Fantasy Baseball Today - 05/16 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Fantasy Feud! Drop Frazier? Add Perdomo?

Episode Date: May 16, 2017

It's a fun Tuesday show as we play Fantasy Feud (19:00), read plenty of your emails, sing some team names and discuss Monday's action ... Thoughts on Zack Godley (7:05), Sean Manaea, Luis Perdomo and more SPs from yesterday (53:48) ... Rizzo or Freeman rest of season (1:40)? Is it time to drop Todd Frazier and Ian Kinsler? What's going on in the Mariners bullpen (4:50)? How has Hunter Renfroe's approach changed (12:40)? ... 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

It is Team Fames Tuesday here on Fantasy Baseball today. We got a big, big show for you. Should be a fun one today. Before we get into that, are you hiring with ZipRecruiter.com? You can post your job to 100 plus job sites, including social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, all with a single click. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash strike.

Adam Azer, Chris Towers, and Heath Cummings. Are you guys fired up? because this is a big one. This is a good one today. I could not be more excited about the Celtics being in the Eastern Conference finals. Cabs in five? Can we disagree, Cabs in five? I would say that's the most likely outcome.

Okay. I'm not going to say it. Well, it depends. It depends. The Celtics have the best player in the series, Kelly Olenick. So it really just depends on which version of the Cavs shows up. He was. He was.

He had his moments. I did watch the fourth quarter. It was a, even though it wasn't all that competitive. Yeah, but it was, he played so well, it was interesting. Today on the show, we're going to talk about some players that we don't get to talk about all that much. I love a night with only eight games. Let's us be a little bit more creative. We have to talk about the Mariners bullpen.

I'm just going to spoil it for you now. I'm going to give you the spoiler. You should get a list of teams out right now because we're playing the feud in about 10 minutes. All right? It's time. It is time. I got a couple of Hey, Roald. real quicks for you. Hey, real quick, who would you rather have rest of the season? Anthony Rizzo or

Freddie Freeman? Anthony Rizzo, but I think Freddie Freeman has made it. This is, the fact that it's close is much more about Freddie Freeman's development as a player than anything Anthony Rizzo has not done this season. I did move Joey Votto ahead of Anthony Rizzo today. Yeah. I did not move Freddie Freeman ahead of Rizzo, but my top four at first place. You got to be considering it at this point. Like, I know you and I were both questioning Freddie Freeman? No, I've already walked that back. But this is a Daniel Murphy in May of 2016 situation where the gains he's made are pretty

clearly legitimate. Well, actually, Rizzo, they were basically tied last year. So as long as Rizzo gets back to what makes him Rizzo, you know, it's going to, they were very close. Rizzo was slightly better in points league because he strikes out a lot less. Freeman was slightly better in Roto. But, yeah. Has cut his strikeout rate. It's, oh, that's good to see.

And, well, he's, you know, he's one of the best hitters of baseball right now. So, you know, he's locked in. How long does that take to normalize before we think it's real? Swing strike rate normalizes pretty quickly. Well, Freeman's batting 339, slugging 739. So, you know, won't be this good all year. But he's been outstanding. All right, I don't remember if I asked this last week.

We had an interesting trade, and I wanted to put it up to you guys with a hey real quick. Who would you rather have wrestling? of season, Eric Thames or Jake Areietta? I believe I'd still stick with Arieta, but it's like a near wash for me at this point. I keep moving Thames up, and I've dropped Arieta just a little bit. So if I had strong pitching, which I can't imagine I do, I wouldn't mind the Thames side. But it's a very fair trade, in my opinion. Yeah, for me, that's one of those trades that I can't make, you know?

Like either side that I'm on, there's almost no chance that I could actually justify making it. Yeah, I got a trade offer from Chris yesterday that was rescinded. Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out. I didn't think I was getting enough in my counteroffer. So, yeah, we need to consider this. So he made you an offer and then pulled it back before you could accept it? Yes. I wasn't going to accept it, actually.

Oh, okay, good. It was a fair trade, but just it was his Dallas Keikel for my Stroman and Estrada. Here's the problem. We should have taken that. I should, but if I did that, like, I've got just terrible payments. Then I'm going to have to start a terrible pitcher, you know. You should have invested more in pitching. I invested a lot more pitching than either of you in that league.

Here we are. All right, so we have more on that a little bit later, including an email about an all-reliever strategy that we should definitely talk about revisit now. Let's look at yesterday standouts, and I think we've got to start with – so here we're going to get yesterday more or less out of the way. We're going to play the feud. We got a lot of team names and a lot of your emails, by the way, at FantasyBaseball at CBSI.com. Start with Edwin Diaz, who walked four batters yesterday and a third of inning, gave up two runs. Ten walks now and 20 strikeouts and 15 and a third. But 5.28 ERA for Diaz.

They've got some decent options. Steve Sechek actually came back yesterday. Tony Zick came in and relieved Diaz. I saw someone picked up Zick in that same league, that auction league that we have, which bothered me because I have Dias. First of all, would Zick be the guy, hypothetically? And what do you think about this situation? I said yesterday that I wasn't all that concerned about Edwin Diaz losing his job. I changed my opinion, not just because he had four walks,

but the point when a manager decides I'm not going to let my closer finish this inning, I don't believe he's going to get out of it. Usually that comes around four walks. Oh, yeah, he has to. No, no, because I think there's an opportunity for top ten closers. They don't have somebody ready when they come into the game. I think if Craig Kempera walked four people. They can't get a pitcher ready that fast.

They don't even start pulling somebody up. A Rollis Chapman. Rollis Chapman got lifted last Sunday at the Cubs in the ninth inning. He didn't get to finish his inning either. I mean, this was just, I would see how many pitches he threw. You have to save his arm at some point. So, look, obviously you've got to be heightened with your risk here. I'm definitely worried.

I think Diaz probably, I haven't got to relievers yet, but he needs to go down. He threw 28 pitches last night in a third of an inning, so they had a game. him. And Zick would be the guy to stash, do you think? I really don't know. Particularly impressive. That's kind of the issue for me is that they're just, I don't see a clear guy right now. What do you think about Cshech? He's had so much trouble staying healthy over the last couple of years.

