Fantasy Baseball Today - 04/18: Ranking Infielders, Trade Talk, SPs to Add (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

We start the show with our thoughts on Frankie Montas and whether he needs to be added. Then we get into the MLB news (7:05) with a Francisco Lindor update, an A.J. Minter discussion, a debate about Joey Votto's Hall of Fame credentials and a plan for Nick Pivetta owners ... Yesterday's standouts (15:51) including Kevin Gausman, Cole Hamels and Hunter Dozier. And let's discuss some transactions we've made lately (23:30) and rank some infielders (26:00). Are Brandon Lowe and Tim Anderson legit? ... Bullpen updates (33:15) and then some trade talk (37:40)! Buy low, sell high and buy high. How are we feeling about Chris Sale? We also discuss guys who are off to a great start (46:40) such as Jorge Polanco and Jake Arrieta. And Grade the Trade at the end of the show! ... 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. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Frankie Montas, Sunny Gray, Kevin Gosman, Paul Hamels. Who else pitched well yesterday that we need to talk about? Frankie Montas.

I said it. It was the first guy. Oh, yeah. I was listening to you. I was just so distracted. Literally the first two words I said to start the show or Frankie Bowman. I was doing my Adam Azer impersonation. Oh, yeah, it was very good.

I do want to congratulate you guys. Both of us? Both of you. Yeah, Team scam. Team scam? What are we doing? I think 10 games over 500 for the first time in league history. That can't be true.

That's probably true. 16 and 4. And I just wanted to get that in before this week's scores went on the tally mark. Oh, we're not doing well? You're at 09 and 1 against the team that's 4 and 15. Really? Oh, all right, we got time to turn it around. Scott, it's early in the week.

Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today here on CBS Sports. If you're watching the video, thank you. Welcome. Scott, how you doing? Doing fine? Okay. Good. Well, you're getting called out.

Both of you getting called out. And our email of the day, it is from West from Oakland. Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com. That is our email address. I'm calling you out, Scott and Heath. Is this real about your rankings? Frankie Montas is not in your top 125 starting pitchers. Is that true?

That is definitely not true for me. Frankie Montas is the top 75 starting pitcher for me. Did you update that this morning? It probably was true when that guy sent the email because Frankie Montas was not on anyone's radar in the preseason. And guys, sometimes we hear things about them, we talk about them, we say, well, that's interesting. And then we don't go to our rankings for two days.

we forget to update them. What Frankie Montas has done at the start of the year with the new splitter with the ridiculous fastball velocity, he's one of the hardest throwing starting pitchers in baseball so far this year. I think you need to buy in. All right. So he's 49% owned Frankie Montas. He threw six and a third, three hits, one run, two walks, six strikeouts against the Astros. Now you see the ERA is 270.

Six walks to 20 strikeouts and 23 and a third is not great. But three of his four starts have come against teams in the bottom five in strikeouts per game, meaning they don't strike out much. All four of his starts have been against teams in the bottom nine in strikeouts per game, which does include Baltimore, by the way. If you think back to Tyler Glassnow start against Baltimore, maybe they're not a high strikeout team. I don't know.

I mean, they can't hit. Or maybe teams guys just say, you know, we're going to pitch to conduct against them. Right on. So what do you think, Scott? Frankie Bontal, I mean, it's easy to drop Corbyn Burns for him at this point. I should drop Corbyn Burns for anybody in the world. But do you think Montas needs to be owned again, only 49% owned? Nah, I'm not buying it.

I'm not buying it. There was some hype about a splitter this spring. He hardly threw it in this game. He hasn't really been throwing it that much. It kind of reminds me of the start he got off to last year. He had a 241 ERA through his first five starts. And, you know, three of them, I would say, are more impressive than any that he's had this year. Obviously, he came back to Earth then.

And I think he will this year, too. Really? Wow, what a buzzkill. Yeah, Scott does not like Frankie Montas at all. And, like, I don't think he's necessarily must own in all leagues. And I have teams where I wouldn't be able to pick him up because I just couldn't find anybody that I wanted to. But I think he's interesting. Okay. All right.

Next week, is he a two-star pitcher? No, he's a one-star pitcher against Texas next week. All right, here's our question of the day. That was our email of the day. Here's our question of the day. It is from me at Adamazer. Boston is, I think they're 6 and 13. No team has lost 12 or more of their first 18 games and made the playoffs since the Angels in 2002,

and they actually won the World Series. Will the Boston Red Sox make the playoffs? Again, no team has started as poorly as they have and made the playoffs. since 2002. Scott, will the Red Sox make the playoffs this year? Yeah. Yeah. There's really not a doubt in my mind

they're going to make the playoffs. Their pitching has been ridiculously awful in the early going. And they're already, I mean, we have reasons to suspect it was poor planning on their part. They're already beginning to turn it around. Nathan Abaldi

had a much better start yesterday. Obviously, Chris Sales' velocity was up in his last start. They're going to be fine. I mean, they've also been scoring few runs, but I mean, looking at the personnel they have on offense, that's going to change too. I think it's just one of those

baseball oddities that come mid-July. Nobody will even remember. I will say, I don't think the Red Sox and the Yankees are both going to make the playoffs. I think it's highly unlikely that both the wild cards come out of the east.

I think the race are going to win the division. and so one of those teams is going to miss. The Yankees probably seem like the most likely right now just because of all of their injury problems. But I wouldn't feel confident. If I was giving the Red Sox playoff chances right now, I'd probably put it at like 52%. They're 6 and 13.

They're 8.5 games out of first place. The race are 14 and 4. The Yankees somehow are in second place and is awful division at 8 and 9, but not currently a playoff team. I still think both the wild cards will come out of the east. I mean, I guess the twins are off to a good start, the Mariners are off to a good start, but you just look at the personnel on those five teams.

That's true. The Yankees are devastated by injury, but, you know, few of them are long-term issues. It's a long season where we're, what, we're like 10% into it. So there's plenty of time for these things to correct. Okay, pretty crazy what's going on there. Listen, this is a big week. NFL draft is in eight days on CBS Sports HQ today, Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern. They're doing a mock draft where several of our analysts are representing different teams.

It's going to be really fun. Check it out on CBS Sports HQ. This morning, you know, they're doing NBA highlights, MLB highlights. There's fantasy talk on CBS Sports HQ. Just download the CBS Sports app. I have it on my Roku. I watch it all the time. Great thing.

First thing of the morning, turn on CBS Sports. Sports HQ. It's totally free, 24-7 streaming. Just give it a look. I think you're going to be really impressed. Let's get to our news and notes. Arodis Fis Fisciano is out for the season with a shoulder injury. This team has been heavily linked to Craig Kimbril. It's going to pick up steam now. It might happen soon, and maybe he's a brave. But if he's not, A.J. Minter's the closer. How much confidence do you have in A.J. Mentor? Currently none, but I have hope. I don't have any confidence at all. He's not been good. He was pretty decent last year, but he's had injury problems of his own.

