Fantasy Baseball Today - 04/05 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Tue. Recap and Grade the Trade!

Episode Date: April 5, 2017

It's our first official Grade the Trade show (at the end of the episode) of the season as we help owners assess trade values, but first we're recapping yesterday's action ... Add Gerardo Parra? JaCoby Jones? Clayton Richard? CC Sabathia? What should Adam Wainwright owners do after yesterday's encouraging start? ... Are we getting a clear indication of how teams' lineups will look, or is it too early? Also we're talking about why the new method for measuring velocity kinda stinks for Fantasy Baseball ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And welcome to the show. It is Wednesday. We are grading your trades later on in the show. Adam Azer with Heath Cummings and Scott White. You know, we're supposed to have Chris Towers on the podcast, but he is still home sick. So everybody's send your get-well notes to Chris. Guys, we have Lance McCullors who had a really nice start yesterday. Clayton Richard, eight scoreless innings at the Dodgers. We got some lineup stuff to talk about. Camber Joachian the save. Ryan Dole, the blown save.

What a fun. Actually, you know what? I'm not going to lie. It wasn't that fun of a Tuesday. I'm thinking Wednesday will be better. You didn't spend enough time in Miller Park yesterday because that was fun. You're right. I didn't go on the slide. Yeah. And I didn't see Travis Shaw hitting two more doubles and his manager, Craig Counsel, saying he deserves to play against lefties.

You must be excited about that. I'm very excited about that. I can hardly hold my excitement in. This morning I had to decide who I liked better. Actually was responding to an email from a listener. Travis Shaw or Adrian Gonzalez. How are you feeling about that? Hmm.

Adrian Gonzalez doesn't get to hit in Miller Park. It's still Gonzalez, right? I think I actually, my rest of season rankings that I updated yesterday, still have Gonzalez one spot ahead of Shaw at first base. Okay. Scott, good morning to you. Good morning, Adam. Let's just get into it.

Let's talk standouts. Let's talk Tuesday standouts. Who stood out? I like it. Give me a guy. Who stood out? out to you. Carlos Carrasco, I think, got the biggest star for me because all those concerns we had about

his elbow suddenly seemed very insignificant with the kind of start. He had seven strikeouts in five and two-thirds to run baseball. He looked like Carlos Carasco should look. Does anybody have velocity on Carlos Carasco? I was watching that start, and the home run he gave up to Joey Gallo. was a fastball. Gallo hit it like 450 feet. The data I found looked like it was incomplete, but the average fastball velocity was pretty much what we're used to seeing from Carasco.

All right. Now, that's interesting. Actually, we have something about velocity. I've been getting a lot of tweets and emails about the velocity this year is being tracked differently than it was in the past, and it's registering higher. So if you see someone who's down in velocity, it's actually, well, anyone is, I mean, compared to last year, if they're down in velocity, they're down even more than you realize because a new way of measuring. But we'll get to that. Yeah, Carrasco, you know, really didn't look good if you just saw after the first two innings. He gave up two runs, and then he settled in. His off-speed pitches apparently were very good, according to, I think it was Francona who said that.

All right, so that's the big star for Scott Heath. Big star for you yesterday. Besides Travis Shaw, right? We don't want to just talk about him nonstop. I mean, look, honestly, you can. He's off to a great start with four doubles. And like I said, Craig Cancel saying Shaw has earned the right to play against regular playing time against lefties. So it's big.

Yeah, I think it is. Eric Thames is actually the one that didn't get the start. And the really surprising part, Erron Perez didn't get the start. I thought they'd put Perez at third move Shaw to first. They did that later in the game. then Perez went 0 for three with two strikeouts and misplayed a ball at third base. So I'm a little worried about his situation because I was thinking he was probably going to play, what, an average of three and a half, four times per week. And it's early.

We'll see. Maybe he still will, but not off to a great start. It's tough to know what playing time is all about right now. Like Delano the Shields didn't play again. He's probably going to play today, but we think the managers are just being kind of nice right now, right? Hey, everybody gets a turn. Everybody needs to feel involved. You're all part of the team.

Go ahead and get out there. We're going to start you today, and then not again for three weeks. But go ahead and get your feet wet. A couple other guys on the Giants, Eduardo Nunez, Joe Panic, Brandon Crawford, all three off to good starts. You know who was nasty yesterday? Lance McCullors was nasty. Six innings, five hits. I think three of them were in-field singles.

One run, two walks, and seven strikeouts against Seattle. He's still pretty much a two-pitch pitcher. He's working on his change-up. I think he threw a little bit of it last night. I was watching a lot of this one. He was awesome. Good star for him. I don't know.

Yeah, he threw his curveball like 60% of the time, which is the usage he had last year that led to a big increase in strikeouts. It also led to a big increase in walks, but only two walks in this first start, I think, is the most encouraging of all the stats for him. Yeah. Jacoby Jones is 30% owned. Harardo Parra is 36% owned.

Jones homered three runs batted in. He stole a base. Parra had a basis clearing double. He drove in three. So again, Jones 30% owned. Parra, 36% owned. Who would you rather own? I'm going to say Para,

because I think he's going to be the most helpful over the next two to three weeks. And I don't believe that either of these guys are, really anywhere close to long-term solutions. So I'll take Parra, just I think he's going to help me the most right now. I think Parra could be. We've talked about before,

you know, he was paid last off season to be an everyday player for the Rockies and then had a horrible season, like worst season of his career, even though he was at Corse Field, had a high ankle spring, blah, blah, blah. Great spring, and now he's off to, what, a five-for-eight start or something like that?

Yes. So, I mean, he doesn't, he doesn't, he's not a big total accumulator, like home runs, steals. It's hard to justify him in Roto League's for that reason, but he doesn't strike out a lot. He should get extra base hits, especially at Coorsfield once he starts playing there. And he's going to have a lot of RBI opportunities if he's sitting behind Cargo Aeronado's story. I will say the Rockies broadcast last night was telling a story about him about how he kind of took an exception. to the idea that David Dahl was the team starting left fielder, and everybody just thought that coming in in a good way,

not like in a sour way, but just really worked his tail off to prove that he was still the left fielder. And don't get me wrong, I'm rooting against him. David Dahl is better. But, you know, Parra, I think, could be very useful here. Jones, not so much. Jones, minor league numbers are pretty yucky. I thought he had some pretty good minor league numbers.

