Fantasy Baseball Today - 05/09 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Struggling Hitters, Buy Low Pitchers, Mailbag

Episode Date: May 9, 2017

We start the show discussing Gregory Polanco, Mike Napoli, Trevor Story and other slumping sluggers and what we make of their early-season advanced metrics. Are they buy low candidates or will they continue to disappoint? ... Reacting to yesterday's best pitching performances from Kevin Gausman, Alex Wood, Nate Karns and more. Plus which stud SPs are better than their numbers? ... A couple of double dong performances, an underrated second baseman and a crowded Yankees outfield ... 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 Tuesday show, everybody. This is fantasy baseball today, and the band is back together. We are non-zero chance. And for the first time in a week, we welcome Sick Chris Towers back to the show. Hello, Sick Chris Towers. Yeah, sorry, guys. I would just like for being back. We are like the Dodgers of the podcast community.

A guy's struggling a little bit. We just take advantage of that 10-day deal. Send him away for a week, and he comes back. Hopefully all better. You still don't sound 100%. He is offended right now. I'm just, I'm not even sure if I should be offended or not. I couldn't decide whether to go with the 10-day-D-L joke or the Matt Harvey joke, so I went with the 10-day deal.

Okay. Scott, you're doing just fine. How are you doing? Just fine. I'm doing a little research on Eric Hosmer and how he stacks up as a fantasy player in the new environment, the new Homer heavy environment. Obviously not a big source of those. because Hosmer was dropped in our podcast league, the 12-team points league, and I was able to claim him off waivers last night.

Which means you prioritized Eric Hosmer over Jose Batista, who I claimed off waivers. It does mean I did that, yes. My claim was the first to go through in the league, and it was a tough call, I got to say, but I think Hosmer is reliably above average, and Batista is maybe toast. Do you know what? Above average in what? In fantasy point production? Chris hates Eric Cosworth.

He's a solid player, Chris. He's not spectacular. I don't know that you need to own him in that league because you could probably find replacement level value in a shallower league. I want to look this up. He's a low-end number two first baseman. He is a high-end to mid-range number two first baseman. So you think he's within the 13 to 18 range at first base? Mid-range, I think would go to 20.

So he's had His best season He scored 487 fantasy points Only hit 18 home runs this year But 487 fantasy points Which would have made him the 25th best Overall hitter In last year's environment

So yeah First base base by hitter I think he's plenty startable Hitter Hitter Oh that was the one year he had 100 RBI right He had 93 No last year he had 100 RBI

I scored 445 Which would have made him Stud Chris, you're too harsh on high-as-or. The whole thing is that no one is saying that Eric Cosmer is good. No one's saying he's great for sure. No one's calling him a stud or a $200 million player. Chris is saying he's one of the ten worst first baseman in baseball.

And his argument against us saying no, he's average is every time we say something good, he says, look how great he is. He scored 447 points last year and was the 56th best hitter overall. If he had gotten off to a normal Eric Hosmer start, we'd still think of him as much. must-start and not somebody who could potentially be getting dropped in a 12-team league. I would view him as must-start coming into the season. Must start in a shallow format, I don't know, but must-own, I'd say. But I was saying I wanted to buy low on Eric Hosmer in a Roto League where, you know, it's deeper rosters in our Roto League.

It's just the kind of guy that at the end of the year, he's going to have his numbers. They're not going to be great, but you talk about landscape. He's going to give you some batting average, right? I mean, that's not something that's so easy to get these days, you think. Maybe. It's not. I do wish he hit more home runs, but obviously he is what he is, and what he is is still a productive player. Very productive player. There you go. Now, I didn't expect to talk about Eric Hosmer. I do want to send our best wishes to James and Tyone, who is treated for possible testicular cancer. We actually got a PSA email today from one of our listeners who is a testicular cancer survivor, and he mentions how treatable it is. And yeah, that is all true. And he says, you should check guys. Don't, you know, don't take.

anything for granted. It's our little PSA here on fantasy baseball today. Just check, you know, make sure everything's good down there. And best wishes, of course, to James and Tyone. Now, since Chris is back, I thought we would talk about a Chris Towers article. We love talking about, right? We love it. So there were two guys that I wanted to bring up as players that I actively want to buy Loan. One I still feel good about. The other, I read Chris's article, I said, I don't know. The one that I still want to buy Loan for sure is Masahiro Tanaka. I'm not sure what the perception is of him, but the ERA is high, the whip is very high, and Tanaka right now is the number 17 starting pitcher in points leagues,

but what you're going to see right now is that every time a pitcher starts, it's going to score points. He's going to move up considerably. Unless he's Blake Snell, then he goes backwards. Yeah. And Tanaka's number 34 in Roto right now with a 436 ERA and a 1.315 whip. We'll get to him later. But Polanco, Gregory Polanco, was the other one, Chris.

And I was thinking, look, he's hitting like 10 doubles right around there. He's got the steals. His plate discipline's been very good. He's just not homering. So it just seems to me like Polanco is slowly coming out of his funk and seems like a good guy to get right now. But he's one of the players you wrote about in your Who Are You Worried about, column? And he scared me a little bit with the hard contact stuff.

So talk about Polanco and then, I don't know, cherry pick a couple of guys from that story that we really should be worried about right now? Well, he's, the big thing with him is the hard contact rates down to 21%. The big thing with him early on last season especially is he was one of the better players in all of baseball when it came to exit velocity and hard hit rate. This season, he's been really bad in those regards. He's got a 25% fly ball rate, which is way down from last season. And, you know, you add it all up together, and it does kind of look like a player who's

swing just isn't right. Now that's something that could just be fixable with a few mechanical changes, but it's also possible that he's playing through that shoulder issue that we were worried about in the spring and that it's just, it's just limiting him enough to not make him great, but not enough to where the pirates can justify taking him out of the lineup. Because he's still a pretty useful player in real life. He's getting on base a ton. He's still running the base as well. It's just for fantasy, he's not doing a lot. Yeah, I guess the way my perception on Polanco has changed is I still had some hope that he was going to make the leap and be the player he was in the first half last year over a full season. That's diminished considerably.

