Fantasy Baseball Today - 05/29: Is Dietrich the New Gennett? (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Derek Dietrich hit three HRs last night! How owned should he be? Is he really breaking out? We also discuss Michael Chavis vs. Ozzie Albies (6:42), when to trade SPs with innings limits (7:15), some daily league strategy and SPs to consider adding (12:45) ... Thursday's standouts (18:00) including one of the greatest ceremonial first pitches ever and Lucas Giolito's continued dominance. Plus, a lot of news and notes (24:40) and why you should add Scott Kingery, and Worryometer Wednesday (30:30) for Vlad, Jon Lester, Corey Seager, Bryce Harper and more ... This week's edition of "Are We Buying It?" (43:00) includes young breakouts like Matt Boyd and Eduardo Escobar plus veterans like Hunter Pence, Tommy La Stella, Cesar Hernandez and Zach Davies. Finally, we review some of yesterday's noteworthy pitching performances (57:00) ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. One, one pitch, basketball pulled, and got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Here we are on Wednesday, May 29th. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today.

One word to describe Tuesday's baseball action. I am going to say boring. How about you guys? Diet rich. That's not a word, and if it were, it would be two words. Diet rich. I also don't think, like, I almost wrote the waiver wire column this morning before the show. I wrote lots of it.

And I think there are many things that we need to talk about in terms of winners, losers, players to add. Derek Dietrich hit three home runs, and now I'm going to say, like, I'm, I might be. might follow up my worst fantasy advice ever with more bad fantasy advice. So this is going to be a great show. What are you following up on that with so bad? My worst fantasy advice ever, in my opinion, was 2017 the day after Scrooogynette had his four homer night. I don't know if you remember that.

Oh, I do. Coming into that game, he was not playing every day. He had a 758 OPS. He had four homers in one night. and I wrote something to the effect of you should not pick him up you don't get any points for what he did yesterday because he wasn't on your team

he's not going to be an everyday player if you were in a 16 team league where you need a middle infielder then maybe it's okay or the rest of the year he hit 20 home runs had an 860 OPS and turned into an all-star

tough look for my guy Heath it was a bad bad advice yeah it was tough look there are definitely some parallels I trust the process all right so I want to start wait did you give a a word to describe yesterday's action, Heath?

You have to. No, I don't. Okay. But. Dietrich. Boring. So we will start with Derek Dietrich. We will also talk about Zach Plyzak, Devin Smelzer, Lucas Sims, Nick Povetta,

names that, you know, you might not know, except for Nick Povetta. We have to talk about one of the funniest first pitches in baseball history, ceremonial first pitches. It was amazing. That was amazing. That was the best part of... Have you not seen this, Eve?

I have not. It's incredible. Yeah, just go ahead right now. I think it's the best one I've ever seen. I'm just glad Adam's never seen my first pitch. 50 set to me will always be the best of this one's up there. What happened? Okay, all right, you know what?

No. Wait, 50 cents did it again? No, no, no. We're just talking about a first pitch from four years ago. It's like eight years ago. I'm saying that was the only one that might be better than yesterday's. Okay, so we got to start with Derek Dietrich. So I got some emails to start the show.

Talk a little strategy. today. We have some strategy questions. We haven't really done that much lately. But first email is from Joe Swisher. Do you consider Derek Dietrich a must own at this point? I picked him up when Altuve hit the IL. Eligible at three different positions, though. I can't find a reason not to find a spot for Derek Dietrich, who, by the way, is only 60% own somewhere on my roster. What do you think? The part of the waiver column I have already written does talk about Derek Dietrich. And my take on this basically is he is appropriately owned. He should be owned in any league where you need a middle infielder.

He should be owned in any league where you need five outfielders. He should be owned in any league that's deeper than 12 teams. But I still don't think over the course of the rest of the season, he will be someone that you will use in a 12-team points league that just has regular position requirements. It's kind of like the, I'm going to coin it, the Morland paradox where he looks really, really good because he doesn't face lefties. But that also limits his value because he's not getting those everyday play-d appearance. The Morland Paradox, as we've all long. I think we're going to cite the Morland Paradox moving forward.

The more good. Well, there's a few other things, though. So comparing him to Scooter Jeanette after the four-homer game, Dietrich is probably not going to play every day. He has 10 at bats all year against lefties. In fairness, he has been much, much better so far this year than Scooter Jeanette had been when he had his four-home or night. I think he'd probably been better for their careers, too. Even after the three-homer night, which obviously was worth a lot of points,

I think he's the number 13 second baseman in points for the year. He's like the number is 36 outfielder. So he's right on the precipice of being someone you would start after most likely the hottest stretch of his season. Yeah, and he's sixth in Roto. So I have him at 12th and points, maybe he's 13th, but sixth in Roto at second base. Okay, so one other thing, though,

if you look at Derek Dietrich in his road OPS in his final four seasons with Miami, it's pretty good. It's 860, 811, 8.11, and 8.59. So, you know, obviously the ballpark helps. He's been good both on the road and at home this year. He's been done it all against Ritees. So I was surprised, like, I'm in a Fab League, weekly Fab League, but it runs Tuesday

nights, Tuesday and Wednesday. And he went for like $2 out of $250 yesterday. So nobody really wanted him. Now, in that league, he's only outfield eligible, but still, nobody really bought into it. He's still only 60% owned. And it's just the fact that he's a part-time player really has to weigh on you there. and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

I guess what I would say is you should not ignore him. And if you have an opening at one of these positions, he would be a good person that could fill in. I'm not saying he's bad. I don't think he's must yet. I'd love to see him actually play against lefties more because he's had like a 700 OPS against them in his career. And that'd be fine if he can keep up.

It's better than Jose Praza against anybody. Probably. Daitrix defense is pretty bad, or at least it has been in the past. Okay. So that's Derek Dietrich. I'm trying to see if some guys that maybe we would drop for Derek Dietrich. Would you drop Ozzy Albies for Derek Dietrich?

No. Nope. Would you drop Jose Martinez for Derek Dietrich? Sure. Yeah, because he's not necessarily an everyday guy either. All right, let's go to our next email. Speaking of Ozzy Albies, this is from Sean. Would you drop Ozzy Alviz for Michael Chavis?

