Fantasy Baseball Today - 06/07: Trade Talk, Players to Add and Drop (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 7, 2018

Beginning with yesterday's standouts we wonder if now is the time to try to sell Sonny Gray (1:50), if Carlos Carrasco has a fastball issue (3:54), if Mike Foltynewicz is legit (7:41), if Clay Buchholz (9:43) and Matt Kemp (11:22) are worth owning and more ... How concerned are we about Shohei Ohtani's blisters (15:55)? And let's talk trade (23:30)! Scott and Heath give you Buy Low, Buy High, Sell High and players they are actually worried about. Are Nomar Mazara, Michael Brantley and Andrew Benintendi sell high or buy high candidates? ... We've got the Ownometer (37:40) for players like Ian Kinsler, Jurickson Profar and Franmil Reyes, plus the Dropometer (45:18) for players like Michael Conforto and Miguel Sano. Talking yesterday's SPs (51:38) and today's matchups (57:03) ... 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

He chooses Travis Shaw over anyone who's great. Indian at a mazer trade. The other team's getting played. An Aster Chris is most guys number threes. Have any of these dudes ever won the podcast league? But they'll be there for you. You're saying. Today, we are busy day yesterday around baseball.

We are here to talk about it. We got some trade talks for you. Buy low, sell high, buy high, and a player we are worried about. If we have time, we'll sneak in some buyer's sell at the end of the show. I am Adam Acer. Good morning to a very hungry Scott White. Good morning, Adam. You done with the breakfast?

I'm still eating my breakfast as we speak. I'm going to take a break for the podcast. A nice hour-long break from my breakfast. Talk to you about baseball. Isn't that thoughtful of me? Very nice. We'll heat it up later. Heath Cummings, good morning.

This is going to be the best show ever. I am so excited. How come? Well, I'm not going to, like, give it away. People have got to wait and see why, but it's going to be awesome. Are you talking about our bonus edition of the Fantasy Regulators? That is one of many things that are going to be awesome on this show. Okay, good.

We do have a bonus edition of the Fantasy Regulators coming up in a little bit. So here's the thing. About a million players I want to talk about from yesterday, give or take a few. I want to get to it right now. Let's start with Wednesday standouts. I've got five or six of them. them and then you can fill in the blanks. So I'm going to give you a player and we're going to talk about them.

Let's do it. Sunny Gray, eight scoreless innings, two hits, eight strikeouts at Toronto. Sunny Gray in his last seven starts has a 330-R-A. Two really bad starts in there at home against Oakland and the Angels. Five pretty good starts. Scott, well, actually, Heath, you've got the hottest take on Sunny Gray, so kick it off. It's not a hot take at all. It's just the way that you should be what you should do immediately.

is start making offers to sell Sunny Gray. And it's not because I think Sunny Gray is going to go back to being a six or seven ERA starting pitcher. We said before the Baltimore start, two starts ago, that kind of felt like if he's not good here, I might drop him.

He was really good against Baltimore, which he should be. They are an absolute dumpster fire against right-handed pitchers this year. He was really good at Toronto without Josh Donaldson. Good. That's great. 14 innings.

Only one run given up. 14 strikeouts in his last two starts, go sell him now. He's still not going to be a pitcher you feel good about starting at home unless it's against a terrible offense. You're not going to start him at Boston. You're not going to start him places like at Houston. If you can get somebody, anybody to treat him just like a rotation mainstay, go sell him now. Sonny Gray. Scott, do you agree or disagree? I just have a hard time believing you're going to be able to sell high on a guy with a 481 ERA and 146 whip.

That's my biggest thing there. But, yeah, I mean, I don't have much hope in Sunny Gray being the pitcher he was last year, the pitcher we drafted him to be he at. It's nice that he's managed to make the most of what he's dealing with during the six-start or seven-start stretch. but still not getting nearly the swinging strikes he did a year ago. He hasn't been near the ground ball pitcher he's been throughout his career. So the things that made him good coming into the year are still not present, even though he's pitching a little better.

All right, that is Sunny Gray. My next standout is Carlos Carrasco. He's been an up and down pitcher this year. It's 10 strikeouts. Actually, his two best starts have been against Milwaukee. Remember, he struck out with 14 brewers. not long ago. And yesterday, 10 Brewers in seven innings of one-run ball and eight hits allowed.