He had a couple decent power seasons early on, didn't show much power last year, and the strikeout to walk ratio is just abysmal. It's just tough to trust a guy that relies so heavily on special teams' production. How many times do we get to use that joke? I'm going to guess just a couple more, because he probably won't be starting. Did you see the – well, yeah, that's the thing about Jones, is that he homered off Kintana yesterday, homered off a lefty, and he's much better against lefties than righties. We'll see if Jones could hit Riteys.

Did you see the Braves broadcast? I think last year, somebody sent me the clip. It is unbelievable. They think that Jacoby Jones, the outfielder, I don't know if he was playing third base in time, is the same guy as Jacobi Jones, the kick returner. And they're doing this broadcast talking about, well, you know, Tim Tebow is trying to do this, but here's Jacob Jones, who's already made the transition, this and that. And then about a minute into this whole spiel,

they would realize it's a different guy. It's amazing. Find it online. Have you seen it? No. Oh, my guy. Scott is not amused at you taking shots at the Braves. Well, no.

I mean, if that was legit, if they were, you know, not just gooping around, which broadcasters tend to do. No, no, no. I didn't see it, so, you know, I'd take your word for it. They deserve to be shamed for that. Sure. If you Google search Jacoby Jones Braves Broadcast, there's a lot of people that don't think they were goofing around.

Chip Carrey and Joe Simpson, oh my God. Yeah, you just Google it. It's really classic. Thank you to whoever tweeted that to me. I think the last standout I want to talk about for now, and we'll talk plenty more of Ryan Dole with the blown save. Apparently, Santiago Casilla was unavailable. So we'll talk about bullpens. was Clayton Richard.

Clayton Richard, Clayton Kirshaw. He had eight scoreless innings, five hits, two walks, five strikeouts at the Dodgers. Clayton Richard will have one of the worst whips, basically, you've ever seen from his starting pitcher. But this was a good start for him, and he's a lefty, and the Dodgers were awful against lefties last year, and they're 0 for one this year. Any interest in picking up Richard, who is very unowned? I think there couldn't be a more head-to-head, like points league specific pitcher than Clayton Richard because it doesn't get strikeouts, but generally pitches deep into games.

And such an extreme ground ball guy that, you know, he tends to avoid the big innings, doesn't give up a lot of runs relative to the whip. I still think, you know, I'm not ready to pick him up yet after this start. but while it's probably just a flat no in categories leagues, there is something to monitor here, especially since he's relief pitcher eligible. There's something to monitor in points leagues. Hey, by the way, would you drop Hernan Perez for Harardo Parra?

If it's somebody I'm stashing on my bench and not using, then I don't think I would. If it's a league where you don't have hardly any bench spots and you're actually needing to play somebody, then yes. I mean, Perez, there's a good chance. Perez, the majority of leagues where he's owned, are ones where he was drafted because, oh, crap, I don't have enough stolen bases.

Here's a guy who had 30 or whatever last year. And, like, I don't think Herardo Parr is going to have a big steals total. So if that's what you need Perez for, it doesn't seem like a smart move yet. All right. Let's find out what the listeners are thinking right now. We'll read some emails. Fantasy Baseball. At CBSI.com.

More emails later in the show. This is from Joe from New York, who is one of our most dedicated listeners. He and I exchanged some emails this morning. Very cool guy. His wife is about to give birth to his fifth child. So, wow, busy guy. You need to give a lot more love to Ryan Healy, he puts in caps. Healy, by the way, Homer, yesterday.

Since last year, I predicted this guy to be a superstar. Bold prediction, Ryan Healy finishes in the top five in third baseman, cracking 31 dongs with a 288 batting average. Noor and Aronado, Chris Bryant, Mani Machado, Josh Donaldson, Ryan Healy. I'm not sure 288 batting average and 31 tongs would crack the top five at their base, but it wouldn't be far off.

I think there's a non-zero chance of this happening. Sure, I think the biggest knock on Healy right now is just that he wasn't the most high prospect to begin with, and he has very little track record at the Major League level, and, you know, it's not like he's this peripheral

darling. The strikeout and walk ratio was pretty meh last year. But he showed good power this spring. Already has a home run this year. I would not hesitate to call him a sleeper at all. Did you say non-zero

to like mock Heath and Chris, or did you say non-zero because you were being serious there? No, I was being serious. I don't like... Maybe non-zero is actually understating it because normally when you say non-zero, you're talking just like this smidgen of a chance, right?

Yeah. I mean, there's more than a non-zero chance. There might be like a 2 to 5% chance Ryan Healy can do this. Well, I'm very anti-N-Zero. I actually cringe when we say it, but Heath, I'm sorry, did you want to weigh in on Ryan Healy? I don't know that I believe that he can hit the 31 dongs and have the 280 average. He hit 305 last year, but that was with a 352 bab-ip.

If he sells out for power, I think you're probably going to see that crash down to the 260 range. I think it's more likely that he hits around 280 with maybe 21 dongs. It's a tough park. So if he's hitting that many fly balls, it would, you know, fly balls are the kind of of batted balls that most result in outs. They also are the ones that most result in home runs. Big Park is not the ideal environment for them. One last thing on this email here.

So Joe is currently, because he does this every night, listening to us in bed with his pregnant wife. Is there anything you would like to say to them while they lie in bed? I'm not sure where to go with this. You want to sing them like, A polybigh or something or just, okay, I just want to throw that out there. Heath really seems like you suffer. Yeah, Heath, I've never seen that look on Heath's face.

Very, uh, very uncomfortable right now. But we just got a little romantic here on fantasy baseball today. That look at my face was the first time you've ever seen me think something and not say it. I have a hard time believing that. Let's go to the bullpen. Greg Holland got his second save. That's cool. We usually get a lot of saves from Rockies relievers, but Greg Holland's got to.

He looked amazing. Did he? The first save, not impressive. Wasn't really that great. This save, he looked like Greg Holland. Are you sure that's not just because there were two strikeouts in this one and there was like the walk in the first one? The two strikeouts, yes. I do think the fact that he walked one and struck out zero in the first save and walked zero and struck out two in the second save,

made the second save better. All right, all right. All right. He did have a good strikeout rain spring training also. It seems like his velocity is still a tick down from his royal. I think you were saying the secondary pitch for him is... Yes, the spliter. It's just a real badmissor.