By the way, Michael Chavis has been struggling a little bit in his last 20 games. games. 7-11 OPS and 19 games before yesterday didn't have the updated stats. 27 strikeouts in those 19 games. Would you drop Albies for Chavis? No. No, you probably have someone with less potential at a worse, at an easier position to fill than Ozzy Albi. I think that's true too, but I would like to add Chavis still. So find somebody worse than Ozzy Albies. This is from Scott in Birmingham, the strategy question. Here, Hanser, Pedro, and Stevie. Those are closers.

Oh, are they? Who? Are you sure? No. How do you value breakout starting pitchers in head-to-head leagues? When it all comes down to the playoffs and your Woodruff, stallions, et cetera of the world will probably be on an innings limit.

Why is there not more talk about packaging those players early for a veteran who can carry you through the finish line? I think that's a good plan. I think you'd be real careful with the innings limits because we don't really know and a lot of times those things work themselves out with a 10-day stay on the disabled injured list but no I don't think that's ever a bad idea

to package surprisingly good players early in the season for established veterans. So is Brandon Woodruff that's one of the guys he mentions here? I'm not sure he's going to be on an innings limit. Like I know he didn't pitch a lot of innings last year but that was because he was pitching out of the bullpen primarily. I don't know if that's as much a he can't do it as he just didn't do it.

He did throw 158 innings in 2016. Yeah. So I wouldn't be too concerned about it. And 120 in 2017. Right. It's kind of a similar situation to Soroka, who threw 25 last year, I think, but did have 150 in the minors at one point. We just don't. I think there are teams that.

have different opinions on whether it's the increase over last year or the increase over your career high. So would you trade, let's say Chris Paddock, who we know is going to have some limitations for Madison Bumgarner? Yeah. I think I would. I think we've seen enough from Bumgarner this season. I am less convinced on Bungarner so far.

I don't think he's going to be as good as Chris Patic on a perning basis. Right. This would depend more on it. It may have to be a points league. and it would depend more for me on where I currently was. If I'm sitting around 500, I might feel like I need Chris Paddock to get to the playoffs. And yeah, that's another good point.

It's hard to know when to do these types of trades. Also, with Baumgartners, keep in mind with Baumgartner, he might get traded and leave one of the best parks of baseball. Our next email is from Grant. Wait, by the way, it was pretty obvious who that those names were. they are starting players for the Baltimore Oriole. Oh. Pedro Severino, Hanser Alberto, and Stevie Wilkerson.

You told me that... I didn't know Wilkerson was a Stevie. I thought he was just a Steve. I couldn't even get it after you told me what they were. All right, this is from Grant. Hey, Barry, Gene, Hank, and Sally. The Bee Gees. It might be Barry.

I don't know. that? Come on, figure out. I play in a daily 12-te-to-head categories league, 8 by 8. I'm wondering if you guys are able to help some of us daily players make some fringy slash utility start sit decisions a couple times a week. For example, a couple weeks ago, I was struggling to pick up, I was struggling to pick between two players to start my utility. My options were Senzel, Winker, Framil Mierrez, Yandy Diaz. I guess he had to start two of them. I also had Cinderguard pitching against San Diego. So I sat Fran Mill Reyes. he double dong that night.

Help me to help you. So I guess the question is, when you're making lineup decisions in daily leagues, do you care about pitcher versus hitter if you've got both of them, if you've got the pitcher and the hitter? I think it depends on the hitter and the pitcher. I would not have started Fran Mill against Torre.

I agree. I think that was the right decision. I do too. He also tries to help us out. P.S. I looked it up. Worstestershire, yeah? It's Worcestershire.

Wistichire. He says, don't know how you guys got that wrong. And then we have a guy, Andrew, because the city in England is Worcester. Right. Orchester is what it looks. He's got to sound it out. Yeah. I don't think it's Shire.

See, Andrew in London tells us that it's Worcestershire. Worcestershire. Worcestershire. Yeah. Worcestershire. I think it's definitely sure. Worcestershire. Okay, Bryce.

I actually, I watched a video breaking down. It was a three-minute video breaking down how to pronounce. yesterday, so I'm very confident. The city or the sauce? Yes. We got both. What is it? It was deeply informative. Official pronunciation is what? Worcestershire. Which one?

Is the sure. Okay. Okay. Are we talking with the sauce or the city? They're not the same. The sauce. The city doesn't have a sure at the end. You were saying Worcestershire. No, we're tying about the sauce. Worcestershire is what the sauce is called. You just said, you just said shire. Is it shire or sure? Okay. I mispronet.

Worcestershire, whatever. It's fine. Three-minute video for this. All right. Thank you for doing so much research. Bryce in Lexington, South Carolina. Where would Dallas-Kikel fall in the rankings if he signed next week after the draft? 55. 52.

Okay. Just outside the top 50. Well, there were some interesting pitching performances yesterday. Who do we want to add? We had a few players making their major league debuts. We had Zach Plyzac. for Cleveland, five and a third innings of one-run ball

at Boston, only two strikeouts. Boston does not strike out much, and he was at a strikeout per inning right about that in the minors this year, but not quite that before this year. Zach, please, Zach. Minnesota's starting pitcher Devin Smeltser had a great start against Milwaukee, six innings,

three hits, seven strikeouts, no runs, no walks, and was great in the minors this year, struggled before this season. Cincinnati starting pitcher Lucas Sims, seven and a third, four runs, nine strikeouts. I don't, I don't know if any of these guys are making another start, but Sims seems like the least likely,

because they had a double header. But boy, Desclofani's been so bad. And Nick Povetta is, he's got to be number one. Well, I don't know. I would think he's number one. 46%-0, and the other ones are 10% or less. Pivotta, I picked him up. It wasn't the best start.

He gave up three runs in the first inning, then he threw four scoreless after that. Six strikeouts. It was very, very Nick Povetta. There was just enough to make you think, ooh, this is kind of encouraging, and it was also bad. And he got rocked for two home runs in the first day. Yeah, so I picked him up.

