Fantasy Baseball Today - 05/02: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Pitching Performances (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

Kicking it off with our thoughts on stashing Corey Kluber (2:00) and some other notes from around MLB before we get into Wednesday's standouts (8:22). Adalberto Mondesi is a Top 3 Shortstop, and there are a couple of SPs who are barely owned and might need to be picked up in your leagues ... Worryometer (15:35) for Kris Bryant, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Eugenio Suarez and Bryce Harper. Then we'll talk about Nick Senzel (25:10) and some other recent call-ups ... Bullpen updates (34:10) as Ian Kennedy and Ty Buttrey are worth discussing. And we've got The Good (39:00), The Bad (45:40) and The Ugly (49:30) pitching performances. Are we concerned about Blake Snell? Is Jon Lester legit? Should you drop Carlos Rodon? Plus, quick thoughts on Danny Santana and Christian Vazquez (53:00) ... 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. We're fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. 17 games on the MLB schedule yesterday, and it seems like we have about 34 starting pitchers to talk about.

We got a lot of pitchers, mostly a pitcher show today. Also some trade talk. low, sell high, buy high. Welcome everybody. Adam, Scott and Heath. Scott White, are you prepared? Talk about your buy lows and your buy highs. So you're going to wing it. I'm going to wing it. Okay. That's served to be well the past couple Thursdays. Adam, I respect you and I respect your time and the effort that you put in and putting this show together. And so whenever you send a request for stuff like this, I get it ready. You're ready? You're good to go? I am prepared.

Okay, let's see if I can organically talk about your trade targets in the show before we get to the segment like I did last week. Obviously, we'll talk about Cory Klooper. We got some call-ups. We got Nick Senzel coming up tomorrow. We've got an update on Griffin Canning and a couple of other starting pitchers who were called up or will be soon. Glenn Sparkman, we'll talk about him and then probably dismiss him. And we got some bullpen updates for you. How about Ty Butchery, Michael Cain?

Getting the save yesterday, huh? Should I do that now? Yeah, whatever. Whatever. Not after you say, should I do that now. Yeah, yeah. You should only do it, like, right in that moment. Agreed, agreed.

I thought, you know, I thought he'd do it. And, of course, Caleb Smith, with a huge start yesterday. People have been begging for that. And now you got the wild stallions. That was singular, right? Or do they say stallions? They say stallions. Because there's only one stallion.

Okay, well, that's still intended. Corey Klooper broke his arm. Scott React. Ouch. Yeah, that's not good. They don't have a timetable for it, but it's a broken bone. Not display, so no surgery, I wouldn't imagine.

But because it's his pitching arm and the forearm, I imagine the timetable for recovery would be more like six to eight weeks than four to six. And then probably a month of getting back into pitching shape after that. So he's done for the first half. I think it's fair to say. Now, I guess the upside to this, if you're a Kluber owner, is you already have a pretty good idea how your team is going to fare without Corey Kluber because he's given you basically nothing so far. So if you're, if you've been doing well in spite of him, probably not too much reason to worry. If you haven't, you might need to get on that.

You might need to look into making a trade to upgrade your pitching staff. Maybe buy any number of, buy low on any number of struggling aces. Obviously, Klubr is not one you can buy low on anymore, but there are plenty of others out there. Blake's know, for instance, who's struggled yesterday. How long do I have to wait before I say, I guess one of my bold predictions is going to be right? Which one? Cluber is going to be, what, the fourth best? No, Shane Bieber will be the second best Indian starter.

Yeah. Yeah, Bieber hasn't been so hot lately either, has he? Well, there's only him in Clevenger, or there's only him in Bauer left. Carrasco's left. Carrasco. Yeah. Always Carasco. Cluber hasn't been very good.

I mean, we should probably just talk about that, too. I guess, you know, this gives it. Like, Scott's right. If you have Cory Cluber, your team's actually going to be better. than it has been while you've been playing Kluber. Because, you know, you'd want Kluber, obviously. But he's got a 580 ERA and a 1.65 whip. So, you know, whoever you used to replace him is almost certainly going to do better than that.

You know what? I suppose we don't have to talk about it, only to say that people might ask, you know, I'm running out of IL spots. Is Kluber a mustache? Like, how would you rank Kluber with Severino and Klevenger? I'd go there up Klooper. Yeah, I'd rank them similarly, but I feel like the road to recovery for Kluber is a little clearer than when you're dealing with muscle stuff related to the pitching arm. I mean, a broken bone heels.

That's what it does. But muscles can be tricky. Yeah, because I feel like Kluber has a 90, 95% chance that he is going to start a game again during the Fantasy Base. baseball regular season. And I don't feel like Severino or Clevenger's number is anywhere close to that high. Okay. So Kluber out with a broken arm and the Marlins got to him. And meanwhile, A.J. Pollock needs elbow surgery.

So we don't have a timetable, but he's expected to play again this season. That's what the timetable we've been given on A.J. Pollock is. But he's out for a while. I mean, I assume, well, I'd like to stash him. I'm going to put him on my IL for a while. but I could see a crunch, you know, it could be a long time for Pollock. So, all right, you, you as a fantasy owner,

try to stash him if you can, but it could be tough. Meanwhile, I'd rather stash Kluber. Yeah, well, would you rather stash Severino or Pollock? Probably Severino. Yeah, I'd rather stash the greater scarcity, the more likely to be impactful when they come back. Like, you can end up with a pretty good outfielder just playing the way for it. from this point forward if you've missed out on what's already passed you by.

I don't think there's going to be any shortage of usable outfielders like there is high in starting pitchers. And Pollack, his replacement, hopefully is Alex Verdugo, who did start against the lefty yesterday, but that was with David Freeze being injured, so we don't know what would have happened if Freeze had been healthy. And Brad Osmiss said, Shohei Otani, who could be back as early as next week, is going to play against lefties. Is that a good thing or a bad thing for Shoah Otani? I mean, in the majority of leagues, it would be good. I would probably hurt his batting average potential in Roto in Categories, leagues. You know, if you're setting your lineup daily, you might not like it so much as somebody who sets their line up weekly.