But I also still think he's probably going to rebound and be the player he's been, which wouldn't be in a little bit more power. I'm encouraged by the fact he's got a career high, walk rate, career low strikeout rate. I would still buy low on Polanco. I'd just make sure you were buying low. I wouldn't buy at his cost coming into the year. And like the 10 doubles are a pretty good sign, except that he doesn't have any other extra base hits. So all told, he's got 10 extra base hits on the season, which sounds a lot less encouraging than he's got 10 doubles. Right.

You know what I've actually, I think we talk about spring training stats, and we usually think they're pretty useless. How about World Baseball Classic stats? Like, could those be any less useful? Could those be any more useless? I mean, Gregory Polanco had a huge WBC, Carlos Beltron, had a 90. 97 OPS, bat at 519. I'm looking at the stats right now. Eric Hosmer was awesome.

Christian Yelich was really good. Correa was really good. How many games did Polanco play? Like five? No, he had... Oh, yeah, you're right. He had five. The World Baseball Classic.

It's terrible. I don't think so. Did he? Well, it was soon afterward, if not during. Yeah, I think it was right at the end of spring, actually. Because it was like April 25th or 28th or something. March. Yeah.

Yeah. Jose Bautista, remember how good he looked in spring training, and then, well, early spring training anyway. And yeah, I don't know. So forget about World Baseball Classic. All right, who else from that story, Chris? Are you really worried about? And then I'd also like Heath and Scott, too, talks.

It's not just the Chris Tower show, Chris. I think you can definitely be worried about Trevor's story at this point. You know, we've talked a lot, especially me, about the fly ball revolution, and how it's helped someone like Yonder Alonzo, who I'm sure you guys talked about yesterday. But Trevor Story seems to be taking things to an unnecessary extreme. Him and Ryan Shimp, I believe, are the only players with an average launch ankle above 30%.

And I think that's probably past the upper limit to where you can be a really useful player. So I do think Trevor Story has some adjustments to make, along with the fact that he's striking out like 37% of the time. I don't know if I'd classify the way I feel about Trevor's story is worry. And I don't know exactly, you know, with some of the advanced data and what we know about the way a hitter connects with the ball now in terms of flyball percentage versus ground ball percentage. All useful information that helps tell the story of their stat line. But we've always known that players streak.

they go through hot stretches, they go through very cold stretches. And when it's a player like Trevor Story who strikes out as much as he does, those cold stretches are going to be even longer and even deeper. And so if he's showing weird contact percentages during what's obviously a cold spell, is it because he's cold that he's producing these? Or are those percentages what's making him cold? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know, yeah.

I would point out, though, that we're talking about someone with, 97 career major league games. So these 31 games represent 25% of his major league track record. It's possible that it's not just a cold streak. It's possible. It's possible that last season was just an extended hot. But at the same time, if we were starting this season over blank slate, we had no idea how Trevor's story start would go.

My advice going into the season would be, you know, if you draft him, you have to recognize with as much as he strikes out, he's going to be awful for weeks at a time. and you can't lose confidence when that happens. It's actually a good opportunity to buy into him. So I understand it would be more encouraging if he wasn't hitting such fly balls at such an extreme rate if maybe his strikeout rate was normal high instead of crazy high. But at the same time, I feel like this is kind of playing out in a predictable way.

The other thing is he's only got, what, 58 balls that he's put in play all year. because he's struck out almost 40% of the time. He's walked, more than half of his plate appearances, has been it been walks and strikeouts. So there hasn't been a very large sample size. I'm more concerned. Well, his launch angle has doubled by the 38%. His average launch angle has, sure, but that's a massive change.

It's, right. I think the question is, is that a massive change, or is that a massive anomaly in 50? It could be. But my bigger concern is he can't strike out 38% of the game. time. You can't, you're going to be Joey Gallo. There's something wrong with his swing right now. Okay, well, it's tough to know if it is like just a slump or a trend that's going to impact the future.

Story was streaky last year, and also, I think if you want to be encouraged by Trevor's story, he's batting 182 at home. I don't care what his launch angle is. We know he should be pretty good at home. So there's some production there's funny. Like, everybody on the list, it's like you could make a case that they're all. by lows, but that doesn't mean they're going to be what we thought they were at the start of the season. They're going to be better than they are now, but it doesn't mean they're going to go all the way back to what we were hoping, like Alex Breggman.

Did you have Mike Napoli on there? I did not have Mike Napoli on there. Boy, six-walks-42 strike-outs. What people on Twitter said they were worried about. I am worried about Mike Napoli a lot. More, like story I would say I'm concerned. There's not a lot of things that look good for Mike. Napoli, and it's kind of like Jose Batista.

Like, he's 35 years old. He may just be losing it. Strikeout rates over 30%. It was last year. But the walks... The walks. Almost none. Yeah.

And he walked a lot last year, Napoli, had 78 walks last year. He's got six. You just wonder if, like, pitchers aren't afraid of them. Well, that whole team, man. I mean, go up and down the Rangers lineup, and it's just, it's awful. Is there anyone that's doing what? Well, even Gallo is under 200 now. I read yesterday that Shin Su Chu leads the team in on base percentage, and I think he's hitting 8th.

Yeah, so Luke Roy's been bad. Odora's been bad. Mazar has been bad since the first couple of weeks. It's hard to know what to make of it, but read the story, and let's talk about some good stuff from yesterday. Fringy starting pitchers, there was some interesting ones like Alex Wood. Unfortunately, his next start is at Colorado, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't own him. He's 75% owned. Kendall Graveman, 77.

Here's the list of pitchers owned from 21 to 80% of leagues that pitched yesterday that either did well or are interesting. Matt Moore has a 652 ERA. It's been terrible on the road. It's been very good in two of his three home starts and will be home against the Reds this weekend. Matt Moore. Alex Wood, 11 strikeouts on 88 pitches in five innings, two hits scoreless. They don't want to let him go deep into games. But Brandon McCarthy is on the D.L. right now.

I just don't know. Ryu, but he's coming back, right? They're all coming back. Yeah, I would like, like, I would really like to have Alex Wood on my team. I would much more like to have the Dodgers 10-day DL calendar to know when I should be preparing to replace them. I don't know what the future holds for Alex Wood. But, all right, Matt Moore, Alex Wood, Kendall Graveman had a nice start. Kevin Gosman was awesome.

