Fantasy Baseball Today - 04/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Trade Targets, Rankings Review, Thames Watch

Episode Date: April 25, 2017

A bunch of buy low (Hanley Ramirez, Danny Salazar) and sell high (Jake Lamb, Zack Greinke) names for you on today's show! Get ready to make some trades ... Eric Thames hit two more home runs and now we're wondering if he is a Top 20 OF. Would you rather have Thames or Carlos Gonzalez? Would you rather have Ryan Zimmerman or Jose Abreu? Austin Hedges or Willson Contreras? ... Reviewing the noteworthy performances from Monday's games including 17 more swinging strikes from Jason Vargas. And it's Team Name Tuesday! ... 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

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the show. You know we're doing the Thames Watch today, and we have a new name for Team Name Tuesday. Get excited. But first, are you hiring with ZipRecruiter.com? You can post your job to 100-plus job sites, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, all with a single click. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. Support our show. Support your business. Go to ZipRecruiter. All right, guys. This is Adam Heath and Chris for now. We are waiting for Scott to come in and brag about Eric Thames MVP. How are you guys this morning? It was a great night of baseball. It was? Yeah.

Not at all a great night of baseball. It was a very boring night of baseball, with the exception of Eric Thames. Agreed. The Royals got beat 12 to 1. That was fun. Several major league debuts, including one that if he was ever actually good, would be great for team names. Who?

The Pirates new pitcher, Never Oskis? The first, Never Say Never Oskis, the first Lithuanian born and raised player in baseball history. That's what it said.

That was circulating on Twitter and then somebody came out and debunked it and said that somebody from Lithuania played the majors in the 30s. Really? Now, what I read

was born and raised in Lithuania. Born and raised, it might have been like someone who came here very young. So as long as we don't say the first Lithuanian, then that's fine. Yeah, okay.

Because I was even surprised. Like, why are they phrasing it born and raised? It must be a reason for that. I guess maybe there is. Well, anyway, congratulations to Neveralskis for getting into game and making his country proud. That's Devitis, DeVitis, Neversus. Yeah. So he's not that important.

Now, on the other hand, Christian Arroyo, is he important? San Francisco called up Christian Arroyo. Shortstop eligible went over four, but he played third base last night. Eduardo Nunez was in the outfield. So this is a guy that could be shortstop and third base eligible. The Giants need some help. Is the royal guy that's going to help them and help fantasy owners? I think the most likely answer to that question is no,

but I did put in a claim for him in our NL-only league. And I also added him without asking Chris. Team Kreef added him in the 16-team league because we keep one roster spot open that's just for either of us can go add somebody at a moment's notice without asking. Oh, that's cute. So Adam Frazier was cut, and we picked up Arroyo just in case. Yeah, I don't see a ton of reason to get excited about him as a mixed league option based on what he's done in the minors.

I just, like, the batting average is good, but it seems like that's kind of all he might be good for. It's kind of like Brandon Crawford and Joe Panic. Like, the Giants kind of have a lot of those guys. Sure, but. It's a hard span. those guys like Brian Crawford having the 20 homer season that he did or Joe Panic developing the way he did that that's not the norm no even for the giant in a 16 team league I think it's a spy and speculation I mean the one variable that you guys hey Scott's here yeah hey Scott what's up um the one variable you haven't mentioned is is obviously how he was performing at AAA prior to the call up where he had um had a good 16 games completely had blown away any home run pace he showed earlier But it was it, hitter-friendly, hitter-friendly PCL. And he's going to the park most known for suppressing power in the majors.

So, you know, I can't say for sure that at age 21, he wasn't having some kind of breakout, and maybe that inspired the Giants to call him up. But just looking at the lengthier track record, you know, he's, I put him 27th in my shortstop rankings, just behind like Tim Anderson and Orlando Arcia. So I'm not, I don't have the highest expectations either. All right, this Christian Arroyo just called up by the Giants and again went over for yesterday. Would you guys rather have Arroyo or Taylor Motter?

Modder. Yeah, Motter. All right, moder it is. Now, I'm going to ask you guys, who would you rather own? We're going to do Bilo Sell High, by the way, in a little bit. We'll talk Eric Thames, bad night for some. two-star pitchers. Amir Garrett and Chad Kuhl were terrible

yesterday. And, you know, Cool was only like 35% owned. Garrett was started in over 80% of leagues. And Garrett, I mean, this was, I think he's got the Cubs this weekend, right? So this was a Cubs Brewers week, and now you're just hoping he doesn't kill you twice.

Anyway, who would you have... What'd you say? Thames the brakes. Is that spontaneous, or did you practice that in front of the mirror? No, he tweeted this like 14 hours. Oh, okay. Who would you rather owed? Ryan Zimmerman, he of the 379 batting average with seven home runs, or Jose Abraeo? Abraeo. Okay, so here's what I've been struggling with with Ryan Zimmerman. I actually wrote about this same thing with Francisco. Wait, can you answer the question first and then do the explanation?

Jose Abrae. Okay. But with regards to Ryan Zimmerman, how much does, in this whole flyball revolution thing? Ryan Zimmerman and Francisco Indoor are two of the biggest gainers in fly ball rate. And both have talked about how they're not trying to hit more fly balls. I know Ryan Zimmerman, there was a lot of talk in the offseason about how Daniel Murphy was working with him to improve his launch angle. And then he's basically said, no, I'm not trying to do that. I haven't changed my swing. I'm just trying to be an overall good hitter, and I'm healthy. And I'm healthy.

But he is hitting more line drivers. He has increased his launch angle, and he has kept that up with a high exit velocity. So my question is, does it matter that he's not trying to if he is doing that? Does that make it less sustainable? No. I think it does, but the fact that he's healthy and hitting this well is a very good sign in and of itself. I will just say that Jose Abraeu has a career high 42% fly ball rates and a 0% home run to fly ball rate. So he's hitting a lot more fly balls too.

All right, well, Scott, what's your answer? Would you rather have Zimmerman or Jose Breu? I'd rather have a Breu. But on the subject of Zimmerman, I think just the volume of injuries he's had over the last two, three years. I do think health is an important variable here that it may just be as simple as that. Right, but it also makes him much more likely than most players to get. get hurt again. Sure. I mean, yeah. It's, yeah, the injury risk is high with him. So is this just like, let's ride it out and see where this goes with Ryan Zimmerman, or would you be

trying to sell Ryan Zimmerman? I have multiple trade offers out where I own Ryan Zimmerman. Well, like what? Um, like a brave. I would, I would trade Ryan Zimmerman for a break. I'm trying to, let me find that. Yeah, I mean Look, it might just be okay to see where it goes, you know? You don't have to trade them and just... Sometimes when you get somebody for nothing, you just... Right.