They need to go get Cremble, Kimbril, although I did see Dave O'Brien on Twitter, David O'Brien on Twitter yesterday, saying he did not think the Braves would go after Kimbril unless he settled for a one-year deal. And even then, he wasn't sure they would do it before June because they really don't want to give up the second round draft pick. Okay.

Yeah, it's, you know, I saw a better explanation for that than I've seen before because it's like how often does that draft pick pan out? But the issue is they have two first round picks this year, since they didn't sign their first rounder last year. They have the ninth overall pick and I think the 21st overall pick. And it's more about the slot money they'd lose if they lost that pick. They'd lose like over a over one million worth to sign those two first rounders, which could present an issue with how good of a player they're able to draft there. So that's that that's really the first time that I looked at it.

and said, okay, I can kind of understand why they might not sign Kimbril then. Yeah, I mean, if you're not trying to win this year, then that makes sense. Well, I mean, hell. Are they? I don't think they expect to have the ninth overall pick or anything that high for a long time still.

So you can't, you don't want to give up your opportunity to get a potentially franchise shaping piece like that. Mentor is only 50% owned. He's off to a bad start. He's giving up five runs and, five and two-thirds, four walks, five strikeouts. Last year he had a 32-3-E-R-A, 22-walks, 69 strikeouts, and 61 in a third, and the year before that, a three-ERA in 15 innings.

I don't think he's a bad pitcher, just he's off to a bad, sorry. I mean, look, if he were available in pretty much any of my leagues, I'd pick up A.J. Menter. None of your points leagues. I could see a scenario where I'd pick up A.J. Minter. I mean, maybe I have some sparse or whatever, but I have a feeling he should be on, because he's on a good team, and he's the closer. He's the guy now.

Yeah. 50% off. I mean, it's kind of the Alex Colome level, maybe even a little lower than that is where I put him. But yeah, there's not really anyone else who's going to compete for saves for a team that should have a lot of safe chances. So I do think he's, you know, maybe not in a points league where only two relievers are started on every team. You've got to figure a lot of them are sparps. But in any kind of categories league, I think, or has to be owned.

Francisco Lindoor could be back this weekend, actually. That seems maybe a little optimistic, but he could be back very soon. Good news on Francisco Linder. Oh, my gosh, Joey Vado popped out to first base for the first time in his career. That is one of the most amazing things in baseball history, honestly. Somebody sent me that note with a question. How is it even possible people are debating whether Joy Votto is a Hall of Famer? Oh, yeah, Hallfammer.

I think that's really, really interesting. I'm not sure. and I love Joey Biden. He's a great hitter. You think there's a debate? Oh, I think there's definitely a debate. His counting stats are nowhere close to Hall of Fame. But we're in the C. We're in the OBP.

I think the question is, he's got four years left on his contract after this year. If last year started the decline, and he has, I mean, Albert Pujols at age 35 was a career 312 hitter with a 588 slugging percentage, and then his next four years were pretty much terrible. If Votto takes the Poo-Holes,

path. He's not a Hall of Fame right now because obviously it doesn't matter what Pujolz is doing. I don't think he's going to retire right now. Right. What I'm saying is Pujols, he could, no matter how many bad years, Pujolus has, he's in.

Right. What about Votto? I think the thing is Pooholt has 3,000 hits. Poulas has all the home runs. Pujols has two World Series championships, three MbPs. Like he's in. Yeah.

If Votto falls to a 290 hitter for his career and has 60 war, over his career, which he's at 58 now. Poulos has been worth zero war over the last four years. I'm not sure that he is. Okay, I think he is. He led the NL and OBP last year, lest you forget.

And we could argue about how valuable he was fantasy last year, but he was still three and a half win player. Yeah, so in terms of fantasy, though, Vano is actually, I know he led off yesterday. He's led off twice this year. I don't know if it's two days in a row. That's not going to be good for counting stats. It's not going to be good for RBIs, that's for sure.

So we'll see that. Winker was batting third. I can't see them sticking with that. But just interesting. All right, Harrison Bader is on the IL with a strain hamstring. Tyler O'Neill has an elbow issue. The St. Louis Cardinals called up Lane Thomas. But Jose Martinez, he is off to a slow star, but we know he has a track record as a hitter.

And he'll probably be playing a lot more now. So that is good. You didn't seem too interested in Jose. Well, Harrison Bader was not on the DL. I think what I said was he needs one more guy to go on the DL. And now I think he'll be more in the role of what we thought that Mike Mustakis might be, where he's going to probably play just about every day, but he might come out in the sixth inning of every game because he's so bad at defense.

The funny thing is I don't think Mastakis has been very bad at defense so far at second base. But Martinez has more value now, for sure. Jacob DeGrom is going to have his next start push back a day. He has strep throat. Justin Turner's dealing with ankle and hamstring issues. Philadelphia sent Nick Povetta to the minors. That's bad. We can drop them?

Yeah, you don't know. Yeah. Okay. I mean, like the case, they fix him. He comes back and he's bad again. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I tried to put it into context in this week's prospects report because, you know, he's not a prospect, obviously.

But he is a minor leaguer. And I'm always talking about the five prospects to stash in that piece and how stashable are they compared to somebody like Nick Pavetta. And I would probably have Nick Povetta second on that list behind just Vladimir Guerrero. And when they sent him down, the Phillies talked about how they still have confidence he's going to be a top of the rotation starter for him. And perhaps even this year, they just have to put him in a lower pressure environment where he can work through these struggles because everyone matters right now and they can't afford to let him work through them at the major league level. So I think we'll see him back soon. And, you know, if we do see him back soon, it's because he's dominated the minors and everybody will be excited to pick him up again. So I'm not necessarily saying you have to hold on to him.

But I wouldn't consider him must drop necessarily if you're in the type of league where you're scouting out potential impact prospects to stash. Okay, Jared Eikoff is going to replace him in the rotation. And in a bit, we're going to talk about some guys who are moving into their team's rotations and whether or not we want to add them. I cough will be one of them. A guy pitching today, Mike Soroko, will be another. Lucas Gialito left with a hamstring injury, and he was having an awesome start against the Royals. He's about 35% own something like that, but you've got to keep an eye on his health. And obviously, he's a little bit tricky to trust Lucas Gialito.