It was phenomenal last night, glorious. Ryan Dull was not phenomenal yesterday. Ryan Dahl might be my favorite one in the A's bullpen, actually, but he gave up the three-run homer. He blew it. He came in with a two-run lead, and the Angels ended up winning the game by one. Ryan Madsen worked a scoreless eighth, and as I read this morning, Casilla, was unavailable. I don't know why. I don't think he threw that many pitches the night before.

But yeah, like, I'll check it out right now, but give me your take. I feel like this is the reason why bullpen by committee don't usually last, because the manager gets so tired of explaining himself when things go wrong. Things will go wrong. And if you're, you know, if you're going with a different pitcher than the one who got the safe the night before, it looks especially bad when they do go wrong. So even though I think Ryan Dull, he's not going to have too many outings like this one. I think eventually, as with every other bullpen situation, seemingly, that starts out as a bike midi situation, the athletics will settle on a guy. And it'll probably be either Madsen or Casilla. Two things. One, at least the ninth inning wasn't Dull.

Two. Oh, geez. He only threw 15 pitches to see it. A little bit worried. Like, if they're really going to do this with Ryan Madsen, he's our best reliever, we're going to pitch him against the best hitters. It seems to me you've only got about a 33% chance of the best hitters coming up in the ninth inning as opposed to the seventh or eighth. That doesn't really bode well for Ryan Madsen's save chances, right?

He would have to just be the best one, which is probably. Right, but no, they think he is the best one. They just want to use him when the best hitters are coming up in the late. winnings. Oh, yeah. That's not going to happen in the night. They've done that twice now.

If they stick with that, is what I'm saying. I'm skeptical they will. I mean... Well, I think what makes the most sense is if they think that, use Madsen whenever the best hitters are coming up and use Santiago O'Ceas as your closer unless Madsen's pitching the night. Well, when's the last time you actually saw a team stick with a closing committee from start to finish?

I'm not calling a committee anymore. Dole's out. Tolls out. Doolittles, whatever. It's Madsen pitches against the best hitters. Madsen is the Andrew Miller of the athletics bullpen as what you're saying. Usually the ninth maybe slightly more often, but yes. So Cassia would be your favorite, it sounds like Heath.

In that situation, yes. All right. Camber Trojan, 72% own. He got the save. Andrew Bailey pitched a scoreless eighth. Now, when Bailey pitched, it was not set up to be a save situation. It became one in the ninth. But here's an email from Brian in Los Angeles.

Would you rather have Santiago Casilla or one of the other. A's closers or Neftali Files. Fleeze. I'm going to say Fleeze for now. Okay. We got a tweet from Owen. Owen wants us to consider Jake Barrett as a potential closer in waiting in Arizona. Barrett's currently on the D.L.

But working his way back, he had a 349 ERA and a 126 whip as a rookie. But, you know, they seem to like him. Jake Barrett, do you think that could be a guy to stash right now? I mean, they tried him last year. It didn't go well. I don't know. He may just because they don't find anyone better sooner. He may get that chance if Rodney continues to blow it.

But I don't think he's a long-term answer either. If they're in the hunt, they'll trade for an actual closer. I'm not going to stash him, but I do expect he will get saved at some point. Let me just tell you, before we get onto the news and notes and the lineups and stuff like that, let me just tell you a couple things. Very disappointed in Patrick Corbyn yesterday. He is one more start away from being dropped. and disappointed, not like completely discouraged, but I just don't know how I feel about Sean Manaya.

He was one of my least favorite draft picks in our podcast Points League. And he had basically one bad inning yesterday, but it wasn't a great start against the Angels. Those two guys really bum me out last night, Patrick Corbyn and Sean Mania. I don't know that Manaya did anything that should really change anybody's opinion of him, whatever they had coming into the season. And Corbin, we knew, was kind of a reclamation project. So his start was clearly worse than Manias. But there were some encouraging signs this spring, and that stint he had in the bullpen late last year was very good.

I think it's particularly if it's a situation where you value Corbyn's relief pitcher eligibility, I think you've got to give him at least one more start. Yeah, that's what I said, like one more start. But he was awful. I mean, two of the runs that Corbin gave up came on, broken bat blooper. But he also got lucky, like two doubles off the wall, could have been home runs, and then Pence nearly doubled like two more runs home, but it was caught on a sliding

cat. Like, Corbin was terrible. For sure. Yeah, no doubt. All right, hey, listen, baseball's back, people. And Seat Geek is the smartest, easiest way to get tickets to every game with Seat Geek's seamless mobile experience. You can buy and sell tickets in just two taps.

Oh, and you can save $20 on your first purchase with our promo. code fantasy. So again, use the code fantasy, all caps, when you buy tickets on Seekekek. Trust me, it's awesome. I use Seatgeek every time I need tickets now, every time. I don't even bother looking at multiple ticket sites to find the best prices like I used to because Seatgeek does all that work for me. It saves me time. It saves me money. You need to start using Seatgeek. Download the app right now. And every purchase is fully guaranteed. You can shopper tickets on Seekkeek with confidence. It's not just sports either. Seat Geek also has plenty of concerts. tickets, third-eye blind, here we come, comedy, and theater tickets available as well.

So take advantage of this offer, get $20 off your first purchase, just download the Seeky app and enter the promo code fantasy and caps, all caps, fantasy, promo codes fantasy for $20 off your first Seekkeek purchase. So have you guys seen this, been aware of this new Velocity thing? Yes, I have seen it, and it kind of makes me just want to ignore all velocity data for a while, which is probably not the best approach, but it really clouds things, for sure. So velocity is being, the way I heard it yesterday on the Yankees broadcast was that they're using statcast now across the board instead of pitch effects.

Is that what your understanding is? Yeah, and it measures the flight of the baseball out of the pitcher's hand. Statcast measures it earlier than pitch effects did, and so that makes a register what, you know, based on the study fan graphs did, what appears to be about a mile per hour higher than what pitch FX did. Wow. That's a lot. That makes sense a big difference, right?

It kind of like, do we know how hard any pitcher throws? Like, did we know in the first place? Like, a mile per hour makes a big difference. Yeah. And it just makes you wonder, like, somebody brought up Zach Granky, one of our emailers brought up Zach Granky. There was a Fangraphs article about Zach Granky, and Granky's velocity was close to last year, but a little bit down.