Like Cory Dickerson, right? I feel like Cory Dickerson, he's been really good against lefties, and even in his Colorado days, he wasn't good against lefties. So I feel like regression is coming, especially with the batting average for Dickerson. But he'll probably have a, you know... I haven't in a five-outferial league. Dickerson's probably going to be a guy I'm starting. rest of season most weeks at least so look I could try to trade him I don't know what I'm

going to get for him or I could just say hey let's enjoy the ride see where we go right the point you were making about getting someone for nothing I mean there's on the one hand you could think oh great I can cash this in now for something that cost somebody more than nothing but I do think there's this concept of like in a standard mixed league scenario what the minimum the minimum threshold of a starting caliber player at whatever position is on a champion championship caliber team, like the minimum threshold for a first baseman on championship caliber team is somebody probably not too unlike Jose Abreu at first base. So if you're talking about trading a player for the minimum threshold, like that's the minimum you should be looking

to get. Well, it just, it depends whether you believe Ryan Zimmerman can meet that threshold. Well, no, it doesn't necessarily. If you're not getting the minimum threshold back in any trade. No, I'm not like, it's kind of just a waste of time. You're kind of just better off waiting to see where it goes. I found the trade offer that I made. And it was a combination. I'm trying to sell high on my side and bylaw on the other side. So I offer Danny Duffy and Ryan Zimmerman for Hanley or Marys and Justin Verlander. It's a quasi-azer trade, but it's also, it's not so bad. I think people would have legitimate reasons to be concerned about Hanley. I would still rather have him than Ryan Zimmer. Yeah, that's a good offer. I mean, it's a worthy try on your part. It was rejected.

I'll tell you a trade offer I made a little bit later last night that I actually think it's one of the more fair trade offers I made this year. I'm sure it'll get rejected, but we'll see. Who would you rather own Evan Longoria or Eugenio Suarez? Longoria. Yep. Yeah, but he was kind of a fringy starting third baseman coming into the season, and so I'm definitely starting Euhanyo before ahead of him right now. I just want to say something about Aeohono Suarez because people have said, well, he had a big April last year. He really didn't.

Suarez hit 4.30-year, 435 with four home runs in his first six games. And then he cooled off considerably. So this is a much longer hot streak this year for Suarez. Just saying. All right, but we'd still take on Goria. Finally, who would you rather? their own. I know what you're going to say, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Austin Hedges, another homer yesterday. He is now batting 297 with six homers in his last

11 games. Austin Hedges or Wilson Contreras. Contreras. You knew what we were going to say. Yeah, Contrars. I did, but it's a little concerning with Wilson Contreras. He has sat four times in the last seven games. That is concerning. And they have the assets to play the hot hand in Chicago. Joe Sting it. He'll be the hot hand eventually.

Joe Madden, man. I was going to bench Kyle Swarber, you know, that's not happening. He's a little unpredictable. But seriously on Contreras, we should probably talk about this. Are you moving him down in your rankings? Because he's not playing nearly as much as we'd like. I've tried. I think we all have done a pretty major rankings overhaul in the last three or four days. And when I got to the catcher position, yeah, I'd like to move Wilson Contouris down. I want to move Russell Martin down. There's all kinds of guys I'd like to move down at the catcher position.

But that means that I have to move somebody else up. And they all suck. I mean, you could move up edges, I guess, is Adam's point. Into my top five catchers? Yeah, no, I didn't either. I moved hedges up to like 15th, I think. Yeah, it's an uninspiring group right now. Who's the top catcher in fantasy is like

Real Muto still? McCann, right? I'll check, but yeah, look, it's been such a terrible position. Posey's been bad. Lucroy's been awful, and Gary Sanchez... Yeah, he's been sitting a lot. Austin Hedges, by the way, is your number one catcher in fantasy, right? Oh, no, sorry, that's free agents.

J.T. Real Muto is one. Austin Hedges is two. McCann is three. Salvia's four. Yeah, look, you know, you drafted those cats. He's actually that big three, because you thought you were going to get a leg up on the competition. Right now it is not happening. Chris told you not to.

Some of us didn't. He knew Buster Posey was going to get a good game. It's been three weeks. Let's relax. Russell Martin just hit a home run yesterday. Can you please stop? Can you please get out of the way in the victory parade? We're going to run you over.

Things are going to normalize here. All right. Let's do the Thames watch. Eric Thames went three for three with two homers off a beer. Garrett, a lefties. He's homering off lefties too. He's batting 373 with a 481 on base, okay, 13 walks, 18 strikeouts, a 9-10 slugging percentage with six doubles in addition to 10 home runs. And Thames right now is the number one hitter in fantasy.

By herself, Scott White is not crazy for thinking that Thames will finish in the top five in the MVP. First of all, top five in MVP voting is what you wrote here. You put a number on it. I just said he'd be in the MVP conversation, so you're kind of putting words in my mouth here. I did a little bit of research this morning. Okay. And Thames is the 56th player to hit at least 10 home runs before the calendar turns to May. He, I think, is the 13th in the last 10 years.

And if you look at the guys that have done it in the last 10 years, you go back farther and you get into the steroids era, which may or may not be fair to Thames. The average home run for the guys that hit at least 10 home runs was 33 for the year. Okay. I think that's a fair overrunner for Thames right now. Well, that includes some guys that got hurt. It also includes A-Rod that was on steroids. It includes who was the Tigers guy? That's going back too far.

Okay, that's even further? Yeah, yes. And I did see his name, and I did not even remember who he was. I will point out, baseball savant has... Shelton. Yes, Chris Shelton. Has released a stat called Expected Wobah. Oh, okay.

That basically tries to predict a player's offensive production. based on the quality of contact that they've received. And I looked at it, and it was more predictive of a player's Wobah in the following season than their actual Woba. So that's a good sign. He has one of the largest gaps between expected Wobah and actual Wobah, but his expected Wobah would still be better than Mike Trout's best season. Now, Wobah is weighted on base average. It should be Waba, but nobody, all the Babbat people out there. don't seem to hold the same rules for Wobba sounds dumb,

Babib sounds dumb. No, Babbab sounds dumb. Wobha sounds great, I think. Wobba's terrific acronym. But, yeah, so Wobah is basically kind of like a little bit more inclusive version of OPS, right? Yeah, it just, it weights things a little more fairly. And to that point, yes, if Eric Thames hits the ball like he has the first three weeks of the season. I was making a joke that, like, even if.

he regresses, he still hit the ball like a superstar. Right. He has hit the ball like a superstar. I still think you sell him. For what? I asked you off the air, would you rather have Carlos Gonzalez or Eric Thames? You said cargo. Chris, I don't know what you said. Scott, you weren't here. I would rather have Carlos Gonzalez, but I don't know if I'm trading Eric Thames for him. There are enough questions about Carlos Gonzalez that, I don't know, like those, like, would you rather when you actually put them in practice? There's no way. trading Eric Bames right now.