Was it his hip again this year? I think there's 64 innings last year, but he's had injury issues and I just, I don't know if he's that guy anymore, but he has experience in the role. That matters a lot to managers. Yeah. He pitched in like the sixth or seventh yesterday, but that was his first game back. All right, so look, Zick, he's got to go to R.A. He walks a lot of batters. They also have James Pazzo's no chance. Nick Vinson's having a good year. There's some options there, but I haven't seen anything yet. I'm going to look at the Seattle paper right now. I haven't seen anything yet about this being an imminent change or anything, but it had to be brought up.

You know who else has to be brought up? Zach Stinking Godley. Oh, God, boy, do I regret what I said yesterday. 56% owned. I was listening to the podcast yesterday. Nobody seemed to be a big fan of Zach Gottlie. Okay, good. So it wasn't just me. No, no, I said terrible things. Yeah, I think very bad. Well, what do you think here? If you look back two years ago, Godley did have a nice season with a 319 ERA and about a strikeout parade. A lot of walks. Is this legit? He walked five guys yesterday, but only gave up one run.

I don't believe it's legit. At the same time, I'm not going to completely ignore it any longer. Does that make sense? I still think that that Godley is probably not going to end up being a very good pitcher this year. But you look at what he's done in three starts, and the walks are terrible, but the swinging strike rate, I mean, he probably should be striking out even more better than he is. So I would consider giving him an ad. He's not, I don't know what the hell to say about Zach.

He's not a must ad. He's not good. He's had a good start to the season. He's going to have a good two-start week now, and we're going to look stupid for what we said about him yesterday. No. Yeah, his neck starts against the Padres. All right, so we're not rushing to pick up Zach Godley.

Let me go back and say something about the Mariners' bullpen. I said Steve Seesek pitched in the sixth, I think I said, he pitched in the eighth. He got one out in the eighth. And I just read a quote from Scott Service that said, well, it was a partial quote, that Diaz's mechanics are out of whack. So hopefully it's just a mechanical issue. Chris, who stood out to you yesterday, sir? Well, I think we probably have to talk about Luis Pardomo at this point.

I think he's another guy that, like Zach Godley, we've mostly dismissed this season. But he's doing some interesting things. Yeah, absolutely. He's got a 419 ERA, but better lately, and a strikeout per inning. Only two home runs allowed, and 34 and a third. Perdomo gave up... 70% ground ball rate. 3 and 70% on owned.

He's only owned in 32% of leagues. Six innings, three runs, and a career high nine strikeouts against Milwaukee. Apparently, a very good slider last night for Perdomo. Would you rather have Luis Perdome or Zach Godley? Perdomo. And the thing is, like, we're having... this discussion and we need to have this discussion and maybe I'm just approaching it wrong, but I'm not looking for these guys in any of my leagues, unless they're two-star pitchers, maybe.

Well, and they were this week, and I think they got picked up because of that, so it may be tougher for you to find them. But are these guys that could, let's talk about Pardomo, since you like him better, is he someone that could have, I'm not going to say like a breakout, but, you know, it's a good solid year and be mixed league relevant for much of the year. I don't know that Pardomo's chances of doing that are much worse than Trevor. for Cahill. So, like, I put him in that same.

I'm not ranking him in my top 60 or 70 starting pitchers, but he's a guy that needs to be owned until he doesn't. Anyone else? Big standouts yesterday? Was there just something in the air in Cleveland that made both starting pitchers dreadful? Because Carlos Carrasco and Chris Archer were both awful. Carrasco was an injury. Yeah, had to leave the game. I would say

Just to talk about a hitter Domingo Santana is on fire And I just really hope this is finally It's clicking He's going to be good Yeah you know something We might have to break out the old theme song Domingo Santana

Yeah we might have to break that out tomorrow I might have to throw that out there tomorrow I would like that I just continue to have a problem with It might just be a mental block at this point with everyone on the brewers. That I just like, okay. They're all really good. If Domingo's, sure, they might all be.

But if Domingo Santana's breaking out, who gets left out? Well, nobody right now. Like Santana, you may win Louis Brinson comes up? Well, sure. We've all got, we've got Lewis Brinson in our top 100 probably at this point. We expect him to come up at some point. We're hoping for a Ryan Bront. at some point, but that's not necessarily a guarantee.

He gets, does he have his 10-5 rights now? Yes. Yep. There's just, there's a lot of dudes there. Right. And a lot of guys that we like and a lot of guys that we've talked about, oh, man, this guy's figuring it out. And it's just, that's why it's hard for me to get excited about anyone, even though I think they're all in their own context, very exciting.

Well, I've been using Arnon Perez at second base in a deeper league, 14-team league, and he's been good for a week and a half or so. They're just hitting really well. Thames sat yesterday. Thames has tired legs, by the way. So there's your Thames watch. I think he and Aaron Judge both are playing a lot more than they ever have and obviously doing a lot better. And Judge is striking out a lot lately.

So keep an eye on regression with those guys, especially Judge. I think over the last 15 games, he's got like a 33% strikeout rate. Yeah, he's still. still producing a little bit. He's still crushing the ball, so it might not matter. But it's worth noting that a big part of what made us, you know, really buy in was the improved strike out rate. Yep, yep. It is something to keep an eye on there with Aaron Judge. All right, I'm going to give you your quote of the day. We'll do the news. We'll play the feud. Quote of the day is from Padres manager, Andy Green. How many of you out there actually knew the name of the Padres manager?

You can answer that amongst yourselves. He said, quote, he was swinging had a ton of pitches out of the strike zone, which gives him limited opportunity to show that power. He's starting to shrink that zone. Pitchers are starting to come back toward him, and then he drives the ball in the gap and drives runs in. He's making the adjustment back to the league, and that's really good to see. That is Andy Green on Hunter Renfro, who's 46% own, had a walk-off home run in four RBIs yesterday, and he has drawn at least one walk in five straight games. Seven walks, still five strikeouts in his last five games.