So I was watching this start, and I noticed he is really not throwing his fastball much. And his velocity's down a little bit. He's just a different pitcher right now. And that's kind of interesting. It's a little Patrick Corby, I think. What do you guys think about Carlos Carrasco, a somewhat different version? Scott White, Carlos Carrasco. I have nothing to be concerned about with Carasco personally.

Like, he's averaging, you say his velocity's down, but it's 94.4.47 versus 94.5 last year. Look at his last two starts, two or three starts. So he hasn't really had, he's been, oh, okay, no, there's no way. There's no way he averages 94.66. There's no way. He was throwing consistently 93 miles per hour. yesterday. When I only watched,

I miss like the first three innings. But it was, and what's the, what's the percentage of fastballs? Because that was really what stood out to me. He was throwing breaking ball after breaking ball. And usually he's like a 40%. Combining four seamer and sinker,

he threw about 40% fastballs. It doesn't, it doesn't look like an oddity. I mean, it's about 10% below where he's been. He's been a most years, 55-ish percent. and his career is 53.8.

Last year it was down to 48% fastballs. Now, 45. Like, it's pretty close to last year. I have moved him around a little bit, but it's just moving him around between, like, 9 and 15 in the starting pitcher ranking. So I don't have any concern about him being a borderline number one starter the rest of the way.

All right. Yeah, I mean, after his last start, Keith and I were on, and we both said something to the effect of, like, this is kind of who he is, high ERA guy who has B's all. who's going to have a big strikeout total and has games like this frequently enough that he's borderline ace. Yeah. I don't know that he's a high ear a guy.

He's been 3-2, 3-3 or better, 3 out of the last four years. Right. All right. You know, I got my eye on it because I was watching yesterday with Carasco and Corbyn. And the data is not really backing me up, but I swear to it. He was a big-time breaking ball pitcher yesterday. and appears to start before. I think of Tanaka,

where you've got a lot of volatility because the fastball is not great. So I'm certainly not there yet with Carasco, but this to me is a trend to watch. Keeping an eye on the velocity and the fastball, you should go forward, and I might be the only one of the world. I don't really see what's wrong with the velocity.

I'm telling you, I'm telling you, he's throwing. You keep saying that's every time Carasco starts. No, that's not true at all. That's not true at all. I'm saying this is like the first time I've said it, I think. I haven't been banging that drum. You've said it before. He hit 98 yesterday.

Wait a second, that's for the season. Yeah, yeah. He hit 96 yesterday. He hit 96. That is a meaningless stat to me, just in general. You know, one or two pitches throughout a game. You know, I'm not going to dwell on it. But that was usually his game high last year.

This is like Adam versus. Adam versus the computer. Last year. No, this is not Adam versus the computer. This is what Adam saw yesterday when he watched the start. Right. It's your eyes against the computer. But the computer.

All right. Mike Fultenevich. Who's buying Mike Fultenevich? You know, one thing I noticed, yesterday wasn't the best star for him, but it wasn't bad. Two runs and five innings, three walks, eight strikeouts. Boy, okay, he was at San Diego yesterday. Before that, the Cubs at the Phillies and at Boston. So he's actually navigated a very tough schedule recently, very, very well.

A 25 swinging strikes for Fultenevich yesterday. Who is buying Mike Fultenevich? He's basically right now a must start, started in 88% of leagues. What do you think going forward? I don't know that I'm going to quite start him every time he pitches. But, you know, it was kind of interesting. Like the thing I've been harping on about him all season is for the strikeout, for his K per 9, how many strikeouts he's getting.

His swinging strike rate is kind of low. It's middle of the pack in terms of all major league pitchers. and then he has quote-unquote a bad start compared to the one he was coming off of and what you expected based on the matchup and he gets 25 swinging strikes you have here in the notes an insane number so like I don't know

I kind of feel like and I said this after his last start like I kind of feel like the amount of information available to us is making the assessment of Fultenevich more complicated than it needs to be. He looks like a top strikeout pitcher, right?

Like K-per-9, close to 11, a third of the way through the season. Right. I wish he didn't walk so many hitters. And because of that, there are going to be times when he falls short of a quality start like this.

But I think he's pretty good. So who would you rather have? Sean Nukum or Mike Fultenevich? Newcomb. I think they're similar. But lately, Fultenevich's looks like a much better strikeout pitcher. So, I mean, I still have nuke him ahead, but I think that that gap is narrowing. Okay. Clay Buckholt, any interest in him?

