Fantasy Baseball Today - 04/09: Mighty Mariners, Rockin' Rookies, Sneaky Storylines and Who to Drop (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 9, 2019

Let's talk about some Monday standouts like Daniel Vogelbach (1:30), Trevor Cahill (4:00) and Jonathan Villar (7:32). We also react to Luis Severino's setback (11:40) and more MLB news ... Who should you drop this early in the season (20:42)? Brian Dozier? Miguel Cabrera? Adam Eaton? We take you through a list of candidates. Then we're All About Alliteration with our Bashing Breakouts (32:00), Mighty Mariners (37:50), Rockin' Rookies (41:00) and Sneaky Storylines (43:50) like Buster Posey's K rate, Willson Contreras' great start and Jesus Aguilar's lack of HRs ... An awesome edition of Team Name Tuesday (49:30)! ... 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

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Where fantasy! Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. All right, here we go on Tuesday. What's going on, everybody?

Welcome back to Fantasy Baseball today. I'm Adam Beezer wearing a fantasy baseball theme t-shirt. It's a Fantasy League manager on it. Really cool. Scott White is here and Twitter followers beware. Chris Towers is here to block you at every chance he gets. Hey, Chris. How was your, you know, we haven't spoken to you in three days. How have the last three days of your life been? I'm sorry, I can't hear you, Adam. You're blocked. They're probably been peaceful because he's blocked so many people, right? Probably. It's been, I've had a lovely few days, guys. It's been great. Very relaxing. Good. Good. Good. Very nice. Yeah. That's great. And it's beautiful weather up here in New York, feeling good.

Spring is upon us. Baseball 10 games yesterday on the baseball schedule. We're going to talk about it. And today we're going to talk about players that it might be time to drop. Brian Dozier homered yesterday, but I know people are already dropping him. Ian Desmond's just been abysmal. Frammell Reyes homered yesterday, but I know people are dropping him. And we're going to try to grade some trades at some point as well.

Let's start out with Monday standouts, and I will let Scott go first. who is your Monday standout or standouts? Well, guess who is in the lineup again, Adam? Big Dan. There is. Dan Vogelbach of the Mariners. I think Daniel Vogelbach is actually what he goes by. But I call him Dan because I'm so familiar with him

and the hopes I've had for him for so many years now. I'm not alone in this regard, obviously. He's been a minor league standout who we've been hoping would get his chance. And that little window he had last week when Edwin in Carnacio missed a couple games with the hand injury, he did enough in that window that it seems like he's, the Mariners are working him into the rotation now. Now, the problem is, you know, despite his two homers and six RBI Sunday, him reaching base four times again yesterday, including another home run, despite that, you know, there's still not a clear opening for just him. Jay Bruce is off to a great start. Edwin and Carnacian with two homers yesterday off to a great start. Malick Smith's doing fine.

Mitch Hanigers obviously unbensurable, Dumped Domingo Santana. One of those five has to sit every day. But we may be to a point now where they're all taking turns, and Vogelbach is getting a chance to play. All right, so Vogelbach is 26% own now, and he does go, but he actually goes by Big Dan, just like you said, Scott. That's what everybody calls him. He's off to a good start against lefties, but that's a little unusual for him.

So that could be a situation where it's easy to sit him whenever there's a leftie. He was one for 20 against lefty. I wouldn't say it's unusual for him. But last year he was one for 20 against lefties. This year he's one for three with a home run. Did you know the Mariners have three of the top eight first basements so far in fantasy, or first base eligible players? And you mentioned all three of them.

Jay Bruce, Ewan Encarnacion, and Dan Vogelbach. In fact, Scott, you're sort of ruining my Mighty Mariners segment in my All About All About alliteration portion of today's podcast. So getting excited for that. Sorry to do that, Adam. No problem. He spent a lot of time working on that. All right, we're going to monitor Dan Vogelbach and hope he continues to play.

Don't forget Kyle Seeger will be back. And then Ryan Healy gets into that mix of first base outfield DHS as well. So we'll see what happens. Chris, the guy who just had great three days. row. Who is your Monday standout? Well, Trevor Cahill had one good day out of last three. Maybe he had two before that, but last night was very good for Trevor Cahill, eight strikeouts, one walk, and six innings. And now he's down to a 350-era, 16 strikeouts, two walks and 18 innings. He does this sometimes. And it's always, every time it happens, you know, it'll be like a 15

game stretch in 2017 or the first 12 games or something in 2018. where it all looks legit. He'll strike out nearly a batter per inning. The control will be great. And then he gets injured, and then things tend to fall apart. But when he's healthy and he's right, I think Trevor Cahill is someone that you can rely on against most matchups in fantasy.

Yeah, quick. Two problems. His next two matchups appear to be against the Cubs and the Mariners. Two of the three best hitting teams in baseball right now, Chris. So what would you do in that case? with a 25% own Trevor Cahill? Well, they're due for regression. Well, do you trust them in that type of matchup, I guess, is the question.

I would probably elect to sit him against those matchups, but even then there are people in 75% of CBS Sports.com leagues who have enough of a need at pitcher long term that he's worth adding, even if you won't feel comfortable trusting him in his next two start. So Vogelbach and Cahill are both 25 or 26. percent own fellas. Who do you think should be more of a priority? I know they are once a hit or once a pitcher. I get that, but just in a vacuum, Vogelbach or Cahill? I think Vogelbach's

upside is considerable. I don't know. Like, it's going to take some creativity and a willingness on the part of Manager Scott's service to make him fantasy viable. And I'm not confident that we're going to get there yet, but I think if it's a scenario where you're just, you have a chance to stash away upside. I would rather have somebody like Vogelbach than probably any prospect other than Vladimir Guerrero, of course. And you know, what's interesting, guys, is that this was supposed to be Team Tank.