The Giants are considering moving in their fences in right field, not this year, but we'd like to see that long term. Dustin Bidroyo left with a knee injury. I picked up Eduardo Nunes. Mitch Hanigur sat with a fever. I believe Hanager is, as of yesterday, he was leading baseball on extra base hits. Andrew Benintendi expected back tomorrow. Brian Dozier sat with a sore toe, but he came in late in the game, so he's fine. Starling Marte was hit by a pitch in the head.

He stayed in the game, hopefully Starling Marte is fine. Kristen Stewart left with the quad injury. Carlos Santana has hamstring tightness, no big deal. And Kevin Kiermeyer on Tuesday was caught stealing twice in the same inning. Do you guys know how that happened? Caught stealing twice in the same inning? Why'd you explain it to us, Adam? He stole second base, or he attempted to.

He reached an error on the second baseman, and it was rule they caught stealing. And then he was actually thrown out for realsies stealing third base. So how about that? I'm not stealing twice at the same inning. I'd just add one clarification. Brian Dozier's toe is fine. We're not sure if he's fine. We don't know if he's better than Hunter Dozier, and we will be ranking Hunter Dozier shortly

amongst other infielders. Let's get to Wednesday's standouts. Scott, lead it off. Who stood out to you in Wednesday's games? Kevin Gosman was the biggest standout for me because we've talked in the past about how his splitter is the key to his success, how we'd like to see him throw it more. And he did throw it more last year.

Didn't get the results we were hoping for. He threw it more, though, as in like 25% of the time. Well, so far this year, including, this start. He threw it 40% of the time. Big increase even from compared to the modest increase last year. And it's an increase on top of it. 19 swinging strikes in this game. Two of his starts have been, two of his three starts have been phenomenal. I was very excited to go through all my leagues and add him yesterday, which is normally not something I do midweek, drop everything to add a player. And it turns out he was owned in every single one of my leagues, which is a shock to me because I thought people were

pretty much over him. But apparently not. He needs to be owned, though. 82% owned. I couldn't believe he's 8. Actually, I think he's over-owned. I mean, this is a great start. And Arizona was his opponent, 10 strikeouts, as you see there.

Arizona scored the eighth most runs in baseball, which is shocking to me. He's got two starts next week. One of them's at Cincinnati. The other's home against Colorado. I don't know. I mean, I can't say now is a great time to drop Kevin Gossman. but I can say that I was surprised he was 82% owned, and if you told me yesterday he was 82% owned,

I would have said Kevin Gossman is very over-owned. Yeah, I'm not sure that's true. I've been pretty impressed with what he's done so far. Yeah, okay. Well, the numbers look a lot better now, especially the strikeouts. But, no, he's off to a good start. He had a 270-something ERA with the Braves last year. He just had very low strikeout rate, 44Ks and 59 and 2 thirds.

All right, fine, fine, own them. Don't drop them. Let's see where it goes. Cole Hamels is my standout and really the question, seven scoreless innings, eight strikeouts. What do we make him starts against the Marlins? You got to say it's only been one bad start for him

and it was at Texas and he's been good other than that. I just think every good start that comes against the Marlins, you have to before you talk about it, say, it's the Marlins, bud. It is. He also had a great start at Milwaukee and a brilliant start against the Angels. So, forget this Marlins start.

Cole Hamels is pitching really well. Are you buying it? I know Scott liked him. Are you Heath buying into Cole Hamels? To what degree? He has definitely moved up my rankings. I don't know that I'd go. I would not start him.

He's going to have several starts this year at Miller Park. I probably won't start him there. I'm not going to start him at course. But I'm probably comfortable with, like, it might be a little borderline against the brewers at home. But for the most part, I feel pretty comfortable starting him almost all the time. Would you rather have Shane Bieber or Cole Shane Bieber for sure. It's not close.

Scott, how about you? Yeah, I'd rather have Bieber, but I would say it probably is close. Okay, all right, cool. So good job, Cole Hamils. You got a standout? Yeah, I've got a standout. Adam Jones, he's been great. He's hitting 319 and he's only got a 327 Babib.

He's got five home runs already. He only has a 14.8% strikeout rate. He's actually walking more than he ever has. I had already gotten to the point to where I said Adam Jones is probably going to be good enough where he's must start in a five outfielder league. He might be better than that. How, though?

We know he's at the downside of his career. He's just not that good. He steals no bases. I know he has been walking, but he doesn't walk. He is only 33, and that's old, but there's a lot of players older than him that are performing like they did in their 20s. And he really just had,

one bad year. He has, I don't think he's had, I don't think Adam Jones has had a year in a while where he's been a must-start guy in a three-outfielder league. He had, other than last year, he's been a must-star guy in a five-outfielder league. Oh, yeah, for sure. But I don't know that he's been a three-outfielder league kind of guy. I don't know. 2017, he hit 285 with 26 home runs. That's really not that good when you don't steal any bases.

And he did that probably like 160 games, right? Just the guess? 147. Oh, really? Yeah. That was like one year. He usually plays a full season. He hasn't played 160 games since 2013.

Well, he usually plays 155-ish, right? Usually plays a pretty full season. It might have mattered whether that was a points, three outfielder league or a category three outfielder league, because I do think he's the sort of guy where there's a big difference in value there. It doesn't walk at all. But makes enough contact that he usually ends up hitting for a above average batting, like a good batting average.

He's also owned an 83% of leagues. That's going to be in the 60s in a month. Yeah, I just, I don't see anything so far. And listen, he was not good last year. He is 33, so he could just be bad. But I don't see anything in his profile that says, yeah, he's off to a good start, but this is not going to last. If this is anybody else, I look at his profile and he looks like he's a pretty good hitter.

All right. Basic philosophy. If you don't steal, if you steal like less than five bases a year, he did steal seven last year, but that was as many as he was. he had in the previous three seasons combined. And you don't have an 800 OPS. And you're an outfielder? I don't really think you're a useful player.

How do you feel about that? That's probably fine, but like, he was really close to an 800 OPS two years ago, and he's had an 800 OPS multiple times throughout his career. Yeah, I know. He used to be good. I think he might be good. That's a kind of a number I look for.

800 OPS. So much of what pulls down the OPS in his case is the low OBP. And if your league doesn't matter in your league, it's just batting average, then I'm not sure. I'm not sure the OPS. All right. Well, I'll try to say some more dumb things. We're going to take a quick break on fantasy baseball today when we come back. I want to talk about some transactions I've been making, some trades I've been looking to make.

Get some feedback from Scott and Heath. and also we're going to rank some infielers like the White Sox guys, the Reyes guys, Hunter Dozier, Scott Kingery, all that coming up right after this on fantasy baseball today. All right, here we go. Any, have you guys made any interesting transactions or trades lately? I'll throw it to Scott White. It's not Sunday, so probably not. My most interesting pickup, I hoped it would be Kevin Gosman, but it wasn't. I did make a trade in a very deep league where I paid quite a bit for Zach Wheeler.