You know, the funny thing is, like, you talk about 33 home runs. That's what you said? It was the average. He's got 10. If he hits 23 home runs over the next five months, he's going to be pretty disappointing in fantasy. Well, unless he's just hitting like 50 doubles and still ripping the ball over the park. Or, you know, he could always exceed the average.

If he had 50 doubles in Miller Park, that's disappointing. The other thing I saw is seven of his home runs are against the Reds? Yes, yes. I know all of his homers off lefties are against the Reds. Four. He's up to four. He's both. Yesterday's. We're off, we're off Amir Garrett. Let's wrap up the Thames Watch. Which, by the way, he started against Amir Garrett. That's also a good sign. Let's wrap up the Thames Watch, Scott. You have any final thoughts?

He's 19th in my outfield rankings now. So he's five spots behind Carlos Gonzalez. I didn't move him up that much. No, I've either. Okay. All right. And that brings us to the tweet of the day. It's from Nathan Pickle. And he says, new segment for Pod, Team Thames Tuesday. And yes, I agree. I think we're all team thames. Yeah, but it's now Team Thames Tuesday

instead of Team Name Tuesday. And here are a couple of Eric Thames, Team Thames, from CR. Can't Be Thamed. Okay. Not bad. Not bad. And from Aetrain, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Okay. They could have a good logo. There you go. Can I come up with one? It'll be a segment that we can discuss which player currently not in the majors can be the next difference maker. Player to be themed later. Yes.

I love it. Yours is so much better than Heath's. Gosh, Heath, you've got to really work on your team names with the Yasmani. I are outstanding. Yasmadi, Money, Tomas Problems. It's still nothing. It's awesome. Okay.

Let's do the big news. Jack Peterson is on the deal with a groin strain. He could be back in just 10 days. Should we be picking up Cody Bellinger? No. Okay. No? I picked him up and I dropped, yeah.

I dropped Trey Mancini because Seth Smith is back in the lineup. And I picked him up just because I think if you have a bench spot and you can stash a prospect, not a bad idea. I mean, the answers to these questions aren't universal. Sure. Julio Reyes is going to start Thursday. Ian Desmond took BP. He's making good progress. Dustin Bjoria day to day with a knee injury.

Devin Mazzaraco will be activated. Friday. Uh-oh, Shelby Miller on the deal with elbow inflammation, and he is going to get a second opinion on his elbow from that elbow doctor whose name I don't know how to pronounce. Ella Trash. Ella Trash. Okay. Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's a reminder that throwing hards not always a great sign.

It sometimes does portend elbow injuries because you're putting a lot more stress on your arm than you're used to. And I just want to point out that I don't actually know. No, it's Ella Trash. That's just what I want it to be. Oh. It could be that. Ele Trache.

Could be that, too. But he's a renowned elbow surgeon, and he's looking at Shelby Miller's elbow. Time for an auto-correct. Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Brain is day-to-day after fouling a pitch off his foot. I put FOT in the notes, but that's a typo, not an auto-correct. Still no timetable for Josh Donaldson. And I know we have, but I don't think it'll be too long. And I know we have a lot of Canadian listeners, so please, please go.

go to CBS Sports.com and check out Jonah Carey's interview with Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. I probably didn't need to tell you that he is the Canadian Prime Minister. American listeners can also listen to it. They don't talk Canadian? You can understand it. It is also a podcast, but on the website, yeah, you can read the transfer. You give some great advice. They have subtitles.

They do. Yes. So let's do buy low. sell high. I asked you guys for two of each. We'll know his arc here of Bilo Selhigh. Heath, why you kick us off? Give us... No. I... I...

I thought I was going last. Okay. My names aren't even in the list. Scott, do you also want to go last? I can give you a cell high. Give you a sell high, Scott. I believe Greg Holland to be a cell high. Wow. He is the number one

relief pitcher in fantasy, and, you know, it's less because I don't believe Greg Holland is a good pitcher. I do think he is, but confidence in the Rockies, in who will be closing for the Rockies, how many save opportunities he's going to get. They have a history of getting off to very hot starts and then fading in the summer months. But it's been a disproportionately high number of opportunities for him early. It is worth pointing out.

It's worth pointing out. They have three starters who are going to be in the lineup within the next few weeks. who are not there right now. That's questionable. In the next month. No, their talk, I was just reading something about how they may just play Ian Desmond in the outfield for Herodoro Parra, because they want to leave Mark Reynolds at first face. I'm just a sixth don't run. I'm sure they currently think that.

Well, anyway, I don't think Greg Holland's going to get 60 saves. So I offered him, you sent out an on-the-block update yesterday, Adam, saying you would trade Dylan Bundy in a points league where his RP eligibility matters, straight up for a legit top five closer. And I offered you Holland in the hopes you consider him a legit top five closer because I do not. I got Holland, I got a Kelvin Herrera, I got a Edwin Diaz. And I mean, they're all perfectly fair offers. But for Bundy, I'm trying to get, you know, Chapman. I already got turned down for Kenley Janssen.

The thing is, like, in a points league, if you guys play in these Sparkleagues, If Dylan Bundy has his best case scenario season, I think he's probably going to score more fantasy points than any closer. Like Danny Duffy might outscore him, but if those Sparps have great seasons, they will probably outscore any closer. So just something you should know. Not saying you should value him more than Jansen, but just something you should know. Chris, you did your homework. Give me some by-lows and sell highs. Okay, I will go with two bylaws.

I will start with Hanley Ramirez, who I mentioned earlier. I wrote about him yesterday. I think there is a lot of reason to be optimistic about Hanley Ramirez, despite the slow start. He has, I was looking it up on stat cast. They have the stat barrels, which is basically an ideally struck ball. It's a ball that goes for a hit about 80% of the time. he's four for eight on barreled balls. That right there,

like that alone tells you that he's had bad luck. He's had a couple of really hard hit balls that were just robbed by great catches. I posted some jiffs in the article I wrote, so I think Hanlon Ramirez is going to be just fine. But isn't that just like two hits? Do that really make a big difference? Well, they both would have been extra base hits. There's a couple others.