So Renfro is, look, he's out of bad season. He's batting 2-17 with seven home runs and 43 strikeouts to only 11 walks. But consider 11 walks and he had seven of them in his last five games. Are you thinking, it's time to pick up Hunter Renfro right now, 46% on? I've still got him below the Brewers outfielder's in the peck and order. There's just a lot of outfielders. Yeah, there really are. He is swinging at fewer pitches outside of the zone.

over the last 15 games, that's dropped to 32.7% from his season rate of 36%. So that's a good sign, but he doesn't make much contact when he swings. And that's an issue right now. What about Buxton or Renfro? Renfro. I would go Buxton. Okay, yeah, Buckston's a little similar because he had a stretch where he was walking a lot, and we were kind of encouraged, and now it's like, well, he didn't really do anything with that.

No. Okay. So, big news. Zeruba Cabrera has torn ligaments in his thumb. He wants to play through it, but Cabrera might end up on the DL. So we've already told you to stash Ahmed Rosario to do it. Nice little auto-correct here. Cleveland outfielder Abraham Almond's is going on the DL with a shoulder injury. That's Abraham Almonte. So they're going to play Lonnie Chisunhall at the center field, it sounds like, on a regular basis. and he's been hitting the ball really well this year. He has.

I don't know that I really understand why, but it's something to keep in mind, at least in deeper leagues. Yeah, actually, Chisunhall is 13% owned. He's homered in two straight games, batting 282. They have the third most at bats against lefties, Cleveland, and that's usually a bad thing for him, and he sits against left. He's only has 10 at bats. He's four for 10 with a home run against left-handed pitchers.

So Chisand-old. But the question. is I said Stash Ahmed Rosario. What about Bradley Zimmer? Could you see him coming up? I don't believe that's in the cards in the very near future. He's tearing it up right now. I think Zimmer's on like a seven-game hitting streak. Yeah, I wish they would. So, all right, it's another name to put out there on your radar. What about Mack Williamson? The Giants called him up as Pence is on the DL. Do you care it all about Mac Williamson?

Not really, yeah. Okay, and L only. Carlos Carrasco left with pectoral tightness. Josh Donaldson could be back this weekend. Now, Carasco, by the way, isn't sure he's going to miss his next start. We'll see. But Donaldson could be back this weekend. A.J. Pollock's on the D.L. No timetable with his groin injury. It was a grade one, so that was positive.

Grade the groin injury. Mark Balancin seems to be recovering well from his elbow injury. And James Paxton is making good progress. Robinson Canoe, not so much. Now, he is expected to play today, but they've been saying that, so we'll see. I didn't mention this when Blake Snell got demoted. Arrasmo Ramon. is moving into the raise rotation next time they need a fifth starter.

What is your level of interest in Erasmo Ramirez? A.L. only. Yeah. All right. Maybe the 16 team for the People League if he has two starts. Okay. You have to prove that with Chris? No, I don't ask Chris before I make moves. I just make them. I expect him to do the same.

Carlos Gomez is out four to six weeks with a hamstring strain. Adrian Gonzalez will begin a rehab assignment today. Do you anticipate any Bellinger playing time issues when Gonzalez gets back? Not with Tolls Out for the year, Bellinger, if you play outfield. All right. And Thames missed yesterday's game with sore legs, as I mentioned. Travis Shaw, sore fingers. And it's time for a shout out to Pam, Dean, and Evan.

This is a father, mother, and son that all listen to our podcast. I think that's pretty neat. So what's up, guys? Thank you for listening. And listen, if you're out there and you're an employer and you're hiring, I want to talk to you about ZipRecruiter and our free offer so you can find the right candidate for your job opening. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. Look, you're a fantasy owner.

Your job is to acquire talent, make your team better, and companies aren't any different. Successful businesses need top talent. Where do you go when you need a scout for new employees? ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. You can't find the best candidates by posting your job on one side. You need to post on all the top job sites, and now you can with ZipRecruiter. You can post your job to 100 plus job sites with one click. Then ZipRecruiter's powerful technology efficiently matches the right people to your position.

That's why ZipRecruiter's different. Unlike other job sites, ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them. In fact, over 80% of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate in just 24 hours. That's awesome. Right now, our listeners, can start forming their own winning team on ZipRecruiter for free. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash strike.

That's ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. Try it for free today at ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. All right, it's Team Thames Tuesday. And here's the game show edition from Mitch in honor of the feud, which we're about to play. The Bryce is right. Yep. Familia feud. Yep.

Wheeler of Fortune. Yep. Press your Pollock. Okay. Let's Michael deal. Like Michael Franco? No. No.

Who wants to be a millionaireietta? Nope. Oh, come on. Are you Samarger than a fifth grader? I like that one. Thames that tune. Yeah. Super Marte sweep.

Deal so no deal. That's good. Okay. All right. Here we go. Let's play the feud. The top six answers are on the board. Give me the top six catchers in Roto.

Heath. Salvador Perez. Is number two. Oh, Chris gets a chance to get number one. Chris? Buster Posey. Buster Posey is your number one catcher. Pass or play, Chris.

I will definitely pass. All right. Top six catchers in Roto. We got Posey and Perez off the board. Heath, the Cummings family, has three strikes. Go ahead, Heath. Brian McCann. Brian McCann is number three.

Good for you. I don't think this is still a deal, but I'll say it just to try to get one of the hard ones. Alex Avila. No. Matt Weeters. Evan Gattis. Evan Gattis is incorrect. And it is the Towers family chance to steal.

Three answers left on the board, Chris. We're looking for the top six catchers in rotissory format. And so we've got the top three. Posey Perez and McCann are gone. You don't have that much time to mess around here. Gondal. Gondal is correct. He is number five with his double streak.

Gondal has been hot lately. Now batting 1stabird up to near 300. Yeah, 291 batting average, 13 walks, 25 strikeouts, and nine doubles, which I think is the most. The fly ball revolution. Hitting much more ground balls this season, potentially trading some power for some batting average and on-base percentage. Well, we talked about this. I never understood the low batting average for Grandal.