And then he started out yesterday. He had three walks through the first three innings, I think it was, against the Phillies. But then he was fine. His final four innings were great. He ended up with only three walks on the day. He threw 66% of his pitches for strikes yesterday. It's been kind of a bumpy start for him. But I think there's still.

by low opportunity there. I don't, looking at the stuff itself, I'm not concerned that he's taking a step back and control issues or something he's going to battle always. But I think over the course of a full season, he's going to get it under control like he did last year and be a very good pitcher in an environment where, you know, it's hard to find guys who consistently pitched as deep into games as he does.

Zach Wheeler, how about you? I usually make my transactions on Thursday just to beat Scott in his transactions just make sure I get my choice before he does. So the only guy I've really added this week, I think of consequence, is Hunter Dozier. And he is hitting the ball very, very well, exceptionally hard. Had some bad luck at the very start of the season, but everything's gone his way lately. He had another home run yesterday. I did not add him in any league where I can't use him as a corner infielder.

Does he look like Heath? No. God, can you see that now? He looks more like Alex Gordon than he looks like me. Okay. I'm actually, I might be, our resident Royals, Homer Heath, I might be more excited about Hunter Dozier than he is because I see a guy with a good walk rate, a good strikeout rate,

high fly ball rate, so it's, you know, I'm not exactly questioning the power production. You know, he might profile as a low BABB, so the average ends up being lower than it is now. But I don't know. This is interesting. We know he's going to get a lot of playing time in that lineup. He's at least on like the Christian Walker level.

Oh, agree. I'm excited to add him. But you have to have a corner infield spot. I don't see a path for him to be a top 12 first baseman or third baseman. And he is currently, but still. Yeah, I mean, other than like as a hot hand play, And, you know, I don't, if there's nothing exciting on the waiver wire, I'm always about, particularly if there are interesting underlying stats, like in this case, I'm always about just picking up the hot hand and seeing where it goes. Sure.

Because a lot of times you end up being surprised with somebody who does become a must start option for you. All right. So some of the moves I've made, I added Framo Reyes, it's time. I dropped Corbyn Burns. It's been time. And that's in a 14 team head-to-head points league. I added Eduardo Nunez in our 12-team Roto League yesterday, and Dustin Bidroia hurt his knee, and it seems bad.

Right now, Brock Holt is on the DL with a scratch cornea. So Nunez should play, get a little bit of an audition. He's hit very poorly, but I think he's an okay hitter, but he's stolen three bases already. So it's valuable. I added Jose Martinez. We talked about him. I am working on an Aranola trade.

I want Aaron Nola. People seem to be a little concerned. He's such a good control pitcher. It's off right now. I think it's going to be fine. And I was a little surprised that you, Heath, were not a little bit more aggressive with your Chris Sale love yesterday. I thought you'd be pumped about Chris Sale. I think we probably all watched at least some of the Yankees Red Sox game two nights ago.

And I'll say this. If Chris Sale is throwing that hard, I have complete confidence in him to figure it out. And I do want to acquire Chris. I think he's going. I mean, he's still a top 10 starting pitcher for me. I haven't, I didn't move him down anymore, but he did still have another bad outing. I know, but it doesn't make any sense. Like, I, yeah.

I'm with you. I'm like, maybe one of the worst lines I've ever seen. Stop. No, I'm with you, Adam. I'm with you. Like that yesterday or two days ago now, that start, I think, for me, it relieved the, like, our worst fears. Like, they're out the window now. Like, he has, it's not a loss of ability.

He has the stuff still. The slider's probably not up to mid-season form. It doesn't seem like the command's up to mid-season form, but he's going to get there, I think. So I kind of looked at the bad result in the start where the velocity came back as an opportunity to still buy loa on him at a time when you can feel confident that he actually is Chris Sale still. All right, there you go.

Let's rank some infielders now, infielders making waves. And one of them is Hunter Dozier. And so here we go. We got two Rays, two White Sox, a Royal and a Philly. Brandon Lau is currently the number nine, second baseman in points, number six in Roto. Tim Anderson, he's been one of the best players in fantasy. He's batting four-twenty-four with four homers and six steals, one-walk-12 strikeouts, and an amazing insulting bat-flip yesterday.

Yandy Diaz, top 10th third baseman, sixth in points, 10th in Roto, and he actually has one more walk than strikeout. Scott Kingery, not pictured on the graphic, because we're not. We can only fit five, and I gave too many. But Scott Kingery is heating up, and he batted second yesterday in place of Gene Seguer, and he's 25% owned. Yoan Moncada, top three second baseman, third baseman, and second baseman, and Hunter Dozier. So again, the names, I know there are a lot.

Brandon Lau, Tim Anderson, Yandy Diaz, Scott Kingery, Yoan Moncada, Hunter Dozier. Who's your favorite, Heath? It's Moncotta. and by a fairly good margin. He is the only one of these guys that I'm getting really close to buying into like this guy might be a league winner type. And so he separates from the pack. Then it gets really, really hairy because I don't totally believe what Anderson is doing right now. I don't totally know the rest of these guys are going to get everyday playing time.

I feel like Yandy Diaz should. Yeah, Yandy Diaz is the other one for me. I would put Moncada first too, but the fact that Yandy Diaz is hitting for power before, and that was like the one thing that was missing from his profile, had been a good contact hit or a good on-base guy. What's interesting about the power is we were crediting an improved fly ball rate, and that, I mean, that's come back down a little bit. The ground ball rate is still really high for D.E.

he has, but I'm not really stressing about it right now. As long as he keeps hitting home runs at the rate he has so far, um, everything else is, is good and is going to make him very hard to sit in fantasy. And Diaz is 61% owned. Lau is 66% own. They haven't had a lot of lefties on the schedule lately.

And Lau has sat against three or four lefties at the raise have faced. Uh, so he got to keep that in mind, but he's obviously got some pop. A lot of strikeouts though. So I don't think you can expect him to hit 300, but six walks, 21 strikeouts. I mean, is Brandon Lough even going to hit 250?

Or is he going to be a liability? I mean, if he has a 30% strikeout rate all year, that might be the higher end of where I'd expect the batting average to wind up. But, you know, the strikeout rate could improve itself. You know, it's still early enough that it's kind of too high to say for sure this is who we hit. What may also determine whether he hits 250 or not is how many played appearances does he get against lefties? Yeah, right. I mean, he might hit 270, but sit way too many times.