I mean, they traded Canoe, they traded Edwin Diaz. We thought at this point that Edwin-onacornio might be on another team, but they're 10 and 2. So I don't know what they're going to do, but, you know, you could, it's conceivable. I mean, they make a trade once every two or three. days, it seems. So maybe they'll trade someone to clear up this log jam. But, uh, okay. Maybe. I mean, it's a scenario where everything that could go right has gone right for the Mariners so

far, at least in terms of their offense. And, um, I'm, I'm, I'm mostly believing in all of it, frankly. The thing that's, that gives me pause on Vogelbach specifically is they've basically looked for every excuse to not play him despite an incredible spring training in 2017 an incredible spring training in 2018 and so has that changed has the organizational impulse to not trust him changed or is this just

he had a good game on Sunday so they had to keep him in the lineup Monday he's having a really good year so far but yeah okay like I said we've got to see how it plays out two standouts for me real quick. Jonathan V.R. is off to a really good start. He went two for five in the home run, drove in four. Sometimes he leads off. Sometimes he bats third. But right now, Jonathan V.R. is the number three second baseman in points leagues and number two in Roto. He's batting 3.41 with three home runs, one walk eight strikeouts, and two steals. This is a guy who slugged 372 and 380 in his previous two seasons. So should you be making some offers if you own Jonathan

VR? Would you buy, sell, or hold VR? I don't think I'd be looking to sell. You know, mostly he was drafted in Categories leagues where you needed Steele's help. He's probably a primary steel source there. And the fact he's off to this really encouraging start, I mean, I don't think, I don't think I'd back away from him in that scenario. Now, if it's a points league, what was interesting to me is how considering how highly he was drafted in Categories League, I mean, if he was going to make good on that draft position, it would mean he was plenty of. startable in points leagues as well, but he wasn't so widely drafted there. I actually picked him off waiver wire in the podcast league, the 12-team podcast league for this week. He's kind of my

Miguel Andohar replacement with Javier Baez shifting over from second to third for me. So I mean, if you could try shopping him there, I guess, but, you know, considering he wasn't so highly valued in that format to begin with. I'm not sure you're going to find much that makes him worth parting with. All right. That's Jonathan V.R. I think we need a new drop on the show. I wanted to play it so badly when Scott said he picked up Jonathan V.R.

The Points League, you know, the Christian Bail. Oh, good for you. Would it work perfectly there. I'll work on that. My other standout is Reese Hoskins. He doubled on last night. And he has four home runs in his last three games. And he has eight walks to eight strikeouts.

Chris, are we seeing anything different from Rees Hoskins or just a hot start for a very good player, no doubt. But anything worth mentioning here or just, you know, typical Hoskins? It's been a really good start for sort of disappointing second year first baseman from last year with him and Cody Ballinger. It doesn't look like there's much different. He's hitting the ball really hard. He's hitting a ton of fly balls. But this is who we knew Reese Hoskins was coming in. he's actually been when you look at the batted ball profile there are signs of inconsistency

a 23.1% infield fly ball rate compared to 38.5% home run to fly ball rate his barrel rate is about average but he has 10 balls hit 95 miles per hour or plus out of 19 that's a really good rate so it's it's a sign that yes we're seeing the skill set that he has There are also still signs that he's not all the way there all the time yet. Okay. We got some big news to get to bad news on Luis Severino. And if you know how I drafted, you know my fantasy season might be over before it really even gets started. Check out our new podcast page, CBSports.com slash podcasts.

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so our shows are pretty low in the search results, so we need your help to boost them up. And Sportsline.com. Great. I mean, Sportsline.com is going to have master's coverage. I'm sure it's going to have any type of gambling coverage. It's going to have some fantasy content on there. Go to Sportsline.com and use the promo code Vegas for $1 for your first month to sign up. That's nothing.

And then it's only $9.99 after that, and you're going to make your money back on the advice on Sportsline. Sportsline.com promo code is Vegas. So we get to the big news now, and Luis Severino is going to have an MRI on his shoulder. You know, they're trying to kind of play it off like, well, it's not that big of a deal. He's just not all the way back to where he needs to be. It's, you know, I'm not a doctor. reason we have no reason to trust the ink on that, right? Like, I was

having this discussion with other fantasy analysts last night on Twitter and I was pointing out that the fantasy community treated Luis Severino like he would just be back on May 1st and just be Luis Severino and we treated Clayton or Carlos

Martinez like he actually died. No, there's a big difference. There is it, there is it, right? I understand there is a different But Carlos Martinez was a consensus top 15 to top 20 starting pitcher in the rankings before the injury. Yes, Luis Siverino's back. It was a second.

It changed before the injury happened. It changed when they decided he's probably going to be in the bullpen. And he got hurt last year. Hold on. He was hurt all the year last year. But either way, we're getting sidetrack, guys. That's your fault. Like this is, you are missing the point.

You know, you are. Which is that we didn't react to, we didn't react to Luis Severino's injury properly. Because we took the Yankees at their... He dropped a ton in the rankings. He was a top 100 player when we... He was an 80P top 100 player throughout draft season when we knew he... We knew he wasn't going to pitch in April at all. Yeah, okay.

We said he's going to be back on May 1st and he's just going to be great. Well, okay, okay, hold on. I think you're off base here because I'm sorry. I think that there's certainly risk baked in, but toward the end of draft season, I mean, I was drafting Severino a lot, and it was always somewhere around 100th overall. That's what I said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, not the same price for a guy.

That's right. With that kind of, I mean, like, Layton Kirchall, we knew where he was going to miss April, too, and he was still going ahead. Not as much of April. Right, but he was already throwing. Yeah. Severino had not thrown a pitch since his injury while we were drafting. Well, he was also better than Kirchall, at least presumably. So, so hang on.