But if everybody's velocity is supposed to be up, isn't that kind of concerning with Granky? Yeah, because it's more than just a little bit down, if that's the case. Right. I also know that it seems like almost every game I've watched at some point during the game, they've apologized because the stadium radar is not working properly, and they don't currently have any velocity. So it's not just me. I was watching, like, no miles per hour.

for Wayne Wright yesterday for a while. But three or four games, I noticed that. Carrasco, too. The stadium radar gun isn't the same as the stack cast. I don't believe so. Yeah, which I don't know why the stadium would not be using the same thing that MLB is using. Right. Well, that's why I'm not saying it with confidence.

I understood it was. I'm not saying for sure that it's not now. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of skepticism right now. This sucks. This sucks. Yeah. I don't like it. It will all, like, we'll get a couple of weeks down the road and we'll feel better about everything.

Right. I mean, it is worth noting that, like, velocities for pitchers can fluctuate a couple miles per hour just from start to start. It happens. So we're still talking a small sample size with this like we are with everything else. Did you see what people are calling the worst pitch in baseball history last night? I did not, but that would be... Adam Wainwright. I'm skeptical, that's true, but go ahead and tell me about it. You didn't see the pitch? No, I didn't.

There have been a lot of pitches thrown in MLB history. Yeah, it's to be tough to be worse. I mean, this has got to have it tied for the worst. There's something as bad as it. This is like, this was like 50 cent. It was basically 50 cent first pitch. He just spiked it into the ground and it went way off to the left, the right of Yadir Malina. He said, Wainwright said that he did it to protect Molina from injury, that Molina was setting up,

I think for a fastball or for a curveball and he was throwing a fastball. He didn't want to hit him. and hurt Molina, so he just spiked it into the ground, basically. It was crazy. What I'm curious about, and I'm not discounting what Wainwright said. I mean, he's obviously been around a long, long time. How does he know that Molina's setting up for a kerpool? I think he said something about where he was placing his glove.

That's amazing. I could buy it, I suppose. But the bottom line is, more importantly, Wayne Wright actually did pretty well yesterday. 11 swinging strikes. He did okay. He did okay. Five innings, three hits, two runs, two walks, six strikeouts against the Cubs.

And Waite Wright's owned in 94% of leagues. He was only started in 66% of leagues. I'm sure a lot of fantasy owners saw a start against the Cubs and said, no thanks. That was good process. It was, yeah, it was much better than I expected it to be based on the way his spring went. and I mean he was he's a guy I just feel like he's very open with the media so you get a lot of rationalization from him

that there's just a higher quantity of rationalization which makes it harder to believe what he says when it doesn't pan out the way you expect I feel like we went through this with him a lot last year coming back from that Achilles surgery

and you know he talked about his legs not having enough strength and you know changing his delivery and and it didn't seem like anything made that big of difference

but he talked a lot this spring about how he was throwing he's going to throw a change up more he had rediscovered his old curveball grip from watching an instructional video he made a couple years ago and you know giving us reasons for optimism

and then going out and stinking it up So, you know, veterans stink in spring training. Veteran pitchers do all the time because they're just not that concerned with the results. But obviously after the year Wayne Wright just had, we read more into it than that. And I'm not saying this one start, you know, throws it all out. Throws our skepticism out. Well, yeah, I mean, I was going to say, how droppable would he be for you if there was somebody? Because, like, let's just, what we thought of Wayne right.

Like, I don't think any of us drafted a lot of Adam Wayne, right? And he had a 462 ERA last year, 161Ks and 198 and two thirds, and had a good stretch kind of in the middle of the year, but just wasn't good. And so, you know, Wainwright is 94% owned. I felt like somebody in every draft probably had to draft him, but not us. And if there's somebody over the weekend or today or tomorrow or whatever that has a great start or a hitter that does something that you really want to pick up, does this start? And I also, by the way, I saw some 92s on the radar gun on the broadcast from, from, from, Wayne Wright yesterday, but I have no idea what it means anymore. Is Wayne Wright a guy that is a must keep at this point?

You cannot drop him in anything deeper than a 10-team league. I guess that was kind of my long... That was what I was building up to with that long-witted explanation is that this start combined with the narrative he was spinning this spring is enough reason for optimism. And I'm still a skeptic overall, but there's enough optimism there that I want to hold on for a start or two more at least. All right, let's do your news and notes here. Stephen Mats may not be back until mid-May,

and Seth Lugo has a partially torn UCL. They think he can avoid Tommy John, but man, are you nervous if you're a Cinderguard or de Grom owner right now? Oh, absolutely. The Mets definitely got stock in PRP. Corey Klober expected to start Sunday. Felix Hernandez also expected to start this weekend. Dernard Spann took him one game and he's hurt.

He missed yesterday. Dodgers leadoff or Giants leadoff hitter missed yesterday's game with a sore hip. He's day-to-day. Gorkes Hernandez led off and drove in four runs in a win at the Diamondbacks. Justin Upton left with a knee contusion. He's day-to-day. They say it's not serious. Tyler Collins replaced him.

Stephen Piscotti had the worst luck ever yesterday. He gets hit by a pitch on one elbow. He advances the second on a wild pitch and gets hit on the other elbow. on the throw to second. And then he's coming home and he gets hit in the head by a Javier Baez throw, and that may have concussed him.

Let's hope not. But Piscotti is day-to-day with a head contusion. Matt Adams ended up going to the outfield to replace Piscotti. Junior Gera could miss six weeks with a calf strain, and Drew Smiley is on the 60-day DL.

Let me ask you as a question. I was on the plane on Sunday. It's going home. And there was a lady. I was like, let's say, I was in row 20 and I was on the aisle. She was in row 21 and she was on the other aisle. So we're very close, but she's row behind me.

And she's doing a crossword puzzle. And she's asking her husband for help. And she says, Blank Desmond, or Baseball's blank Desmond, three times silver slugger. Do I turn around and tell her the answer or do I just mind my business? I'd probably mind my business.