Seven innings, two runs, one walk, eight strikeouts against Washington. He had good fastball command, according to him and Buckshowalter. His splitter was really good yesterday. Cahill, five walks, seven strikeouts, no runs, one hit in five and a third. So he's got Trevor Cahill has 44 strikeouts at 35 and a third. Mostly, yeah. Yeah. Should change his name to Cahill.

Yeah, oh, nice. 0.49 ERA at home for Cahill with the Padres, 582 on the road. Three starts at each split. Blake Snell was bad again. Nate Carnes, dude. Nate Carnes had a huge start at Tampa Bay with 10 strikeouts and 6 and a third and two runs. And Ricky Nalasco had a great start at the A's. Matt Moore, Alex Wood, Kendall Graveman, Kevin Gosman, Trevor Cahill, Blake Snell, Nate Carnes, Ricky Nalasko.

We need pitching. What do you think of this group, guys? I think there is... Except for Snell and Nalisco. I could make a case to... any of them. Yeah, it Snell's way over on the 60% at this point, right? At this point, you're just hoping for something. Yeah, I think, I view him a lot like I view Tyler Glass now. It's going to happen at some point, but predicting when it is, you have to see it first. Yeah, it could be

two years from now. Cahill, I'm getting even more excited about Cahill with this start. If you didn't pick him up for the two-star week, okay, you missed out on that, but he is showing like this is the possibility he could just have a special season overall with the way his swinging strike rate is. The walks, obviously, five walks. You know, you don't like to see that. The walks have been kind of high overall, but he did say something after the game about trying to strike batters out and how maybe he shouldn't do that so much. Don't, Trevor. Well, he knows.

He's only got two quality starts. Strikeouts are good. Trying to strike. It's like trying to hit a home run. It's not necessarily. Have you listened to Chris at all this year? Everyone's trying to hit home runs and they're getting better because of it. They're not necessarily trying to hit home runs.

There's a difference. When a hitter talks about trying to hit home runs, they're normally talking about swinging out of their heels. And it is worth noting with Trevor Kay Hill, he didn't throw a slider last year. He's throwing a slider now. It's best swing and miss pitch. And yeah, he's got a 28% swing and strike rate on it.

He's also seen a huge improvement in his change-up and curveball swinging swing. strike rates, which could be random, but it could be the result of opposing batters having to prepare for another pitch. And with that arsenal change for Cahill, it's made him a much better swing of miss pitcher,

but he's still getting ground balls and an elite rate. So it's like the best of both worlds for him. Okay. Very excited. Cahill's got a 306 ERA, but only two quality starts and six starts. He's not going deep into games.

And like I said, grade at home, bad on the road so far, and he pitches for the Padres, so just keep that in mind. But he's 67% own. Is he your favorite on this list? I may have missed that. There's Alex Wood, there's Kevin Gosman, there's Cahill, Carnes. I would put Gosman at the top still.

I'd put Wood and Cahill in the next tier. I agree that Nalasco and Snell don't really belong in this conversation. And then I'd have Graveman Moore and Carnes kind of in that whenever they have a good matchup I'll start them. Carnes has kind of had a little bit of an arsenal change this year, too. he's exchanged the change is swapped out his curveball

for his change up as his favorite secondary pitch they have similar swing and miss rates so I don't know how big of a difference it's making but the last two starts have been really good both would be typically ground ball pitches as well so there's not a huge change there okay that's weird

he's never been a ground ball pitcher and he has been a pretty seen a pretty big increase and that so far this year, small sample size. I also want to put in Junjun Riu's name, by the way. He's 39% owned and should be coming off the DL in four or five days.

And, you know, was pitching, was pitching all right? His last three starts. I don't know. I see something in Hengen Riu where I think he should be owned in more than 39% of leagues. I would like the Dodgers

to stick with Alex Wood over Jung JN Riu personally. Yes. So. But Wood profiles better as a guy to have in the bullpen. Yeah, I mean, obviously he has bullpen experience that Ryu doesn't have. So if that's a consideration, it's probably more likely what does go there.

This just feels like a situation where it's going to work itself out eventually anyway. Yeah. Like, I don't see how you could trust you and Jun Ryu to stay healthy at this point anyway. Yeah, or Brandon McCarthy, for that matter, was a separated left shoulder, not his pitching shoulder. Okay, so we had some good performances last night. One thing to keep in mind with Kevin Gossman, who had that great start against the nationals, He only threw 20 pitches in his previous start. He got ejected, remember, for the curveball.

So sometimes that happens. The pitchers got just better stuff after a short outing. Maybe that was at play. But also we had, we had, well, two of the three had high hopes for Kevin Gossman here on this podcast. And it was against the best offense of baseball. We should make sure we point that out. Oh, oh, we should. And we have.

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Join the movement. Big news. Mike Trout says he expects the play today, but he's not certain to be back in the lineup. In fact, Trout could end up on the DL. He's got a hamstring. Groyon. He's got the hamstring.

Harper had the groin. They both have one of each. Or no. Socha, Mike Socia said they're going to evaluate him over the next three or four days to decide, which makes it sound to me like he's sitting for the next three or four days, which makes me regret starting. No, uh, no structural damage in the MRI that he had yesterday. So that's a good sign. Uh, Brandon McCarthy, as we've mentioned on the DL, Rich Hill hoping to return in a week. So yeah, it's our crowded, crowded rotation.

Again, another one, their blister. Yeah. Another one that's going to work itself out. I'm not, I'm not expecting Rich Hill to actually be in the rotation. Guys, I had a blister for, I had a Sorry, I had a blister for like a month. Did you go ice skating? No, it's guitar related. Ah, those, yeah, those finger, you got to build the calluses, man. I know, I haven't been playing it up. She'd practice more.

But you don't hear me complaining about it going on the DL. Just saying. Michael Brantley could miss at least two more games. J.D. Martinez should be back on Friday. Got a double header today at Corriss Field with the Cubs and the Rockies. Aaron Judge, he's got some soreness. He ran into, I think, the wall at Fenway. I don't remember where it was.