So listen, so Severino, I mean, this is a good point because when a pitcher has an arm injury, you always have to think it could recur. We don't know what's going to happen, especially a shoulder injury. All the reports were positive at the time. And I still think, knowing what I know now, I still think Severino is worth a top 100 pick. If he was going to just miss a month or, you know, that was the estimation. I don't think he was worth like a top 60 pick or anything like that. But this is a big issue. and it is a lesson to be learned

that you can't rely on a pitcher who's on the DL with an arm injury because things go bad, you know? Especially a shoulder. Exactly, right. So we'll see what happens. Hopefully it's not the worst news, but it's going to back up the timeline on Severino.

Meanwhile, John Lester left with a hamstring injury, and Junjin Ryu is going on the IL with a groin injury. He missed half of last season with a groin injury. He says this one is not as bad. But again, a lot of people say that. But, yeah, don't drink. drop Aureas yet, right? And don't drop Ross Stripling yet.

So there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the injury Ryu had last year was like muscle off the bone kind of situation. It was really bad. So I think it's probably true. It's not that bad. Of course, with any muscle strain, there's always the potential for a setback.

But I don't think this is, you know, going to be a long-term loss for Ryu. James and Tyone. So both Tyone and Lester left this game. Meryl. Lester heard himself rounding the bases. And Lester had the most important at bat of the game. Tyone gave up six unearned runs in the second inning. And he left. He took a comebacker off the head.

But they walked the eight hitter to get to Lester. Lester came through with a hit. A few more hits after that. Three errors by one player in the same inning. Or maybe it was two. I think it was three. And awful start for Tion. Didn't hurt your ERA.

But listen, I've advocated for this before. there should be earned whip. If we have earned run average, there should be earned whip, because Tyone's whip was terrible yesterday, but it should have all been unearned whip. I don't understand why we don't do that. Makes too much sense. E-wip.

Walks plus hits. Yeah, but this should be unearned walks plus hits. They came after what should have been the third out. The whole idea of earned and unarmed is silly, anyway. It's all arbitrary. Yeah, it kind of is. I mean, If, you know, it's one thing if runs score directly on errors, but, you know, if, if, you know, what happens to be the third out leads to seven runs after that, really, the pitcher's not at fault for any of that.

It's kind of a tough pill for it. It's like Madison Bumarner's last start before last night. When he made a throwing error, gave up five unearned runs, that's, that's dumb. Those are on Madison Bumgarner. That I agree with it. It should be on him. Finally, something Chris and I agree on today. The Brewers and the Cubs have both recently hinted that they will not be signing Craig Kimbril.

How long should we stash Craig Kimbril? As long as it takes. I would guess he doesn't sign until June. That's long. Yeah, it might get tough in those shallower, like 21-man roster leagues. You know, if category's version, it's probably worth stashing them as long as it takes points. It might get tough, especially since there's usually a surplus of saves in that format. But I think I'm more willing to go the distance on Kimbril than like Dallas, Keikle.

I'm not sure Keikle has the upside that he's worth sticking with forever if you find yourself having severe roster space problems. And Keikle's taking up one of those spots. Actually, Keikl should be mentioned because I think he probably, you got to think he's a candidate for the Yankees. I know they don't want to spend too much money, but I think he could end up there. Brad Peacock is going to the bullpen for two weeks, which is weird because they have some off days. They can skip his starts, but they're putting their best pitcher in the bullpen for two weeks. That's strange. Brad Peacock.

David Dahl is going to avoid the DL for now. He has a minor core muscle injury, and we'll see what happens. Ryan Maltapia could get more playing time. Garrett Hampson was in the outfield yesterday. Hey, San Diego called up Luis Erius, and he is 27% owned right in the Dan Vogelbach and Trevor. Kahill territory. Arias is a second baseman. He went 0 for 5.

He batted lead off yesterday, struck out twice. Is he a must-owned? Actually, let's compare him to Nick Senzel, who's out of a walking boot. Could be back on the field by the end of the week, according to the athletic, playing in games shortly thereafter. Senzell, 67% owned. Aureas, 27% owned.

Chris, who would you rather have? Senzel has the more exciting fantasy profile, and given how bad the Reds have been to start the season, they're kind of running out of reasons to not call him up. That being said, he won't be up at the earliest until probably around the 20th of April. I would guess we don't see him until at least May. That just depends what you need now.

He has more upside, so if you're just looking for someone to stash on your bench, I think Senzel is still the guy. And unfortunately, I'm sad about this. Chris Davis set the record. He's now 0-4-49 dating back to last year. That is the most consecutive hit-licit bats by a non-pitcher.

And guys, let's see if this works. Total experiment here on the air. Oh, good for you. Yes. Yes. Not the best context for it. No, it wasn't. It seems a little mean.

Punch it down. I will get it back. I will get it back going later on in the show. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about players that you might be thinking about dropping. Is it okay to drop them right now here in only the second week of the season. So are they okay to drop? Let's start with Brian Dozier. I believe he is okay to drop,

but also okay to add. I did add. Somebody dropped him in the league yesterday. I added him immediately. He's on my bench. But he finally homered. He's batting 103. Scott, you're writing something about players that are okay to drop right now, right? I was trying to work on such a list. I didn't totally land how I wanted it to look, but I may still work on that later this week. But what makes it tricky is it's hard to offer like blanket advice like you said in dozier's case i mean he's he's good to drop he's good to add it kind of depends on your format and what your needs are and just how much leeway you have to stash something with upside because dozer obviously still has incredible upside even in an awful year i think he hit 21 homers had 12 steals uh so it's it's it's

tough to give on that up on that ever but at the same time there are formats where if a hitter isn't worth putting in your lineup. It's really hard to reserve bench spot for him, especially if you have multiples like that. And he hasn't just been unlucky so far this season. He has a lower average X velocity than D. Gordon. And he's hit fewer balls 95 miles per hour or more. Now that one's a little misleading because D. Gordon has twice as many batted balls. But he's just not hitting the ball with authority right now. His average launch angle is one of the lowest in the leagues. just beating balls into the ground right now. Yeah, I think that you have to ask yourself when you're talking about dropping is really upside. Am I going to miss a potential, you know, season changer?