I dropped Adam Eaton. He's still worth picking up. What about the other guys? The only other one that I'm really interesting in, just because of all the injuries they have for now, I think PLEASC could stick for a little bit longer. And he has been, he hasn't been a great strikeout pitcher, but he hasn't been a terrible strikeout pitcher

and he's been good at virtually everything else in the minor league so far. So he would be the one I would be second most interested. Smelzer has a fantastic story. If you just want to Google his name, he's a cancer survivor and inspirational. I don't think he's going to stick in the majors and I'm not sure he'd be good even if he did.

And then I think Sims was just up for the double header, right? I believe so. Yeah, their double header, I believe, was actually Monday, but they needed an extra starter. So yes, however, like, I said, I mean, I think they could probably make an excuse if they want to get Sims in the Cincinnati rotation with Disclavani, but... Well, yes.

Every single one of these teams, if they wanted to, could find a spot for any of these guys. It's just a question of whether they will. Well, Smelzer is replaced Paneda. So, right? Yeah, who went on the, he's on the aisle of the knee injury, right? But he's just, it was a short-term thing, right? Yeah, supposedly, yes. Yeah.

All right, so what, okay, so how eager are you to pick up Nick Povetta? Like, who's a better at? right now. Nick Povetta or Derek Dietrich? I'm much more comfortable starting Derek Dietrich right now than Nick Povetta. I think it's, and Povetta's 46% owned, which seems about right to me, but it's a totally different thing.

In the leagues where Dietrich is currently available, which I assume are mostly the 12-team points leagues, I'd be more likely to add Povetta because I think there's at least a possibility. He has a significant impact in that format. And that's why I added him. This is a Roto League I'm in

where only won team wins. You don't make the playoffs. You just have to win it. And I need a miracle. Yeah, I mean, Pevette is the kind of guy who can presumably, maybe at some point, have that kind of run. It's, you know, for him, it's not a question of stuff. It's a question of pitch mix and mindset. And he's another guy like Shane Bieber, like we talked about before the season, that could probably stand to throw a bit more. pitches out of the zone, especially when he falls behind. He falls behind and he just starts pumping fastballs and it makes him really easy to hit. You've got to be willing to let a guy go. He might just be Ricky Nalasco. Yeah. Well, hopefully not. I'm looking at four pitchers who are on the most

dropped list that are owned in a similar amount of leagues to Povetta. And I would drop all four of them. You guys can tell me if you disagree. Michael Waka, Corbyn Martin, not Caleb Martin, Corbyn Martin, who had another bad start yesterday for Houston. Jared Eichoff, Kyle Freeland. Easy calls. Yeah, I think those are all pretty easy calls. The only one I'm not sure about Tycoff. I think he's in kind of a similar boat to Povetta.

He's maybe more likely to be good, less likely to be great. All right, we're going to take a quick break. Heath, while we take this quick break, please look at the first pitch from the White Sox game last night. And we'll be right back on fantasy baseball today. Time for Tuesday standouts. Heath, what did you think of that first pitch? I actually, that's not, there's similarities between that and my first pitch,

except the cameraman was behind the catcher. But yeah, that's a really bad pitch. Did you, did you hit the cameraman in the face? Not in the face, no. In fact, I don't know for sure. I was in a bad state of mind at that moment. And I have the video still.

Oh, well, we gotta get that. And he, Can you please post that? The video ends with, it's on, it's on VHS, so probably not. I know. We will bring it in. I will buy the converter and we're getting this. The video ends with him diving out of the way of the first pitch.

Yeah, there was one like that with the Red Sox a couple of years ago. I'm watching an hour. The kid throws, he was a high school pitcher, so he almost certainly did this on purpose. I don't want to besmirch anyone's name, but he misses by such a wide margin. and hits the cameraman 12 feet behind the plate in a bad place. You know, maybe he had a catcher that was afraid of getting hit in the knees because they didn't have any protective gear on. And so they asked him to throw it high so that it wouldn't hit them in the knees.

And the pitcher threw it high and they just didn't stand up and they just sat there and froze and it went over their head and made the pitcher look stupid. Not that I know anybody that happened to. If Janus Ante-Compo was standing in the batters box, this would have gone over his head. Okay, so it wasn't quite like that. What was your store?

Like, when did you throw out a first pitch? Oh, it was probably 20 years ago now. Where? It was a company event, Royal Stadium. Okay. And I won a drawing to throw out the first pitch. I mean, I worked for a very large company. We had like a thousand people there.

My grandparents came. My parents were there. Everyone's there to watch. But we had a tent with free unlimited. It wasn't like drink tickets. It was just open bar. for an hour before the game. I first got yelled at

by an employee of the Royals for trying to take my drink on the field. As I threw the first pitch, not okay, apparently. And then I'd made this deal with this nice catcher who was afraid she was going to get her knees scuffed up

and she didn't move. I threw the ball about five feet high. She stayed in the crouch the entire time, almost killed the cameraman. Gosh. Did you start from the mound? Yeah, of course. It's really.

That is great. Yeah, please bring in the VHS. The funniest part of the whole thing was not the pitch. I got up on the mound and saw the cameraman and turned around and saw myself on the jumbo tron and waved at the jumbo tron instead of the camera. Oh my gosh. This is why we have cheers. everybody. Go to cheershealth.com. What's our promo code there? FBT, I believe. All right. Did you guys want to talk about any other actual standouts from Tuesday's games? Who you got?

Very much so. What do you got? Heath, do you buy in now? Lucas G. Leto. He was very, very good. He was in the winners in the column today. Yeah. Yeah. He had 26 swinging strikes yesterday, 14 with his four-seem fastball. He was averaging 95 miles per hour with his fastball, which is where he was supposed to be when he was this big time prospect. I'm pretty much all in on, on Gile. I am going to move him into my top 40 starting pitchers. And that's what I'm getting my top 30. That's what I mean.

I think he's top 40 is must own, not quite must start, but you're at this point, I don't see how you can bench Gialito unless he's got the Orioles or Red Sox. By the way, Astros are Red Sox. Cheers. Cheers Health.com, the promo code is Strike, by the way, for 10% off and a free gift. Cheershealth.com promo code strike, not FBT. Yeah, Gioledo, by the way, so he gives up a homer, a three-run homer in the first inning to Alex Gordon, who we're going to talk about in a bit. Do you know why he gave up a three-run homer?