That's a big wall. But he doesn't play near that wall. That's the only wall in the majors he wouldn't run over. But he doesn't play that wall. That is a wall man face-off that I'd like to see. Yeah, unfortunately, he's a right fielder. But he ran a long way. Let the joke play.

Geez. He's that good. Well done. Well, anyway, he should be back today. That right-field wall is like up to his shin. It's a stupid little wall out there in right field, though. Yohanna assessment could be back in two weeks. As Drewa Cabrera's day-to-day, we were thinking about picking up Ahmed Rosario.

Should fantasy owners pick up shortstop prospect, Ahmed Rosario? I mean, when it comes to the Mets, you should probably always assume that an injury is going to take longer than they say. If any team's going to keep Rosario down until that deadline in June it's passed, it's the Mets. Why? They are very fiscally responsible. There's a lot of fiscally. Are the Astros fiscally responsible because they decided not to do that with George Spring. I don't think the Astros are known for their fiscal responsibility in the way the Mets are.

Okay. Look, they're calling up Gavin Chikini right now, probably because as Drew Bler is going on the DL. But I think with the next edition of the prospects report, I will have Ahmed Rosario in the five-stash. I just want to say, I'm not sure responsibility. is the right word to use with the Mets in any context. I was trying to be nice. That implies that there's a plan and foresight. I didn't know why Scott took offense.

The Mets trolling. Sandy Alderson is the father of Moneyball, sort of. Michael Lewis wrote it. Hasn't that run its course yet. All right. It never's over. Enough picking on the Mets. Russell Martin's on the DL with nerve irritation in his shoulder.

It's been bothering him since spring training. So Russell Martin heads to the DL. Zach Britton says he came back too soon, just like Chris Towers, but he has no structural damage. Just wait like another week, and we wouldn't be in this buying, Zach Britton. Today is Team Fames Tuesday, by the way. So we do have some funny team themes for you, and we have a lot of your emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. I also want to talk about some underachieving pitchers when you look at four guys who have high ERAs and high whips right now. That would be DeGrom, Carlos Martinez, Strong.

Roman and Tanaka, and we'll talk about those guys and more. But let's start with a couple of emails here from Samir from Houston. He says, Dear, Dr. Cox, J.D., Turk, and the Todd. Scrubs. Great show. Funny show. Very funny show. First four seasons are all-time sitcom.

Oh, okay. I don't know about that, but they're very funny. What do you make of Strasbourg's severe K-per-9 decline this season? Also, I just started listening to the podcast this season, and I love it. Is that y'all singing the catchy intro song? I wish. No, it's not. It's Doc Kroitzer.

And you can get the theme song, by the way, the whole thing. Doc and Dave wrote the theme song. You can, you know, but Doc Kroitzer.com slash theme song. D-O-C-R-T-Z-E-R.com. It was Dave Schaff and Doc Kroatser writing and producing the theme song. So, docrotzer.com slash theme song if you want to download it. All right, what do you guys make of Steven Strassberg, who's number 12 in points, number 18 in Roto, with a 266 ERA and a 1.08 whip, but only 33 strikeouts in 40 and 2 thirds, the K-per-9 decline.

So he's made six starts this year. He has an eight strikeout start, an eight strikeout start, a 10 strikeout start. His last start was five and five and two-thirds innings. I think it's just a case if he had a couple low strikeout. strikeout starts early in the year that have kind of skewed that number. Small sample size. His swinging strike rate is down, but just barely. I'm not really concerned.

There are real changes to his arsenal, though. This is a guy who, you know, said he kind of attributes some of his forearm issues to the use of his slider, so he has dialed back his usage of that pitch. In a big way, his curveball has never been a big swing and miss pitch. So, you know, it could be a little bit by design. Could be. I looked at the numbers, the ground ball ratio for Strasbourg, is exactly what it was, right around where it was, in 2013. And that year was one of his lower strikeout per nine years.

That was 9.4Ks per 9. So I don't know if he's intentionally getting more ground balls this year or if that's going to correct itself. But I would take it if it's going to keep Strasbourg healthy. I think the funny thing is, you know, people are, I get a lot of trade offers, like, should I sell this for Strasbourg? And without all the reliable pitching, it seems like he is a reliable pitcher right now. But it seems. No, he is not. Yeah, I know.

Noah Cindergarde getting a lat strain does not make Steven Strasbourg a more reliable pitcher. He's the same guy he's always been. Yes, yes. That's what I wanted to say. I thought you just said his arsenal was different so he could stay healthy. Stop. You just said. You did say that. Be like everyone else and ignore what I say.

We got our email other day. Number two is from Martin. Can you talk about Danny Salazar? Smells like a good buy low right now with the difference between ERA and FIP, the strikeout to walk ratio, and the sail-esque swinging strike rate for Danny Salazar, who has a 428 ERA, 49 strikeouts in 33 and 2 thirds, but 4.3. walks per nine this year after 4.1 last year. Yeah, we could always talk about Danny Salazar. I'm going to get in here before Heath and Scott start fighting each other. I'm going to stand in the middle, make sure there's nothing that they can throw at each other. And I'm going to say Heath's favorite words. I wrote about Danny Salazar yesterday on CBSWords.com.

He's another guy who has changed his arsenal relying much more on the changeup than any of his other secondary pitches. He's kind of abandoned his seather secondary pitches and just throwing the change up like 30% of the time. And it's a huge swing and miss pitch. But you run into the issue with fastball change up guys. James Shields is a good example. Always a very good pitcher, but always had trouble keeping the ball in the yard. And so I think that'll be an issue with Danny Salazar. What I would say is, yes, if you can get somebody to buy based on his ERA, he is a good by low pitcher.

But I don't think anybody's doing that. Nobody's trading away his strikeout potential and just giving it up because he has a 4-2-8 ERA. Everybody can look and see that he's had some bad batted ball luck, and so far the home runs have been about where they've been for the last three years. I would love to buy low on Danny Salazar if you could get him for a number three mid-range low number three starter. I'd take that. So I'm required to comment now. You are. I will say this about Salazar.