Dozier has shown himself to be a slow starter before. So, yeah, I think we all want to be a little bit more patient with Brian Dozier. Do we want to be more patient with Miguel Cabrera, who is five for nine with four walks in his last three games but does not have an extra base hit so far. Miguel Cabrera has played 10 games with a 233. batting average and a 235 slugging percentage. He's someone that has been a little unlucky. Unlucky?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the main format I'm talking about where it's, you might consider dropping these people is a head-to-head points format where there's just so many interesting pitchers out there and you need so many pitchers. It's hard to stash a hitter of any upside on your bench. Maybe you have room for one, maybe two.

and it can get difficult with guys like Cabrera. In an ideal world, I have 40 roster spots to play with, and I can stash all of them. But in that format, I might just need the space more than I need the potential upside. Are you dropping Miguel Cabrera for Dan Vogelbach, Big Dan, or for Jay Bruce? I'm not. I'm not either. Okay.

I was going to say, real quick, Chris, how can a guy who has no extra base hits be unlucky? well, because he's hit the ball really, really hard. He's hit a lot of balls on the ground, and that's not where extra bases live. But you would think one 95 mile per hour grounder would go down the line and let him, you know, jog into second. So I just, I look at the way he's hitting the ball still. Half of his batted balls have been over 95 miles per hour. Average exit velocity is still really high.

And he wasn't hopeless last year. His final numbers, you know, it was a tiny sample size, but he hit well enough to think that he's not just done, especially when the batted ball data backed up. Yeah, that's Cabrera, but I will say about the batted ball data, I guess probably pretty similar because he hit the ball hard, but he had a huge ground ball spike. So he had his highest ground ball to fly ball ratio of his career last year,

Miguel Cabrera. And, okay, it was so far hitting the ball on the ground a lot, something to keep an eye on. I don't think we're going to have any issues dropping this next guy. Ian Desmond, who did go two for two with a double, but he didn't even start. Five for 37, no homers, no steals, two walks, 15 strikeouts. I know Chris is fine dropping you in Desmond. Scott, are you okay dropping you in Desmond?

This is the first one that I pegged as a bust of the ones we've talked about coming into this season. Maybe not in like a standard roto lineup league where you have the corner infield spot you have the five outfield spots to fill the steals are so critical i might just stash him away on my bench there but i don't have i don't have much confidence in him being an impact player this year so in either head-to-head format categories or points he's as good as gone and to be clear ian desmond has had some bad luck if you look at baseball savant's uh expected stats he should have a two 35 slugging percentage that's more than double his 114. So, victimized by

Lady Luck so far, Ian Desmond. Should have more like a 420 opium. Let's go to these next two players that are both owned in 49% of leagues, neither playing every day. There is an injury, though, that could help Framo Reyes. He didn't start yesterday, but Franchi Cordero is on the IAL. Will Myers, Hunter Renfro, Emmanuel Margot started for the Padres. And then there's Jose Martinez who

started three games this season, but Dexter Fowler has been just so terrible. For M.L. Reyes and Jose Martinez, I know in a shallower league that they can be dropped. I get that. But, you know, in a I don't really know, in a deeper league, deepish, you know, do you think, if you

drop Reyes. 12 team rota. Okay, sure. 12 team road. Reyes or Jose Martinez, well, I know they're not going to be dropped in a five out of the other league. But do they still have, like, a massive upside that you're afraid to drop Reyes or Martinez? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I kind of draw the line at

At leagues where more than 300 players are rostered might be a more succinct way of putting it. Okay. Like the same leagues where I'm looking to pick up Vogelbach and stash him, I'd still absolutely want to stash Ray as his strikeout rate has been really low this year. It's closer to the guy we saw the final two months of last season after that return trip to the miners. And the exit velocity is still really high. It's about the same as it was. he doesn't rank as high in exit velocity

because right now there are some outlier exit velocities but his is what you'd expect it to be in a good full season so he's definitely had bad luck they've started him think about two-thirds of the time anyway at his first home run yesterday and I think there's absolutely the potential for him to earn a if and when he starts performing a much bigger share

or maybe the injury opens injury opens the door, you know? I definitely a ton of upside here. All right. Next up is Adam Eaton. Yeah, I know. Crazy. He's 84% owned. I was really high on Adam Eaton. He's doing what he did last year. He's hitting for almost no power. Hitting at the top of the order, drawn a few walks.

But Michael Taylor's back off the I L a lot sooner than I anticipated. And Adam Eaton is slugging 270 right now. Is he dropable? I'd want to see him lose the job first. like lose every day duty because he has played every game every single game and I did not think there was much hope for that coming into the season certainly before Taylor got hurt the fact he's a lead-off hitter and what I consider a good lineup with good on base skills I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt for now yeah he's um nine games so it's all with a grain

assault. He is doing things so far that would lead you to believe if it continued that his skills were deteriorating. He's not hitting the ball hard at all. Strikeout rates way up. Contact rate, I believe, is way down 79.5% lowest it's ever been. And a ton of infield fly balls. Now, look, it's nine games, so it might be just a slump, but there are certainly warning signs. Guys, I have a lot of alliteration on the show that I need to get to. So we're going to speed up the OK to drop segment. And I'm going to give you a name, and you're just going to tell me real quick. I'm going to give you the name and the ownership percentage.