But I think if he's a true everyday player, he's going to be pretty close to must start when that wasn't the case as a platoon guy. Yeah, I think it's better, much better in points leagues. and slightly worse in Categories League. All right. So your stats of the day, just some fun baseball stats like we did yesterday. This is from Tim Britton. He's a Mets beat writer for the athletic.

It's weird and it's small sample, but in Edwin Diaz's major league career, opponents have a 10-11 OPS in tie games and a 485 OPS in all other situations. And that's relevant because Diaz served up a home run in a tie game and lost it for the, Mets yesterday. So I think two days in a row, he's giving up a home run at a tie game.

So don't throw him in a tie game, Edwin Diaz. Here's stats by stats on Twitter. Through Friday, the Mariners led the AOS at 18 and 11. Since then, they have lost by 14, 13, 1 and 11 runs. The Seahawks, no. The Mariners are the first team to lose four straight games, three of them by more than 10 runs since the 1890 Philadelphia. A's, an American Association team in its final week of existence.

So the Mariners have basically made history. That's pretty amazing. All right, we've got to get to the Wednesday standouts. We will talk about Max Fried coming up in a little bit. I've got the thuriameter on this Wednesday, see if you're thuried about anybody, with some third basement on there. But who stood out to you guys? Heath, why don't you kick it off?

Who were your Wednesday standouts or standout or out? I'm going to go to that Alberto Mondesi. Okay. In a double header yesterday, hit a home run, hit a double, had a single, stole two bases, now has four home runs, 10 stolen bases. He's hitting like 290, and he's on pace for like 125 RBI. He's not been exactly who we thought he was going to be, but he's been very, very close to exactly who he thought he was going to be.

He is awesome. Mondesee is the number two shortstop in fantasy, and well, he is in points leagues. I imagine Roto as well, unless he's number one. No, he's number three behind Tim Anderson and Javier Baez. He also has the most extra base hits at home, I believe, of any player in baseball. It's a good park for him because he'll get his doubles and triples there. I mean, it's not a good home run park, but he's got seven doubles and five triples, Mondesie.

Okay, so you say Mondesie, Scott, give me a standout. Yeah, I like Mondesie, huh? I'm going to go with Anthony Desclaphani, who is widely available still and just put together his third straight really impressive start. And if you look at the breakdown of his pitches, one thing he has begun to do more, a lot of pitchers have begun to do more is less of the two seamer and really more of the curveball and the four seamer,

which are his best two swing and miss pitches. He gets a lot of swings and miss on that four seamer more than the average pitcher does. So this might be the start of something something very interesting for Descalfani and the fact he's still available in 80% of CBS sports leagues at a time when pitching is nobody has enough of it. I think you need to take an extra long look at him.

There are two players who are owning less than 20% of leagues who are doing some interesting things on the mount right now. Descafani was one guy I was going to talk about. The other is Martine Perez, who has added a cutter and has thrown it more than any other pitch. And he is now a Minnesota-12. win. He threw eight scoreless innings with seven strikeouts against

the Astros. He still has less than a strikeout per inning, but it's been a really good stretch now. Four straight starts for Martine Perez. Six innings, one earn, six innings four earned, six innings one earn. The first three starts were against Toronto and then Baltimore twice, but then yesterday Perez goes out

and dominates the Astros. And it looks like he's lined up for two starts next week. We currently on the website have him as a one-star pitcher, but it looks like Perez might be at Toronto and home against Detroit next week. And like I said, the cut fastball is making a difference for him. So between Desclafani and Perez, how interested are you in them?

Who would you prefer? I'll start with Scott. I think Desclafani, though, there are some clear changes happening for Perez. You mentioned the cutter, which he's throwing a third of the time, and there's also, like, his fastball velocity is up. So that definitely explains why he's different this year. I just wonder if he's this good Because as you mentioned

It's not like it's led to a big strikeout total It's still below average strikeout pitcher Is he going to continue to pitch with this level of effectiveness And that's a too, given that I mean his ground ball rate is way down too Which isn't a good thing So I'm a little skeptical of him Though I do think he's worth noting and worth keeping an eye on

And with those two matchups, I totally get the case that he's a sleeper next week. Yeah, I'm not particularly interested in either of these guys. Descalfani right now, as much as he has had a couple of three good starts in a row. He's got a 3.95 Sierra. He had a 4.01 Sierra for his career. His peripherals haven't really changed that much. I think his Phipps even worse than that. And then Perez, he's striking out more batters than he ever has, but he still has a 20% strikeout rate.

still not good. So I would rather have Desclophani. But both of these guys are still more streamers to me than anything else. So if Desclafani, let's see, one, two, three, four, five. I'm just doing the math again because I saw it today. If Desclafani pitches every five games for the Reds, he will face the Giants twice next week. Because the Reds face the Giants on Monday in the final game of a four-game set.

and then they're at the Giants for a weekend series. So you want to talk like if Perez has good matchups, Discafani basically has the best two-star week you could possibly ask for twice unless it was two-game. Yeah, it's just like it's so unrealistic to actually face the same team twice in one week. But yeah, like Giants twice, this is pretty good for Discafani. So even if he's not long-term, he might be a short-term play for you. Any other standouts that you guys really want to talk about here?

and you can't say Max Fried because he's coming up later in the show. I imagine all my others will be coming up in the show. Yeah, it's a thorough production job. We've got plenty of guys to talk about. Heath, you good? Oh, what about Aguilar? Did you guys talk about him yesterday? Yes, we did, and he went 0 for, oh, with four walks yesterday.

Four walks. But I think the more interesting thing is another right-hander was on the mouth. So he humors twice against a lefty when it looks like he's sinking into a platoon roll. Let me put my butt in there. And then starts twice against righty. Go ahead. What's your butt in?