He was preparing for a 7-10 start, and the game actually started at 6.40. So his pre-game routine was messed up, and he got off to a slow start, but then he went seven more innings and didn't give up a run. I don't think his pregame routine was probably messed up because they knew before the first game started that they were going to start one hour or 45 minutes after the first game ended. No, he didn't know. He screwed up. Yeah, he did. He screwed up. They announced it.

It was on Twitter. I mean, I'm assuming Adam's got some kind of reason to say that. It's the, read the game recap. It's the first half of the story is all about how he thought the game was at 710. It was at 640. Originally it was scheduled for 710, but then they announced during the yesterday afternoon. at like three in the afternoon that we're going to start an hour after this game in. That's what he said.

And you don't see how he could have been confused by that? How when do you think? It doesn't matter whether he should or should not have been. He should have known. He was. But to actually talk about, you know, fantasy baseball. Since that first royal start when he heard his hamstring but was looking really good, if you include that start, 44 innings over seven starts, which is over six innings per start,

would be even higher if we didn't include the two and two thirds from that start. 51 strikeouts in 44 innings, 1.64 ERA, 11 walks. He's been outstanding. Max Freed, Mike Soroka, Lucas Gialito. Rank him. Soroka Gialito-Giolyto Freed. Okay. Max Freed, not such a good start yesterday. We'll talk about that.

He only gave up one run through five. He was terrible in the six, but he was really pretty lucky before that. He picked off two runners, gave up a ton of hits. All right, Heath, do you have any standouts? Or do you want to keep on moving? No, I'm good. I'm reading the recap. Okay, what a ridiculous argument we just had there.

I didn't, it's supposed to be Worryometer Wednesday, but I only had two guys to be worried about. So I actually went to Twitter and said, who are you worried about? And we'll get some Wariometer Wednesday from the listeners. Let me do some news and notes for you here. Odubel Herrera is on administrative leave for violating the domestic violence policy.

We don't know the details. It seems just based on the report, it seems more, like more serious, I guess I would say, than the Julio Aureas thing, which was very quick. I think it seems more confirmable. I don't know if it's more serious or less serious in terms of the infraction, but it's easier to confirm.

Yeah, that's what I was looking for. Thank you. And, yeah, I think, like, the thing I took away from this, is Scott Kingery is 32% owned. Yeah, I think he needs to be owned just about everywhere. I think there's a decent chance Herrera's gone for a while. And Scott Kingery has started to show some of the skills that made him so interesting last spring.

Still a little bit too much swing and miss in his game, but this is, you know, a guy who can play center field. Not super well from what I can tell, but competently enough, but has power and speed. Probably not as much batting average as we had hoped given that he was a pretty decent contact hitter in the minors, but he's someone that should be owned. I would say maybe not quite as much as Derek Dietrich,

but there's a decent chance we're looking in a month and saying Kingery is a better fantasy op. And I just want to confirm that I have read the recap, and Adam and I were both right. His catcher knew what time the game started. Then you weren't right. Yeah, you were wrong. He should have known what time it was.

Adam said he didn't know. It doesn't matter if he should have. That wasn't... This is just another mark against him. That wasn't... Hey attention to what time your game starts. That's why Sorokas ahead of Gialito. He would never make that mistake.

Joey Gallo left with a sore wrist. Jose Altovae has leg fatigue. He's on a rehab assignment, and he's got leg fatigue. And not in the leg that put him on the DIL in the first place. It's the leg that he had surgery on last year. So this could be a big deal for Altova. And we don't know the situation with Carlos Correa, but his ribs are being evaluated.

He has ribs soreness. So it could be a... rough day for the Astros who will just keep on winning and crushing people. Jordan Liles left with hamstring discomfort. Boy, they've had a lot of injuries in their rotation. I keep seeing some buzz on Dylan Cease. You think the White Sox are calling him up anytime soon? I believe the last thing I saw was they are going to consider it after the All-Star break.

Okay. Byron Buxton, day-to-day with a bruised knee. Chris Bryant could return today. Mitch Keller back to AAA for Pittsburgh. Joey Votto sat with hamstring tightness. he was available to pinch hit. Paneda's on the IL, should be short term. J.P. Crawford left with an ankle injury.

It could be a bad one. Avi Garcia, if case you're wondering, he had a home run yesterday. It was a 287-foot home run. Inside the park, a high pop-up into the shallow right field and the right-fielder. Lost it in the stupid dome in Tampa Bay because it's got the baseball-color dome, and it dropped for a hit and a home run. Joe Madden said he is preparing to not have Ben Zobris, basically all season. He doesn't know how long Zobris will be out, but there's a possibility

it's going to be all year. So you've got Addison Russell, who looks like he's going to play a lot, and he's actually off to a great start. How would you compare Addison Russell to Scott Kingery? I'd rather have Kingery, but I do think Russell, like Russell's only 10% owned. That's way too low. He should probably be closer to 30 or 40%. He's not good, though. This is his first year of being good. And it's 10 games. 13 games, something like that. So, yeah, he has a pretty long track record of just being a guy. I think even in the best case scenario, he's like the 18th best shorts.

Yeah, but he's second base eligible. Yeah, that's true. That's true. All right. Tim Anderson pinch ran. So he could be back soon, hopefully. Dita Gagorius is like pretty close to coming back, and he's only 71% owned. Gregorius batted 268 last year, which was a little low for him,

but he had 27 home runs, 86 RBIs, 89 runs, and only 134 games. So I don't know how D.D. Vagorius is... Actually, I could see at 12-team points league, D-D-D-D not being owned. Yeah, I think, like, that's pretty high for a guy that has not played all season and is still a little ways away. But he should be back within a week or two. And he had 248 last year, right? No, did he?

I had it at a 268, but it could be a typo. 248? Yes. You sure over this then? But you should have hit 2C2D. And it's not, that's, from what I can tell, that's not, never mind, I was looking at the wrong page. The reason I was looking at the wrong page.

Unbelievable. The reason I was looking at the wrong page is just a little bit of a warning to the D, D the guy it's holding on to him. You may not want to put him in the starting lineup. Immediately we've seen Aaron Hicks really struggle. He hit 248 last year. Really struggle coming out of the gates. Okay. Spencer Turnbull's on the bereavement list.