Tell me if it's too high, if it's too low, if the porridge is just right. Kyle Tucker, minor league outfielder for the Astros, Scott, he's 44% owned. Sounds just about right. Okay. Chris, Andrew Miller, 36% own. Probably a little too high. Scott, Eduardo Rodriguez. 84% own.

Seems too high, though I get it. But it's a little higher, like I know, compared to somebody like Caleb Smith. Okay. And then I'll give you another reliever, Chris. David Robertson pitched the eighth yesterday with Pat Nyshek getting the save. Robertson, 78% owned. Three straight scoreless appearances. That's good news.

Yeah, he's starting to turn it around. I would still hang on to him if I could. That's David Robertson, and it's a good segue into our bullpour. where Pat Nyshek got a save. I feel like Hector Nairus should have been available. He pitched Friday and Sunday, so that would have been three times in four games, but he didn't pitch at all.

Yeah. No. Welcome to the Phillies. It's messy. It's messy. I mean, Robertson pitched the eighth. Sir Anthony Dominguez pitched the sixth. Like he said, Narris didn't pitch at all.

Gabe Kapler does not want bullpen roll. It's like he's it's it's like he's almost he's almost going so far out of the so far away from that just to make a point is kind of what it feels like But I feel like Robertson not being effective has because we saw last year that he wanted to do that But for the most part hector Neris early and then Tarantan and Dominguez later got most of the saves not all of them It's not going to be a traditional closer role but I feel like if David Robertson goes on a run where he pitches five innings in 10 days and strikes out nine with no hits, he's going to gain that trust.

Hopefully, but he came into the eighth on opening day, even. Meanwhile, A.J. Minter got a save. He was not into face lefties. He just straight up got a save. And that shouldn't be a huge surprise. So he's 31% owned. And if you are desperate for saves, AJ Minter is going to get some.

And Jordan Hicks, you know, I feel pretty confident about Jordan Hicks right now. pitching pretty well. He's going to walk some guys, but a lot of closers do. Jordan Hicks got his second save. He's had one really bad appearance this year. Other than that, Hicks has been pretty good. Andrew Miller's been pretty bad. Just that Carlos Martinez thing is looming, but I don't see a reason to take Hicks out of the role right now. All right guys. And he's actually getting swinging strikes now, which is not something he really did last. The alliteration segment begins. All about alliteration. We've got bashing breakouts.

Mighty Mariners, Rock and Rookies, and Sneaky Storylines. Yes. Let's start with the bashing breakouts. Trey Mancini and Enrique Hernandez. You probably missed your chance to pick them up. Mancini's 86% own. Enrique Hernandez is 93% owned. They both homered yesterday.

Mancini's batting 385 with five homers. And Enrique Hernandez, 364 with three homers. Scott talked about a swing change for Mancini on yesterday's show. But if you were going to buy you, into one of the, well, you could buy into both if you want. Which one's more legit, Scott, Mancini or Enrique Hernandez? I think Hernandez is more legit. I haven't really seen anything about a swing change for Mancini, but he has hit a lot of more fly balls so far. It could just be a small sample size thing. The fact that that Mancini has, you know, just happened to hit a lot of

fly balls here in the early going, but it would be interesting if he did go that route because he's managed to be a 20 homer guy even with a really low fly ball rate in the past. So I'm writing Mancini as a hot hand play in the podcast points league,

the 12th team points league. Of my nine hitters, two, in that league, we've now confirmed our Orioles, which is an amazing development in its own right. Oh, good for you! Yeah, okay. A little better. We're getting there. It's got so much potential.

All right, so, I mean, I don't know that you can trade these guys because you pick them up off waivers. But like Enrique Hernan is just not this good? Come on. Yeah, it would have to be, you'd have to be playing with kind of a novice or someone who's desperate to get something of value for them. I think both of them are fine. I just, I don't think either one's like a huge breakout.

I think they could both be started. I'm going to give you two names that you probably didn't expect to hear on today's show as breakouts. But are you buying what you're seeing so far from Cody Ballinger, who's the number one hitter in fantasy? And Anthony Rendon, like, we know he's great, but the final 90 games of last year, Rendon hit 18 home runs. He had a 981 OPS. He was on pace for 33 homers and 54 doubles. So he showed power that I guess he pretty much hadn't shown before. And it's carrying over right now, 412 batting average, 4.12 batting average, 4.

home runs and five doubles for Anthony Rendon. I know we buy Rendon as a hitter, but specifically talking about the power gains. And then Bellinger, he's been the best player in fantasy so far. If you have Bellinger, you're in first place. Congratulations. What do you think about those two guys? Chris, are you buying what you're seeing in the early going for Bellinger and Rendon? As much as you can buy 10 games.

Yeah, I mean, Adam, you and I were both high on Cody Bellinger. I think you picked him as a top three MVP finisher, so. Bold prediction. Looking pretty good. prediction. No, that was just a, oh yeah, it was a bold predict. Thank you, though. The talent has never been in question. Even last year, he still hit the ball really hard. There was a lot of inconsistency. He struggled against lefties a little bit, and he hit a lot of infield fly balls. So there were reasons for him to struggle, but the underlying

talent level has always been there, and the underlying talent level has always been huge. He's a guy with, you know, 40 homer, 15 stolen base potential. There might be. You know, might be. You be what one other guy in baseball who could do that maybe two and so the fact that he's you know starting to cut down on the strikeouts again something that he started last year and he hasn't sacrificed power for it it's it's very impressive and randone is just kind of perpetually undervalued like yes he he has hit for the whole the power last year in those last 90 games or whatever it was but he hit 25 homers with 81 runs in 100 RBI in 2017. He hits 300 pretty much every year.

