievers there in terms of what Statcast says he deserves. And the Yankees have the best matchups of all this week. So it might be a good time to try out Grisham. And you might just hold on to him. Lane Thomas has been hot lately. And the Royals have the second best hitter matchups, including a series at course field. And then Elliott Ramos, if you're looking for power, especially good matchups for the giants this week. I would also throw out Luis Lara of the burs who are starting to play a little more often. It's just not quite every day. And I'm not sure he's going to get there. But he had a big weekend and then he had five hits over the weekend, five RBI. And then Eriberto Hernandez for the Marlins. He's only 25% rostered. He's played 163 Major League games, not quite a full season just because it's like 550 played appearances. But in those 163 games, it's like 23 homers and eight steals. You give him 600 and 600 played appearances. That's like the 28 homer, 10 stolen based season. That's really, really solid. And the underlying numbers back it up. So I think Eriberto Hernandez really good. And then I like, I still like Ryan Walshmit. I know that one's more theoretical right now. He did his first homer this weekend. So maybe that's enough to get him going. But I still have some hope for him. And then Shaleng Lears could miss the rest of the season with a torn Maniscus in his right knee. That's a big blow. Top four catcher rest of season for me before the injury. Dawn Rushing and Francisco Alvarez are probably the best ones in shallower formats. Alvarez would get the edge for me. Rushing hasn't really done much since he was on the, since early in the season. And then a deep relief. Joe Maxman really solid 10 homers in the past two months. He's hitting around 270 in that stretch. I think the 270 batting average probably unsustainable. But you know, 250 hitting 20 to 25 homer catcher. That has some value as a number two. And then Andy Rodriguez. He might be back from the IL this week. He was showing some really interesting signs. Heading about really hard. Really good play discipline before his injury. So hopefully he gets back and hits the ground running. And that's going to do it for FBT Express. For more extensive fan and sub-aisball coverage, just new our full length podcast, fan and sub-aisball today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasting found. Thanks for listening. We're missing the fan space about today's press. We'll be back again on Thursday. Bye!