Christian Yewitch has been out. And Thames has been in right field. So we've got to see what happens when Yelich comes back because Thames is doing fine himself. Yelich should be back this weekend. And then I think I won't have to butt in anymore because we'll know more about Aguilar. But no, it is encouraging for sure.

I would take a quick break here. on fantasy baseball today. We got the thuriameter when we come back. The mostly third base edition of Worryometer Wednesday on a Thursday. Stick around. Your emails later at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com will be right back. Who's thuried? Heath, you thuried today?

That's not a word. Thuriameter Thursday. All right, I got three-third baseman and an outfielder. Zero to ten. Zero is not worried at all. Ten is extremely concerned. Chris Bryant batting 225 right now. I'll let you guys talk about the rest.

But 225 with three homers and 10 doubles. That's nice. He also got lifted in like the fifth inning for a pinch hitter. I don't know what happened there. It was a blowout. And he's been de-aging. So 0 to 10 on Chris Bryant Heath. Three, he just has not regained the power.

You look at his ISO, the first three years of his career, 213, 262, 242. really fell off a cliff last year, and I think most of us expected that would bounce back. It's 186, which is slightly worse than it was in 2018. I think he's going to be okay, but I am getting a little bit concerned. Okay. Three for a movie. Yeah, I'm going to be like a five on this, and I am finding, when I did my thorough review of the rest of season rankings, Chris Bryant was the player that,

I was least confident in what to do with him. I'm kind of just leaving him where he is because I'm not ready to pull him down. But this is, you know, if it was just a slow start in isolation, okay, I'd have a lot more confidence. But obviously, there's, he's building a little bit of a history of underachieving in this way. And that has me concerned. I do think the batted ball data is promising. So, oh, yeah. Right?

Like he's had terrible bad-ip luck. He's not striking out as much. There's plenty of reasons to say Chris Bryant's going to be okay. Right, except Tide are making excuses. But last year, he started off the season, his first 38 games. Brian had a 10-22 OPS. Then he got hurt, you know? I don't know if it was exactly, you know,

he was dealing with the shoulder injury and then it was shoulder or back? Shoulder, right? It happened at some point in May, so, yeah. There was a drop off after that. But I even looked to, I even looked to 2017 and the fact he fell short of 30 homers then. I guess the ISO was high, as Heath was pointing out, but the home run production was clearly lacking. And that's mainly what you pay for with Bryant. Yeah.

Okay. Zero to 10 for Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is batting 167 in five games. He's terrible. He does have six strikeouts, which is interesting, the three walks. Scott, I'll start with you, zero to ten for Vladdy. Uh, I'll say like a three just because he's a rookie and you never know how that's, you never totally know how that's going to manifest when they get called up, but it's obviously too early to have real concerns.

Heath. I'll say a four. I'm slightly more concerned than Scott, but not really. Okay. Zero to ten for A. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. Haneo Suarez, who is just outside the top 20 at third base, batting just 221. and one encouraging thing for Suarez. He usually makes his hay against lefties.

He's really good against lefties, and the Reds have had the third fewest at-bats against lefties. Suarez currently has an 1,100 OPS against Southballs, but only in 20 at bat, so maybe that's why his numbers are down a little bit, but Heath, zero to ten, worryometer for Eugenio Suarez. I'll go with a five, but I would assume the Scott's number is going to be lower, just because I had more concerns about Suarez repeating what he did last.

year than Scott did. His hard contact rate is okay, but I don't think it's as good as it was in his breakout year. His average exit velocity actually has just cratered. You look at it on baseball savant. It was 86, 87 miles per hour from 2015 through 2017. Last year it jumped to 91 miles per hour, which is elite. This year it's back to 88.7, which is slightly above average. Wait, that's what is exit velocity? Yes. And you said what was elite? 91. Anything over 90s very, very good. And 88's not bad. Yeah, that doesn't see, is there that much of a difference between three miles per hour, two and a half miles per hour?

Well, there's not guys with a 70 mile per hour and there's not guys with 100 miles per hour. So, yes. Yeah, there's three significant difference. But it, you know, it could also just be the fact that he's not, you know, his timing is not great right now and he's off too slow start. I think the fact that the strikeout and walk rates are both the same as last year. The fact that he's, even with his struggles, he's already hit seven home runs. I'll go one lower than Heath. I'll say four.

All right. So how would you rank Chris Bryant, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Ehuehanyos Juarez? Just like that. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, I mean, I think it's interesting, you know, the talk we had about Chris Bryant and that you still haven't ranked ahead of Vlad. Vlad's done nothing. It's true.

It's three walks. Okay, cool. Last guy on the Wariometer is Bryce Harper. Already getting booed by Phillies fans. You know, Yankees fans caught a lot of flack for booing John Carlos Stanton. And Stanton was a lot worse last year at the beginning of the season, at home anyway, than Bryce Harper. Harper, though, a lot of strikeouts, man. 38 strikeouts.

23 walks is great in 30 games. He had three home runs in his first four games of the season. he has three since, and he is 26th in points, 34th in Roto among outfielders. Scott, 0 to 10, Wariometer on Harper. Oh, man, I will say, I will say two. I think whatever worries I have about Harper are that he's going to fall short of first-round expectations again, as opposed to him just being not very good. I mean, the season numbers to date, and I understand it's been worse.

recently, but he still has an OPS verging on 900. So it's not like, I mean, booing him is kind of silly. It's because it hasn't been that kind of start to the season. But yeah, I mean, his strikeout rate for the second year in a row is up, and he's had issues with the batting average for several years now. And so that's, it's going to be hard for him to be a first round caliber bat if that continued. What was your number, wereiometer number? Two.

Okay, two for Harper. And Heath, how about you? I'm not really concerned. The strikeouts aren't good, and it might keep him from being worthy of a top five pick. But he's crushing the baseball. I think he's going to be awesome and have a ton of runs in RBI. No worries. Cool.