He puts the bat on the ball. He makes good contact. I don't know if there's a huge breakout happening with Anthony Rendon in his age 30 or 28 season, 29, but he's really, really good. It shouldn't come as no surprise that he could do something like this for a stretch. Let me tell you, before you say, I'm going to sell Anthony Rendon.

I didn't say that. No, no, no. In a Points League specifically, if you were considering that, just looking at what he averaged on a per game basis each of the last two years, if he played 155 games at that pace, he's basically a top 12 hitter in Points Leagues. And he's never drafted that high. But he's so good in that format. And if he stays healthy, Rendon is going to be basically like a second rounder.

He's the perfect example. He was better than Nolan Aronado. Wow. Yeah, he's the perfect example of the guy. that like every time a new shiny thing comes along we're just like oh well that guy's better than anthony randone and then for the most part anthony randone is just fantastic and we've kind of just become numb to how good he is like chris says he uses this we like we all do this big we as a fantasy community you just said that he's under that he's never drafted as high as he probably should

be given the performance that's what i'm saying is that yeah we get really excited excited about the new thing. And a guy like Anthony Rendon, who doesn't necessarily pop in power, he doesn't hit like 320. It's just he, he's an easy guy to overlook. He's the guy that nobody reaches for. And, you know, that's probably just not a sign of a great process. He's a great player.

He's a great hit of part. Yeah. All right. The next alliteration group, the Mighty Mariners. Edwin Encarnacion, Domingo Santana, Jay Bruce, Daniel Vogelbach. We can probably skip through this one a little bit here, but maybe we should talk about Santana. Well, Encarnacion is someone that I think this podcast was fairly down on. We thought he could be a bust, and it's three home runs in his last two games.

He was slugging 360 before that. But he does have seven walks and seven strikeouts. That's very nice to see. And then Santana is a top five hitter so far, Scott. What do you think about these Mighty Mariners? Like I said at the top, everything. that's gone right for the Mariners lineup, everything that could go right has gone right.

And for the most part, I'm believing in all of it, Jay Bruce, there was a case to be made that he was just ruined last year by a planter fasciitis. He was battling all year, and that seems to have come through. I mean, he's only 30,

I think he just turned 32, but he's still, he's younger than a lot of people would think. And, you know, I like Vogelbach. Obviously, Santana had upside, Incarnacion has the track record. I think they're all... I mean, certainly, Incarnazian-Santana Bruce

are, I think, just about Mustown right now in Vogelbach. I would like to stash for the upside. Would you be looking to make offers on any of these guys? Just ride it out or definitely sell high or what? I mean, I could certainly see the case to sell high on, like, Domingo Santana, if you could get, you know, an established stud hitter for him. him. It's always better to go with what's established than what's just theoretical. But you would have to be selling high on him, like, as selling him like a number, borderline

number one, number two outfielder, probably. I would sell high on Jay Bruce if I get something for him. If there's someone who really believes that he's going to be a 35 homer guy, because my view of him is that's kind of all he's going to do. He'll get some RBI because of the home runs, but he's just, I think even when things are good, he's just a terribly one-dimensional hitter, and it's hard for me to get super excited about that. Unless your team is actually desperate for home runs. He's also three for nine with three home runs against lefties

so far, and Jay Bruce, even to go back to 2016 and 17, he was a top 20 outfielder. He was not good against lefties. We can take another quick break. Our last quick break of the show, when we come back. We'll talk about the rocking rookies and the sneaky storylines and more from yesterday. Be right back here on fantasy baseball today. Let's do the Rock and Rookies, guys.

Alonzo, Fernando Tautis, and Victor Robles. They've all been, I think, pretty encouraging. Alonzo is certainly the best of the three, batting 382. Fernando Tatis, batting only 237, but three home runs and one steel. And Victor Robles, unfortunately, he bats ninth. But, you know, we just talked about Adam Eaton. I don't think it's inconceivable that Robles moves up in the order and maybe starts leading off. He's, you know, I think all three of these guys have been good, you know, encouraging at the very least.

Chris, talk to me about those rocking rookies. Pete Alonzo, Fernando Tatez, and Victor Robles. Alonzo has been better than expected, I think, so far, which is saying a lot, because we had really high hopes, but the contact profile's been a little better than we had even hoped for, and he's just absolutely crushing the ball. He hits the ball all over the field with great power. He hits a ton of balls in the air, and not necessarily all fly balls. He's hitting a lot of balls on the line, which is good.

As the second highest barrel rate in baseball, he's hit 64% of his batted balls have been 95 miles per hour plus. He's been awesome. There's not really much interesting to say about Pete Alonzo. He's not doing anything super unexpected. He's just kind of doing the best version so far of what we've wanted him to be. Tatis has been unsurprisingly, he's had struggles. He is the youngest player in baseball. When he hits the ball hard like he did last night,

it tends to go a long way. But right now, he's definitely still figuring things out. Only 86.8 miles per hour, average exit velocity. Hasn't hit a ton of balls super hard. He remains a little bit more of a work in progress, but you can certainly see why people are excited. Yeah, here's a stat on Tatis that might make things easier if you own him in a daily lineup.

up league. We'll see how it plays out. But so far, he's four for seven with a home run and a double against lefties with an 1893 OPS, pretty good. And against Ritey's, he has a 575 OPS. So, you know, like I'd rather him be good against both guys, both Ritees and lefties, but if Tatease is just going to be someone you start when it's lefty heavy or if in a daily league, then so be it. You can live with that, and we'll see how that goes. And some sneaky storylines. Scott White. Let's take a look at some sneaky storylines. Tommy Pham and Jesus Aguilar

neither of them have an extra base hit. Fam seems to be doing a lot right, though. He already has five steals. He has eight walks of ten strikeouts. Aguilar does have six walks of seven strikeouts, but he's batting 129. So Pham and Aguilar, no extra

base hit so far. Are you concerned about either one? Not Pham. He just has too many things he does well And He Nothing about what he did last year Would lead me to concern this year