So what's happened with the innings is kind of what I was fearing would happen. He has gone six innings. He went six in a third ones, but basically only six innings. That's the most he's gone. And only in three of his six starts. But the entire league is struggling to go six innings a start. So I don't know that Salazar, you know, obviously the Strasbourg types, who goes seven innings every time.

He's Salazar's a step behind those. But, you know, just because his strikeout rate is so good, he is among the best of the pitchers who you're just hoping to get six innings out of, which is still makes them pretty replaceable in my eyes, but he's among the best of that group. Okay. He's a top 20 pitcher for me.

Yeah. I understand what you're saying about the innings are replaceable, but most of those other guys aren't striking out 13 betters, But I'm saying if you're not going the minimum to get a quality start or really the minimum for a win, because if you're only pitching five innings, you can technically get a win, but you're leaving so much to the bullpen that's pretty unlikely. On that team, though, it's not a bad team to leave a lot to the bullpen. Okay.

It doesn't help him. I would guess that he will get a little bit deeper games once his BABIP drops 80 points to his career norm. He just doesn't have the history of doing that, though. I don't know why you would think this would be different. Well, he was like he has the history of averaging six innings. start. He was 10 and 3, Salazar, in his first 15 starts last year, and then he got hurt and had a 736 ERA in his last 10 starts. Only seven of those 15 starts when Salazar went 10 and 3 were of more than six innings. He averaged 16.7 pitches per inning. That was probably the best stretch of Danny Salazar's

career. And he's only averaged six innings per start once in his career between four different seasons before this one as a starter. So, yeah, I agree with, you know, with a lot of what everybody is saying. It's really just... No, Adam, choose aside. Well, I just, I don't see, the only thing that I...

Where do you stand on the great Danny Salazar? The only thing I don't agree with is, like, I just can't use the word replaceable with him, because I have him in the podcast league and the points league where innings matter, and there's just no way I could ever sit him. No, he's replaceable by, like, Lance McCullors and Garret Cole and Masahira Tanaka.

Well, what I mean by replaceable, it's kind of, you know, it's kind of an internal definition. You know, I basically have to rehash the whole pitching column I wrote last week to define it accurately. But the idea is there are about 20 pitchers who are not replaceable. And I am making every effort to round up as many of those as I can. And I'm willing to use and lose the rest. So he's still in the use and lose category. Do you put McCullors in that? What is using?

That doesn't mean you'd ever drop Danny Salad. No, it means if he gets hot, I will trade him for, if I can combine him with a good hitter to get a more reliable pitcher. Okay. Okay. Totally get that. It is Team Thames Tuesday. I do want to read more emails, but I do have to tell you about some daily fantasy because, look, Nicolalia, this fantasy baseball season, for me, not off to a great start. The other three on this podcast are killing it.

I am lagging behind a little bit. And this continued on Saturday when a listener had the guts to challenge me to some daily fantasy baseball on the draft app. And guess what? That listener kicked my butt. But that's okay. Today is a new day, and I will be back on the draft app doing another snake draft, getting a new squad, and winning some money. I actually have had some good success this year on draft. So download the draft app right now.

This is such an awesome way to play daily fantasy baseball. If you want some free money, use our offer code, FB,000. today, like fantasy baseball today. Again, that's FB Today. You'll get a 100% bonus on up to 600 bucks when you deposit. Draft is a simple daily fantasy app where you do snake drafts on draft. It's draft day every day. I've done two-person drafts, six-person drafts. You can do up to 10 people. I recommend focusing on pitching, by the way, when you play on draft. So here's what you do. You search draft in the app store. It's going to come up first. Enter the promo code FB today when you download for that bonus. The promo code.

is FB Today on the draft app. All right, Team Thames Tuesday from Pablo Diablo. How about maniacal laughter? Maniacal. Ah. Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't made that...

It's good. I hadn't considered that use of his name before. I like it. Good team theme. From AJ. So I don't know how to... I don't know how to approach this one, because he gave us a song.

Obviously, I'm going to sing it. But he screwed up the lyrics. He screwed up the lyrics at the end. I don't know if it was on purpose, but it's the tune of Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin. Fame, Thame, Thames! And then he wrote, Change a Fool. Shouldn't it be like, Thames is cool or something?

I don't know. What do you think? Chade of Fools. Yeah, I don't know. It's not a bad team name. It's fine. And Thad from Rhode Island has Confordably Numb

Good Yeah It's very good That's good That's Pink Floyd, right? You didn't like that one so much Kind of grimace Maybe the only band I hate more than

The Who You like Aerosmith and you hate the Who And Pink Floyd What is wrong? I don't really understand What happened to you? I like the song was sure here I don't really understand

what's to like about Pink Floyd. I don't even really consider them a band. I think they're a laser light show. Like, their music was designed for a laser light show. It's a planetarium, which is something I've done before. I've been to the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show. I didn't think you took part in that kind of stuff, Adam. It's very interesting.

It's also a nice soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz. Yeah, it's just like really trippy stuff. I don't like this. I don't like this. I think of the world, but Dark Side of the Moon rules. It does. The wall is great. I think Pink Floyd was overrated for a time, but now they're properly rated.

They're a lot better than Aerosmith. No, oh, no. They don't actively suck. No, you're just basing that on 90s. I'm so offended that you think Aerosmith's better than The Who, by the way. I wasn't here for that, but that is just, like, to my very core as a person. This is what I don't get about music discussions. Aerosmith, everybody's heard of them.

They've been around for decades. Yeah. Like, very successful band. and yet it's supposed to be, it's just supposed to be accepted objectively that they're bad. How does that make sense? People think they're bad because of their more recent stuff, but their 70s stuff was awesome. And their 90s stuff was great too. McDonald's has been around for such a long time.

They've sold billions of burgers. You love McDonald's. 14 times a week. I don't have 14 times. What are you going to do? Trash Diet Coke next? Come on. I'm just saying, you know, popularity and ubiquity isn't exactly.

understand why somebody likes McDonald's. The problem with Aerosmith is they became too popular, made a bunch of songs that were no longer good music and were just pop music. That's when they got... I think the 90s stuff is kind of better for pop stuff, anyway. Well, all right, so I'm just going to say the last thing. Chris is obviously the guy who hates bands once they get really popular, so, you know. I mean, like, I was just keeping for the Who and Pink Floyd, two of the best-selling musical acts of all.