I find this sort of thing, you know, kind of a different scenario being on an airplane with what you presume aren't baseball fans. But I find myself in a similar situation all the time at baseball games hearing conversations around me where I know what they're saying is just flat out wrong. You do correct people? You do? I never do. There are a couple of reasons, but the main reason is I find that I often end up sitting within earshot of someone. that is trying to explain the game of baseball to someone else. Only that person apparently needs no explanation.

And they just talk about the stupidest things. And I get really annoyed. If you correct them a couple times, they usually talk quiet enough to where you can't hear them. A couple times. Then you look like a complete butthole. Yeah, you are. I'm never going to see them again.

And really, I may look like a butthole to them. I don't to everyone else sitting around me. I'm a hero. I don't know that that's true. That's awesome. They should be allowed to enjoy the baseball game with the people they came to with it. Yep. All right.

Let's do some thoughts to yourself. Some quick, it's so frustrating when people are saying dumb things at sporting events. Well, let's do some quick lineup stuff here. I'm going to give you a lineup thing, and you just give me your quick reaction. Ben Zobrasat, Javier Baez played second base. Just trying to get everybody involved. I don't know. I don't know that this.

I mean, because Baez was always. already involved. He started opening day. I started to feel this way as we got later in draft season that maybe Ben Zobrist was actually going to be the one who suffered the most here after, you know, assuming it'd be Bias and maybe

Schwerber. I don't know. I don't know. I think everybody will suffer a little, but Zobras may be one who suffers the most, and if that's the case, second base being deep as it is, he may not be a viable mixed league starter all year. Just have to wait and see.

Almore made a leaping catch to take away a home run in center field. You know they like his defense. So, okay, we'll keep an eye on that. Tyler Saladino led off for the White Sox. The great Saladino, he led off for the White Sox. He went two for four with two singles and a walk. I think that matters a lot. I mean, I'm not probably adding Saladino in your normal league,

but I kind of tried to write Waver Wire with a bit of a deep league tilt today. and Saladino was definitely one of the guys I mentioned, just 13% owned. Wow, where is Chris Towers when you need him? He's laughing at all of us for laughing at him about Saladino. Corey Dickerson sat against the lefty, Stephen Sousa led off. Okay, well, hopefully it doesn't happen every time there's a lefty for Dickerson's purposes. With a lefty, we talked about this one. With a lefty on the hill against Milwaukee, Keon-Brockson batted second.

Eric Thames sat. Jesus Aguilar started at first base, and Shaw was at third. So Heath already talked about that. Hernan Perez. Two games down, he has not started yet. Gerard Dyson batted ninth again against a righty, and Mitch Hanigur batted second again, and doubled, but also struck out three times. So, yeah, that was interesting.

Dyson short leash if he keeps batting ninth? Okay, he's still going to steal some bases, but we obviously want him batting higher in the order. Not short leash for the Mariners, short leash for my fantasy team. Yeah. Evan Gaddis D.H., Gerell sat for Marvin Gonzalez, and now Houston. and, by the way, is going to face four lefties in a row, and just reading what Hinch said, it doesn't seem like they're going to play matchups that much. They're going to let some lefties play against lefties.

We'll see what happens, but four lefties in a row. But I don't like Gouriel sitting in the second game of the year. No. But it's only a second game. I mean, he's one of the more replaceable parts in that lineup, right? You'd have to think. Well, I mean, for fantasy owner's perspective, I think some people still have hope that he could have a, that he could be a sleeper. I got a tweet last night.

Somebody said they just dropped Guriel for Travis Shaw. How do you feel about that? I think that's deserved. I feel like I would keep Guriel if it were a bench spot, and I was just going for like Star Upside. But if it was someone I was starting, I would rather have Shaw. Okay. How do you feel about that?

I love it. I think I actually made this change even before I saw Houston's lineup yesterday. I was working on rankings yesterday, and I moved Gouriel behind. Actually, I moved Shawhead of Gouriel to be technical. All right. Let's see. David Peralta batted second against the righty yesterday. Okay, great.

Delano Shield sat again. So Rua went 04 3. ProFar sat. I still think DeShield is going to be the best man for the job. Yeah, I think so too. And I think the Rangers, considering the other two options, are 04 7. I think the range. Rangers will discover that soon as well.

But it's really dependent on DeShields. He has to perform when he gets the chance. Yeah, he'll face Salazar today, most likely. They face Klober and Carrasco, so we'll give him a little bit of slack there. And Jock Peterson sat against the lefty, guys. Oh, what? What? Yeah.

What? Get everybody involved. Chris was all excited about Saladino, now he can be sad about something. Yeah. We won't make too much of it yet, but that wasn't good. Let's look at the rest of yesterday's action. Brian McCann hit a solo home run to opposite field yesterday, and apparently this is something he had been working on during the offseason.

McCann recognized he'd become a Deadpool hitter over the last two seasons, wanted to go opposite field, hits an opposite field home run. Was it really a last two seasons thing? Because I've always viewed McCann as one of the biggest victims of the hyper-infield shifting going on. Once that started, he went from big. like a 280-290 hitter to a 230 hitter. And that started even before he joined the Yankees. So I'm going to look at it now.

Yeah, his pull percentage was at its highest, particularly his last two seasons with the Yankees. That's what happens in the Yankee Stadium. Extreme pull-header. Yeah, that's what happens, though. McCann, I can find the quote. A lot of work went into this off-season with my swing to be able to do that.

Over the last two years, I'd just become a dead pole hitter, and I put a lot of hours in the cage for that swing right there. I was waiting for it to translate into a real game, so it was nice for it to pay off tonight. It was one of his five batted balls that has gone the opposite way. Okay. The other four he's pulled. Yeah. All right. So, you know. Who was it that hit in opposite? Was it Mastakis last year that hit, like, his first opposite opposite field homer? Of his career. Yeah. And then he did it a few times, right? Yes. And then he got hurt. This is, it's been an encouraging start for Brian McKean. I was probably the

lowest on him and really thought Evan Gattis was just better. It does not seem like the Astros believe that at all, unless something changes. I'm going to look pretty silly for that. We'll see. Jake Lamb homered off Johnny Quato, so just keep mashing righties and do something against lefties. Nick Castiano and Travis Shaw both had good games. All right, who do you like better? Castiano is 78% owned.