He's one of the guy, one of the biggest differences between expected Wobah and actual Wobah. I think he's third on that list. And yeah, I still think you can look at Hanley Ramirez and say he's probably the same guy he was last year and just has had some bad luck. Okay, good to know. And another by-low? Justin Verlander. The numbers aren't great. Strikeout rates down, walk rates up, ERA's up.

but I'm not worried about it. The stuff seems to be there. The stuff actually seems improved. He's throwing a little bit harder. I'm just, we've seen him get off to slow starts and then find it over the last couple of seasons. So if the person who owns Justin Verlander in my league is worried, I will gladly take him.

There's been some talk about Verlander perhaps tipping his pitches, which you would think would be easily correctable. correctable tipping his pitches heath have you ever been cow tipping i have never been cow tipping that was an activity in my hometown um that thing i know many people that have been cow tipping that was not yes they got it fine i don't know yeah cows lay down and stand back up all the time would yeah but that's being forced yeah they just get pushed over you've been pushed over before and it hurts he's got to run it's not cool i'm going I'm glad you said no to that, Heath.

I'm glad you said that. No, I've never been cow tipping. I'm going to, let's just start an argument right now, and I'm going to buy low on Danny Salazar. That's shocking to everybody, right? I know the walks aren't under control. He's got a 431 babib and a 69% strand rate, despite the fact he's only giving up 25% hard contact. He's got a FIP of 2.02, an X-FIP of 2.8, and an ERA over 4. If you can get somebody to trade you Danny Salazar based on his ERA,

they only maybe view him as a number four starter now or something like that, then go get him. Okay. I'm going to give you guys some by-low candidates. You tell me if you agree. Mark Trumbo batting 214 with one home run. He is not hitting any more ground balls than he did last year. His line drive percentage is way up, according to baseball reference.

But 3.8% home run to fly ball ratio. Now, we weren't expecting Trumbo to repeat. Pete last year, which was crazy. And by the way, the home run to fly ball ratio on fan graphs and baseball reference is different. They count different types of hits. But still, very, very low. And Trump was just a streaky player. So, I don't know.

I think he's somewhat of an obvious buy low. Agree, disagree? Yeah, I would buy him low. Okay. Okay, here's one, and I did put out a trade offer yesterday, for Eric Hosmer. And then I read an article about how Hosmer is just punishing the ball. to the ground, hitting just a ridiculous amount of ground balls.

What did you say? He's punishing himself, if that's the case. Yeah, he's hitting way too many ground balls. He hit a lot of last year. He's hitting even more of this year. Look, I'm not going to try to get too fancy with Eric Hosmer. He's part of a trade. Like, I'm trying to get an upgrade in pitching and downgrading it hitting, but getting

Hosmer back. Here's a deal. I think he's a solid player. I don't think he's going to hit 25 home runs, but I think he can give me some batting average. And he's been so bad. And I know Hosmer's not a $192. hitter. I know based on the world baseball classic, he's better than Paul Goldschmidt, right?

So I just feel like law of averages, Hosmer's going to turn it around. I think you're right. I've downgraded Hosmer slightly, and I wonder if the whole free agent thing is having a negative effect on him and he's just trying too hard. I don't know, but there's no question of my mind. Eric Hosmer has a hot street coming in the next three or four weeks, and he's going to look like a good hitter again, and people will get fooled. Yes, if you can get him for nothing, that's fine. Just to bring... He's just not that good, though.

No, he's not, but he's good in a corner infield sense. He doesn't meet the minimum standard. I would much rather have Ryan Zimmerman than Eric Cosmer at this point. That's exactly where I was going to... I don't know if I'd much rather have Ryan Zimmerman. I would much rather have him. Because there's a chance that no matter which one I choose, in three months, I'm going to have to find another corner infielder anyway.

So give me the guy who's hitting right now. All right, well, here's the trade offer I made. I offer Jake Lamb and Garrett Cole for Hosmer and DeGrom. I was going to say that Jake Lamb would be one of my favorite cell highs. He is one of my favorite cell highs. And I think he's good. But I still, I'm worried about the whole humidor thing. Well, he's got a 30% strikeout rate in a 420 babb.

And they're getting ready to put a humidor and take away half his home runs. Right. So I'm trying to use Hosmer to really upgrade my pitching by downgrading my hit. It's part of a bigger deal. I'm not just trading Lamb for Hosmer because I think Lamb is better than Hosmer. That's a pretty savvy offer, I think, except I think DeGrom's off to such a good start. The other owner's not going to go for it. But I think I get where you're going with that.

Like Lamb, Hosmer using that switch to upgrade it pitching in a way that may not actually end up being a downgraded hitting. And Heath and I have been like trying to diagnose Eric Hosmer over the last few days. And it's just like, his batted ball profile is just all wrong. Like, he hits the ball in the air to the opposite side and then pulls the ball on the ground. And that's just not what you want to do. Only when it rains. You can't pull the ball and try with it. That's not the best way.

Like, he's kind of the opposite of Christian Yellich, who is a player who probably doesn't have the raw talent that Eric Cosmer does. We've talked about all the time. Eric Cosmer looks like a dang baseball player. Oh, yeah. but Christian Yellich pulls all his fly balls. Pull, I don't know. I got confused for a saying. You're in my head.

He talked about pooling a ball. I thought he was talking about Jake Lamb again. And hits all of his grounders the other way. That's a way that you boost your babbip because balls hit the other way on the ground and on the, on a line are more likely to go for for hits. And balls pulled are likely to go for home runs. Eric Hosmer's got it all backwards. Yeah, because there's no water on the field.

It's all in the fountains out in the outfield. I don't know. You're going to pull a ball. You've got to hit it over the myths. How Eric Cosmer goes about entirely fixing his approach at the play. He's in a slump. He's in a slump. He's batting 192.

Eric Hosmer, if you go back, like, not last year when he was more of a home run hitter, the year before that, he's a top 10 first baseman because he hit around 300. He drove and runs. He scored a bunch of runs and had a bunch of RBI. The lineup's not as good anyway. Yeah, the lineup's not. No, that's just not that. The lineup's pretty much the same.

The lineups, they're underperforming. The Royals have scored two or fewer runs at eight straight games. That is crazy. Eric Cosmer's going to hit between 270 and 300. He's going to score between 180 runs and drive in the same number and hit around 20 home runs. Do you think Gregory Polack? That's what he's done for seven years. Do you think Gregory Polanco?