It doesn't count with classic rock. It doesn't count. Classic rock is exempt from that. Anyway, I have crazy music opinions. I know this. Don't take it too seriously. Grain of salt. Underachievers.

Let's talk about these four starting pitchers. DeGrom, Carlos Martinez, Marcus Strowman, and Masahiro Tanaka. Now, DeGrom is striking out 12.7 batters per nine. He's also walking four per nine. He's a 134 whip and a 380 ERA. He's just been weird this year. Carlos Martinez, also kind of a weird year. that start against the Yankees with eight walks or whatever it was.

I think it was eight walks. Kind of skewing the numbers, but there's him. There's Marcus Stroman, who has had two terrible stars this year, one of them injury-related, and only one strikeout yesterday against Cleveland, but six scoreless innings. And then there's Tanaka, who I talked about earlier. Do you feel like all four of these pitchers, DeGrom, Carlos Martinez, Stroman, and Tanaka are better than their face value numbers? Maybe not Stroman, but the rest, yes. Yeah, and that's not an insult to Stroman.

I just, we're getting closer to saying this is what he is. He's a poor man's Dallas Keichael. It's the Wicke. Yeah, I think he's Dallas Keikle. No. He can be one day. Like, if he has... I don't think this Dallas Keikle is Dallas Keikle either.

Have you watched Dallas Keikel pitch this year, guys? like he is filthy He is filthy Stroman is not that I did see a heat map You know Since I know you guys like these sorts of things Maybe this will win you over to Kichel

I wasn't insulting I called Strowman a poor man's Kichol His heat map through April Last year versus through April This year Just a red dot The very bottom of the zone Yeah it's all

It's been much better At commanding the zone When last year There was a lot of red dots in the middle of the zone and he got hit much harder. So, I mean, if he locates that pitch, and he wasn't fully healthy last year, if he locates that pitch, I don't know why we shouldn't believe he's a Sion-Calibur. Oh, he's winning the Sion.

I mean, that's happening. I still have to sail over him, but I think he'll be in the discussion with the kind of start he's gotten off to. Yeah, no, I would too. But so as far as Stroman goes, it's really that 1.35 whip and the, the, two just terrible starts, one at Boston, one at the Yankees. Yeah, I don't know. I was going to ask this, who do you think had a better start last night? The guy who gave up three runs in six innings with 11 strikeouts,

or the guy who gave up no runs in six innings with one strikeout? I would say DeGrom. DeGrom, of all the strikeouts. I would say DeGrom as well. It's certainly more predictable moving forward. Give me all, yeah, give me all of the DeGromm that I can get. But what about the walks with the Grom? Is that a concern for you guys? Not really.

For me, because he's not like, it's not like he's been wild. It's not like he's like throwing a bunch of pitches, you know, outside of the zone. He actually has thrown more pitches, a higher share of his pitches, inside of the zone this year than last year. So I think it's just one of those things that, in a small sample size, weird things happen. Okay. And what else we got here? We got Marcello Zuna. Five up. One down, rotation. We're pretty much done here, and then we'll finish with the emails.

Ozuna homered twice yesterday. Jed Lowry homered twice yesterday. Ryan Schimp is the number 14 second baseman in points league's number 19 in Roto. Schimp is halfway to his walk total from 2016 with 21 walks and nine home runs and a 172 batting average. Trey Mancini snapped a three for 29 slump with five good games now, 10 for his last 16 for Mancini with two homers and two doubles. And Brett Gardner hasn't stolen a base since April 10th, but is batting 260 now with six home runs. And you could argue that Gardner, his only struggles this year have been after he got hurt in a collision at first base. So I said, Ozuna, I said Gardner, Mancini, Jed Lowry, Ryan Shimp, these hitters stood out yesterday.

What stood out to you? I think it's kind of ridiculous that Jed Lowry, is the 10th best second baseman in points leagues, and he's only 14% owned. I don't think he needs to be universally owned, but 14 seems, like I said, outrageous, near one-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio, and is back to wearing out the gaps this year,

like he did a couple years ago. There was a two-year stretch that was kind of hard to understand there for Lowry, where he just was off the map and fantasy. But he had surgery this off-season to repair it, deviated septum because apparently he couldn't sleep very well. There was a, he was suffering through sleep deprivation. Mike Napoli had the same issue two years ago.

His big like breakout with Boston two years ago, I think was, it was related to that. I don't know if it was the exact same issue. I think he had sleep apnea. But he did. But yeah, it was a problem with sleeplessness. And, you know, I don't, I think a lot of times there can be kind of behind the scenes. issues going on like that, particularly if it's physical. I mean, the lack of sleep affects you physically. Yeah, but how good is Jed Lowry? Plus, he always gets hurt. I think he can be

Logan Forsythe-like. That's how good I think he could be. So again, doesn't need to be universally owned, but I think he's mixed league viable. Would you rather have Shimp for Lowry? Shimp. Shimp. Like, Shimp? I'd rather have Lowry. Shimp for all the extreme fly ball rate and everything. He still only has a 140 BABIP and like he's always going to be a low BABIP guy but he was a 260 Babbup guy last year so you have to think there's some positive regression coming he's never going to be much more than a 240 hitter but if it's 240 that's a useful player is it crazy to ask this question would you rather have Marcelo Zuna or Aaron Judge I think that's perfectly reasonable I think I have Marcelo Zuna still a little higher I think I do too it's they're right in the same range I may have moved judge ahead of

them. Yeah, but they are right in the same range. I have a judge ahead, but yeah, I don't think it's a crazy question either. By the way, it's going to be really fun to track Ryan Schimp's home runs, infield fly balls, and ground balls this season. He has nine home runs, nine ground balls, and eight infield fly balls. He is hilarious. Scott recommended Brett Gardner this week as a sleeper hitter. He homered yesterday at the Reds. You know who else I recommended is a sleeper hitter who I think also homered? And who I like even more and who I think is even more drastically underowned is Matt Holliday, who now has a 287-400-552 slash line is batting third or fourth for the Yankees every day.