All right, that's Bryce Harper. Oh, we got a big Sunday coming up. Got the Kentucky Derby. So if you want to place a little wager on the Kentucky Derby, go to Sportsline.com. Hammer and Hank Goldberg goes straight to the source to get winning horse racing picks. Last year, Hank was all over Justify early after talking to a timer in California. So who is the hammer all over this year in the Kentucky Derby? Visit Sportsline.com.

Click on Kentucky Derby to see his picks for this year's Derby and use the promo code Derby. Not too hard. To get your first month for just $1. It's only $9.99 after that, I believe. So $1 for a Kentucky Derby pick. Okay. Sportsline.com. Use the code Derby.

All righty. Let's see. We got news and notes, and we'll get into the call-ups, the bullpen, and the pitchers. Chris Archer is expected back when he's first eligible. Lucas Gialito, 26-0-owned, he's going to start today against the Red Sox. And he's had some good moments, some bad, mostly, you know, 530 ERA, it's not good, but a lot of strikeouts. Anybody interested in Gialito? You know, he's 26-0, and that means he's more owned than Discofani and Martine Perez, we talked about.

No. I'm more interested in those other two. Okay. Robinson Kanoe returned to the lineup. Josh Donaldson could return today. Juan Soto was scratched with back spasms. Jose Martinez, 66% own. He has continued to start in right field for the Cardinals, even with both Tyler O'Neill and Harrison Baderback.

And he's not hitting for any power, but he does give you batting average. Martinez is four straight two-hit games, and he's 66% own. Let's see. I mentioned that Alex Verdugo started against the lefty, but it was with David Freese-Hurt. Francisco Cervilli, not expected to go on the IL.

Domingo Santana, he's so good. He leads all outfielder's in errors with six. Heath, what kind of outfielder has six errors on May 2nd? One that's played more games than anyone else. That must be it. Man, that's a high total for a season for an outfielder, right? It's pretty bad. Yeah, he's not been very good.

He's been awesome with the bet. Williams Astudillo could have a short stay on. the IL, not necessarily the minimum, but it could be short. And Kike Hernandez is 23 for 45 against Madison Bumgarder in his career. Thank you, Associated Press. Kiki Hernandez, 23 for 45 against the bum. All right, call-ups. Nick Senzel is coming up tomorrow.

He's 76% owned. Really pretty bad in AAA so far this year, but very good in AAA last year. Scott, what do you expect from Senzel? and an email from Brian, where do you rank Senzel at second base and outfield rest of season in a points league? You can tell us points in, Roto. So I think the most,

the best thing about Nick Senzel is he does retain that second base eligibility from last year. Second base was considered one of the weaker positions coming in, and I think it's only gotten weaker since then. So I'm already sticking him 12th at that position. I haven't given outfield too much thought yet because he's not eligible there yet.

but he needs to be added in the 25% of the leagues where he's available. It's hard to know exactly what to expect. It's always hard to know what to expect with prospect call-ups. But in Senzel's case, what makes it more difficult is just he's missed so much time with injuries. Even last year, he didn't get to 200 at bats. But I feel like the level of talent is so obvious. Like he was one of those guys drafted second overall, starts playing in the minors

and you're like, okay, this guy's clearly just biting his time down there. There's no reason for them to hold it back. And so I think there's a good chance he just comes up and is a must-start option from here until the end of the season. No guarantees, of course,

but you take a chance on that kind of upside. I'd take a flyer, like if it came to it and obviously I still like Ryan McMahon, I'd want to hold on to him, but if it came to it, I'd drop somebody like McMahon for Senzo. at this point. Did you...

So you've got Senzel ahead of both Brandon Lowe and Jeff McNeil? Yes, I do. Yeah, those two both have playing time concerns. I've got them behind that group. I've got them around 19 at second base,

and let's just, let's see if he can hit Major League pitching first. Okay, what about at outfield? 50? 50. So... I mean, obviously, it'd be higher for me. 50 for you is Adam Jones

40 Okay 40 for you is Shin Su Chu He's not outfield eligible So we don't have it ranked there So it's hard to just pull a number out of a hat Well Shin Su Chu is pretty good Company I'd rather have Shensu Chu for sure

So if Senzel's sitting on waivers for you And Chu is your bottom player You're not dropping Chu for Senzel No Chew is very good Chew sits against lefties though Sometimes. The thing is, like, Shin Chu, every year we do.

Like, he has a streak and you have to pick him up. But at the end of the day, because he's actually in the notes today, he's 73% own, which is almost exactly the same as Senzel. Okay, here's Shinsu Chu's 162 game pace over his previous five, I believe, five seasons. It's a 787 OPS with 23 homers and nine steals. Like, he's really not that good. He's good in points leagues because his plate discipline's good. You know, it gets on base.

He's leading off right now. But he's not that good. He's on fire right now. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have him over Senza. I'm just saying he's really not that good. Yeah, I think that's, like, that 162 game pace is right. It also comes with 100 runs. And it also, because he's generally hitting at the top of the order,

and in points league he's even better because he's going to walk a ton. I like he all he generally finishes higher than where I have him ranked right now. Well, that is true. He does finish pretty much a top 30. And he does have a 3.97 bad bit. So he's not like, he's not this good. He's not, no, he's not going to be hit 3.30. There's no chance.

Yeah. But he's as good as he's been for the last 10 years of his career. Okay. Well, look, I have been the podcast league and I'm probably going to win this week. So that's pretty amazing. Shinsu Chu. All right. Other call-ups here.

Oh, Brian in his email about Senzel said that foreigner is greater than Arrowsmith. I don't, what is it about everybody who listens to this damn show, but listening to Chris too much and thinks that Arrowsmith is bad? You're all, you're ridiculous. Ridiculous, Brian. Terrible email. Our editor, George was very mad at me over that take yesterday saying foreigner was better than Arrowsmith. Also, I got multiple tweets saying Heath, you're right about foreigner over Arrowsmith. I got zero tweets saying, why do you hate Arrowsmith?