It's not even clear he'll stay in the rotation for Arizona. Is it? Well, yeah, go ahead. It'd be hard if he keeps this up for him, not to. and he's had some good luck. I pretty much just ignored Clay Buckholtz until this most recent start. And I was like, okay, we need to at least go look and see what's going on here. And when he had success in the past, he was a pretty good to at times very good control pitcher.

That has been his key to success so far. He's not walking anyone other than the good luck. I don't think after four starts I'm going to expect that that's going to continue, but he's at least someone that I might have to consider if he had a two-start week against good matchups. And he does have a two-star week. And they're not bad. It's Pittsburgh and the Mets at home. All the Mets should have Cespitis back.

So he's 44% owed now, and he's probably taking the place of Robbie Ray at the moment. But yeah, maybe they can find a way to keep in for Matt Cook or something like that. All right. Yeah, what do you think? Next week, Buckholz, Pittsburgh and the Mets at home. I wouldn't do it. There are, like, I will consider it in our 14-team league. Okay.

Yeah, that makes sense. A points, 14-team points league, yeah. He, like, especially the strikeouts the last two-star. He has no good swing in this pitch. He's throwing softer than he ever has. Like, I don't, this to me seems like totally like smoking mirrors. How about Matt Kemp, guys? Matt Kemp is the number 27 outfielder in points, but number 14 in Roto.

Why the disparity? Because of it bats, played appearances. He went three for five with a home run and two doubles and five RBIs and three runs and a walk at Pittsburgh yesterday. Matt Kemp is batting 353 with 10 home runs and 16 doubles in 59 games. Oh my goodness, is anybody buying Matt Kemp? It seems like the Dodgers are starting to. he started 14 of their past 16 games. So if that continues, and why won't it?

Because as many holes have popped up in their lineup this year, as long as that continues, then the bat's issue isn't going to be that much of an issue. And I've kept him low in my rankings because of that, and because the way his time ended in Atlanta, I wasn't really buying his performance. The Babbab is really high, but he's hitting the crap out of the ball, line drive and hard contact rates among the eyes he's ever had. So, I mean, obviously he's not going to hit $350 all year, but I think he's pretty good.

Like, I think as long as the Dodgers start him, fantasy owners probably should too. All right. Matt Kemp. Nice work. And finally, Blake Parker, Heath, got another save yesterday. Is Blake Parker, I think I said this about somebody yesterday, I don't remember, but is Blake Parker criminally underowned at 39% owned?

He is definitely underowned. 39%. I don't know what would define criminally. I'm not ready to say that Blake Parker should be owned 100% of leagues. I think there's probably a better option in a standard points league just because, like, if he goes a week where he gets one save, that's just going to kind of seem like normal, I think. So I do think in those leagues with all the extra sparps and the 20 or so relievers that we actually feel decent about, I don't think he's probably. needs to be started in standard points leagues, but he should be

owned in every single categories league. Would you rather have Blake Parker or Fernando Rodney? Parker. Would you rather have Blake Parker or Josh Hater in a points league? That's right at the line. I think it's a Hater. I would, yeah, I think I'd take Rodney

and Hater both over Parker. Though, I mean, this is obviously the most consistency like Sosha has shown in the closer role this year. I just, I still don't trust it. All right. Well, hey, we got a, we got a big event coming up on Saturday.

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Download Seatgeek, use the code fantasy for 20 bucks off, or use the code today for $10 off baseball tickets. All right, the big news, Shohay Otani left with a blister. This actually is pretty big news. Yeah. Scott, what do you make of this? So Tani leaving with a blister. I think it's frustrating.

Because obviously it's a recurrence of the only, like the injury that caused the only bad stretch he's had this year. Now, they say it's not as bad as that first blister, and that first blister, I'm not sure he technically missed a start. Maybe he missed one. So in terms of his missing time, that's not something I'm concerned about, but just the recurrence of it suggests this might be something that pops up over and over again. And when there's already, there's already the frustration of, um,

the angel's continually pushing him back to make sure he gets the rest he needs. And, you know, anytime he's scheduled to start late in a week, you've got to worry about him potentially getting pushed back all of a sudden and not making any starts at all. Like, it's, it's turning into, it's turning into an even more frustrating situation owning Otani, which is sad because he's amazing. And I still,

I still feel like the way we set him up, we set up it up on CBS for fantasy owners to use him and the way he's set up basically everywhere because I don't think anybody really nailed it the best way to actualize

Otani's real life value in fantasy I think I think it's that. I think we need to look at that again this also. I'm sorry. That was really depressing, Scott. Yeah, that was.