And for some reason, he's only like 60% owned unless that's changed dramatically over the weekend. We were really low on him coming into the season, and I didn't think it made all that much sense. I was not low on him. I wasn't either. I was low on judge. I thought he had aged out. I thought he couldn't stay healthy, and the power was on the decline. But, yeah, the BH.

It's the Nelson Cruz effect all over again. I don't think Matt Holiday is just must own, considering one of his strengths is getting on base, and that's a big deal and had to add points leagues, the three outfielder leagues. I think I'd go as far as to say Matt Hollidays must start. And I will say that there is a possibility, I don't think is a great one. but a possibility that Matt Holiday becomes their first baseman, and that allows them to get, because this is what he's been playing the last two games

while they've been in NL Parks. I was just noticing that, yeah. And they want to keep him in the lineup. They didn't want to bench Matt Holiday for five straight games. They had Chris Carter at first. They have Greg Byrd on the D.L. But he plays first base, and that gets Aaron Hicks in the lineup every day.

And, man, I'd still rather see Greg Bird in the lineup long term than Aaron Hicks. There's something going on here with Aaron Hicks, though. He is playing great. He might be their second best. outfielder. He might be better than Gardner and Ellsbury, and Hicks is going to play at least against lefties. They've got a good problem on their hands, but Hicks is going to play, I think, more than we expect. Much like the Dodgers, I think this is a problem that will sort itself out. You've got three guys that are old. They can't sit at Hicks right now. You've got to find

light appearances for him because he's just crushing the ball. I guess I would say from a fantasy perspective, don't just let Hicks sit there on the waiver wire because you expect him to stop playing more than a couple times a week. Let's see where this goes. He's not a bad guy to stash. Also, does anybody think that he could legitimately have a good year and that this is more than just the hot streak? Because I do.

I do. I do. Yeah, more walks than strikeouts on the year. Obviously, a guy who has both power and speed. Former top prospect in the Twins organization who just didn't put it together for whatever reason. I mean, it seems like this could be a late bloomer situation. Okay. Would you rather...

I don't buy it. I can't get on board with this. Would you rather stash Aaron Hicks or Trey Mancini? Hicks. Hicks. Sure. Okay. So what did you think of Gio Gonzalez yesterday? How close are you to... How close are you to dropping Joe Gonzalez? I know it's only one bad start, but boy, is he walking a lot of batters? Yeah. I'm not dropping him. I don't know who would be on the waiver wire that I could drop him for, but I'm not dropping him. I had adopted the use-em-and-lose-em approach two weeks ago. It would have been a great candidate to lose.

Yeah. All right, yeah, you're not dropping him yet, but there are some troubling signs for Gio Gonzalez. That's five straight starts with three or more walks, including a seven-walk start in his previous start. Jason Hayward's on the DL. Martine Prado back on the DL with a hamstring injury. Dexter Fowler is hoping to return today.

Edinson Volquez will be back this weekend. Chase Headley day-to-day after being hit by a pitch on the knee. Steven Sousa left with a sore thumb. Who's ready to drop Stephen Sousa? I dropped him a week and a half ago. All right. Me, me, me. Tampa Bay shortstop.

Matt Duffy is starting a rehab assignment. It's unclear what the playing time will look like. Probably needs to play third base. Well, Lungoria's been playing third, no? He's been playing third, yes. Yeah, I know he's got the foot thing. You don't... Bench Evan Longoria for Matt Duffy.

Get out of here. He needs to go on the DL for his foot. Get out of the D.H. and Brandon Crawford rehab assignment that is underway. So we can either read our listener emails or we can talk about Aerosmith or we can just keep talking about the Yankees. I'm fine with any of them.

You guys decide. Choose your own adventure today. Emails. Okay. Good choice. Rob in Connecticut. Hey, Cole, Madison, Noah, and James. These are the pitchers that we should have drafted earlier.

What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me right now that I don't know who James is? Pax there. Pax. There we go. There we go. I'm normally opposed to any mid-season rule changes, but with a rash of injuries, I'm considering an expansion of DL slots. Buy or sell adding a DL slot or DL slots, with the caveat that no team may add a player to their roster who is currently on the DL. Thus, you can only DL players that you already own.

Nope. It's too late to change rules, I think. Yep. But you are going to have to expand your DL slots in the future, I think. I think as a general rule, yeah, it's a bad idea to change rules midseason. If you put it out there to the league and nobody objects, then why not change it? I agree. I don't see why this is a bad idea.

I feel like if we're in agreement that it's going to have to happen next year, we're only a month, we're only five weeks into the season. Just do it now. If one person makes a bus about it, fine. But you've probably dropped someone. That's the thing, is that like if you've dropped someone who went on the DL that you could have stashed. Otherwise, I'd be pretty upset. You know what? If you have a poll and zero people object, I agree to it.

What if, what if somebody objects, but you say, okay, you and you alone are allowed to pick up the guy that you drowned. No, this is all done. All right, all right. This is from Ben. Hey, Garrett, Sid, and Frank. I have no idea. Yeah, neither do I. There's not many SIDS out there.

I always think of Sid Braine. Yep, that's who I think of, too. This is Blue Bloods. Blue Bloods. Oh, it's a CBS show. Great show. Of course we knew that. We were testing you out there.

You watch Blue Bloods, too, Chris? What don't you watch? Anything on CBS, Chris watches. That's why I plug his columns all the time. Points League with five points for a quality start. Rank these starters for future production. Charlie Morton, Kendall Graveman, Hector Santiago, Matt Shoemaker, C.C. Sabathia.

Matt Harvey. Again, Morton, Graveman, Hector Santiago, Shoemaker, Sabathia, Harvey. I'm convinced this is actually from Scott. He just wanted to give us a list of pictures that we had to put Matt Harvey at the top of. Yeah, Harvey Morton, Shoemaker, Graveman. Harvey Shoemaker, Morton, Graveman. Harvey Morton, Graveman, Shoemaker. Same four.