I think you said he was a pop-up guy or fly ball guy or whatever. Yeah. But the walk-to-strikeout ratio was always pretty good, and he was hitting like 230. So, and he had that year, Grandal, two seasons ago, where he entered the last month of the year with just a tremendous season. Like good, like good. And then he went like four for 80, like legitimately. It was right after a shoulder injury. Yes.

So you feel like this is... We liked him. We liked... Everybody liked Grondal, right? Breakout preseason. This is looking good here. Yes, he's a very good player. And is a no doubt must-star fantasy catcher.

Let's see who else was on the board. We need the number four and the number six. Number four was... Hold on. I just won. Yeah, you won. You're up one to nothing. Good.

Chris. Chris. Okay, going to write it down. I just want to make sure. Austin Hedges. Number four. Leads all catchers with eight home run. for like another two days.

And this was the most surprising one to me. Yadier Malina, number six. I don't get it. Shows up for work every day. I guess so. I did want to talk about Brian McCann, because I looked at some of the numbers, and I feel like he's been really lucky.

McCann is hitting more ground balls. He's not hitting the ball any harder. Home run to fly ball. home run to fly ball ratio way up from McCann. Take a look at his batter ball profile and tell me. Also, he's hitting very well against lefties, batting 304 with a 709 slugging percentage against lefties. Doing things that I just didn't think he was capable of doing.

So McCann... Are you trying to say he McCant keep this up? Not only can he McCant keep this up, but... I don't know. It's been a bad position. So you're not Brian it? I can't say I'm selling high. on McCann just because what the heck are you getting?

Right. You need your catcher. But I do that. It's just seems like complete, complete fluke right now to me. But 16 walks, 16 strikeouts is pretty damn impressive. Yeah, I mean, he's been maybe a little bit lucky, but it doesn't, like, he's a top 10 catcher. It's not actionable. And I thought he was going to be terrible this year, and he's not been that.

And I don't, his numbers don't suggest he should be. I shouldn't say a complete fluke, but it. He's been a nice surprise, let's say that. I will say it was delightful to watch the Astros dugout go crazy after Alex Bregman hit his first home run on Sunday. And the camera pans over Brian McCann, and he's completely stoned-faced because he can't celebrate or have fun ever. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't know that about him.

Oh, yeah, he is the fun police for sure. Even on Jeter Day, he wouldn't do that? He is the Major League Baseball's official fun police. All right. Next category. Chris, the Towers family is up one to nothing. Top five. Top five answers are on the board. I'm looking for the top five second baseman in rotisserie leagues.

Chris. Let's go with Daniel Murphy. Daniel Murphy is number three. Congratulations. But Heath has a chance to get the number one answer. Or two? Let's go with Jose Altuva. He's number two. I'll let you decide.

Pass or play. Oh, I have no... Pass. Okay, he's passing. Okay. So wait, hold on. Let's set the scene. We need the top five second basement in Roto.

We've got number two, Altuve, and number three, Daniel Murphy. And Chris Towers, looking to lock up a win here. What do you got? Number one's Matt Carpenter, right? Incorrect. Oh, he's in the top five, at least, right? Not in Roto. This is...

Oh, this is ridiculous. He's not in points either. This is ridiculous. Next guess. Well, that was the only guess I had. So I'm kind of screwed here. Five. Oh, man.

Three, two, one. Jeez, there are no good. That's two strikes. Are you looking at the teams? I'm looking at the teams. All right, come on. We need a guess. You got two strikes.

Five, four, three, two. This is pathetic, Chris. Yeah, no, this is not good. Zach Kozart. Zach Kozah, perfect. I think I can name it. all three of them. Great guess. Three strikes for Chris. Cummings Family has a chance to steal.

Robinson Canoe? Is number five. Starlin Castro? Is number one. Cesar Hernandez? He's not correct. He's number seven. Okay. We're missing number four. That is... Jose Ramirez. Chris Owings. Oh, come on. Chris Owings.

Where is Jose Ramirez? So much more fun when another person is happening. How is Jose Ramirez? He's eighth. He's not there. It's ridiculous. Yeah, these guys have been very good. How about Starlin Castro, number one? and Chris Owings number four. Do you see anything

legit here, guys? We've seen too many stretches like this from Starland Castro to think that this is some kind of new thing for him. So, no, in his case, I'm not buying it. But Owings, I think we've already all moved way up from where we had him at the start of the year,

and he's a borderline starting second basement or shortstop. Okay. He is... Yeah, I'll feel eligible, too. Yep. Owings is slumping a little bit. Castro, what I wanted to see with Castro was whether or not he was swinging at fewer pitches outside of the strike zone, and he really isn't.

And last seven games, because I think that's his biggest issue. He's just chasing everything, you know. But last seven games, Castro's batting 188 with one home run, no walks and eight strikeouts. So it could be happening. There's no reason to buy this. Owing's slumping a little bit, but he's batting 286 in his last 13 games. The only problem is just not walking, not hitting for any power. One walk, 15 strikeouts in those 13 games.

So, I don't know. I know there's been some excitement about him. I don't quite see all that much reason to be excited about him. I think he's moved up my rankings mostly because I didn't have him very high to begin with. And there's not a ton of competition right now, especially at shortstop. Right. That's the biggest thing he has going in his favor is the fact that he can play shortstop. But, yeah.

I don't have him very high at second base still. All right, so here's what happened. So I had a third category, and then I realized this morning that I screwed it up. So what do you guys think I should do? You want to do a pitching category, a hitting category? Whatever you want. You're the host. I will play any game that you put out there.

I think you should just look at the leaderboard and look for a top five at a certain position, and we will guess. and then whoever gets it right wins. Interesting. Yeah, I know. That's the problem here. Do starting pitcher. Okay, starting pitcher.

Let's do this. Top five starting pitchers walks issued. The most walks issued? Yes, the most walks issued by a starting pitcher. Heath, you buzzed in? Danny Salazar. Danny Salazar is incorrect. Oh.

Well, that would have been my guess. This category sucks. Blake Snell. Blake Snell is correct, but I'm going to pick a new category. Okay. Let's do strikeouts. Top five pitcher's strikeouts. Go.