Aguilar I mean it was a pretty Pretty poor finish for a guy who wasn't Really well established in fantasy prior to last year You know it was mostly the first half that we paid for On on draft day this year But I I do like that he hasn't struck out much at all

And my assumption would just be it's a slow start for Aguilar, but there were some doubts coming in that haven't been relieved yet. All right, let's talk about a couple of catchers, Chris Towers. Wilson Contreras, we haven't really talked about him, but he is off to a beautiful start. He's the number two catcher in fantasy behind Gary Sanchez, and he has started eight of ten games, which is nice. Wilson Contreras, batting 308 with three homers, six walks, eight strikeouts.

Meanwhile, Buster Posey Underrated storyline, he has a career high 18.8% strikeout rate. I know it's a small sample, but not good. So Posey trending down, Contreras trending up. Your thoughts?

So with Posey, yes, he does have a career high strikeout rate, but if he had struck out one fewer times, it would be right around where it was last year, maybe two fewer times. So I think it's too early to worry about that. But his skill set has obviously been in decline for a couple of years. His home run total has gone down every year from 2015 on. He's not the same guy he was. And that was reflected in his

draft price. So I don't know how worried you have to be. I think Contreras is really, really promising because the first couple of years, he probably had a little bit of good luck. The fact that he's hitting the ball as hard as he is right now, that's a really good sign that he may be taking a little bit of a step forward. It's too early to say for sure. Still wouldn't be my number two catcher if we were redrafting, but he's justifying that number three petter price ring. I want to get off on a little bit of a tangent. I think, you know, catcher's so shallow and if you have a great one that, you know, you could have a huge advantage. I don't love what we're seeing from Gary Sanchez. You know, you got to look at what the Yankees.

Well, I mean, they had the easiest matchups. And, you know, I don't love what we're seeing. And, he's just swinging for the fences. You know, Gary Sanchez, I just don't see how he's going to hit for a good batting average like this. And not just that. Like, I feel like he could hit 220. He is going to homer and he is going to drive and runs.

But I'm a little worried about his approach. A 220 hitting catcher who hits more than 30 homers is still competing for the top spot at the position probably. Also, he hit 278 in 2017. It's not like, and it was a 304. Babbab. It's not like there's this huge track record where you can say, well, he's definitely going to be a bad batting average guy. He's not striking out much, his swing and strike rate and contact rate are right where they were around 17. The biggest thing is he's not hitting quite as many

infield fly balls pop-ups as he did. I mean, he's in terms of like exit velocity, he's probably been the best hitter in baseball so far, and that's not terribly surprising. Yeah, I think if you could trade him for somebody that was going in, like, the third round, I'm not saying he's bad. I'm just saying if you could trade him for, gosh, Anthony Rizzo. You know, I'd do that, something like that. Yeah, I mean, I just wonder, you probably are in a lot. much better shape of first base than a catcher.

What are you filling that spot with after you trade Sanchez? Yeah, that's the thing. If you have a replacement level. Jorge Alfaro. Gross. Like if you if you if you haven't to grab like Omar Narvaez and you do need a first basement like I could see it in that scenario. Last sneaky storyline.

I'll just give a little love to Adam Frazier, who is the number nine second basement in points league, number 12 in Roto. It's a real late round pick for me in one of my Roto leagues. I start him over Brandon Lowe right now. Frazier's batting 324. He's got two steals, which is surprising but good. And hasn't faced a lot of lefties yet. The Pirates have faced only one left-handed starting pitcher.

That was a kryptonite for Frazier last year. But he leads off, if you play in a daily league and you can start him against Ritees when he's leading off, you know, 324 batting average five runs, two steals. Adam Frazier is not that bad. He also hit 306 and slug 533 after the All-Star break, and Frazier was a sleeper for one of our fantasy analysts, RJ White. I know he liked him a lot. 37% own. Wanted to give a shout out to Adam Frazier.

Great first name. It is Team Name Tuesday. It is a good Team Name Tuesday. I'm excited about this Team Name Tuesday. I'm excited for Chris Towers to be here for Team Name Tuesday. Ask to D2. Sure. Yeah, definitely.

filmed before a studio audience amazing that one like when I saw that one I just like I kind of like you know like a cartoon when he smells a pie and he just like floats off into the air that was my reaction to this that is a good one

I'm bringing Vogel back pretty good yeah also good I want to talk to Hampson very good how was my Chappelle there is that all right It was okay.

Thanks. This one was specifically for Chris. Big, beefy baseball choy. Excellent. Horrific. Here is an advanced stat run of Team Name Tuesday. Wobafet. UZR friendly.

Fip to be square. Breaking Babbip. Welcome back, Picotter. Picotter, Picotter. These are great. I like those better. I like those better than the player. themed ones.

Welcome back because these are great. Breaking Babbib have we had Breaking Babbib before? That's terrific.

I don't think we have. Oh man. This is a great round. Lead Zefflin. These are Zach Eflin ones. Led Zefflin and Iron Shefflin. These are great.

Yes. Very good. Here's one. Call J.G. Wentworth. 877 Glass now. You know that? 877 cash now?

I know that one. Dear Cash, use it when you need. 877 glass now. It's great. Tatisculor torsion. That's not bad. Yeah. That's something we've referenced.