Shaw's 48% owned. I like Shaw. I mean, honestly, flip a coin. I think I probably have Castiano. us ranked higher because there's a better track record there, I feel like, but it could go either way. Joey Gallo, I'm not going to do it every time, but I'll do it this time. G-A-L-O, 28-O-N, hit the crap out of the ball, hit a home run. He also made an error at third base. But he does something well, you could do it. He did, he homered, yeah.

So far. How far was it? It was like 440 feet or something. Okay. So the 600 foot you put in the notes is an exact. A slight exaggeration. A slight exaggeration. I feel like I would have heard about that. It was a beautiful, majestic home run. Here's my question with Gallo. Do you think if all of the outfielder's struggle, when Beltrae comes back, Gallo could move to left field if he does well?

I mean, he has to not struggle himself. And although a home run, and I think he has a stolen base, too, it's nice. He struck out twice each game. Yeah. I've got a confession to make about the Gallo home run, and you can tell me if it makes me a bad parent or not. We watched baseball a lot at my house through the evening, and Lucas, my seven-year-old, sitting on the couch with me, and the app was just a little bit ahead of what we were watching,

and I knew that Gallo had a home run, and I said, hey, watch this. He's getting ready to crush this ball, and he hit it like 600 feet, and I didn't admit to Lucas how I knew. No, I think that you're, like, I know based on the conversation we just had about how you correct people and you consider yourself a hero for doing so,

you want to be a hero in the eyes of your son. So I don't blame you. That was a great move. Build that up to mythical status. You should do that with the lottery, like DVR the lottery, and be like, I bet you it's going to be, and then guess it right. And then he wonders why you guys aren't rich. Why didn't play the numbers?

Yeah, it seemed pretty lame, actually. Yeah, I guess so. And then Deep League's Mark Reynolds and Jed Lowry are off to good starts. Reynolds has two doubles and a home run, and Lowry almost hit for the cycle last night. He was robbed of what probably would have been a triple by a diving catch, and he's five for nine. They're both owned in less than 10% of leagues Reynolds and Lowry.

Any thoughts? They're there. They're there. Scott and I disagree on Reynolds, I think, but I feel like in a roto league, Mark Reynolds is probably better and going to be better for the next month than somebody that you're currently starting.

Well, he wasn't, he wasn't, he was the Rocky starting first baseman last year, and he wasn't a highly started player at all. So I'm not sure why we'd have a different reaction to him now. And he hit for a good average last year, right, but not a lot of power? Wasn't it like, Gujarro, Mark Reynolds? He became less of a fly ball hitter while everyone else in the world is going the other way. And he wasn't playing consistently, was he? he was like wasn't he playing like four days a week or something um maybe there may have been stretches where he was but he was

like he was he was the rocky's first base i mean he had a good year i can't even think of who else played there sometimes i guess uh i guess parra did late in the year he played there some but to put it in perspective i in my five leagues and you guys are in a lot more than i am the only league i consider mark reynolds is our 16 team league and that's the only league where i remember picking him up off waivers at any point last year, and that was only because my team was terrible. Okay. Let's talk about pitchers from yesterday, and then we're going to get to grade the trade

and your emails in a little bit. Justin Verlander, awesome. Jose Cantana, terrible. Three home runs allowed, three walks, two, just a terrible start for him. Kentana, last April, by the way, had a 147 R.A. It did not give up a home run in five starts. Anything to say with Verlander and Cantana? who went head-to-head yesterday.

Kentana didn't allow his third home run last year until his 13th start, which sounds all scary. But his home run rate, home run per 9 was 1.0 for the season. He had a couple three homer games after that, so it's probably no big deal. All right, Carrasco we talked about.

Quato, well, yeah, let's do Quato. Quato gave up two home runs at Arizona. He did have 17 swinging strikes. and I don't know if this is an excuse, but he gave up two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning and the top of the fifth inning. Apparently he, like, raced home to score a run. So I'm just going to say he was gassed.

Sure, why not? Sure. I don't think there's anything to worry about here. Arietta had a good start. He did only throw 55 strikes on 90 pitches, but one unearned run over six, unearned run over six innings at St. Louis with 6Ks. Okay.

Great. These three guys, the aspiring aces, were not so good yesterday. Kenta Maeda gave up three runs and five innings on six hits. Sean Manaya gave up four runs in six innings on five hits. He did have 15 swinging strikes, though, against the Angels. And Matt Shoemaker was okay, five innings, four runs, four hits, excuse me, two runs, three walks, four strikeouts, and 16 swinging strikes. and he gave up two pretty hard hit home runs. I wonder how many of those swinging strikes for Shoemaker were fouls, because it did seem like he had a hard time putting hitters away as I was watching that game. He got a lot of two strike counts. From my recollection, I'm not going to cite any numbers here because I'm not looking at any,

but he seemed to have a hard time putting hitters away. But swinging strikes and fouls are not combined, right? They're separate. I believe that it depends on which side. you're looking at. Like, whiff rate does not include fouls. But swinging strike, technically a foul ball is a swinging strike. Interesting.

Yeah, because I was looking at the swinging strike data. I don't want to name websites here because I don't want to talk trash. And it looked high to me. And baseball reference hadn't been updated yet. So, yeah, I don't know. I wasn't really, you watched that game. I watched, like, three innings. I was not impressed with Shoemaker.

He just didn't look. He didn't look like. anything special to me. Oh, you don't say, Adam. You don't say. Oh, yeah, because you didn't like him coming into the year. No, I mean, his strike, like, he had this two-month stretch in the middle of last season when he first started emphasizing the splitter to the extent he does now

where his sway strike totals were off the charts and he was getting a lot of strikeouts and then he just stopped getting the strikeouts. Like, it seemed to me a clear case of catch the league by surprise. Oh, no, the league's not surprised anymore. By the way, he... And that doesn't mean he's going to be a bad pitcher, but he'll probably be pretty average.

Okay, baseball reference has him that it is updated now. 14 swinging strikes, and that is defined as strikes due to a swing and miss. So he got a lot of them. I didn't notice it. Maybe it happened later in the game. But that's good, right? I mean, he and Mania had a ton of swinging strikes. It's good, but kind of what Heath was saying, I mean, if it's...

if he doesn't have that put-away pitch because, you know, he emphasizes the one pitch so much. Like, I don't play in a swinging strikes league. I don't know if you do. I do, yeah, I have played in a few of them. We got some breaking news. Okay. That sounds like the White Sox and Tigers have been postponed today. Oh, really?