No. Come on. Can I see this up? Hold on. The last two seasons, he's had those RBI and run totals, before that it was not that. For one year because he played a three years. 130 games. A year before that, it was 86 and 79. Okay.

I've enjoyed the Eric Cosmer podcast today, fellas. Did you read the I-M I sent you guys? Yes. Okay. Well, Chris, maybe you should read that, and it would help clarify by stance here. It says, we got to go a little faster. We have a lot to get to. Is Gregory Polanco a by-low candidate? People are talking about dropping Gregory Polanco.

Are you worried about him, though? He's been dropped in my 10-team league. Did you put in a claim? I couldn't. I have three outfielders that are better than Gregory Polanco. I still have Polanco ahead of Thames. Does that make me a bad person, considering I move Thames up to 19? I still have Polanco ahead of Thames.

It just means that you think Gregory Polanco is going to be in the MVP discussion. Okay. I said I wouldn't fall out of my chair if Eric Thames is in the MVP discussion. I didn't say Eric Thames will be a top five MVP Finner. But how can you be in the MVP discussion if you're not in the top five? There are more than five players in the MVP discussion. Not really. Not like the legit.

But Gregory Polanco. Pittsburgh has the seventh most of bats against lefties this year. So I'd like to see him get a few more of bats against righties. And I think he'd be an obvious by-low candidate if I weren't concerned about Polanco's shoulder. Bingo. Yeah. What do you think? I think exactly that.

He's still a good bi-low candidate. Like, I'm still buying low on Gregor-Ir-Planco. I agree. If someone in your league wants to drop him, then you can buy him for very low. I would try to trade Ryan Zimmerman for him. Okay. Let's do some sell high in just a second. But look, we're always giving away free stuff on this show.

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ZipRecruiter makes this process so simple. Your business is really going to benefit from it. And that's why ZipRecruiter has been used by Fortune 100 companies and thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. It will work for you. Right now, our listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free by going to ZipRecruiter. dot com slash strike that's zip recruiter.com slash strike try it for free people ziprecruiter.com slash strike i'm my jake lamb was my cell high and who else who you guys got uh again like i you know i like jake lamb i've always been kind of the lamb guy but i'm worried about the humidor and uh and just all

the strikeouts so you tell me who you're selling high on Zach granky how's that for topical podres yeah struck out 11 podres yesterday. And, I mean, his overall numbers look really good now. He's faced the Padres twice in a row, though. Right. I think that's right.

Yeah, it is. And the velocity is still, like he's still topping out at like 92. Tops. Averaging less on his fastball than he ever has. It's not a situation where I'd be like afraid to hold on to Granky because I have noticed this trend with him,

like his swinging strike total has increased every start up to 17 this start four of them have been double-digit swinging strikes which is I mean it's good but I'm still worried that with the reduced velocity like he can't sustain ace level production he'll be worth using in fantasy but not ace level production and right now coming off this start his numbers look ace like and obviously he's at rinky so I think you could trade him for, you know, like a Chris Archer type or maybe even somebody off to a slower start than that, maybe like a Johnny Quedo, something like that. Okay.

Yeah, I was wondering, because I know that I have Grinky higher than you. I still have them behind those guys, but I think, like, would you trade Grinky for James Paxton? I would rather have Paxton. I think I would. Yeah. See, I think I just hold Grinky. What about, like, Garrett Cole? No, no.

but I have doubts about Cole too. I have even bigger doubts about Cole. Yes, I'd rather have Keikl than Grinky. See, I think Grinky can be, like, I think he can be Keikl, if not better. Yeah, he... I would expect more strikeouts. Right, so I... I'd expect a similar number.

All right. I just think there's a lot more downside for Grinky. I agree with Scott's premise if you can get the guys he was saying in the beginning. Right. I would trade him to the Quitos, those archers. those guys. I'd rather hold him over Paxton and McCullors, though. Okay.

You bring up Colors. That's a new name you're throwing in. You're putting words in my mouth again. Paxson and a dollar of links. Why is everybody putting words in my mouth? All right. Heath, who you got? So hi, Bilo. Well, you kind of stole my Jake Lamb. I'm a little bit worried about

Cole Hamels. But his numbers look pretty good. So if I could get a struggling ace for Hamels, I would certainly go to it. I'd rather have Paxton than Hamels. I would not rather have Paxton than Hamils. But, see, and that's the problem is I don't know who you're selling Hamils high for

that somebody's actually going to give you for him, but he's just not struck anybody out. The control issues seem to still be there. He's been one of the luckiest pitchers so far this year. Let's try a trade on the air. He has... Wait, let's try this, let's try this. Scott White, I give you Cole Hamels, you give me Chris Archer. No, I'd rather have Archer.

Fine. What were you going to say, Chris? Hamels is throwing a little bit harder. So, Mark Known. Just out there. Not led to good results. He should go back to throwing softer. Well, I think, I mean, Hamels, I'm so torn on. Because as Scott has said, we've been doing this podcast for about seven years and every year. It seems like there's a Cole Hamill's discussion, and every single year he throws 200 innings and strikes out 194 or more batters.

So, you know, it's tough. You don't want to count Cole Hamels out, but, you know, it's annoying. Okay. Any other names, guys, or shall we move on? I mean, we've probably talked about him too much overall, but I still think Matt Harvey's an obvious all-high candidate. I'm just not impressed. I am. I keep moving him up.

Yeah, it's all by him. I have not. Trade him to me, Chris. Trade him to me. You have him in one league. I still have him in one league. I still have him 40th. You have him in some...

What league do you have him in where you beat me to him? Podcast league, I think. One of them. One of them. Yeah. Trade him to me. I'm right in the middle, I think, on Harvey. I've seen some encouraging signs if he's going to continue to get better.

If he pitches like this all year, then he's got some regression coming. I've got him 34th overall. When I dropped Mad Bum, that's kind of the spot where I chose to stop because I wouldn't trade Mad Bun for Harvey. Okay. Let's get into yesterday's action a little bit. Here are some crazy stats. We also have some emails to read at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Brandon Kinsler and Fernando Rodney are 11 for 11 in save chances this year.

Kinsler has given up a run. What do you guys make of this? Fernando Rodney has given up runs. Yeah. It's Fernando Rodney being Fernando Rodney in a very Fernandez. Randi-Wodney way. Kinsler has gotten a little bit fortunate, but he's been better than I expected, and there's nobody there to take the job from him.

And David Peralta is 41% owned in his last seven games. David Peralta is 17 for 31, with a home run, one steal, and four doubles and a triple. So he was batting 178 in his first 11 games. Now Peralta is one of the hottest hitters in baseball. Should he be more owned than 41%? Yeah, he absolutely should be. He's one of the players I'm featuring in the Waver Wire column today. I think all four of those doubles came in one game.