Slightly different order. Doesn't Graveman deserve a little more credit, Heath and Chris? I had him third. Yeah, him fourth. I put him ahead of Hick for Santiago. You know what? His line through five innings last night didn't look so bad, which is why I made him the guy I dropped for Eric Cosmer.

But then when I woke up and saw he went seven innings with six Ks, I was like, dang it. I think he's pretty good. I just don't think he has the strikeout potential that some of the other guys do. You mean his line through five didn't look very good. Is that not what I said? That is what I meant. You said bad, yeah.

Messed it up. Messed it up. This one's from Chris. Rest of season, head-to-head points league. Reyes or Jerko at Shortstop? Points League, I go Reyes. Yep. I guess, yeah.

Dear, Budnick, Ugg, and Donkey Lips. This is from Blake and Santa Barbara. Budnick, Ugg, and Donkey Lips. Salute your shorts. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen that. You never saw Salute your shorts? I can understand why he's done it. It's a good show.

A little old for that. I was more of a slime time live kind of guy. Slime Time Live. You had those, like, your siblings are quite a bit older than you, Adam, right? So you kind of got... Are you not aware, Scott, of the Slime Time Live thing? No. Yeah, because you went there.

What do you mean? Your brother was the host of Slime Time Live. Yeah, my brother was the host of Slime Time Live. Oh, I get it. Sorry. And then you were like, your brother, your siblings are older. Now, I watch most of the Nickelodeon shows like, Hey, Dude and All that. I just never got it to salute your shirts.

Oh, Hey, Dude and Salute Your Shorts were on the same block. I know. That was a great block, man. All right, so. Memories. I forgot about the question. Blake's question is, based on the start, how many dongs do you guess these guys end up with this season? Edwin Encarnacion, don count.

I'd still say 30. Yeah, I'll even go 32. 29. That's it for Encarnacion. That'd be disappointing. I want him to get. He's got, what, three? Yeah, but how many did he have last year?

It over 40 last year, right? or am I wrong? Oh, I don't know, you may be right. Maybe it is too low. Maybe I should go higher. I think he's going to have a very similar season when I'll set and done. So let me look at his... 42 last year.

I'll say he ends up with 35. I'll say 36. 34. See how easily you talk this up. There you go. We got more dongs for incarnation. We are convictionless. How about Mike Napoli?

24. 26. I will go with 15. Hey, guys, guess how many home runs Edwin Encornion? Hey, Edwin Encornacion. Guess how many home runs he hit in April last year? Three. Correct.

But he got hot at May 4th and 50, homered. So he was a little behind schedule. I'm not going to go through all these guys. Chris Davis, Brian Dozier, Jose Ibrahim. Do any of them hit 40 homers? Davis or Dozier, can they hit 40? I'd bet against all of them hitting 40. Yeah, I'll put Davis 32.

Dozier at 29. No, I'll give them, I'll give Dozier 31. I'll give Davis 38 or something. I'll tell you what, Heath, if Chris Davis hits 32 home runs, he's going to be a bust. Yep. That's true. Jose Ibrahim, over under 30. Under?

25. Yeah, 29. Here's an email from Garrett. Should I trade Dylan Bundy for Cindergarde? No, I would not. I would. Really? Okay. Yes. What if you were 500?

All right, hang on. I spoke too soon. You're five, I know you do. I need to give this a little more thought. Okay. I don't think I would. It's totally dependent on your record, I think. I don't even know that it is. I mean, three months is a long time. Even with the concerns about Bundy regressing.

I was more interested. interested in trading Bundy than necessarily buying Cindergards. So I spoke too soon. I apologize for my zeal. Always just trying to disagree with everybody. The next one is from Burke in Illinois. Dear Simmons, Linklater, and Pryor. Famous Richards.

Ah, okay. In a league with OPS and Quality Starts, I just traded Jose Altuve. Four. You're going to trade a stud. You better get a good haul. Did he get a good enough haul? traded Jose Altovae for Bogarts Jose Ramirez

Johnny Quedo and Masahiro Tanaka grade the trade It's like an A plus right It's an A for sure Okay You got like four high level starters in that trade That's a good one You have to overpay for an Altuve

But that's taking it too far By the way I don't feel that bad About not knowing who Richard Linklater is I just Googled it This is I don't feel bad about it at all He's one of the most acclaimed directors of his generation, Adam. Okay. But he wasn't an Aerosmith, so I don't know who he is.

Chris in Omaha. Dear Monroe, Nick and Hank. No idea. I don't know. Lamb or Suarez, head-to-head league where strikeouts in O'BP are categories. Jake Lamb or Ehuehanyos Suarez? Lam. Yeah, I guess.

I guess, lamb. Okay, and we have Nate in Philly with our last email. We are Robin, Jesse, Bill, and Scotty. Scotty. Man, I'm still on... Venturas. Ooh. Really?

I think so. Who the hell are Bill and Scotty Ventura? I don't know. What? If it's the first two. But Robin and Jesse fits. I agree. Yeah, I don't think...

No, that is the gin blossoms. Oh, I love the gin blossoms. Like, I would... Great band. The gin blossoms over Pink Floyd and the Who, like 10 out of 10 days a week. That's ridiculous, but the gym blossoms are fantastic. I love that. They're so underrated, one of the most underrated pants.

The question from the gin blossoms and Nate and Philly, what's the deal with Zach Eflin? Does anybody like Zach Eflin? Oh, I did not even realize this was in here. By the way, Adam's taste in music is worse than Chris's hipsterness. Nothing is worse than Chris. Listen, I actually, Chris. Zach's been pretty Eflin good so far this year, but I, I just don't think with that strikeout rate, he can keep it up.

Very, very stealthy there. Nice work. Yeah. Anybody buying it? I'm not going to bleep it. No, he doesn't miss nearly enough bats. Even in the miners. Right.

He's like Thai block. I really want to finish Neighbors 2 with Zach Efron. I thought it was funny. I thought the beginning was funny. People have told me it's dreadful. It's not as good as Neighbors 1, but it's still, you know, those are all likable people. I like watching all of them.

So it's fine. Yeah, I agree. Thank you for listening, everybody. This has been fantasy baseball today. We're back tomorrow. We'll do something. We'll grade your trades. Bye.