So between Hunter Dozier, Brandon Lau, and Tim Anderson, how would you rank them? I'd go Lao Dozier. Okay, in a points league, I'd go Laudger Anderson and a Categories league, I'd go, I think I'd have to go Anderson first, even though I don't think the ceiling is nearly as high as for this other two, especially especially Lao. Yeah, I think I'd go Lao Anderson-Dosier. Dozier's definitely last. I struggle a little bit between Anderson and Low that the real tiebreaker for me is if you

look at shortstop, even as good as Tim Anderson is right now, which of those top 14 shortstop are you going to sit when they're healthy for them? Like there's so many good shortstop. Um, okay. I can't drop. Would you drop jerks and pro far for these guys? Yeah. Okay.

I would drop profar for Anderson in a category as lead, but I can't imagine that's even available. No, no, it's not. Not Anderson. Otherwise, uh, but yeah, otherwise I'd stick with pro far. All right. Um, let's, and then Kingery, you know, look, we just need him to play more. Unfortunately for Kingery, uh, Seizar Hernandez is actually heating up, too. Seizade Arnandez has been hitting great in the last like five games or so,

but Kingery's making a case, so not a bad guy to stash. He's only 25% owned. But he's a distant last in this group for me. Even if he had a regular job? Like, even if, okay, because he doesn't have a regular job. Right. Okay, okay. In the bullpen real quick here, Ryan Brazier came in in the seventh inning with the

base is loaded and won out, served up a grand slam. But they used him in the high leverage situation and it did not work. and now the Red Sox are 6 and 13. Brazier is 55% owned. Jeremy Jeffers is 48% owned. He pitched. He made a season debut yesterday. He struck out one batter in two-thirds of an inning. They were trailing in the 8th.

They just wanted to get Jeremy Jeffers in there. And then Hector Nerris got a save. So Adam Morgan, okay, Jay Garrier Eta actually started the ninth inning. We are going to talk about him. Gave up a hit. A couple lefties do up, I believe. They bring an Adam Morgan, who's a lefty. He gave up a hit and a flyout.

and then Hector Nairus comes in for a two-out save. Narris, bad in his first appearance, his last seven appearances, six innings, two hits, no runs, two walks, nine strikeouts. Brazier, Jeffress, Narris, and Blake Parker. I'm going to throw him in there too because he has four of the last five saves from Minnesota. And in the other game, when he didn't get that save, he was actually brought in for the save, but he just struggled, but I think he's their closer. How would you rank them?

Brazier, Jeffress, Narris, Parker, Heath. Oh, Jeffress. Really? Parker. Narris. Brazier. Jeffress won. I mean, that's a bit of a leap of faith.

Well, it's like saying that he's going to be a top 20 closer is a leap of faith. I'm not sure he has to be a top 20 closer to be better than all these guys. Parker's the guy. What is it that we don't like about Blake Parker? He's their closer. He's gotten the opportunity in each of their last five save chances. Okay. Well, I put him second.

The rest of the guys, I don't really think are in the conversation. He's 41. I don't think he's very good and there's so many others in the conversation. Really, that's not true. Like, Trevor Bay has been terrible and Rogers is a lefty

and since the opening day he doesn't have a save, I don't think. Maybe one. But it hasn't really been used that way. There's also Trevor Hildenberger who's off to a really good start. And I just think when Parker inevitably struggles,

it'll be very easy for them to try somebody else. And I'm not sure. I still don't feel very confident that we can say with 100% assurance he's going to get every save opportunity. No, not everyone. I was laughing when Heath was listing the options because the guy he lists last is who I'd list first,

Ryan Brasher, who only has one guy he's competing with. And I think he's still, despite the usage yesterday, he seems to be the preferred option for saves. He's on the worst team in the American League East, though. He's not going to get any chances. All right, we got some trade talk at his Thursday. So we like to talk trade here. on fantasy baseball today. And then I have a segment called,

Hey, you know who's been really good? And one called, hey, you know, it's been really bad. And we got to talk about Mike Soroka, Walker Bueller and Carlos Carrasco with excellent starts yesterday. Jay Hap, hopefully turning things around. Trevor Williams with another good start. He is a 259 ERA. Sunny Gray, we haven't talked about him.

He's 66% on. Maybe the worst thing I've said on the show this year is that Sunny Gray is a myth, and I'm done with him. That was after his first start. Well done. Yeah. You also agreed with that he was a myth, so I just wanted to throw that out there. And then hopefully some great...

The band of it's a legend. That's what kind of pick he is. Apparently. All right, we'll take another quick break. Last break of the show on fantasy baseball today. Buy low, sell high, buy high when we come back. Heath, you want to kick it off? You got to buy low?

Yeah, yeah. Of course I do. And I talked about this guy a little bit yesterday, but I am absolutely trying to buy low on Jack Flaherty right now. two of his first four starts have come against the Milwaukee Brewers in Miller Park. He's been absolutely terrible in those starts. Very, very good in the other two starts. Most importantly, in all four starts, the control has been better than it was last year. He has not had any walk problems this year.

I still think Jack Flaherty is going to be a borderline ace when he doesn't pitch at Miller Park. Scott, Bylow? So I already gave my Bylow on Chris Sale Spiel, but for VODE, purposes, I'll give it again. Chris Sale's velocity was way up in his most recent start. He peaked at 9080, average 95. It was like good Chris Sale again. And that to me relieved the worst fears. And it wasn't, it ended up, it didn't end up having a great result. But if he's able, if we, if we're confident that the stuff isn't diminished, I'm confident he is going to get his slider back at some point. The command's going to round into midseason form. He's going. to be an ace again. The fact that it was a bad start gives you one last chance to buy low on him at a time when you can feel more confident he is actually Chris Sale. All right, let's do some sell high guys now.

Go ahead. I'm going with Tim Anderson, and I think maybe somebody was joking when they said that was a disrespectful bat flip. It was. No, it was. It was very disrespectful. Let's just bat flip happily. But this is not real.

He has a 488 Bavip. He's got almost a 30% home run. fly ball ratio. He's hitting a ton of ground balls still. This is not real and there's too many good short stops for it to matter that much when he cools off. So just try to trade him for just about anybody else. Scott White

sale high. Yeah, Tim Anderson was my guy too. Boom. How about that? So let's let's Raz Heath here and say Paul DeYoung is a cell high. Not because I don't

think the power is real. But I don't think anything else he's doing is real. And he's a low OBP guy who's kind of a one-note player with the power. And as Heath pointed out, I mean, shortstop in a non-middle infielder league, you know, a league where you're not starting the extra infield. It's kind of deep. There's kind of plenty to go around. And I think in the end, DeYoung is not going to be among that top 12.

He clearly is right now. So it's a good chance to capitalize on what he's done so far. You know what's interesting, though? You know, it is a deep position, but is there anything on the waiver wire? You are going to love what's about to happen. What, what happened? You just want to move on to the next section? Buy high?