Driving around in Luke Voitz car. Seinfeld reference. That's a good one. Okay. Yeah. News and notes. Felix Hernandez left early with an illness. San Francisco acquired first baseman slash outfielder, Tyler, Austin from Minnesota.

And Austin, I think he batted second yesterday. for the Giants. Michael Taylor off the I.L. as mentioned. Clay Buckholtz is going to start for Toronto this weekend. Tim Beckham sat with a hamstring issue. C.C. Sabathia will return this weekend to the Yankees rotation. Irvin Santana could start today for the White Sox. If you were in an AL-only league, would you prefer Clay Buckholtz or Irvin-Santana?

I think Buckholz. Yeah, it's not saying much, but I agree. How about this team name? Belt Buckholz. Yeah. Yeah. Chris, did you ever, did you, I know you weren't on the show when I broke it out, but did you hear my hap soto machine? That's solid.

Thank you. That's solid. Ramon Luriano has a jam thumb, but he was available yesterday, so he could be back today. And Mike Fultenevich is going to make a rehab start today. And Bravescatcher, Tyler Flowers, is day-to-day. Flowers actually has a chance for fairly regular playing time. If he can get back from him, I think he has a hand injury. We've got emails and grade the trade to finish.

the show. Oh, boy, I left a lot of stuff out today. A lot of stuff. Does anybody want to pick up Vince Velazquez? He's 41% own. No more than I did before. Yeah. Yeah, not a great start. Okay, then let's read these emails. This is from Dave. You mentioned Yandy Diaz yesterday. Would you drop Rafael Devers for Yandi Diaz? I would hope I have someone who I have less hope for than Rafael Devers. But if push came to shove, I think I would. That's scary. Boy, Devers is off to a really bad start.

Morgan from Chicago. Talk to me about Rognet Odor. Is he a good enough player to hold on to in a 10-team league? Categories or points? The answer in a points league is no. Yeah. What about a category?

Probably, I mean, he's been really bad so far. If there's one thing we know about Rognette-Odor, it's that what's happened in the previous 10 games or so has absolutely zero bearing on what will happen in the future. That is true. Joe in Houston, subject line, Alex Verdugo, and I think I'm saying this right, John Duplanteer.

He is a Diamondbacks pitcher, and Verdugo is a Dodgers outfielder. Does Verdugo have a path to enough playing time to be mixed league relevant? And what do you think of John Duplantees' potential 2019 impact? If I'm not pronouncing that right, that I am probably way off and making an idiot of myself. I think you're right.

Verdugo doesn't have a path right now. They've given, they have to give really high end hitters a day off. I mean, they're already sitting Max Muncie more than they should. They're already having to sit Jack Peterson a lot. So it's hard for them to get Verdugo a bath, but an injury could obviously change that.

Life finds a way. For Duplanteer. Yeah, he pitched out of the bullpen the other day. He's not worth owning, right? I mean, he's a good pitching prospect, but not until there's a rotation opening. Is he worth owning, probably? Okay. This is from Skyler Smith in Napa, California.

Dear Vinnie, Drama, Turtle, and E. That's the most overrated show in TV history, I'd have to say. Yeah, not good. I have white-knuckled through this Nick Povetta bull crap for two seasons now. For some reason, he's a darling within the industry, and I drafted him based on the buzz around him. Two starts in, and I'm already feeling like that's a mistake, this guy stinks. Please do your best to somehow convince me that Nick Povetta is rosterable slash startable and not worth dropping, which I'm pretty close to doing in my 10-team, mixed categories league.

I mean, we did this last year, and we can make the same argument. it would, so far he's been really bad this year. There's no two ways around it, but it's two starts. Anybody can have two bad start. The argument is last year he had a 342 X-FIP and a 351 Sierra, and it would require him to be a really, really big outlier to continue to run ERAs in the mid-4. But he might be. I can't guarantee it.

It's just if you have a process where you believe, in these numbers, you kind of need to stick with it longer. Okay. Yeah, stick it out. It's easier to justify moving on in a 10-team league, though. Yeah. Because it's not, you know, with the idea that it's not truly moving on, it's just he gets bumped for now until he shows signs of clear breakthrough. But there's always the risk that somebody picks him up if you drop him and then he breaks through for somebody else.

So you have to weigh that versus the reward of freeing up a roster spot. Okay. Last email, and then we'll try to do some grade the trade. Actually, I don't think we have time. We could save grade the trade for tomorrow. This is from at ASU Pope on Twitter. I have also been blocked by Chris Towers on Twitter after I called him out for his ridiculously unprofessional Twitter name. I did that and then unfollowed him, and he must have spite blocked me after.

If he tells me and the world on the podcast why his name is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Nixon and why that needs to be spammed in everyone's Twitter timelines, I might follow Chris Towers again. It's a pun. On? The album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by the Midwestern alternative rock band Wilco. And the Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians, and New York Mets legend, Trot Nixon. Oh, that's where Nixon comes in? Yeah.

Oh, that's terrible. Trot Nixon. Nobody knows. Nobody got that. Oh, dozens of people. Got it. Are you going to follow? Are you going to unblock at ASU Pope? Who made this guy the police of Twitter display names? The Pope of Twitter display names?

I don't remember having an election where we voted ASU Pope as the sheriff of Twitter display names. I am a professional. Ergo, it's professional. All right, can you, that's interesting logic. Can you change it, though? You've been using it for a long time. I think we're ready for something new. D Rock World.

But it's just going to be unprofessional, I don't care. I just think we're ready for something to. Surprise us. All right, we're looking forward to that. We'll hear Chris's new Twitter handle hopefully on tomorrow's show where we will grade your trade

and do some fantasy regulating. Thanks a lot to Scott and Chris. I'm Adam. We'll talk to you tomorrow on fantasy baseball today.