Annabal Sanchez is going to start today for Washington. Stephen Piscotti is a 24 game on base streak. I feel like he hasn't really done that much. Maybe I'm wrong. But Piscotti's been on base 24 straight games. The Marlins hit two three-run homers yesterday. The first two-three-run homers of the season for the Marlins. I'm not sure if they have a triple yet.

What's that? I think they hit a triple last night. Oh, I was about to say they hit a triple. Wow. Big night. Oh, no. Still no triples? That's incredible.

It was almost as good as me. If you only said they hit a triple last night. Not even close because I said I think. You should have left I think off. No. Not even close. You've done it twice now. And Tampa Bay drew its smallest crowd for a home game ever at Tropicana Stadium with 5,000.

Now that's the most impressive thing I've heard. To have a smaller crowd than they've typically had at Tropicana, that's amazing. They didn't even get 6,000 people last night. That's crazy. All right. Wuriometer. Those 6,000 Tampa Bay fans got to see Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Have, I believe, an O for yesterday.

So the only two players that I have from yesterday on the Worryometer are Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and John Lester. We'll go to Twitter to see who the Twitter folk are worried about. But what do you think since debuting on April 26th, Vlad is 32nd in points and 40th in Roto at third base. Yikes. Zero to 10. For his career, it's a zero.

in a dynasty or keeper league it's a zero it's a little higher than that for this season maybe a three yeah too I'm not particularly worried about him maybe I'm sitting him until he figures it out but he's still making pretty good contact he's hitting the ball hard his expected stats

suggests he should be hitting more like 280 with a 500 slugging percentage so there's still quite a bit to like here something I'd never noticed about him he always had a really high infield flyball rate in the minor leagues. Pop-ups. Like 15% or higher. Interesting.

I've missed so many. Pop-ups and infield fly balls are different things, Adam. No, they're not. They 100% are. Pop-ups are infield fly-balls. That's what pop-ups. No, you can pop-up to the outfield, Adam. Pop-up to the shallow outfield.

Just say pop-ups. It's not an infield fly-ball. How many times... And I don't know that that's true. Like pop-ups, I guess, don't have a specific definition. If you have fly-balls do. John... John Lester.

That's true. Damn it. I feel like I might be wrong about this. John Lester. Why? Because he said, infield fly balls do, so I'm giving him credit for that.

Finally, first good thing he said today. Except that story about the first pitch. That was amazing. Okay. John Lester on the Wariometer, 16 earn runs and 14 innings over his last three stars.

Parts. 11-e. I think it kind of just moved him back to where he should have been a little bit. Maybe there's a little more regression coming, probably more like a high-3s-E-R-A, but not that much. I think he'll still be solid moving forward. Yeah, thanks for the number there. Lester's got a 359 ERA, 13 walks, 509thes, and 52-and-2-thirds.

He's got the Angels and the Cardinals next week in a two-start week. What do you think right now? Start him? Yeah. Points only. All right. Okay, so Miguel Cabrera, going to Twitter now.

Worryometer on Twitter. Miguel Cabrera get 10. He's done. I don't know. I don't believe he's in my top 25 first baseman. Yeah, but he's, but how high was he coming into the season? Like 18? Yeah, so that's, that's

not that far of a fall. He's hitting 300. He's done. He has no power, He could give you batting average. He could do that. Yeah, I've used him in a Roto League. But in terms of, you know, like, it's a 10 on the Wariometer. Power-wise, it's a 10. A 9 on the Will Miguel Cabrera look like Miguel Cabrera again.

Yeah. Here's Dave Richard, fantasy football analyst, Dave Richard tweeting me. Eloy Jimenez. Right of the pod. Yeah, Wariometer on Eloy. Six? Again, it's probably, I'm probably still at a zero for his career, like I said with Vlad. but it's been a larger sample of

terribleness. Has it been? Because he was on the IEL. They might be pretty close in plate appearances. He's been worse than Vlad. He's largely earned his slow start, but definitely a 0.0 on the Wariometer for his career,

for Dynasty for Keeper. Maybe a 5 or a 6. He's been exposed a little bit in the majors, striking out more than we thought he would. There's still huge upside. It wouldn't shock me if he went on a 290 with 15 home run streak after the All-Star break. But, you know, right now he looks a little overmatched.

All right. Yeah, I'm trying to pull up some stats for context. George Springer had a 469 OPS in his first 16 games. This is obviously longer. And then 897 in his last 62 games in his rookie year. I'll get Bregman in a second, but let's go to our next guy. It's Jordan Hicks. We're actually getting a lot of this.

Worryometer for Jordan Hicks. I believe two of his last three appearances have been bad. I also think the Cardinals have been like ridiculously awful lately and he just hasn't gotten a lot of save chances. But where are you guys, zero to 10 on Jordan Hicks? Yeah, the problem with Jordan Hicks is like I could be not quite as worried about his overall performance and still be more worried about his job because they do have other guys that could do that job. So he's given up five runs in his last three appearances.

It's go over two and a third. The weird thing is there's only two walks in that stretch, which is what we thought might be the problem for him, and no home runs. So he's probably just been babbibbed a little bit. I'll put him at a four just because Carlos Martinez is there. Okay. Alex Breggman's first 13 games, he had a 370 OPS, and then he had a 9.38 OPS in his last 36 games.

So people do get off to slow starts. This one pretty extended, I'd say, for Vlad. It's how many games for him? 20. That's only 27 games. All right. Next up. What's that? That was Vlad, right? That's Vlad, yeah.

And Eli's 30. Okay. Yeah, it's still very early. Trevor Bauer from Rich. Trevor Bauer on the Woriometer? Six. Yeah, six. I feel good about Bauer.

I'm going to say three. Um, I just, uh, he said he felt good. We talked about that on yesterday's podcast. He said he felt better than he has all season pretty much yesterday. But he looks like the guy he was before this season and before last season. And that's, that's a big concern to me because you always have to be worried that the breakout doesn't last. That it's just an outlier. And there's like, because he had problems early in his career with walks and was never an elite control guy, but he's back over.

four walks per nine. The other thing that doesn't look like the last three years is the ground balls. It's down to 36%, which is where he was again early in his career when he just wasn't very good. And I think what we talked about in the preseason might have happened. He might have just tinkered himself a little out of being an elite pitcher. But the nice thing about that is, you know, he started throwing the change up a little less, especially in the most recent start and throwing the curveball more. And it's possible that it just takes a few adjustments, and he's back to being the guy we thought he was, and the guy he was for, like, the first six or seven starts of the season.