Heath. Danny Salazar. Danny Salazar is not correct. Stop guessing Danny Salazar. Chris. Chris Sale. Chris Sale is number one with 85 freaking strikeouts. in 58 and two-thirds innings.

Pass or play? I will pass. Okay, good choice. Heath, you are up, sir. Is that grinky? No, good guess. He's seventh with 44. No, no.

How many strikeouts does he have? He's seventh with 58. Hmm. So, and... Okay. Max Scherzer is correct. Number two. 70 strikeouts.

Fantastic. That's great. So I have number two. This guy was just really bad, but Chris Archer? Chris Archer, number four, with 65 strikeouts. So you've got two strikes left. We need number three and number five on the strikeouts list. Robbie Ray?

Number six. Very good, yes. So we got Sail, Scher, Blank, Archer, Blank. Kershaw? Not correct. That's Kershaw, 57 strikeouts in 55 and 2 thirds. That's three strikes for you. The Towers family has a chance to steal.

By the way, this round is worth three points, so whoever wins wins this fantasy feud. If it was worth one, whoever wins would win fantasy feud because we're tied. That's a great point. Great point. Jacob de Grom is correct, and Chris wins four to one. The three-point round, three-pointer for Chris. Jacob de Grom is third. Ah, who's fifth?

This is worth eight points if you can get it, Heath. Who's fifth? Fifth in strikeouts. Yeah. Pitches in a West division. Oh, well, that makes it a lot easier. Edel West. Uh-huh.

Not Colorado or Arizona or San Diego. He pitches for the Giants. Madison Bunggar? Jeff Samarge, are you dope? Bumgarder! Come on. You lost eight points. Now it's Chris 4, Heath, negative 7, and this game is over. Okay.

There's dominance. How about Kershaw, by the way, being really good this year, but not as good as he was last year? There was a piece on the ringer about how his slider had been really kind of mediocre for the first few starts of the season. And he seemed to figure it out over the last couple of starts. So that's a good sign. Kershaw also had two starts at Kores Field already this year. So, and he did fine, but, yeah, about a strike operating for him. Do you still think, do you, true or fall, buy or sell, buy yourself.

Clayton Kershaw is the number two pick in fantasy drafts right now, if we're drafting today. So, yeah, I'd sell. Okay. But I think we'd all probably have him higher than he was. Well, where would you have him? You'd go Trout one. Where do you think you'd have? I think Betts is still number two.

Harper's three. Yeah, Harper might be two. But I think Marshall's in the discussion right after that. I think I'd still take Bryant and I'd still take Machado and I'd still take Aeronado

and I'd still take Goldschmidt. You know what, hold that thought. We're going to do a round one draft at some point, probably maybe this week or next week. Do you see Goldschmidt has 38 steals over the last 365 days? Wow. How many times have been caught stealing once?

Probably not many. Look that up. I'm going to say once. He had some crazy streak going. News and notes. Dan Straeli left after being hit on the arm by a comebacker. They believe it's a minor injury. And he was pitching pretty well.

You know, Dan Strelie, I'll just get the stat right now instead of guessing. He has given up. Where are you, Dan Strelie? He has given up 24 hits in 43 innings, Dan Strelie. 55% owned. Rather have Strelie or Godly or Pardomo. Strelia. Yeah, I might take Prudomo, but they're in the same range.

Drew Pomerant has no structural damage in his arm. You need some pitchers. Stephen Mats and Seth Lugo will begin a rehab assignment. I think they'll pitch in a minor league game on Thursday. And look, Mats, you know, whatever. But Lugo, Lugo is not bad, and do you think he could get into the rotation in a few weeks for the Mets? There's room. There's opportunity.

Can he get through a rehab assignment without getting home? The problem is his injury was more severe than Stephen Match, wasn't it? Well, they're both pitching. Partially torn UCL? Oh, I don't remember. Paul Goldsman has 38 steals and five cop stealing. Five, damn it. Terrible.

Jose Altuve, he limped off the field on Sunday. He just needed bigger shoes. His mother's day pink cleats were too small. He's fine. Junior Gera, he began a rehab assignment. And again, you're desperate for pitching. Junior Gera will be on a waiver wire coming to you soon. Coming near you?

Coming, I don't remember. Coming soon to a waiver wire near you. There you go. Logan Forsyth is going to DH in a rehab game today. All right, let's do some emails and tweets and hear from the people. Let's do this, see if we can do this kind of quickly here. Mike in Nueva, York. I don't know where that is.

Is it time to consider Michael Conforto this year's Mookie Betts without the speech? I know. I do not think that is fair to Michael Conforto at all. I am excited about him, and I'm glad, like, I think he's a borderline top 30 outfielder, but no, he's not making the jump into the first round. Okay. Is Michael Conforto still, we sort of brought him up as a sell-high candidate? What would you look for if you were selling Conforto? If somebody thinks he's an ex-Mookie bets, then he's a great deal. sell high candidate. Would you trade him right now for A.J. Pollock?

I would trade him right now for A.J. Pollock. Oh, man. I don't think I would. And actually, before Pollock got hurt, I really thought he was a great sell high candidate because he was going to play 140 games. And they really did rest him a lot. And that just limits his value. I'm still not sure that Michael Conforto is going to play. I'm 100% sure he is going to play every day. I just, I don't see how they can justify keeping him out of the lineup at this point. Well, they could, like, might actually face some left-handed pitchers at some point, and he might be terrible against the people. Well, who are they going to sit him for? Well, okay, when Cessbitus comes back.

When Cessbitus is coming back. When Cesspitus comes back against Cepidus. But that would still mean that they have Cespitas, J. Bruce, Curtis Granderson, Michael Conforter. Who's he's sitting for? They've always played Grinerson against lefties, so I would assume. Right, but Granderson's been awful this season. Regardless.

They started talking about playing conformity. over Granderson when... Okay, he may play every day against lefties. I don't necessarily feel the conviction that you do, but I'm not certain that he can hit lefties. I think that's fair. Yeah. I could see him getting, you know,

out of every three lefties, you know, he sits or something like that. And it... This is a guy that in parts of three seasons now has a 40% hard contact rate each season. He's an elite-bated ball guy. Okay. You trade him for Areeta, Conforto? Yep.