He had a home run and a steal yesterday. He's up to three of each. So he's showing that varied hitter arsenal that got us so excited about him a couple years ago, and obviously last year it was just totally ruined by injuries. He'll have to play against left-handers more to be a universally owned player. but he has started against some left-handers and as hot as he is now, I feel like that's only going to increase.

Okay, that's David Peralta. Would you rather on David Peralta or Avi Garcia? Peralta. Yeah, I think it's time to move Peralta ahead. Yesterday I would have given a different answer, but time to move Peralta up. Mark Reynolds is the number seven first baseman in points league, is number four in Roto,

and Heath, you say there's a chance Reynolds sticks in the lineup when he and Desmond gets back? Well, that was a piece that somebody for the Rockies had written talking about how they are talking about just playing Desmond in the outfield when he comes back, at least until Reynolds cools off. I don't know why you would take him out of the lineup right now. Like maybe two weeks from now, he strikes out 17 times in a week and you decide you're going to play in Desmond at first base like you originally planned. But you've got room to play Desmond in the outfield, I would just stick him out there. I don't know what the situation is with Dull is probably the bigger question. because if they decide they have to get Dahl in the lineup.

Well, there's an issue even before Dahl gets back, and that's Herardo Para. He's hitting 327. So one of Para and Reynolds has to come out when Desmond comes back. Parra has only three extra base hits. So, you know, Reynolds has been the more productive player. I think there's little doubt right now that the plan would be play Desmond in the outfield against lefties. It's just which one of those two do they start against Ritey? Yeah.

Okay. Well, would you rather have Mitch Moreland or Mark Reynolds? Moreland. I would rather have Moreland for the rest of the year. I'd rather have Reynolds for the next two weeks. How many times do they play at Cors in the next two weeks? I don't know. They're there right now.

Yeah, let's say half the time. Who knows? I would rather have Moreland. All right. Anthony Rizzo has four steals and four attempts. He stole 17 bases in 2015. That's his only season with more than six steals. By the way, in 2015, Rizzo stole most of those bases early in the year.

But four steals. Yesterday, he was like a walking steel. He stole it off the pitcher. But what do you think? Could Rizzo steal 15 bases this year? Yes. 15 seems very reasonable. I wouldn't go any higher than that.

Okay. Sure. Great. And I want to talk about David Fries. David Fries, here's your stat. Ten walks, eight strikeouts. And he's batting 321, 418 on base, 546 slugging. He's been very good.

Three homers, three doubles for freeze. and not sure if anybody caught the article in USA Today. David Fries was a hometown hero. He hit that game-winning home run for the Cardinals. He won the World Series. He's a St. Louis guy, and he was battling depression for most of his life, and he was drinking too much. It was very interesting article. Really good article.

You read it? Yeah. Yeah. So long story short, gets traded, which ended up being a good thing for him, is all the pressure of being the hometown hero had kind of gone away. He meets a girl. He gets married. he's happy now, he's not drinking.

I don't know. Maybe there's off-field stuff that is going to make David Frees a better player, and right now he's off to a very nice start with the Pirates. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I own him in a couple of deeper leagues, and I feel like that's the kind of format you'd have to own him in as much is available at third base. Like, he's kind of in the same class as Chase Headley for me in that I think I know who he is, and I think it's not very good, but he's walking so much.

the early going and has obviously been hot all year that I'm they're kind of cracking open the mind a little bit right so you know I'm betting against both of them but uh I'm keeping an eye on them too okay guys I want to read a couple of emails here you know what no let's say that because I think we have more important stuff can I make a trade offer to Scott right now yes I give Matt Harvey and Hanley and Freddie Freeman. Whoa. Wow.

This deal's getting done. Juicy. Scott will give his whole roster. See, I don't know if I'm getting enough back. All right. Corey Klobber, Hanley Ramirez, and Ian Desmond. I don't know if I'm getting enough back.

That's a very fair trade. That's a very fair trade. Harvey and Freeman for Kluber. Actually, that's a ripoff. Scott would be getting ripped off in this instance. Hanley and Ian Desmond. This is in the podcast league.

Yeah. Take it, Scott. I have to look at my roster before I... I'm leaning against it because Glover is the best player in the deal, and that's normally the side I take. I thought Freddie Freeman was the best player in the deal. I don't think so. I was always drafting Glover ahead of Freeman.

I know, but look what Freeman's done to the first three weeks. Look what Cluber's done. Look what Glover just did. I do need to move some hitting for pitching in that league. I'll look at it. I can't. I'm not in a position to answer right now. I'm leaning no.

It's a very fair offer. I don't think I'm getting enough back. I would say, Scott doesn't take that. He doesn't really believe in Matt Harvey. Or Freddie Freeman. I mean, I'm giving up Ian Desmond, too. He's about to be back and would be the starter in every league.

I mean, that's the thing. Scott is trying to find a way to own Ian Desmond in all of his fantasy leagues. I feel like he has a lot of Ian. Maybe that was just the mock drafts. I know we've had this discussion before. But let's go to some of yesterday's good and bad. Tell me if you're ready to drop any of these three based on what their last start. I'm going to guess.

I know what the answers are, but let's just do it anyway. Amir Garrett, terrible start yesterday. Jason Vargas, 17 swinging strikes, but struggled a little bit at the White Sox. And Francisco Liriano has only one quality start in four starts so far. Garrett, Vargas, Liriano, are we hanging on? Are we cutting bait? With both of them being two start guys, I could understand dropping them, but I'm probably going to wait for one more start because I can still see one more start from them

before next week's roster's luck. Garrett, listen, it's Miller Park, I'm not going to hold that against him. I will point out, Paul Sporer from Fangraphs had a really interesting tweet before yesterday's outing for Garrett

where he pointed out that he hasn't really been any good against right-handed batters, not getting any swinging strikes. Burrers had, I believe, only one lefty in the lineup, so... And he had two home runs. Yeah, so, you know, the Brewers are tough,

matchup. They strike out a lot, but they also have by far the highest isolated slugging percentage in baseball. So, you know, that's not an easy matchup. And I would say Vargas got a little bit unlucky. He still had five strikeouts, no walks, give up six singles and one home run. He had 17 swinging strikes in this game? Yeah.

In five innings, Vargas? There was a good graphic from Jesse Newell on Twitter that showed his 2016 change up next to his 2017 change up. And it looks like it's almost breaking the opposite direction. It was weird, but he wrote a piece on it as well. 16 versus 17? Yeah. He threw 12 endings last year.