All right, two more guys. That's Trevor Bauer. We're talking about. Two more. Corey Seeger. Nine. Well, hold on. Before you say that, it's my not, it hasn't been the easiest thing to notice,

but last 13 games, Corey Seeger is batting 25, three homers, two doubles, four-walk, seven strikeouts. That's a 490 slugging percentage and 835 OPS. Oh, yeah, then he could be a top 20 shortstop for sure. That's a good point. He never runs, so he's probably not going to, you know, stand out at short. But he, the power is getting a little better, at least in his last 13 games, five extra base hits and a 120, a 225 ISO. I think a lot of it is just that, like, good Corey Seeger is not near as good as it was when he was good Corey Seeger.

And it wasn't that long ago. But 2016, 2017, he was. was a 20 to 25 homer guy that hit right around 300. I mean, that would still have a lot of value. Like, if he did 2016 again, where he hit 308 with 26 homers and 105 runs scored, that's easily still a starting shortstop in this context. That's a question of whether he can be that again. That's not quite Carlos Correa so far this year, right?

I don't know what Carlos Correa's batting average is. Correa is batting 295 with 11 home runs. and 35 RBIs. So it's a 30, like 32, 33 homer pace, a 547 slugging percentage. We're not going to see that from, from, uh, Corey Seeger. That was pre-juiced ball, the 2016 Corey Seeger.

I think you're hoping for a lot of counting stats, right? Because he's in the Dodgers lineup. So you say nine, like, it's obviously, you guys make good points. You got to reflect on shortstop and how good it is. and he's not going to stand out at the position. I think that's obvious, but I do think that better times are ahead.

I think he's still someone worth owning. I'm not trying to drop him. Yeah, I just think one of the problems is he's a better points league player than a Roto league player. And I don't know. I think if he gets back to 2016, he would be a top 10 shortstop in points league. But if he's somewhere between 2016 and 2017,

or if he's just 2017, he's probably not. All right, that is Corey Seeger. Last guy on the Worryometer is Bryce Harper. What do you think? Bryce Harper. I have not looked at the trends lately for his strikeout or contact rates. I know it had gotten to like Joey Gallo-esque levels

for a while there. Five on him being a first round player moving forward. Yeah, six and a half. How about like a dinah? He is striking out a ton. It's five straight games with two or three strikeouts for Bryce Harper. I think at one point he let maybe it may have led baseball in games with multiple strikeouts. Probably still does.

How about in like a dynasty format? Four. Yeah. I mean, he's still going to hit over 30 home runs and probably drive it 100, you know? I would think so, but he's certainly not. on pace two. He's got nine homers, so he can't be that far off the pace. He'll get there.

He's pressing. New contract, he's pressing. It's just, the problem is it's continuing a trend from last year. Yeah, his contact rate over the last 40 games is 67.5%. That's slightly better than Gallo-esque, but not, it's, I would assume, bottom five in the league during that span. That is the Worryometer on this Worryometer Wednesday. Double dongs from yesterday. Alex Bregman hit two home runs. He's now the number eight hitter in points league's number 11 in Roto. So he's been really good. And maybe still some batting average positive regression coming. Batting just 271. He might be more like a 285 hitter based on the last two years. And David Bodie hit two home runs in that same game. Bodie has an 843 OPS, but it doesn't really do much for you. It's only 7% owned. Those are your double dongs on Wednesday? A quick break here. When we come back, are we buying it? Guys like Eric, Hosmer, who's not having a bad year. Matt Boyd, Austin Meadows, Tommy Lestella and Hunter Pence,

why not? Stephen Matt's had a really good start. Are We Buying It? Coming up right after this. Well, Lucas Gialito was going to headline the Are We Buying It section, but Chris stole him from me earlier in the show. So we're pretty much buying it with him. I've got, let's see, three or four different categories, four different categories for Are We Buying it. One is the Young Breakouts. It was Gialito, Matt Boyd, Eduardo, Elwood, Eduardo, Escobar and Austin Meadows. Escobar is a top five, third baseman, top six shortstop. Meadows had an IL stint, but he's got like an 1,100 OPS, above that.

And he's got six steals in 36 games. He's homered in three straight games. Austin Meadows looks like an absolute star. So I know we're more or less buying Gialito. What about Matt Boyd? I think obviously buying him, right? Totally. Okay.

What about Escobar and Austin? Austin Meadows. I've been so wrong about Austin Meadows that I don't want to keep doubling down. I think he's better than I thought he was. I don't know if he's a star, but he's definitely better than I thought he was. You're probably going to get 20 to 25 homers and probably 10 to 15 steals out of him. It's a good player. Okay.

What about Escobar? Escobar. Would you rather have Escobar or Corey Seeger? Seeger still, yeah. Okay. So I guess that makes Escobar a sell high? Yeah, I would sell high on Escobar. What about on Meadows? Like, why isn't Meadows a star?

I mean, he might be. I would have said a month ago he's not a star. Now I would say, I'm not willing to say for sure he's a star. It's just not a big enough sample yet, but everything he's doing right now sure looks like one. We got an email from Nick. Would you give up Austin Meadows and Sunny Gray? for Lorenzo Kane and a Rollis Chapman in a Roto League.

Meadows and Gray for Lorenzo Kane and Chapman. Yeah, I would do that. Sure. Would you rather have Meadows or Lorenzo Kane? Kane's going to kind of like a... Kane. I'll still take Kane. Why? Meadows has had...

It's been like 30 games, right? Has it even been that much because he missed. 36. 36 games. He was just a guy last year, especially. He had that great first week. league and then was basically useless after that. And for the most part, his minor league track record in the in the high miners was just okay.

Like he played 178 games at AAA and had a 768 OPS. So I still need more than 36 games to say I'm going to take him over someone like Lorenzo Kane, who's been a pretty reliable top 20 outfielder for the last few years. And like Kane has a 292 Babbip, which you might not think is unlucky, except we've got like 3,500 plate appearances with him as a 340 Babbip guy. He's still, his batting ball profile is pretty similar to everything except for last year. So I expect his batting average is 257. That's kind of what's held him down so far.