Yeah, I'd rather have Arieta. Okay. Tyler Wilhite, add Alex Wood or Burrios in a 10-team Roto Keeper League, and I'd be dropping John Gray. I don't think I would drop John Gray for them. No, I don't think I would either. I could understand being in a situation where you just don't have any healthy pitchers and gray is your worst one in the D.L.

In that case, I would probably... I'd add Alex Wood in that case. Because at that point, you're not worried about the long term anyway. You're worried about the short term. And Alex Wood, I think, is the better short-term pitcher. Yeah, it's a keeper league. So dropping John Gray. That's exactly my point is that if you're going to drop John Gray, then you need help right now.

And you should go with the guy who seems like a more sure thing. It's a keeper league and Jose Burrios is not owned. It's 10 teams. John Gray is about to not be owned. Yeah. John Gray pitches for the Rockies. All right, this is from Eric. Are any of the following guys dropable?

Ian Kinsler, Todd Frazier, Jonathan's scope. It depends on the format. Yeah, I think Sproffable is dropable and head-to-head. Frazier is a borderline guy at this point. Kinsler's the one guy that I don't think is droppable. Yeah, I want to talk about Frazier. I put this in here so we could talk about Todd Frazier because he has been just dreadful. And last year he was, Frazier was a top 10, third baseman.

Barely, he batted 225, but he had 40 home runs. Right now, Frazier's batting 173. but you like the walk to strikeout ratio, 14 walks, 20 strikeouts. Remember, this guy had a finger injury in the preseason. Actually, had a finger injury at the end of 2016. It popped up in the preseason. And then he had an oblique injury during spring training. So we are six weeks into the season.

You know, it's time to start taking slumps very seriously. But I do wonder if injuries are the reason for this really slow start for Frazier. Is he a good by-low candidate, or is he just not going to have that? that good of a year and almost dropable. He has aged so much in the last couple of seasons. Like just in terms of the things that you look at when a guy like, a good comparison would be like Albert Pooleholds, when Albert Poole Holes got really old,

what he started doing was hitting a ton of fly balls, hitting a ton of infield fly balls, becoming just a home run or bust kind of guy. That's where Todd Frazier is right now. And it's just, you know, he's probably like a two-fifty. true Babbat guy at this point which would be a huge improvement from where he's at right now right and he's got he's got room to improve but I just look at it I

I don't see how he hits 40 home runs again and yeah the only encouraging thing is you mentioned the walk to strike out rate his swing strike out strike rate is way down below 10% he's always been at like 12% I have a hard time believing he's just done at 30 he probably shouldn't be dropped in a roto league where you need a corner infielder. The problem is there's just so many third basemen. I don't know how you can rank him in the top 20 right now in the position.

Yeah, I've got him to 17th, but the three guys behind him, I could easily justify. I've got Jake Lamb, Nick Kestianos, and Travis Shawriff behind him, and I don't feel good about having him ahead of them. I have all those guys ahead of Frazier. We'd rather have Gurriel, Mr. Grand Slam last night, or Frazier? I still have Frazier ahead of Grieel. You know, what I find so interesting about. fantasy baseball is like, okay, when you know regression's coming, and that, and regression can mean

negative or positive, take a guy like Rizzo, you just moved Vado ahead of Rizzo, Heath, and we established last week, you look at the numbers like Votto might just be better than Anthony Rizzo, but they're close. Right. But if you think they're going to finish with similar numbers, doesn't that mean that from this point on Rizzo's going to be better than Vado? You know what I'm saying? I don't think, like, I think Rizzo has done enough damage to where my expectation for his final numbers in 2017 are lower than they were at the start of the year. Yeah, my expectation for his performance from right now is still basically the same as what it was, but his overall numbers will be lower.

And see, that's where I always seem to disagree. Like, I always used to have this argument with Al. And it's like, Al would say that you go to your norm. you know, from like this point on, like Rizzo might be what we thought Rizzo would be, you know, like three, like good batting average, 32 home runs. And I'm thinking, well, no, like hitters slump. There are peaks and valleys throughout seasons. Yeah, but that's not.

Well, hold on. I think Anthony Rizzo, and it just complies maybe to Todd Frazier, too, is just going to get so hot and have a two, three week stretch where everything starts to look normal again. And from this point forward, you might get the best version of Anthony Rizzo. the end of the year, the numbers would look the same. But I don't know. I understand what you're saying. You can't expect that.

Why not? From a guy like Rizzo, from a proven, great player. The simplest analogy, I think this is called the gambler's fallacy. And I think the simplest analogy is if you flip a coin 10 times in a row and it comes up heads each time, you still have a 50% chance of getting tails on your next one. This is the one place, though, like, I understand what you're saying at him, because statistically and math-wise, what Al always said was right, and what Chris just said is completely right. It's not exactly, like, these are human beings playing baseball, and they do have hot streaks and cold streaks, and you have missed the cold streak portion of Anthony Rizzo. And so that does mean, I understand what you're thinking.

But you expect him to play like Anthony Rizzo from now on. No, I expect him to finish the season with Anthony Rizzo numbers. I expect any Anthony Rizzo season or any insert name here season to have hot streaks and cold streaks. I expect him to obliterate pitching pretty soon and at the end of the year have a season that looks like Anthony Rizzo. I don't think your way of thinking is the correct one in terms of predictive, trying to predict things. But I also don't think it's 100% wrong.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't think I'm 100% right. I don't say this feeling like I'm certain about it or anything. It's just sort of like a theory that it's not like my theory that a lot of people have. It's kind of an interesting way to evaluate players. So, okay, moving on, moving on. From Edward, have you heard anything about Ian Desmond playing shortstop while Story is out. They have said they are not going to do that. Well, there you go. You've heard something. From Catell. Has the Humidor been installed at Arizona yet? If not, when will it be? Yeah, I don't think we have any details on that. Everything went, like, they came out and said they were planning on doing that in about a month. There were like five different pieces that came out and said, whoa, this would be a big deal. And then everything just went completely quiet.