That was quite a moment. Hey, we're done, we're done, folks. I'm ending the show. We're out of here. Sorry to bring you down. The news gets better after this. Oh, with Alex Reyes. No, we have to stay on Otani because we have to talk about rankings.

We're going to talk about where you have Shohei Otani, where you're going to have him rest of season. So Heath, what you brighten up by day a little bit? Tell me where you have Shoahe Otani. I've pretty consistently had him in the 30s. I think he may have just recently snuck up to as high as 29 in Roto. Listen, it's an impossible thing to actually rank because when he pitches, I expect him to pitch like a top 18 pitcher. I think he's a borderline ace when he pitches.

It's a random cutoff top 18. Well, I was just, I was visualizing my rankings and the players and the names, and that's, he's a route eight, that's what I expect. Yeah. But I, I wrote about him and the other top rookie pitchers and what I expect rest of season. And before this start, he was basically on pace for 140 innings for the year. I think people have to realize that's probably a little bit closer to his ceiling than it is to his floor. All right, let me throw out names. Let me throw out names.

Would you rather have Tanner Roark? Or Shohei Otani. Otani. Okay. Would you rather, wow, actually I'm a little surprised at that. I have 24th in my rankings, and so let's, I mean, let's talk about some of the higher names here. Okay. Obviously, it's been frustrating owning Otani, but I haven't directly had of Chris Archer.

But Roark might throw 60 more innings. Like, I mean, isn't that too high? He's having 24th? He's going to throw 140 innings? Maybe, now he's a blister? Well, you're not. it's less about how many total fantasy points he's going to wind up with than what sort of impact he's going to make to your team.

Canter Roark is going to outscores Joey Otani in a points league this year. Yeah, I think that's safe to assume that. But the impact on a start-by-star basis is going to be higher for Otani. Yeah, I get that. All right. All right, now we can move on. Let's talk about something happy. Alex Reyes is out for the year.

Scott, what are you? What do you think about Alex Ray? Is this a happy news or sad news, Scott, with Reyes. This is even sadder news. And like, now he's going to miss the second straight. Now we got here at the top pitching prospect of baseball, right, missing a second consecutive season with injury. And while last season it was the fairly predictable outcome of Tommy John surgery, this year it's muscle detached from bone in the back. at his pitching shoulder.

Sorry, I'm playing music that's supposed to be very sad. It's not really weird. Do you have any blues music? Can Scott just sing the blues for a minute? Long-term outlook for Reyes. Go ahead. The procedure he had to fix his shoulder

is the same one that kind of transformed Jake Peavy from a perennial Cy Young candidate to a mid-rotation starter. Now, they say that it's not quite as bad of a case as Peevee dealt with, but that's still a scary competitive. comparison and I think what it does is it takes race like obviously dynasty leagues he's still an asset he's still one of the top prospects but he's no longer that inevitability like I have this ascent waiting it's now there's as much risk to him as you know the the average well the average high end pitching prospect if that makes sense okay all right guys so here's what we're going to do we're going to we're going to blow through the rest of the notes and start talking

trade and yesterday's results a little bit more. So Angleton Simmons is on the DL with an ankle injury that he just, he stepped wrong in the dugout. Tough to see. Yueness Pes could be back this weekend and Noah Cindergarde is expected to start against the Yankees this weekend. Will you start Noah Cindergarde if you can in a daily league? If you already had them in your lineup, would you start Cindergarde against the

Yankees? Yeah. Yep. All right. Tell me your level of interest. Tampa Bay is calling up outfielder Jake Bowers. It's kind of interesting. Like he's got to be he's eligible at outfield right now.

He's going to pick up first base eligibility. And it sounds like they're fully committed to making him their starter at that position. So this isn't another Willie Adama's situation. Adam and A.L. only. Adam in any Roto league 14 teams are deeper. I'm probably not adding him in a 12 team league. There wasn't quite enough power in the miners to do that. But it's a really good overall hitting profile.

And we've seen that translates big numbers, like unexpectedly good numbers. like unexpectedly good numbers in the majors before. And obviously the race have a lot of confidence. Jake Bowers. Miami's called up a starting pitcher Trevor Richards. Interest level? NL only. Okay.