I don't think that will last. Okay. He's not going to hit for power, though. I don't think Miller Park's going to help Lorenzo Cain at this point, right? I think it helps lefties more, but no, it's not going to help him because he hits like 55% of his balls on the ground. Right. Okay. Same with Christian Yelich.

Next, next category of are we buying it? Is the Been Good Before category? Eric Hosmer. Hosmer is the number 17 first baseman of points, number 16 in Roto. It's not like he's having an amazing year, but that's a good player. And he's batting now 298 with nine home runs, and six of them have come on the road. Although last year was much better at home. Anyway, Eric Hosmer and Cesar Hernandez.

Hernandez with a career high 179 ISO. His previous career high was 127. This was like a slap hitter who's now got some pop, and he's batting 303. So, yeah, are you buying what you've seen from Eric Hosmer or Cesar Hernandez? Yes. It's an even year. Well, Eric Hosmer's number 17 first basement.

I think I had him ranked around 17 or 18. This is not too far from what I expected. And Hernandez, for the most part, over the last three, four years has been pretty good when he plays and I um I don't have any reason to doubt he'll continue to be are you doubting the power though sure yeah I don't think he's going to continue to be uh an average power source but he's on pace for like 18 home runs I think he could have a season where he hit 15 to 20 oh he hit 15 one I believe he had 15 last year he's on pace for 18 it's but I think the ISO is like 30 or 40 points higher uh his eyes is I

Isso is currently 70 points higher than it was. He has a lot more doubles. Yeah, so that's where I think you probably see some slowdown. He could, he can definitely hit 15 homers. I just, I don't think I would project him for an average or above average ISO moving forward. I think he's, he's probably played a little over his head, but that's sort of beside the point. He's good, and he has been for. He sucks.

No, he sucks. What? Desar Hernandez is crap. This is ridiculous. I hate when you guys do this. No, you are, no, you are being ridiculous. He's been good for several years. No, he had, first of all, last year he was terrible.

Last year was straight up terrible. So he batted 253 with like a 120 ISO or something, whatever it was. He had a 356 on base percentage and scored 91 runs and stole 19 bases. Yeah, he sucks. So the only thing that he does, like he was a decent batting average guy who could steal some bases. At the end of the year, you look at your team, your deep roto team. You say, oh, I got 17 steals and a 290 batting average out of Cesar Hernandez, whatever. You got no power, nothing.

He doesn't excel at anything. He is like the most useless player. He's not a league winner. He is only good in deep leagues. Only, only, only good in deep leagues. And he's not even that good. Is our standard for stinks or doesn't stink whether that player is likely to win you a league? No.

Is that the standard you're sending more? Do you start more than 11 second baseman in a regular 12-team league? There are plenty of start-worthy second baseman that are not good. And he's one of them. Okay. He's one of the best of them. Maybe. Which would almost make him good.

He's pretty good. He's not great. I just, you're conflating. Yeah, I was right about Chris Archer. Terrible with, like, worth starting. He's an above-average second baseman. Okay, here's my basic thing. Like, any player who's his slugging percentage before this year, his last four seasons,

slugging percentage, 348, 393, 421, 362. Any player who we don't expect to slug 400 this day and age has to be amazing at something, usually stolen bases, or he's just not a good fantasy player. Like, Cesar Hernandez is a better real-life player than he's fantasy. I should say that. But that's the thing with me. Like, he's so bad at power that he's just not good enough anywhere else. Like, that's fine.

But, like, how do you feel about Jorge Polanco right now? Conflicted. But, no, I mean, like, I think from when we've discussed him, I feel like you think he's been pretty good. And I think generally there's a sense that he's taken a step forward. Right. he hasn't been that much better than Cesar Hernandez the years prior he hit for more power but

other than that he really wasn't that much better he's a guy who's average for his career before this season 162 games 14 home runs I don't know what I'm not really sure I'm not really sure where we're going with this like you're saying that I'm buying

into one and you're dumping on Cesar Hernandez and saying he's useless and he's the worst player in baseball and that he stinks right well and but we're buying Jorge Polanco to to at least some extent. No, I think that...

I don't think they're that different players. They're not based on the last couple years. I'd say there's... In the entirety of their career. Just wait, we're going to be ready to talk about Tommy Listilla. I think you make a good point. I don't think I'm like... I don't really know where the Jorge Polanco thing came from

if you're just trying to compare the two. Polanco's been a lot better than Cesar Hernandez this year. So that's, you know, probably why we've spoken about it more. Okay, fine. Then we get to the thought they were done category. Now, I have a question about this category. Kamala does not belong in this category. Because it seems like these are guys that have been good before. Oh, wait.

And we thought they weren't going to be good anymore. Tommy Lestella came into the 2019 season with 346 games played, 10 home runs, four stolen bases, and a 264, 345-366 slash line. Wait a second. Hold on. Stephen Matt's definitely does not belong here. That was a mistake. Matt should have been in a different category. Stephen Matt's belongs there.

Steve Matt's belonging before. You have another category weren't on the radar? I think that would be a really good place for Tommy Listella. Because he literally was not on the radar. He literally wasn't on the radar? What does that mean? Like there was a radar? Literally.

Okay. All right. Fantasy radar. I guess it doesn't matter where they are. Are you buying it with Lestella, Alex Gordon, and Hunter Pence? No. Uh, sorry. No, last 10 games,

he's hitting 310, and I think he could hit 300. Um, I think he could be like an Andrewton Simmons type player for the rest of the season. So in that case, in that sense, sure, I'm buying that Tommy Lestella is fantasy relevant because I think he'll hit

for average and probably not much else, but that's fine. That's useful enough. Would you rather have Tommy Lestella or Cesar Hernandez rest of the season? As for Alex Gordon That's a good question I'd obviously much rather have Cesar Hernandez

Obviously Okay I think they'll probably hit for a similar average And I think Cesar Hernandez will steal more bases And probably hit for more power I just don't buy The time and the Stella power boost Yeah he'll definitely steal more bases

And if he's gonna hit for more power The Tommy Estella That Tommy Estella is gonna be pretty bad I mean timing of Estella Prior to this season was Like one of the most futile power-hitting players in baseball. Hey, look, you're right.