Twitter poll time. Don't forget. I always do a Twitter poll mid-show. Every time I do a Twitter poll mid-show, I forget to update it. But remind me to update it. Which band is better? A, A, Aerosmith, B, Barter. Let's see what the people have to say.

I think our emails skew a little older than Twitter poll results. I would expect Aerosmith wins this one. Yeah, because the younger crowd likes Aerosmith's terrible. You are the worst. Aerosmith had a great run. I like a lot of Aerosmith songs. It ended very poorly, and I think those are the songs that the young kids like. But, okay, who else is called up?

Griffin Canning is going to make at least one more start. I did not think he was like a two-and-done guy. So that's disappointing, and I'm sorry that I didn't communicate that better. Well, at least. At least one more start, but I thought like he was up. He probably just needs to pitch better. He pitched better than his line. 18 swinging strikes, right?

Yeah, it definitely did. ERA matters. It does. I mean, if he is, got rave reviews, too. I don't think anybody, I saw any quotes from Angels personnel. That was anything less than excited about the way he performed.

So if he does have a great start next time, I mean, it's not like they have a bunch of fixtures in that rotation that are, he couldn't displace permanently. All right. We are going way too slow. So we got a lot to get to. So I'm going to give you the rest of the names. It's not good for Michael Cain.

Not good for Michael Cain. Cal Quantrill, called up by the Padres yesterday. Tyler Beattie is going to start tomorrow for the Giants. Glenn Sparkman, likely going back to AAA, unless he's already there. But he pitched great for the Royals yesterday. Calvin Gutierrez, a hitter, is actually doing very well for the Royals so far. 333 batting average with a home run in five games. and Milwaukee recalled Corbyn Burns,

but he pitched out of the bullpen yesterday. But do you have any interest in Cal Quantrill, Tyler Beattie, Glenn Sparkman, or Kelvin Gutierrez? I'm keeping an eye on Beattie. I'm not rushing out and picking him up. It does look like a spot-start situation, but he has reinvented himself this season, kind of going back to the strength that made him a first-round pick

once upon a time. And for good reason, it was a complete disaster last year, but ditched like three pitches and is going back to just power arsenal miss as many bats as possible. 98 miles per hour fastball. High spin curve ball. 13 strikeouts per 9 in the minors with a sub 2ERA.

But some control issues, some efficiency issues. So I don't, you know, we'll see. But it's at least interesting. Taking a quick break when we come back. Bullpen, Ty Butchry got a save. Hector Nerris pitched in the sixth inning. A.J. Minter pitched with a four-run lead in the ninth inning. We'll talk about it all.

We got the good, the bad, and the ugly with pitchers. We got some trade talk. A lot to come on fantasy baseball today. We'll be right back. Okay, in the bullpen, ladies and gentlemen, Ty Buttery got a two-inning save. Hector Nerris got one out in the sixth inning. He came on with two-on, two out in a one-one game and got out of the jam.

A.J. Minter pitched up five to one in the ninth. Michael Givens got his second save of the season for Baltimore. Ian Kennedy got his second save of the season for Kansas City. Sergio Romo got his fifth save, and Michael Lorenzen got a save in place of Ricellel, Iglesias, who was unavailable. Did we learn anything in the bullpen yesterday? That it's still all terrible, and we hate it all. Hector Neris is not a traditional closer.

He is the currently best reliever for the Phillies, and will be used as such. We don't know who the closer is for the U.S. Angels. The Royals don't get enough saves for it to matter. Sergio Romo is probably underrated. That's it. AJ has completely

lost the ability to pitch. If Kennedy is the Royals closer, and we have very little evidence of that, but he's been awesome in a bullpener roll, which I think some people were thinking for a long time because he's basically a two-pitch

pitcher, that if he got this chance, he would thrive in it. So, you know, other than Nairus, who had been pitching in the ninth a lot prior to this outing, I think Kennedy's my favorite here, although I should point out. I once knew a man named Lorenzo, last name, Kane. Like mine only spelled differently, no E. So I was at the supermarket again, and this time I went to see the butcher. I was looking to make a stew. I needed some chicken.

I asked him, do you have any chicken breasts? He said, yes, sir, what are you looking to make? I said, a stew. He said, well, if you're looking to make a stew, you should probably go with the chicken thigh instead. It would remain tender as it heats up into stew. I said, well, that sounds perfect. I'll take four. He said, well, there's a problem.

They only come in packs of six. I said, well, are you a butcher, aren't you butcher? Can you go get me four chicken thighs? So he goes back, he's gone for five, ten minutes, comes back out. Sure enough, has four chicken thighs. I said, now that wasn't so hard, was it? He said, it was agony. So I take the chicken thighs.

I feel them. They're heavy. They're big. I say, why are they so heavy and big? He says to me, well, they're standard chicken thighs. I don't know. I look at them. I see there's bones inside. I said, bones. I'm a busy celebrity here. It's rare that I cook for myself at all.

I can't be deboning my own thighs. I want boneless, skinless chicken thighs. please go find some of those for me. So he kind of grumbles to himself, goes back, he's gone five, ten minutes. Again, at this point, I've been with the butcher a long time. I'm getting pretty hungry.

I turn around, I see a bunch of pre-made soups behind me. It's not a stew, but I figure it would serve my purpose is just fine. And above those soups, there's a collection of different breads. There's rolls, there's biscuits, there's cornbread. I noticed there's cornbread there

with the blueberries baked right in. I said, well, how about that? That sounds like a perfectly good way to ruin a stew. And the butcher overhears me, because at this point he's come back, he says, what's the matter? You've never heard about having berries with your bread? I said, no, sir. I prefer my bread.

Butchrey. So, yeah, I tried Butcher got a babe yesterday. Like, that's unbelievable. I was like, where the hell is this going? That was, how was it going to get Butchery's name in there? Chicken thighs are going to be too butchery? Gosh, Scott. We're basically taking Michael Cain around the grocery store.