By high. Paul DeYoung? Paul DeYoung. I was going to say, I'm sure Heath even agrees that Paul DeYoung is a cell high. I do not. He's the number one shortstop in fantasy right now. We don't think he's that good. But you think what about Paul?

I think he, like, yeah, shortstop is really deep. I think he's quite likely going to be a top 10 shortstop the rest of the year. And so he is one of the guys you're going to start, even in a points league. His strikeout rate as a rookie was 28%. Last year he came back, he cut it to 25%. This year so far, it's 19.8%. He's absolutely crushing the baseball. I don't think he's going to be a bad batting average guy.

I don't think he's going to be necessarily somebody that hurts you in terms of on-based percentage. And he's hitting third in that Cardinals order. he already has 27 runs plus RBI in 18 games. He is going to have so many runs in RBI. He's going to hit 30 plus home runs, and he's going to hit close to 300. This is the danger. Close to 300?

He hit like 240 last year. He had 285 the year before. And you think he's going to hit close to 300 when his career batting average is like 26? His strikeout rate is 9% better than it was in his rookie year. But you buy that? I have bias is better approach I don't necessarily buy hitting close to 300

but this this is the danger of trying to come up with the sell high on the fly because if if the reduced strikeout rate does hold and it's still too early to know but if it does then it certainly changes the equation for me so doesn't mean I wouldn't necessarily be looking to sell high but you have to make sure it's actually selling like this would be a perfect situation for Scott to sell high and me to buy high.

Unfortunately, in all the leagues that were in together, I drafted Paul DeYoung, so it doesn't work. Would you guys rather have Paul DeYoung or Glaber Torres? DeYoung. I would rather have Torres. Paul DeYoung or Elvis Andrews. Andrews. Just say it.

That's a buy high. 100%. He got caught stealing yesterday or maybe the day before, which means he ran again. He's running. He's stealing. He's hitting. He's Elvis Andrews.

He's back. He's better than not. He's not been as good as Paul DeYoung. He hasn't been as good as Paul DeYoung. He's better than Paul the Young. You should buy high on Elvis Andrews. Scott, who's your buy high? Okay, here's one we haven't talked about today.

Michael Conforto. Very excited about what he's doing. Doesn't seem to be any playing time concerns anymore, even though he bats left-handed. But most impressively for me, his ground ball rate so far is 26%. The line drive rate is way up. The fly ball rate is way up. That's exactly what you want to see.

in the hopes that a guy makes a stud turn. And it's opposite of what the kind of the narrative was coming into the season where, oh, Chili Davis is going to ruin him. He's not going to be hitting for power anymore. It seems like the plate discipline is exactly where you want it to be, and the batted ball profile is exactly where you want it to be, and he could be poised for a breakup, maybe even like an MVP-caliber season. Yeah, Conforto is actually he's in the,

Hey, you know it's been really good section. And since 2016, he's been respectable against lefties. Last year he was actually slightly better against lefties than he was against righties. So he's not a player that even if he does, and he will play against lefties, it seems, is just going to be terrible and useless. If all of his bats were against lefties, then he'd be useless. But that's obviously not the case. Yeah, so Conforto is looking great. And honestly, like, we probably, Chile Davis, I'm sorry.

You're doing a great job. The Mets hitters have been fantastic, and yeah, Conforto is looking awesome. Would you rather have Conforto or AJ Pollock? Honestly, I was going to say A.J. Pollock as a buy low. I'm not concerned about his performance. Like, he's a good player, but I have trouble buying low on players that I pretty much know are going to get hurt at some point. Like, I would say Justin Turner is a buy low, but he's already hurt.

You know, he's not on the IL. Again, he should perform fine. I think I'd rather have Conforto. Why not? Right? Yeah, I think I would too. I just moved him ahead. And I haven't moved Pollock down.

I'm not concerned about the performance either. Right. Yeah. All right, good. Good stuff. Thank you. So to recap, by low, Scott said Chris Sale, and Heath said Jack Flaherty. Really, like, I think what you saw from Carlos Carrasco.

Well, that's so Carlos Carrasco, right? I mean, he's off to the most Carlos Carrasco start ever. You're not going to have that much time to buy low on these aces if they write the ship. And we think most of them will. So Chris Sale for Scott, Jack Flaherty for Heath. Yeah, the only one, I mean, there's a chance one doesn't. I just don't know how to pick out which one that is. There's not anything that's alarming enough underlying,

except for Chris Sale, and then that just got back. Strasbourg concerns me a little bit. I heard what Heath said yesterday on the show, and there's a lot of good things to like about Strasbourg, his home run to fly ball rate very high. his walk-to-strike-out ratio is great, but what has concerned me is just his velocity is the lowest of his career, basically.

And I would not have made Steven Strasbourg the centerpiece of my starting pitching plan, which I did. If I had known he was going to be throwing like this, he's not a soft tosser, but he doesn't have one of his biggest weapons. But he should be fine. I just, I guess he's a by-low, but not what I'm super...

There's a little more concern there when the velocity is down like it is, but it's not to the extent. sales is and I don't think it's impacted as strikeouts right no but it might it might impact his home runs you know the two I was most concerned about have been just absolutely awesome last two their last start so I'm not as concerned paxton and buller oh oh buller I have the long-term concerns yes still but yeah uh all right so the the the cell highs were paul the young for scott tim anderson for heath and also tim andersen for scott and the bye highs were paul the young for

Heath, Michael Conforto for Scott. Hey, you know it's been really good? All right, let's have a fun, positive, happy segment about these great players. Matt Chapman's been really good. Not as good as I thought. I thought he'd be higher up because, you know, they've played, he's played 21 games. But Matt Chapman's number eight third baseman and points, number six in Roto. He had 146 strikeouts in 145 games last year.

Matt Chapman has eight strikeouts in 21. Is that true? Yeah. Eight strikeouts at 20. Sometimes I put something down and just like, really? But Chapman is batting 284s off to a great start. Heath looks awesome. You know, great job by you here because I actually was going through the box scores last night

and saw Matt Chapman's name and thought, we haven't talked about Matt Chapman yet. He's been awesome. So very good job, Adam. Thank you. I think one of the reasons he's not been quite as good for fantasy yet is he only has a 250 bat-bip. And he's hitting 284 with a 250 bad-bip. He has been phenomenal, and if he keeps this up, he might be a top five-third basement. I don't know what the A's, like, this seems like close to a team-wide thing where the strikeout rates are way down.

And I don't know if it has to do with the opponents they've faced, or, you know, in the case of both Matt Chapman and Marcus Simeon, I'm looking at them as having a kind of upside I never thought they had before. I mean, Chapman's easier to buy because he was already must-own. must start before that. And now he looks like, you know, potentially top 10 at the deepest position in fantasy. But Simeon's interesting, too. I think Simeon must start right now. Hey, Scott, you know it's been really good? Jorge Polanco.