But it has happened before, okay? I mean, it's happened with J.D. Martinez. Jose Bautista completely changed his career. I don't buy it either, but how about out? I do think that Scott White would probably agree with you, Adam. No. No, Scott White is. Wait a second.

Totally bought in on Tom. Wait a second. I buy Tommy Listella a lot less than Scott does. I just want to say that. But I'm just saying, like, it does happen. What about Alex Gordon? and what about Hunter Pence? I buy Gordon a lot more than I buy Pence. Pence, I think, is it's a great story,

and he did rework his swing, but he, this is such an outlier from what he's done the last couple of seasons that it's just, well, I guess that's true about Alex Gordon. But Alex Gordon isn't quite as old. And there have been, like, Alex Gordon has remained a pretty good outfielder defensively,

so those signs of him, like, slipping athletically aren't quite as dire as they have been with Hunter Pence. But I don't think either one is going to keep up what they've done so far. No, I mean, the big key with Gordon is he's making good contact and he's cut the strikeout rate down to 14%. I think Gordon's probably going to be a startable outfielder. I'm not as sure about Pence. I buy both more than Tommy Lestela.

I will call my shots and say that Alex Gordon is going to be pretty bad going forward. He's 94% own. It'll be in the 50s in like a month. A month? That's a pretty steep drop. All-Star break. Can somebody try to remember this? All-Star break, Al's scored 50% owner or less.

Yeah, that wouldn't shock me. Okay. Stephen Matt's, anybody buying this? So I had him on my bench. I was very afraid of him in two starts at the Dodgers and at the Cardinal. No, the Diamondbacks, that different Arizona team. So Matt's, six innings, two runs, three walks, six strikeouts at the Dodgers. And I think Mickey Calloway said it was the best start he had ever.

ever seen from Stephen Mats. Curbball and change up are really good. Excuse me. Yeah, so what do we think? He's got a 355 ERA, a strikeout per inning, but a 134 whip. We're going back now half a season with Stephen Mats where he's pitched really well.

Even including, what was the one start this year? Eight, eight runs, no outs? Six run runs, no outs. Yeah. His last 17 starts, including that one. He has a three ERA, With 97 strikeouts and 90 innings. Whip?

With a 10% swinging strike rate. What's the whip? I can look that up right now. That's a big number to me. I'm not trying to be like annoying, but he's got a 134 whip this year, Stephen Matt's. So that number really jumps out. Like how could he have a mid-3ZRA with a 134 whip?

That's terrible. Well, and he has a 468 FIP. Yeah, I don't know how much of it was just that one terrible start, but it just has felt lucky to me. Well, it's been a little bit lucky. Like, that one start, he quite literally stranded no one. I think 10 guys came to the plate. They all came around, well, eight of them.

And he has an 82% strand rate on the year. So that part's been a little bit lucky. But the more, like, his Sierra's 413, I think he's fine. He has a 385 fit, X-FIP over the last 17. starts. It's like a four pip in that span. Look, I don't think he's an ace, but I think he's absolutely

someone who's worth owning and starting. Yeah, okay, that's fair enough for Stephen Matts. And then are you buying it with what was it? Christian Vasquez and Zach Davies. Not Zach Davies. I don't see anything to make me

believe that Zach Davies is good. He's bad. And he will be bad in the future. And you should feel bad for thinking that he might be good. What about Christian Vasquez? No. Number two catcher, sure. There's only like seven good catchers, so he can...

He's still behind Jorge Elfaro for me. Thanks. I'm going to have to make a tough decision at some point when Zunino comes off the IL, keeping Vasquez or Zanino. But the truth is, we should make the easy decision and stop playing in two catcher leagues. We've got a few minutes left.

Here's the rotation from yesterday. Give me quick thoughts. Steven Strasbourg is the number four starting pitcher in fantasy. He's good. Very, very good. Trade him before he gets hurt? What? Would you trade him before he gets hurt?

No. I would trade him for a few pitchers that he's ahead of. Sure. I'd trade him for Max Scherzer. Sure. If someone wants to give you Max Scherzer, Garrett Kohl for Stephen Strasberg, fine. You can do that.

No, I don't think you should be actively. Would you rather have Steven Strasbourg or Trevor Bauer? That's what I was going to ask. I think I'd rather have Bauer, but I feel it gives me a lot of indigestion. Yeah, I would take Bauer. Strasbourg, one season in his last four with more than 150 innings. So I would roll the dice. David Price.

Is David Price an ace? No, certainly not an ace. He's a borderline ace. Not an ace, but a borderline ace. Hey, what are you going to do? His fastball velocity, I think, was really down yesterday. Was it? Wow.

Let me check. Remember, he was sick last start, so that could be a factor. He's at the Yankees this weekend. Over his last three seasons, David Price has given up 33 earn runs in 31 and a third at the Yankees. I think that is six, six starts, maybe seven. You know, like that just makes Chris and I want to start him. What are you going to do?

Nah. He's been so good. I think he's going to be good. They're not the same Yankees. I think he's going to be good. I mean, they've been a really good Yankees. They have been. I'm starting him.

Okay. All right, we got to go, guys. Sorry to cut us off a little short. Tanaka had a bad start, but the strikeouts are back up. That's good. Max Fried, we already talked about. Rich Hill's great. Give me your thoughts on Frankie Montas real quick, guys.

Real quick. Bad start yesterday? I think he's good. It was a bad start, but I think he's very good. And Markle Gonzalez. I don't think he's good. Listen, though, his last seven starts three times against the Rangers, the Cubs, the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Twins. Like, his next two starts will be against the Angels.

So Marco Gonzalez basically has had the tough, I would bet he's had the toughest schedule in baseball of any pitcher. I wouldn't be surprised if he did moving forward. Oh, well, he's not going to face the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cubs, and probably not the Rangers for a while. He's going to face the Astros, Angels, and Rangers a lot. Are the Angels good? He's already faced the Rangers three times his last seven starts. So I feel like there's a break coming there. Also, the Astros have no hitters left.

Okay, we're out of here. Thank you for listening. Fun show today. Lucas G. Alito did not know what time the game started, Heath. And we'll be back tomorrow with some trade talk. I'm FantasyBall today.