That was really... The commitment is just top-notch. That's outstanding. So if you were going to pick one, would you rather own Butchry or Robles? I would rather... Roblese. You would say Roblese?

Yeah. Yeah. I do think he's more likely than not to get the next save, but I don't think... I don't think Brad Osmus really knows. And I don't think... I think Butchery is the better pitcher.

Butchery is the better pitcher, and Osmis uses him that way, but he doesn't use him as the closer. This was a two-inning save. The other thing real quick, just about this group of pitchers, because we skipped one of them, and he could be really, really interesting, and that's Jaylen Beaks. He was awesome as a starting pitcher with the Red Sox in 2018, had like 12K per 9 and ERA below 3. He's been stretched out a couple of times this season and been pretty good in those performances. he's striking out more than a batterer per inning. He's got an ERA below three.

And I don't know that it's that unlikely that he ends up as one of their not-starter starters starters. Yeah, Jalen Beeks for the raise widely available. 4% own could be one of those relievers that gives you very good ratios. Okay, foreigner 26% Aerosmiths 74%, 285 votes in. Let's talk about pitchers now. The good, the bad, and the ugly, the good part one. Max Scherzer. these are guys that you're pretty much never sitting.

Max Scherzer, Jacob de Grom, Junjin Ryu. Scherzer actually does have a 408 ERA, like it's worth mentioning. And DeGrom has struggled this year. He had 20 swinging strikes yesterday. And John Lester was the other guy. Lester's got a 173 ERA and a strikeout parading.

So as you look at Scherzer, Lester, DeGrom, and Riu. Yeah, who would you rather have Riu or Lester? Riu. Yes. but I think reports of Lester's demise may have been greatly exaggerated. He's doing the old man trick of recognizing his fastball isn't what it once was, so he's throwing it less, it's throwing his cutter more, and the extra movement he's getting there is leading to some weak contact,

and enough strikeouts that you're not necessarily concerned it's going to come crashing down. So I'm kind of in the same place with Lester, where I was with Hamils, last year where I assumed it was pretty much over going into the season, but the results have been encouraging. I'm rethinking that stance now. Okay. So that was, we have anything to say about Scherzer or DeGrom? Are they better than their ERAs?

Yes. Yes. I think the fact that Scherzer is one and four, you know, you'd have to be playing in a lead with novices, but that might be an interesting by-low situation because the production has been underwhelming for a first-round pick pitcher. Are Scherzer and DeGroms, the top two pitchers in fantasy baseball?

I dropped DeGrom behind Verlander, which may have been premature, but I think Verlanders, if nothing else, he's in that discussion. Sure. Okay, cool. The good part two from yesterday, Miles Michaelis,

six-innings, one run, four strikeouts at Washington. Washington playing without, Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto. This was a really bad lineup. Michaelis did great. Caleb Smith was awesome again, man. He's got a 2-E-R-A.

Caleb Smith has nine walks, 45 strikeouts, and 36 innings. And then Madison Bumgarner had a very good start against the Dodgers. He has a 392 ERA with seven walks, 43 strikeouts, and 43-and-two-thirds, and a 110 whip. And Bum-Garner said, I've been feeling close, but just the touch off. All year it's felt like it's right there, but not quite. what I'm looking for, been studying stuff, trying to try different things to get where I want to be, which in my mind is a perfect delivery. I don't think it's there, but it's definitely better than it was, but it has been. Everything felt much better today than it has in a while. That's Madison

Bumgarder. And how about Max Fried? I traded him two days ago. And now he's a strikeout machine. His five quality starts and six starts for Freed, he dominated the Padres without Tatis. And his swinging strikes in his last five starts, swinging strikes for Freed. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. That's pretty fun. Yes. You know what's changed the last two, his highest two, the two double digits, are that.

And remember, my concerns about Freed and would he be able to miss enough bats, would he be able to keep this up? Apart for many, because it was the fact that it was a two-pitch pitcher. Well, the last two starts, he's been a three-pitch pitcher. He's been mixing in a slider. And it's, you know, it's his third. most used pitch, but it has a pretty good whiff rate in its own right. And it might be a game changer. I am, I am expecting to move freed up in my rankings quite a bit.

Caleb Smith is the highest ranked of this group for me now. And I kind of think he belongs in that. There was a couple weeks ago, I wrote a piece called They Might Be Aces about some of the young pitchers that were just outside of my ace tier. And I don't know if any of those guys have been better than Caleb Smith, and it almost entirely looks legit. So he will be in my top 25 starting pitchers by the time this show's over. He is third in swinging strike rate, according to baseball reference, which measures it a little differently from fan graphs. He's third.

Second is Garrett Cole. Do you know who first is? Blake's now. Really? Interesting. Yeah. All right. So how would you rank Michaelis, Caleb Smith, Bumgarner, and Freed?

Heath already said Smith is one. Why don't you take the rest of it, Heath? Smith, Michaelis, Bumgarner, Freed. How do you rank him? I'll go Smith, Michaelis, Bungarner, Freed. Michaelis and Bumgarner, I'm still a little bit concerned about, and Freed was well behind this group coming into this start. He is going to move him up as well.

But I've got Bumgarner at 36. I've got Michael's at 31. I would guess Freed's going to be right around 40. Scott, how would you rank Smith, Michaelis, Bumgarner, Freed. That's how Heath had him. I'd go Smith, Bumgarner, and at this, right now I'm inclined to put Freed ahead of Michaelis, but I'll take a closer look at that when I actually do it. Tough week next week for Freed at the Dodgers and at Arizona.

I'll start him. But if he comes through those starts looking good, then we might have something big here. If he comes through those starts looking bad, then it might not be a huge deal because the Dodgers and Arizona, I cannot believe. Biggest surprise to me right now in baseball to me is that Arizona has like a really good lineup. They have one of the highest scoring teams in baseball. they were going to have one of the lowest scoring teams in baseball. So kudos to them.