Like, I have not heard any updates on it. And I've searched for it, and I'll do so again. Yeah, there's nothing since, like, late April. It's almost like the Diamondbacks saw all these pieces, and they're like, huh, let's just not talk about it anymore. Hopefully, everybody forget. If it happens, then we've talked a lot about the hitters. But Robbie Ray could, you know, oh, he's still going to walk guys. But his ERA could really improve if he's pitching in a much better environment.

Robbie Ray. I think it would help him and Corbyn. And Zach Grinky might have a zero ERA. I don't know if it would help Taiwan Walker. I would think it would help that one walk. Well, I mean, it would help, but I don't know. I think it will help all the pitchers. Yeah, I picked Ray because he has pretty dramatic splits, I believe, this year.

Last year was like a half a run or something better at home. Over his career, he's been about nearly a two-run difference at home versus on the road. He hasn't been good on the road. He's got a 372 career ERA on the road, but he's been actively harmful. But if he had a 372 ERA and was like top five in strikeouts, then he'd be very useful. Exactly. All right, this is Chris from Nashville. This is a good email.

Chris has nothing but relievers. He wants to know how you feel about the all relief pitcher strategy. He's doing well. I asked him how he's doing his league. He's doing well. It's a category's league. You guys basically took that approach in Team Scam. Or Team Kreeh, excuse me.

Yeah, don't associate us with that mess. No, I would never. not on purpose. What do you think, given the landscape, all relievers? Well, okay, so here's the thing. It looks, like, it sounds pretty good, and then you look at the actual guys on here and then you remember that relief pitching is,

the value of the all-RP strategy is that you don't have to invest as much in your pitching staff. But it is a good reminder that relief pitchers are among the most volatile assets in all of professional sports. Because you look at this list and like before the season, Edwin Diaz, Sungwan O, Zach Britton, these guys all would have sounded awesome. And so far those guys have been kind of bad. It's been harming his strategy.

You have to be more active on the waiver wire in regards to relief pitchers. You need to go get them when they change. But it's my favorite strategy. to use in head-to-head categories. All relievers or like two-starters? I've been going very heavy on relievers. In my main head-to-head categories league, I'm still starting like four or five starting pitchers every week

depending on the matchups, but I've pretty much not looked to start more than that any week. Well, I'll say this. I'm definitely leaning to... I don't want to do this, and if I were setting up a league, I would require some SP spots, so you couldn't just do relievers.

But I understand it's popular. In our 12-team Roto League, the league where if I traded Stroman and Estrada for Kiko, I would have to have to start just terrible players. Like, actually, I would just start another reliever. And this week, I'm starting Matt Albers just to get a little bit of whip help because I lost, you know, the $3 enough Tiley Follies. And I have just terrible starting pitching. But I'm just, I have really, my mind has been open to the idea of starting relief pitchers that are included. in a way that it just never has before. That's, I think, the biggest shift right now for me with pitching.

I might as well just get a good middle reliever than a bad starting pitcher, you know. Okay. A couple more emails. This is from Kevin in Chicago. Please give Addison from Atlanta the wrong advice. He's not even from Atlanta. The next email is... Kevin, or Addison, draft starting pitchers early.

Wait, the next email is from Addison from Atlanta. So they both emailed on the same day, and Kevin's... said give him bad advice, so I'll let you guys decide what you want to do. Ian Kinsler and Todd Frazier were recently cut in my 10-team league. Would you drop Bregman or Josh Bell or Rendon or Kipness to pick up Kinsler or Frazier? I dropped Bell for Kinsler. Yeah, that makes sense. So that's good advice?

That was good advice. Well, he gave it, so. Okay. So sorry, Kevin from Chicago. We are not going to screw over your buddy, Addison from him. Atlanta. It is Team Thames Tuesday, and then we'll finish the show with some more from yesterday, including Brandon McCarthy. Actually, you know what? Team Thames Tuesday can wait. Let's talk about these hitters real quick. Are you excited to pick up any of the following hitters? Kevin

Kiermire, who is 7 for 13 with two home runs, two doubles, and a triple in his last four games. Kevin Kiermire, 58% own. Devin Travis, who has four doubles in his last two games. Justin Bore, Lonnie Chisenhall and Justin Smoke, who are all hitting pretty well against lefties and hitting pretty well overall right now. Kiermaier, 58% owned, Devin Travis, 36. Boer, 32%, Chisandhall, 13, smoke 19%. Keirmeier would be the one that I'm most interested in, and I've actually held on to him in a couple of leagues. So I was getting to the point of considering dropping him. This is, the power is not exactly what we expected, but it's nice to see a little bit of positive.

progression for him. I still think Devin Travis is interesting. He's been awful, but basically a full season before this, he had been really good in his major league career. So I'm fine picking him up in a roto league. What about Boer versus smoke? Who would you prefer?

I'll say bore. I don't really know what to make of Justin just smoking baseball. all over the park over the last week or so. But I'm not really buying into it. Okay. And I was wrong about Kiermire having a triple in his last four games. He doesn't.

I lied to all of you, and I apologize. But he does have a couple of ding-dongs and a couple of doubles. Team names Tuesday. There's going to be some singing here. I'm just letting you know. This is from Dan. Mighty, Mighty Bostones. I don't think I can sing this one.

I think it would be really embarrassing. So I'm not going. Do it. Do it. But he's got like, such a, like a gravelly voice. Never had to knock on wood.

Like Tanaka and Wood. That's good. Yeah. Okay. Doc Kroitzer, our theme song producer. What happens in Vargas? Yep. You got a half band of Vargas in there.

That's good. From Elliot, I'll tear it up my heart. It's good. Yeah, it's good. From Peter. Magic Triggs. It's okay.

Magic Triggs. Triggs? He also wants to know if Rhymel Tapia is going to get any playing time. Probably not right now. And this is from Andy on Long Island. WrestleMania. That's pretty good. It's like WrestleMania.

Oh, okay. I get it. Yeah, WrestleMania. And Shimp happens. Not bad. This is from Jason. Yeah, go ahead. I've been sitting here trying to think of a game show one since the earlier segment.

I think I got it. Okay, what did you got? The $64,000 kyramid, like Kevin Kiermeier. Yeah, no. So more good ones. This is from Jason. Kikolangelo. Kikolangelo.