He's 79% owned. He's actually only the number nine shortstop and points, number 13 in Roto. But the twins have had bad weather and they've only played 15 games. And, you know, even just a few games less than your opponent at this point in this season could make a difference. But Jorge Palacco is batting four. He's slugging 768, and he played about a half a season last year, and if you double his stats, he would have been startable. But right now he looks like a star. What do you think about Jorge Polanco?

I would guess he's not a star, but he's only 25. So if he's entering a stage of his career where the power production improves, then I don't think that's outside the realm of possibility. The line drive rate has always been great for him. so you could make the case he actually hasn't had the kinds of babbips he should have yet I guess it was 345 last year but for the full career it hasn't really matched up with the line drive rates and a way you expect this year it's kind of a Michael Conforto situation his ground ball rate is is very low and it's you know he's getting a line drives and enough fly balls that he at least is giving himself an opportunity for a power break out. So I'm intrigued by him.

Would you guys move Jorge Polanco ahead of some of these hot starters like Danesby Swanson, Marcus Simeon, Enrique Hernandez? It's a really crowded group. I think he's still at the bottom of that group for me, but that kind of shows you the depth we're seeing at shortstop because there was already a lot more studs than we commonly see at the position. And now it's looking like a lot of the most interesting bats to emerge off the wave wire are also shortstop. So where do you fit them all in? I mean, maybe your utility spot. I think it's reasonable to think you might be starting a shortstop there.

I'm just checking in on Jerks and ProFar because I don't know what he's done lately, but I'm kind of starting to feel like Jerks and ProFar should be behind all the guys you just said and Jorge Blanco. So he hit he hit a couple home runs, I think, last week, but they were at Baltimore. They were on the road. And I don't know that he's done anything at home this year. And then I think Jose Paraz is another guy that people are going to get fed up with. Yeah. He hasn't been playing. He hasn't been playing every day.

He's been awful way he does play. All right. You know who else has been good? Jake Areeta. Yeah, Jake Arrieta has been quite good, just trying to get the stats here. He's got a 225 ERA, 12 walks, 18 strikeouts in 28 innings. but he goes deep into games three straight starts of seven or eight innings

for Jake Areetta Is anybody buying Arietta as a must start Or even a must-own guy Because last time we talked about him I said I don't even think he's must-owned He's definitely must-owned I mean he is now

I could see a scenario where like His strikeout rate's pathetic You can't It's hard to be must-owned When you strike it out But batter every other inning Yeah he has to be an elite ground ball pitch, like basically any pitcher who doesn't strike out

eight per nine at the very least has to be an elite ground ball pitcher to matter in like a standard mixed league context. And he's always been a good ground ball pitcher. He talked after this start about some changes he made some really like data-driven changes with his change up and his fastball, just making sure they're moving in the way he wants them to move more lateral movement on the change of less lateral movement on the fastball.

I don't know. It seems like he has a plan, and so far it's gone well for him. But yeah, not missing bats is something that inevitably catches up to these pitchers. I mean, he has a 525 Sierra, a 504 X-FIP. Those are obviously concerning. I will say he has, he's on. a four or five year run now of his ERA being better

than all of his peripherals. Jake Arrietta, we're talking about it. Yeah, so I don't think he's good. I don't think he's necessarily must start, but I do think that he's must own, if only because he's, you're definitely going to start him against the Marlins. And you're going to start him next week. He's got two starts. One of them is against the Marlins.

At the Mets and home against the Marlins. You know who else's been really good? Greg Holland's been really good. He has four saves and four chances. He has given up two hits, no one runs, two walks, 12, strikeouts in seven innings. And for a veteran like Greg Holland, maybe we shouldn't care too much about spring training because I know he got off to a really bad start.

But he's only 69% owns another guy that you could go ahead and pick up. Oh, yeah, that's silly. 69%. Compared to the group of closers we mentioned earlier, mentor, Brazier, Blake Parker. Yeah, that's an easy call. Holland's got to be the guy. I think it's really hard for

to judge the ownership rate of any closer that, and maybe Holland deserves to be a top 15 to 18 closer, but any closer that's not in that range, it's just hard to roster them on a points league. Yeah, I guess so. All right, so I'm going to save the bad for tomorrow. Hey, you know it's been really bad.

Let's just do, guys, we've got about 10 minutes left, so let's go quickly here. I want to read some emails. Welcome to the rotation. Mike Soroka, 39% owned. Eric Swanson. Ooh, nice start yesterday against Cleveland. Six innings, one run. Five K's.

Chris Bassett will replace Marco Estrada in the 8. his rotation and Jared Ikoff. Unfortunately, if he starts this weekend, it'll be at Colorado. But Soroka, Swanson, Bassett, and Ikoff, Scott, we welcome these guys to the rotation. Do any of them stick? Should any of them be on fantasy rosters? And would you start Soroka today against the Diamondbacks? I wouldn't. His last minor league start after a great first one wasn't so good. But I am excited about Soroka and like a general sense somebody who I think could become an impactful pitcher in fantasy this year. There are a lot of alternatives for the Braves,

and obviously Toussaint earned his rotation turn with his relief appearance last time out. He's starting on Friday. It might be as simple as whoever has the best start between him and Soroka gets the next turn. There may be a roster issue that forces them to send Soroka down right away, and then there's like a 10-day minimum weight

if they wanted to bring it back. But there is, I think there's, I think they're more or less on equal footing now. If Soroka's bad today, then obviously it's an easy call. But I think the upside is exciting for both. And if one, whichever one does stick around is probably worth rostering in mixed leagues. Maybe they're finally going to release Julio Duran.

Well, they're not going to release Max Reed. He's their best pitcher. Eric Swanson. A pretty good start. What about Eric Swanson, Heath? He's got two starts next week. He's 4% own. He's at San Diego and home against Texas.

At least he's scheduled for two starts. Yeah, and that's like those two matchups are not difficult enough. I don't think to where I would avoid a relative unknown at the major league level for two starts. He has, over the last year and a half at least, been a pretty good strikeout pitcher in the minor leagues. He's pretty much always been a good control pitcher in the minor leagues. it's interesting. I would have to be a points league and it would have to be one where I was relatively desperate

for a fifth starter in my points league next week. All right, that's Eric Swanson, and I think we're going to ignore Chris Bassett and probably Jared Eichoff. I'm a little bit excited about Icoff. I mean, he's at Colorado this weekend, so there's no reason to pick him up yet. Swanson or Eichof?