So are they more valuable, like, heading in the next week because they're going to have two more games than everybody else left? No, they already made up one. Oh, I'm going to have one more game than everybody else now. Do we know what the rest is scheduled for? Is this a joke that's not going well for you? Yes. Okay. We have more breaking news.

Team Kreef has added Mark Reynolds three minutes ago. I wonder which half of Team Kreeh did that. Dropping Andrew Kastor. Good for you. All right, let's finish up here. These fringy starting pitchers... Oh, I'm sorry. Can I mention something about...

Oh, great. Now I don't remember who it was. I wanted to mention about one of the pitchers who was just on a long list here. Never mind. If I think of it, I'll bring it up later. Okay. Fringy starting pitchers. Now, I included two guys who were very owned, Jake Oteresey and Isashi Ibucoma,

because I believe that we consider them to be sort of plug and play, pitch and ditch, whatever. We call them fringy, which isn't really a word, starting pitchers. Jake Oterese had a bad start against the Yankees. It would have been a quality start if not for a double by match. holiday that was only a double because it got lost up in the ceiling. Hesashi Iwakuma had six innings two runs at Houston, but only two strikeouts, and he gave up two homers. Patrick Corbin was bad, and C.C. Sabathia was good, but only two strikeouts at Tampa Bay.

He's pitching Sunday. He's actually a two-star pitcher this week, and Sabathia is 46 percent owned. Odarezi, Iwakuma, Corbin, Sabathia. Did anybody excite you last night? Somebody excited Scott, and it was not on this list, but he just, to remember who it was, and then he tried to circle them on his... We've talked often about Scott's notes that he comes in for the show, and his pen is out of ink, so I think we should let Scott talk about this before he forgets it again.

It's kind of an engraved circle here. So, yeah, going back to Kitameda. He left after five innings and only 75 pitches in a start where he had given up three earned runs, so it's not like he was dominating, but... It still seemed like an early hook, right? Given that it was the Padres, given that he was pitching well enough to get a sixth inning, you'd think. I'm kind of, like early in draft prep season,

I was not loving my head as much as the consensus because I thought, like, he just showed he was a five-inning pitcher last year. And if that's the case, it doesn't matter what the ratios are. He's just not going to be good enough. And then he talked about, oh, I'm going to go 200 innings this year. So I kind of came around to him. Because he said that? This is not a good first sign.

But why would, you know, why would you even care about him saying that? Everybody says they want to pitch, you know, everybody has these lofty goals. I don't know. Maybe, maybe I shouldn't have. I don't know if there was maybe a Dave Roberts quote in the same article or not. I just remember the MEDA quote. But you're right. Maybe I was too willing to believe him because I didn't like, I didn't like being on an island over Maita.

Back to the fringy starting pitchers that you mentioned earlier. Odarezi at 93% owned seems a little bit strong to me, but I understand he's a guy that you're going to keep on your bench and just use on two start weeks or at home. I was somewhat encouraged by the fact that Iwo Kumu wasn't awful. Yeah. I have this fear, because I think if he's just average on that team, he could throw 200 innings and win another 14 or 15 games and be valuable.

It's like you were kind of down on Dallas Kikl yesterday. He had seven scoreless innings and only had four strikeouts. Right. Iwakuma had two strikeouts against the Astros. I did not say he was good. I said he wasn't awful. And there's a little difference between Kikl, who's a borderline top 30 pitcher to some people, and Iwakuma, who were arguing if he should be 83% owned or not.

Yeah, I know. I'll add that I think Cici's Sabathia is a little underrated. I was thinking he was overall. What's Clayton Richards ownership? Well, that's a good point. 46% ownership is probably, I don't know that it really needs to go higher than that. Well, Sabathia is probably owned in that many leagues because of the two-star week, this current week, week one. Are you okay dropping him for another two-star pitcher in week two?

Yeah, no. I mean, standard mixed league scenario. Maybe I just, I think the perception about Sabathia is kind of. kind of like where it is with Jared Weaver. Like, he's done. He used to be great, but there's nothing left. And I think there's something left. I think he can be usable in two-star weeks.

Like, 46% of users decided he was. He's got Bartolo Colon upside. Okay. I think it's a good way, right? Yeah, pretty close. Sure. Six players, five players stole a base yesterday. Chase Headley, A.J. Pollack, Jacoby Jones,

Manuel Margo, and Trevor Story. Scott, during the broadcast, they said that Trevor Story, intends on stealing more bases this year would like to get to 15 or 20. So he wants it. Sign me up. 15 steals for story. Man, you watched a lot of that Rockies game. I mostly watched, like, if there's not a Royals game on, I want to watch Miller Park.

Okay. And three players were caught stealing yesterday. George Springer was caught stealing twice. He was nine for 19 last year, but it is encouraging that he's running because he said during the offseason kind of hint that he's not going to run that much. Yeah, but now is he going to be. discouraged? Is that already over? Yeah, I don't know. Lindor got caught and Rajay Davis got caught. It's time to grade your trade. Scott from Colorado. Remember, a C is average. Anything higher than a C? You won the trade.

Great inflation, man. Everybody expects to get A's. Give Paul Goldschmidt. Give Paul Goldschmidt. Get Jose Abraeu, Jose Batista, and Tony Watson. If you made this trade, it would be a D. Really? I don't like it. Can I plug something I'm writing during this segment? Can you really just say that Chris is writing it? Sure. My trade values, trade chart will be coming out today with values for every player. And I feel like sometimes it overvalues the three side of a three for one.

But even in this trade, it says, no, don't do it. So no, no, no, I wouldn't give it a D minus. I'm impressed that you came up with a trade chart that would... that would properly show quantity not making up for quality, as in this case. Well, it doesn't always. I would say if you're in a deeper league where there are no closers available, I don't think this is that bad of a trade, getting Abraeu, Batista, and Watson for Goldschmidt. I mean, unless they say, like, if this is just a flat, well, it's obviously not an in a lonely league because they're mixed players.

But I'm just always going to assume it's a standard mixed league unless they say otherwise, because I don't know. Okay, yeah. Good point. Can't get bogged down in that. From Mark and KC, 10-to-head-head Categories, Dynasties, with 25-man rosters. Give Jonathan's scope, get Troy Tuoliewiczki. I'll give it a C-plus.