And, yeah, I traded Freed for Clint Frazier. I thought I was making an even trade. And I feel like I may have lost, but I did need hitting. Do you wish that you had traded Chris Sale for Max Fried and Gary Sanchez? No. No. Still, no. Yeah, but close.

Your record would currently be better for sure. our record is currently better than yours for sure I mean sales last starts think good and I think we won ERA for fantasy purposes well yeah the last one was it was it was two errrh run

the last two he had 10 strikeouts in five endings two starts a common that's good yeah arrowsmith's 76% 424% uh the bad so that's the good how about the bad from yesterday Aaron Nola only one run

but I'm still gonna call it bad seven hits three walks what's up with the walks This guy is so consistently great with command, great with control, and he's walking 3.9 batters per night. So Aaron Nola was bad. He has two quality starts in seven starts. James and Tyone, you know, quality start, but I'm going to call it bad. Six and a third, four runs, three earned, five strikeouts at Texas. It was at home against Texas. It was against Texas.

And he has a career high, 11.8 swinging strike rate and a career low 7.2Ks per nine. Explain that. Masahiro Tanaka. Could not get through five innings. He pitched only four innings at Arizona. He's been bad lately. And Colin McHugh, four runs in six innings with only two strikeouts, and he's been a little rough over his last three starts.

So again, the bad pitchers from yesterday are Nola, Tion, Tanaka, and McHugh. Scott, any concerns in this group? Yeah, I mean, Tanaka's, I feel like,'s been who he is. McHugh, I don't have any concerns there because the investment was much lower and there's been a lot of positive signs. But those other two, Nola and Tyone. The fact, Tyone's season high in strikeouts is only five for a guy who, that was the big question coming in. It seemed like he answered it down the stretch last year.

Would he miss enough bats? And now I think it's a question again. And Nola, I'm still inclined to believe he's going to turn things around to be an ace. I would still call him a by-low. But among the struggling aces, he, is the one who I think raises the most concerns for me because if you think back over the course of his development, it was kind of surprising the way he started missing bats

like he did back in 2017 and obviously continued into 2018. He's not a guy who throws particularly hard and just doesn't have the swinging strike rate of a lot of the aces. and it's down this year it's down at the level it was before that breakthrough it's just not missing bets and looking at the arsenal

it's not totally clear to me he's going to get that back though again if I was a betting man I would bet on it at this point you're talking about Noah right? Yeah I just think there's reason for doubt yeah he does have a strikeout per inning probably because he's facing a lot of hitters

probably a strikeout rate kind of deal but I just think the wall are the bigger issue and that's the thing that I expect to come down. It doesn't make sense that he's walking so many guys. It's like Porcelo, you know, and he's obviously better than Porcelo. That's not the part I'm concerned about. They're high, but I don't really have much reason to believe they'll stay high. Yeah, if you look at his strikeout percentage, it was 26, 27% each of the last two years.

Even in 2016, it was 25%. 22.8 and yes, 3 to 4% does make a big difference. his walk rates up to almost 10%. I still, like Scott, have Nola in the ace tier, but he has dropped down. The only potential ace that I have below him now is Noah Sendergarde, so Nola's down to 14th.

I did kind of the same thing with Tyone, who's in that almost ace group, and he's actually behind Caleb Smith now at 25th. How would you guys rank Nola? Noah's going to be one. How would you rank Tyone, Tanaka, McHugh? Just like that. Yep.

Okay. Tanaka apparently has been made. missing his splitter lately. Got it back yesterday. Got more swinging strikes, but not a good result. The Ugly from yesterday. So those guys were bad. These guys were worse.

Blake Snell. Carlos Rodon. Marco Gonzalez and Marcus Stroman. Strowman said, I didn't have a great feel, but it was just a weird night. A lot of weird things happened. I'm not even slightly worried about it. You're going to have games like this. Some of those ground balls could have gone right out guys.

I think he got like two ground ball outs. I don't know how many. ground balls he actually got, but Stroman is a very confident man very often. Blake Snell, Carlos Rodon, Marco Gonzalez, Marcus Stroman, none of them made it out of the fourth inning.

Heath do have concerns about these guys and, you know, I group them together because Rodon is actually owned an 84% of leagues. I, my favorite, one of my favorite stats so far now is that Blake Snell has thrown 25 innings this year against teams

other than the Royals, and he's given up six runs. He has thrown six and a third against the Royals and he has allowed 10 runs. That makes no sense. The Royals are not good. Yes, those last two starts are against the Royals. I just, I'm not that concerned about it. I'm not moving Blake Snell in my rankings. He's still a top three starting pitcher. Rodon, Gonzalez, and Stroman are all in that range for me where it doesn't take too much for me to be worried about them. It's now two bad starts for Carlos Rodon. I'm much more worried about him than I in Stroman.

And those two bad starts for Rodon were against really bad offenses. I can't find them in my notes. Cleveland, the Yankees, and the Tigers. But all of them were on the road. Rodon has an 1191 ERA on the road and a one, no. Wait, okay, I'm sorry. Scott, my bad.

His three quality starts were at Cleveland at the Yankees at Detroit, and his three bad ones were at home, or maybe four. Anyway, he's got a 12 VCR at home and a 1993RA on the road, so I thought maybe that was an issue for O'Don, but that's not a career-long issue. The last two years has actually been better at home than on the road, so I don't think there's anything there.

Yeah, this one wasn't near as bad as the tiger start, and I mean, he got lit up in that one. They kind of pulled him before he could get into too much trouble here. He gave up three earned runs, But he also had six strikeouts over that stretch as well. So this isn't as worrying as the tiger one. He's still throwing his slider a lot more. So it's not like he's reverted to old tendencies.

So I'm not giving up on him quite yet. Okay. I do think we need to mention Snell's toe injury. Because, you know, two bad starts is coming back from that. He says he's confident in the way he feels and that's not it. He just needs to locate better. So take that for what it's worth. Okay.