Guys, I want to speed it up a little bit. So we're going to hang on to Garrett, Vargas, and Liriano. I was going to say Vargas, you could potentially get rid of if there was something exciting out there because I don't have a lot of faith in him. But 17 swing strikes, I think, changes that answer for me. You've got to see at least one more. Okay. Who do you want to pick up in this group, if anyone?

Miguel Gonzalez. McHaw Gonzalez, ended last season with 10. quality starts in his last 11 starts, not including a start he left with an injury. And two starts in a row of eight or more innings and will combine one earn run. Miguel Gonzalez, Junjin Ryu, Brett Anderson, Chad Kool. Why would I pick up Chad Kool? Because he can't face the Cubs. Last year he had a 1045 BRA against the Cubs.

He sucks against the Cubs. He's not that good period, though, right? He's like a somewhat interesting poor man's Tanner Row arc at his best. I picked up Gonzalez before this week for a two-week start, I think against Chris. But I will drop him after the two-week start. If I was in a league where I needed one of these guys, it would be Gonzalez. Heath, you got to say two-star week, not two-week start. You said two-week start?

Very help. Twice, twice. I actually agree with Heath that of these people. 4, which includes Ryu. Gonzalez is probably my favor right now. Ryu with reduced velocity just doesn't seem like anything special, even though this was his best start.

The strikeouts were down, and I... Already 0.4. Gonzalez, there's nothing peripherally to get you excited, but he's allowed six hits in his last two starts combined. Only one of them left the infield. And he has like a 250 ERA in his last 20 starts or something dating back to last year. It's just...

I don't know that he deserves to be... much more own than 38%, but I'm happy to own him in the very deep leagues where I do. Yeah, this kind of feels like the Hector Santiago was good for half a year thing to me. Like, it's a nice thing to know, but it doesn't change how I feel about the player. Okay. It's time for Team Thames Tuesday. This is from Bob, who included a picture of Fred Durst giving the middle finger, and I did it all for the mookie.

Yeah. Yeah, there you go. This is from Ripley, for whom the Bellinger tolls. Yep. From Daniel, Zimmerman Toast Crunch. Yep. I like that one the best. I like food ones, I think.

Yeah. Panickers and hot dogs. I mean, is there any question that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is a top five cereal? Oh, it's the best cereal. Well, I posted a top five cereals list of Facebook not too long ago and didn't include it. You posted a top five list of cereals to Facebook? I just like to post top five. five's on Facebook sometimes.

I used to post top threes all the time, Scott. I mean, the downside to cinnamon toast crunch is you have to eat it the whole box soon after opening the box because if you let it sit in the box for too long, it takes on kind of a salty quality that's weird in all pudding. No. But fresh out of the box. What are you talking about? Do you store your cereal in a salt mine?

No, no. I've never had this. Something weird happens to get kind of sweaty. Like, it's not good. I've got three kids. A box of cereal lasts like four hours at my house. So, yeah, I mean, I have a box of cinnamon toast crunch. It tastes fine.

I get to become friends with Scott on Facebook so I can see his top fives. Yeah, yeah. Actually, Scott had a great post about crispy cream donuts on Facebook. I encourage everyone who's Facebook friends. You were a grandfather. Which is nobody. What are you talking about? Old people use Facebook.

Oh, people use Facebook. You're on Facebook. Yeah, but like, you know. The only one I'm friends. Ironically. Here on Facebook is Adam. Wow. It's good stuff.

He's got real. He's got an adorable kid. What are you guys doing? Why aren't you requesting me? Why do you request me? I happen to know. I happen to know that somebody in the office requested a friendship with Scott on Facebook. And Scott, because he's not really friends with the guy, has not and will not accept it.

Is that true, Scott? I like that. I like that a lot. That is one of my favorite things. Do you know this for me or do you know this from the other person? I'm pretty sure from him, and I think I asked you about it, and you confirmed that you're not. Yeah. I don't.

I don't, like, I have way too many friends on Facebook from when it first started, and I just accepted everybody I remotely knew. But I've kind of gotten weird about who I accept now. Well, I'm definitely sending Scott a friend request right now to see how this goes. All right. All right. More team themes Tuesday. This is from T.W. Perry, a longtime listener, a rare participator. Does your team ever win?

Sure. And once upon a midnight jury. Yep. That's good. This is Adam from California who says, first, I would like to say it annoys me how much Adam always complains about everything, not to mention his terrible Twitter take, about how the NBA sucks now and how all the good players are on one team, even though he's a Yankees fan. My team names are Scope. There it is.

And Naquin and Afraid. Well, Adam. Kind of like Naquin. Those are names. Yeah. I can't have a good one last night. If you don't want me to complain, Adam, then maybe you should rhyme. scope with something that

not shoop or whoop or whatever what were you going to say Heath when Jason Hayward hit his home run last night I was so excited because I'm a Jason Hayward believer so I tweeted Kerry on my Hayward son Hayward Pines would have been better

I like the unexpected ones like Zimmerman for cinnamon I'd never think of that Naquin for naked I'd never think of that Hanager for Hamburger for Hamburger I'd never think that. You should put your top five listener team name Tuesdays on Facebook. Maybe I will.

All right. There's not a lot of crossover with my Twitter followers and my Facebook audience. Facebook audience is mostly like college, high school friends, and family. Jeff Bagwell bites. So they don't really care about anything fantasy baseball related. What's Jeff Bagwell bites? Bagel bites. Oh, I said you like food ones.

I was trying to come up with a food one for him. Just say Bagwell bites that I think that would have been pretty good. Okay, let's a baseball name. Baseball time. You care about any of these guys in deep leagues? Matt Cain, Phil Hughes, Martin Perez, Jesse Chavez. Nope. I started Kane as a two-start pitcher, but now it sounds like he left with a foot injury from that start.

And it may just be a one-start pitcher. Hamstring tightness. They were sort of downplaying it. But, yeah, we'll see with Kane. He is kind of C.C. Sabathiaing it, guys. 242 ERA, nine walks, 15 strikeouts, and 22 in a third. Tour and runs allowed in his last three starts combined. Yeah.

Matt Kane. Okay. So, Deep League still? He's... He's eligible. He's throwing softer, and he had, like, a 60RA the last two years. I would say Chavez is probably the most interesting of the group, which tells you how interesting the group is. Yeah.