I think the shortstop is a little more valuable in the second baseman. Yeah, I think I have no excitement over this trade at all, but I'm going to go B-minus. This is from Brad, grade the trade, Maverick, Goose, Iceman, and Viper. That's a deal that did not hold up well. Terrible movie. Oh, it is terrible. And I can say that, I guess, I didn't see it until, like, I don't know, five years ago.

I'd never seen Top Gun. It's a bad movie. I probably watched it 40 times as a kid. It was one of my favorite movies, and I didn't watch it, and then I wanted to share it with my kids last year, and it's been run. Yeah, that's awful. It's not very good. No. Give up Corey Seeger and Cespitus.

Corey Seeger and Cespotus for Chris Bryant. That's too much. give up, I think. You think? That wasn't a sarcastic, you think? I'm honestly on the fence here. Like, the trade chart says it's way too much to give up. But I think it's too much because Seeger's probably not going to be...

Oh, wait. I just saw the keeper values. It's definitely too much to give up. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry about that. I mean, Seeger was a borderline first rounder himself, but I mean, he's not Bryant. I'll still... Yeah, I'll give it... I'd rather have Seeger and C-Bet is, unless it's like a super shallow league,

but he didn't say that, so I'll give it a C-minus. I'm giving it a D-plus. This is Rob from New Jersey. Give up Carlos Correa, get Anthony Rizzo. That sounds like a pretty solid... C-plus. B to me. Maybe B-plus.

What? I'm going C-plus. B-plus, Scott. They're not that far apart, Correa and Rizzo. I think the difference between a indisputed, undisputed... Undisputed first round hitter and, you know, kind of a questionable second round hitter. I think it's pretty big. Okay.

From that, grade the trade. It's a 14-team, 6x5-6 categories league with OBP plus slugging instead of batting average. Give Rich Hill and Stephen Piscotti. Give up Rich Hill and Stephen Piscotti. Get Jared Eichoff and Matt Carpenter. So you downgrade from Hill to Ikech. off, you upgrade from Piscotti to Carpenter. It's a tough one, 14-team league.

I don't think it's tough. I'll give it a B. Like Carpenter, in that format especially. Yeah, I like it. I'm going to go B-minus. Okay. This is from Steve. Grade the Trade.

Okay, fine. I currently have Jake Lamb at third base, and Mania is my number five starting pitcher. Give up Mania, get Michael Franco. That's kind of, maybe like a C-place. Plus, it's pretty even. Okay. I'm going to give it a B-minus.

We finished the show with your emails, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Kuell in Virginia, dear T.J., Vince, Mikey, and Gus. This is something called recess. Yeah, that was a Saturday morning cartoon. A little past our time. Oh, okay. First time ever doing FAB for free agents, free agent acquisition budget, FAB. What are your guiding principles and resources you use

in determining how much to bid so not to under or overbid. For example, how much would you bid for, say, Daniel Hudson or Sean Doolittle in a 14-te-to-head categories league? $2 at most. Like, you don't want to waste fab on guys that you're not sure about, you know? No, I really don't. I think for Hudson I might put in a zero-dollar bid. Yeah.

I'm not really... Assuming your league has $0 bids, which some don't. Okay, if they don't, then I guess I would use 1%. The vast majority of all the bids you're going to put in are probably going to be whatever the minimum is, because there's going to be a couple handfuls of players maybe over the course of the season that you know it's going to be a fight to get them, and you want to really preserve the dollars for that. The guys are just kind of halfway interested in picking up, and you can live without. Those are a dime a dozen.

or a dollar a dozen. I'm going to give you some of the FAB values that we've seen in our FAB league. And, okay, so Heath wasted, unfortunately, $12 on Cota Glover on April 2nd. Yeah, that was a tough one. Out of 100. But it didn't seem like a high bid at the time

when we thought Glover was going to be the closer. Danny Valencia went for eight. I think we all sort of thought that was too much. Charlie Morden and Andrew Tolls went for $4. Again, I think that's a little high. I agree. Matt Bush went for $4. No, you can't do that.

Not for a setup, man. You can probably get them for $1 or $0. I think it makes a difference, too, if you're talking about FAB that runs daily versus FAB that runs weekly. You have to be much more cautious with your FAB dollars when it runs weekly because you know every Sunday night it's going to be a competition with everybody in the league for every player you might want. If it runs daily, I think you can go a little overboard for a player you really, really want because there's not going to be a lot of activity every day of the week and you can get the more in demand players more cheaply than you can in a weekly fad league. Recently I got Harardo Parra, Jason Hamill, Francisco Cervelli, all for $0.

Let's see. Mark Reynolds went for $0. See who, Jason Greeley, I had to get for $5. That was probably pretty stupid. Brandon Finnegan, $0 to Heath. Matt Boyd, $0 to Mike. So, yeah, you don't have to, yeah, a guy like Doolittle or Hudson, you don't want to spend more than a dollar. It's a 14-team league, so you've got to be a little more aggressive, probably.

There aren't going to be that many guys on waivers that you like. James said, I'm wondering how are you going to focus on daily this year. I don't know how much we're going to focus on daily this year. It's a good question. We'll try when we have time on shows to do it, but more people play seasonal. But we'll talk about the draft app. That'll be one thing. That's a pretty cool app as well.

You should look into that if you're not playing Fandul and Draft Kings, or even if you are. We'll do a little daily. I'm trying to at the very least tweet through it on a semi-regular basis, so I'm not writing a daily piece. We're not going to have a daily podcast, but you can follow us on Twitter and we'll have a conversation. Andy and Albuquerque, Jen Mar-Gomez or Santiago Casilla?

Cassia. Hector Nairis. Dalton from Paris, Illinois. In my utility spot today, should I start? Castellanos against James Shields or Starling Marte against Chris Sale? I would start Starling Marte.

I told him to start Castellanos. Okay. Break the tie, Heath. Marte. Okay. James Shields gave up 40 home runs last year, so there's that. Yeah, there is that. It's just...

Did you draft Starling Marte to sit him? Yeah, it's James Shields. I understand. It wasn't a beating call for me. That's it for today's show. Thank you for listening, everybody. We're back tomorrow with much more.

We got 15 games today. We should have plenty to talk about on Thursday's show. See you later.