Rodon, Marco Gonzalez, and Stroman. Could you see yourself dropping any of them for a two-star pitcher, a hitter you want? Because to me, the answer is Rodon. I'm not sure I'd drop the other guys. Yeah, he's the most drop-able. He's the only one who is at any level of drop-able, I would agree. Although Gonzalez has some concerning stuff that are underlying the numbers, hasn't really been much of a groundball pitcher at all this year,

and the strikeouts, which were already bad, are down from last year. but he's you know the numbers are so good you're not dropping him i just wonder if they're going to stay good okay we're obviously going to be saving the trade talk for tomorrow's show only seven or eight games today maybe nine games so we should have plenty of time um merrill kelly and daniel norris both pitched and pitched fairly well do you like them no okay okay that works for me How about these three hitters that are owned in about 35% of leagues? Do you like them? Mitch Morland, Danny Santana, and Christian Vasquez.

I mean, like, I know Christian Vasquez has been a top 10 catcher. Top eight. How about that? So, it's so bad there I can understand why somebody would be, but he's not good. You know, he's not. Danny Santana's been good in the past and has really impressive exit velocity and line drive rates this year. You know, because he's batting 355,

the badbip is obviously high, but it's a high bad bit profile that he's shown so far with some power, with some speed. There keep finding places for him to play. I haven't added him anywhere. Obviously, really deep leagues he needs to be owned. But I think this is interesting. I don't think it's a, it may not be a total flu.

And I want to defend the, honor of Christian Vasquez just a little bit. Okay. Because catcher's terrible. And I'm not saying that he's good, but I think he might be okay. And okay is a starting catcher in just about any league. He doesn't strike out too much. He's making decent contact, not particularly good contact.

He's playing quite a bit. Those three things in combination. And he's done all this. He's a number eight catcher in fantasy with a 218 bat-bip. Christian Vasquez has already equaled his career high in home runs with 5. 36% own. Okay, let's read some emails to end the show. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com.

And tomorrow we will do some trade talk. I apologize we can get to that. Tomorrow we'll look at two-star pitchers, most added list, all that. Jacob wants to know how long he should hold on to the worst pick in his draft, Dallas Keikle. The worst pick in his draft? I want to hold on to him until he signs because you know what's going to happen. But he has been dropping a little bit every time I update my rankings. And I feel like you just have to look at the rankings and see if he's at the threshold,

if he's above the threshold where those pitchers have to be owned or not in your particular league. Yeah, I'm holding him in a points league, but I'm probably letting him go in a category's lead. Sergio wants to know that's Taoist Kikel we were talking about. Sergio wants to know how you feel about Danny Jansen, rest of season, and in Dynasty. Danny Jansen has been unbelievably bad. He's been one of the worst players ever to grace a baseball field. That can't be that false. I feel, I will apologize to everyone for suggesting he might not be terrible.

Well, wait a second. So you're giving up on him? Like even with catcher in the state it is. I do worry about he's losing playing time. because of the slow-start. And that's... Agreed. But...

He scored five points last week. Let's give Danny Jansen some credit. No, I understand. I understand. Just where do you find hope at catcher? I still feel like he's on the higher end of the hope scale. Yeah, well, do you still have hope for him in Dynasty? Yeah, we should not judge him too hard.

You're going to have more hope for him than anything than... I think the one thing we didn't... And we've talked about it a lot of times before. Catchers have so many responsibilities other than hitting that when they first come up and become everyday catchers for the first time, a lot of them are terrible hitters because they're worried about all the other things that they're supposed to do. And maybe it's because Jansen had played 31 games,

but we really didn't talk about that with him this year. Maybe that's what's going on. Tony wants to know. Well, I mean, let's move on, guys. Tony wants to know Forrest Whitley versus Casey Meiser who do you think

will have the better career Forrest Whitley versus Casey Meiser Casey Meis, right? Oh, yes, sorry he wrote Mises. There's no one again. I should have That.

Mise is the guy who just threw the no-hitter, right? Yes, and he is too good for the miners. I think that's apparent. He has less than a strikeout per inning, but he's facing so few hitters that it would be hard to have strikeout per inning. I'm inclined to say Whitley still.

I know he's off to a terrible start at AAA, but I just feel like the ceiling with the strikeouts is higher. They're both really good. Yeah, I'll say Willie. Okay, Will says, Adam needs to watch Thor Ragnarok. Am I saying that right? Yeah, I think that's my favorite movie of this entire collection.

Okay, he said, It's in my top five. Will says it's laugh out loud, funny, and super entertainment. I was a major Marvel movie hater until I watched the Guardians movies and Ragnarok. Now I just sit back and enjoy them versus seeing them as formulaic moneymakers like my old jaded self-viewed them. Okay, thank you, Will. I will try Thor Ragnorock. I've also heard very good things about it.

Maybe you can squeeze in two more emails here. Mike wants us to talk about Julio Arias. Is he worth keeping in the chance he might get to start again? Julio Ariris? I mean, it's not a flat no, but. in most leagues I have higher priorities than that. Last one. I would rather hold on to your Rias than Kikol, I think.

Heath, rest of season, Spencer Turnbull or Vince Velasquez? This is from Scott. I'm going to stick with Falasquez. Okay. And thank you. I needed the answer to that. Very helpful. Oh, yeah, that's got.

How long do you stash Craig Kimball? That's our last question. Oh, that's a clearer stash than Kikol, because when he gets the job, you know, he's going to be, unless what ever happens to Greg Holland happens to him, but I would bet against that. He's going to be a closer, and he's going to be one of the best, and it's hard to find reliable sources of saves in 2019.

Scott said it's a clearer case. I think it's a mirror case. I am okay with dropping Craig Kimball in a points league. You can't even consider it in a categories league. And apparently, according to Nick in Chicago, John Oliver did a hilarious bit about peeps, and I will have to watch that. Thank you to Scott. Thank you to Heath.

We'll talk to you on Friday on fantasy baseball today. I'm Adam Mazur. See you then.