But Norris got his second save with Camberdodosian out, so that could, again, just be a 10-day thing, but you never know. Because you can't ignore it anymore. Sure. And more news and notes. It's Jake Oterreezy should be back on May 1st. Miguel Sino is suspended one game. He is appealing the suspension. Zach Britton is going to throw a bullpen session Wednesday.

Matt Barnes was suspended four games for throwing at Manny Bichano's head and just a stupid, stupid exercise that we see too much in baseball. Pablo Sandoval has a knee injury. Maybe I can convince Scott to drop Pablo Sandoval from our team, which has four crappy third baseman on it, Sandoval perhaps being the crappiest. Well, I pointed out to you yesterday, Sandoval is second on our team in RBI. Yeah, that says a lot about Team Scab.

Adam Fraser's on the DL. Matt Cain, hamstring tightness, as we mentioned. Travis Jan Kowski is on the DL for San Diego, and great, auto-correct. Jabari Blah was called up. Disagree. Yeah, he's more Blasht than Blah, but he was called up, and he started. And Travis Shaw sat against a lot. left, he might have just been a day of rest.

All right, emails. I was going to save this one. All right, no, let's do it. This is the email of the day slash troll job of the day. It is from Dan in Boston. He says, Sweeties, talk more about two catcher leagues. It's easily the best format I haven't heard nearly enough about Jet

Bandi, Kurt Suzuki, or AJ Ellis. Sweeties. Sweeties, yeah. I don't think he really wants us to talk about two catcher leagues. I just don't know, because last year we kind of talked about it, I think two catcher leagues are one of the worst things in fantasy sports. They are the – let's take the crappiest position and start two of them when no team in baseball starts two of them.

It's just awful. I think because you go too shallow into the catcher pool if you don't do it because nobody wants a catcher in their utility spot, and you end up with Austin Hedges, despite his upside and Homer streak, just going unowned in half all leagues. I would say the worst thing is league specific two catcher leagues, of which Scott has suckered me into two the past two years. Yeah, those are.

Yes, a five outfielder, two catcher, AL only league is woof. Yeah, you won't find me any nerds. Everybody starts a bad catcher. I don't know why, like, you can't say, I'm losing because my second catcher is bad. Who wants to play? That's not even fun. It's not even fun. Why do you have to start?

Why do you want to start bad players? Yeah, it's not fun. Everybody has minor leaguers. I mean, it's the same thing. So you can go deeper at a position nobody wants to go deep at. There are. So you can do something no one wants to do. You go proportionally less deep a catcher.

You can go plenty of position in a one catcher league. You can go plenty deep in a one catcher league in A. I wish you could do a one and a half catcher league, but that doesn't exactly work. Scott, Mitch Morland is like 50% owned. Avi Garcia was about 60-something. percent owned. I mean, there are good players that are Unitsch, Warland doesn't have upside and Hedges does. Oh, come on. That's a

very specific example. Okay, Hedges is the one number two catcher with upside. There's 11 others that just are awful. Look at the ownership breakdown at catcher, and it's like, there's this huge gap between who's, like, 90% owned and who's 50%

We need pitch framing fantasy stats. That's the answer. All right. More emails. Brody from, Saskatchewan. Hey, Kevin, Braxton, Matt, and Glaber. I know, Glaber. Yeah.

Kevin, wait. Hang on. Okay. Let's get to the email. Roto League. I have Billy Hamilton. I'm leading steals by quite a margin, and we'll see myself having no use for Hamilton in the future. I'd like to sell him for a starting pitcher.

What group of starting pitcher would you consider trading Billy Hamilton for? Paxton, McCuller, Salazar. Sure. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, I think rather, I mean, halfway you have to look at, the starting point is looking at who needs steals, and then you can get a better pitcher from him than maybe you're even expecting.

This is from Chris. Are you excited about Michael Confordo? Who would you drop, if anyone, to add him? Hanager, Margot, or Piscotti, or Paraza. I drop Margo. Yeah. I do think I move Comforto just a little ahead of Margo yesterday. So we're in agreement.

Cool. This is from Reggie. Dear Paul, Lido, Jessica, and Duncan. Yeah, I don't know. I have Yon Herva Salarte and Tim Anderson on my bench. Also, Jack Peterson and Kevin Kiermeyer. Mitch Morland and Dansby Swanson were just dropped. Would you pick up Morland and or Swanson, and would you drop Solarte,

Tim Anderson, Chuck Peterson, or Kevin Kiermeyer. Nope. I'm dropping Anderson for Swanson and stuff. Yeah, I'll be fine with that. Oh, those are characters in Dune? Yeah. Okay.

Huh. And this is from Isaac. Oh, Isaac has a basketball thing. So we'll read that in a second. But Kevin from Pennsylvania, approve the move. Drop Joaquin Benoit, pick up Chris DeVinsky. Quickly.

Go. Approved. All right, Isaac. This is the emailer that I'm not sure. if he likes us or hates us? He wrote, The Fall of the Celtics, the Fall of the Lakers. Cleveland constantly hopeful. The rise and fall of the pistons. The Bulls triumph over long adversity. The NIC's always hopeful but never victorious. The supersonic's close, but no cigar.

Trailblazers close, but no cigar. The jazz, same thing. The NBA was much richer back then, and there's no disputing it. I took a 10-year hiatus from the NBA quite naturally. Now I root for the Warriors. Can't help it. I'm from Northern California, and they are good. But there's no comparison. The NBA used to be better. ESPN 30 for 30 Bad Boys is one of the best. films I've ever seen. All right, we're going to end the show with that. We're done.

It's just ridiculous. Terrible. It's completely ridiculous. Like, the Bulls won six titles in a row. Yeah, but they did it against five different opponents. Cool. Absolutely. And there were two titles in between that.

Let's not forget it. Because Michael Jordan retired. If the best player in the league has to retire for someone else to win a championship, you cannot tell me the league was richer. It was richer back then. They were more teams. They didn't have as much money. They were less rich.

But doesn't the best player in the NBA still go to the finals every year now? Like, LeBron James has been to how many finals in the show? Right. I'm not arguing the NBA is different. The NBA is the same, and these people who romanticize the past are romanticizing a past that never existed. Yeah, it existed. You liked the NBA more when you were a child because you liked everything more when you were a child. I mean, that's definitely possible.

That's anything that you watch as a child and loved, and it's probably terrible. I like baseball now more than I did then. Yeah, but you probably were one of those kids who couldn't sit still for more than five minutes. Baseball wasn't your sport. I love baseball. I just, I like it more now. I think it's better now. Yeah.

Well, Chris and I got pretty heated on Twitter the other day, so we won't do it on the podcast. Thank you all for listening. We're back tomorrow. See you.