I like that one. Sure. He also wants to know Grandal or Molina rest of season. Grandal. Pretty easily. And this is from Mary, who has an even better Joe Be Ageny song. Believe it or not. Be a jeeaties, not my Glover.

It's good. Yeah, that's good. And this is from Jeremy. Make yourself a dang sensitella. Make yourself a dang sessidia, centitella. No. No? I don't understand the reference.

That's from... Vote for Pedro. That movie. Napoleon Dynamite. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't like that movie. I didn't like that movie either. And Chris and I exchanged music suggestions yesterday.

Heath, you should know. Oh, I bet that was wonderful. I said, I'm going to cook some dinner. Give me some music to listen to. Some modern rock music to listen to. And he gave me two suggestions. Okay. Who were they?

One was Japanimation. What are they called? Japan droids. Japanroids. And the other was Paramore, which is actually a band that I liked. Because I'm a big Haley Williams fan. And Chris and I disagree about their best songs. I think...

What the heck is the name of the song? Their later stuff is much better. They've really matured. Their most recent album is a big step forward, I think. I listen to both bands. Like, Paramore was fine, the more recent album. I think it was their second most recent album. And Japanimation was kind of like you said, Heath, like, I really like the music.

Yep. And the vocals come in. It's not a bad voice or anything. It's just like a good, it's not like a great rock voice, I guess. guess, so I don't know. If they put out an instrumental version, I would rock that all day. Japan Maniacs. And I got so fed up with it that I was like, okay, that's it.

I have to listen to Tom Petty right now. So thank you for... Oh, what? Great, great singing voice, Tom Petty. He does have a great singing voice. He's a good girl. And look, don't get me wrong. I love Tom Petty, but...

He does. He does a great voice. My friend used to joke that if you listen to Tom Petty's greatest hit album. He has about four or five different nationalities that he sings with. Like, you better watch what you say. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he dabbled in some reggae in the early 80s. Okay, so anyway, back to baseball. Let's see where we're at here. Let's look at the pitchers from yesterday. Who do you like from this group? Brandon McCarthy, Dan Strayley, Joe Musgrove, getting a little bit better. Yovani Gallardo, Zach Godly, Luis Perdomo, Matt Cain.

Jesse Chavez. My favorites would be Musgrove and Perdomo, followed closely by Strayley. The rest of them can... I'm not particularly excited about any of them, but I mostly agree with that. What about Sean Manaya at 82%? Is he worth the 82% ownership? Yeah, I don't... I'm not really concerned.

I said yesterday that I really don't like starting pitchers in their first game back. and I think that's why. He had some rust early on. I think he finished stronger than he started. He did. I have him as a top. He's much other having than anybody on this list. Mania...

For him has been very impressive. Manaya retired, I think, the last 10 batters he faced, and he walked five, four of them in the first inning. So he got better as the game went on. Jack Wheeler, 83% owned. Just got to keep starting him for now, right? Oh, yeah. The Mets' second best pitcher until he gets.

Shut down. I guess so. Actually, I think he has a better ERA than... He does. Better E.R.A. than DeGrom, right? Yep. So he's their best pitcher. E.R.A. matters.

The R.A. does matter. What do you think about K.R.S. Davis and Nelson Cruz, which is kind of bopping along. Well... They are elite hitters. Yeah. I think Cruz has been a more reliable bopper this year. But...

Yeah. Davis is doing his Roto thing. Davis is batting 220. He's been a 245 hitter, three straight years, basically. He had 42 home runs. It just got off a very cold stretch of a 125 batting average, four walks, 18 strikeouts, and 12 games.

So it's good to see Davis Homer yesterday. Cruz is just, what can you say about him at this point? It's got three straight 40 Homer years, and right now he's batting 319. But I think what's interesting about Cruz is that he's actually become a pretty good source for batting average. The last two years, he's batted 302 and 280.

27 is pretty good. He may be right-handed poppy. It just does not... Yeah, like it's going to stop at some point. He's going to run out of gas and hit a wall, but... He may retire first. Yeah, it might happen after he retires. Last guy I want to talk about is Evan Longoria.

Evan Longoria is right now the number 14 third baseman in points leagues, which surprised me. It was higher than I thought. He's 22nd in Roto. Why the difference for Longoria? He has 11 doubles. He also has a pretty good walk-to-strikeout ratio. 17 walks, 35 strikeouts.

But he's batting 247 with five home runs, playing through a foot injury. And I've actually gotten some questions lately about dropping Longoria. Certainly in 10 team leagues I've gotten that question, maybe 12 as well, 12 team leagues. What are your thoughts on Evan Longoria, who was the number eight third baseman in points, number 10 in Roto last year? I still have him ahead of Todd Frazier. I definitely have him ahead of Todd Frazier, for sure. I think the interesting one is those three that Chris mentioned that he has directly behind Frazier. I would rather have

Leam, Shaw, or Castianos than Longoria at this point. The foot injury is just, it's a big concern. That's the type of thing that just doesn't get better and can really just kind of ruin a season. Like, it's the type of thing you can play through, but it's hard to see him being 100%. Yeah, it's like the power numbers look more like 2014 and 2015. last year looks like the outlier. Last year was a big surprise. I thought Longoria was done.

But, you know, whatever. Like I expected to hit about 20 to 25 home runs. And I just... That's not so great at third base. Like, that's very replaceable. Not if you're a 250 hitter. No, yeah, I don't know. And one thing is he hit a lot more fly balls last season.

He's hitting a lot more, both ground balls and, line drives. And he's probably not a 250 hitter if he's hitting more line drives and ground balls. He's probably more like a 270 hitter. So he probably won't hurt you in batting average, but he's probably not special either. Okay. Well, Chris is going to listen to Walk the Moon's first album, self-titled album Walk the Moon, and he's going to report back to us tomorrow. I think he's going to really like it. I'm looking forward to that. So for Heath and Chris, I'm Adam. Thank you for. for playing along with us with the feud. Hope you enjoyed today's show.

We'll talk to you tomorrow on Wednesday.