I would rather have Ikeff long term. All right, some pitchers took a step in the right direction yesterday. Walker Bueller, Carlos Carras. Casco, Nate Avaldi, and Jay Hap, I think, right? You seem skeptical? I mean, he had a quality start. That's good. Happ, you're talking about it.

Yeah, he struck out four batters and six and a third. You can't dispute that it was, quote, a step in the right direction. It was a first time throwing more than the fourth of third. Definitely a step in the right direction. I'm skeptical, but I think next week he's got two starts, and one of them's at San Francisco. I think you start him. At the Angels and at San Francisco. Jayhap has actually been one of the most consistent pitchers over the last three or four years.

He's a 350-ish-E-R-A guy. He's been about a strikeout per inning. It's either all falling apart or he's a great by-low. He's old, so it might be the first. Yeah. But if he figures it out, he's an underrated player. His swinging strike rate has always been good on the four-seamer, and that's still been true this year.

So I'm more leaning by low on him, though he doesn't. He obviously doesn't have the upside of like a Walker Bueller or a Carlos Carrasco. Here's a funny stat for Carrasco. As dominant as he was last yesterday, he still has a 741 ERA 176 whip on the season. Two of his four starts have been 12 strikeouts. And that's his ERA and whip, which kind of, it's kind of a fun with numbers situation. And a reminder, if you're just looking at the overall numbers, like it doesn't take much to completely warp a stat lines. One awful start is enough to do it.

It's been two awful starts, though, for Carlos. Yeah, it's been two in his case, but one is all it would take. You're right, you're right. All right, guys, fringey starting pitchers, and then if we have time, some emails, fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Just tell me who you like on this list. Zach Godley, Sonny Gray, Michael Waka. Don't know how he did it.

Jake Oteresey, Lucas Gialito, and Yanni Torinos, who got a win yesterday, but he didn't start, came in in the second inning. Godly, Gray, Waka, Miley, Odarezi, Giolito, Chorinos. Gray's going to move up in my rankings quite a bit, but I had him outside of my top 75, so he needed to move up. He's been surprisingly good since you were so rude to him. Godly is someone that I think I was higher on than just about everyone else, and he'd been pretty bad to start the year.

This wasn't necessarily a good enough start to make me feel great about him, but it is enough to where I'm not going to, I'm still holding on to him. And that's it. You don't want Waka. You don't want Oteresee. Gialito, Chorinos. Miley.

Yanni is probably my favorite pitcher out of that group. Not for fantasy purposes, though, right? Well, in a category. Probably, you've been the best so far. I know, but he doesn't, he's now, he's now not necessarily a starter,

because he made some starts earlier. It really depends on your league settings with Yonnie, I think. Yeah. Scott, how is Michael Waka doing this real quick? Is he good? I'm not sure. I mean, the walks have been really high, too, and I don't think his last start was very good.

I think fringe is appropriate. I think he's in that Julio Tehran class of pitcher where... He's not that bad. You're always interested in him when he's making two starts, when he has good matchups, but the upside just isn't so high that you ever feel like you have to keep him on your roster. The only must add from this group, in my mind, is Sunny Gray. you know,

Torino's is interesting, Godley's interesting, Waka, fine, but they're not must own in like a 12-teamer, shallower context. And then the other three, Oteresee G. Alito, Wade Miley,

got to see a lot more. I mean, Miley's done a good job with run prevention, but he had one strikeout in this, what was probably his best start of the season. And I think only four swinging strikes. So that doesn't seem like

path to success. You had four strikeouts, right? Yesterday? Giley? No, Miley. I'm sorry. I think he said godly. Miley, godly. Very similar. Okay, those are your fringy starting pitchers, and I'm going to try to do a mailbag tomorrow. We got 10 games, so I'll try to do a mail. I don't really feel like doing any work, so I'll just let the listener do it. That was obvious. Yeah, but we'll get some emails in tomorrow.

Grade the trade to finish the show. Here we go. Ethan from Cincinnati. But go St. Louis Cardinals. Gray of the Trade, I got offered this in our 12-te-to-head points Keeper League. You can keep eight players for as long as you want. I give up Chris Sale and Domingo Santana. I get Cory Klobber or Carlos Carrasco. Who do you want? In a Keeper League, you can keep as long as you want.

I think it's Carresco. Okay. So you give up Sale and Santana for Carasco and Chris Bryant. Oh, wow, yeah, that's a great trade. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, the pitchers are both kind of old, right? How old's Carasco?

He's on the wrong side of 30, right? He's in actual, in baseball years, he's about 30 years younger than Cory Klooper. Just look at that. Farrasco is 32. Klubber's so old-looking. I would, Brian is just, I'm a little worried about Brian,

but I think it's too good of a second player, so I agree you have to, do you have to make this trade? Sorry, Cluber, you're not really old-looking. He's just like, he just, there's something about him. He just feels like kind of older. I don't know.

From Stacy, grade the trade. I was offered Christian Yellich, who I can't keep next year. I would give up Eloy Jimenez and Tyler Glassnow, and I could keep them both for three more years. Yikes. Eloy and Glass Now for Yelich, losing three years of keepers.

You know, that's a lot. to give up. What do you think? Great the trade. It would depend to me how much roster turnovers and it's like how many players are you able to keep. If you're keeping like your whole roster and there's not really a chance to restructure

your team in the offseason, then I I'd be kind of interested in doing it. But otherwise if it's mostly a, you know, everybody keeps a handful of players and... Great the trade. I'll go

I'll go C-minus. From Mike, grade the trade. I was just offered Eloi Jimenez for my Mike Mustakis. I've got Murphy on the IL and Wong is on waivers in a 10-te-head-to-head categories league, so he'd give up Mustakis and get Eloy Jimenez. Great the trade. That's about a C. That's pretty even, I think.

More upside to him. But Mustakis is plenty startable. I think Eloy has more upside, even though Mustacus probably has 40 homer upside. I'll take the Eloy side. Last one from Fernando in New York City, grade the trade, 12 team points league. I'm good at starting pitcher. I give up Erman Marquez. I get Adelberto Mondesi.

It's a points league. He says I need speed. I don't get that. What? Yeah, he said points league. Are you sure it's a points league? I'm reading what he wrote. Points league, I need speed.

You never need speed in a points league. Maybe they're like roto points. you know? Well, okay, taking it this is at face value, I think in a points league, it's a bad trade. It would, I mean, you'd probably, Mondesie probably went later in drafts, and Marquez, I think, stock has risen since drafts.

So this is a... Points League D plus. Points League D plus, how about a Roto League? If it is a Categories league. B. Marquez from Mondice. B? Yeah. Yeah, sounds right.

Thank you so much, Scott White and Heath Cummings. We're going to come back tomorrow on Fantasy Baseball today and read your emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. I'm Adam Azer. Talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Baseball today.