Dennis Santana for the Dodgers, John Beeks for the Red Sox. Both will make their first starts tonight. Dennis Santana for the Dodgers, John Beeks for the Red Sox. I'd be interested in Beeks if I thought there was any chance he'd stick around. But after the way Stephen Wright pitched yesterday,

and even that was just as a fill-in for Drew Pomerans. I don't think Beeks has any avenue right now, but a big strikeout rate in the miners. All right, you ready for some trade talk, guys? Sure. Yeah, all right. Give me a buy low, a sell high, a buy high, and a player that you

are actually concerned about. Heath, kick it off with a buy low. Let's talk about Shohay Otani some more. You heard how sad Scott White was every Shohay Otani owner in America feels that sad. today. And so it's probably a good time to send him an Azer offer. Let's see just how

sad they are. And I would use the same type of thing we were talking about with Tanner Roark. Well, you know he's going to score a lot more points than Otani the rest of the year. See if you can get somebody to accept a deal like that. So, okay. So Tanner Roark is someone

that you could throw out there. Yeah. I'd send Rick Porcello for him. Okay. Like that. Bilo, Scott White? I'm going to stick with a favorite of mine, Luis Castillo, who I was getting so many tweets during his last start about what's wrong with them. This guy is awful, and he'd drop them.

And like before I'd seen the results of the start. And so I'm like, man, this must have just been an epic disaster. And then I go look at the box score. And he allowed a grand slam. and that was the extent of the damage. So I get it's kind of frustrating, and the ERA is still super inflated from early in the season. He seems to have these lapses in control from time to time

that really set him back. But when he's on, he's still as overpowering as an ace with that change-up and all the swinging strikes it gets. I think the end result is going to be better than we've, We've seen to this point. And now's a good time to make another play for him with people asking me if they should drop them. That's Luis Castillo. Would you rather have Sunny Gray or Luis Castillo?

Castillo easily. Would you rather have Nick Povetta or Luis Castillo? I would rather have Castillo. I think that's right where the line is for me. I think I'd rather have Povetta. Heath, give me a cell high. Or is it sunny gray? I already gave you a cell high.

Okay. It's sunny great for you. Scott, so high. That's not how this works. No, it literally is how it works. To find somebody. Well, we talked before the show about whether or not, I'll just talk about how we talked about you,

whether or not you would have these ready, and we knew that you would not. Yeah, we did, yeah. Even though we do this every Thursday. I don't know what downtime you guys think I have at this stage of my life, but I can sit around and ponder these things. I

I take care of the kids all day I go into work at night I get home I get four or five hours asleep and then I wake up to do this podcast I've got kids I still I value Adams

Thank you Thank you Heath Scott have you figured out You're so high yet Have we killed enough time? No I was talking to you guys I'm going to

Let's see I'm going to say that a good sell high. Heath, how about a buy high? Let's give Scott some time. Heath, you give me a buy high. Scott, you come up with a sell high and a buy high. Andrew Beninty, who has just been an absolute monster as of late. The breakout happened a little bit of a slow start.

But I had him ranked before the season as a top 12 outfielder. and I'm willing to play top 10, top 9 prices for Benintending. I think four of the three of the top four or maybe three of the top five outfielders in fantasy are Red Sox outfielders. Of course, one is their DH who's outfit eligible, J.D. Martinez, but Benintendi right now, I believe, is a top five outfielder. He just, he had an incredible May. He's continuing it in June. I was going to take a deeper look into his stats tomorrow. because I didn't know how he was doing against lefties. Maybe they've just faced a bunch of righties.

Well, he had a dong off one last night. Oh, yes, yes. Well, he did. Okay, good. No, I mean, I'm riding this Ben and Tendi wave. It's been outstanding. If you go look at his peripherals, the hard contact rate is still really, really low. But I don't think that's telling the full story because it was like 20% after the first month of the season.

So he's already got 10 stolen bases, which kind of surprised me. Right. He's got a 752 OPS against lefties. That will absolutely play. Okay, Scott, are you ready or do you need another minute? Do you want my cell high or my buy high? Both, baby. Both.

All right. So sell high, I'm going to go with Nomar Mazzara, who, like, the fly ball rate isn't correcting. Even to the modest level it was in previous years, it is among the lowest for full-time hitters this year. He puts the ball on the ground a ton, and his success is almost entirely dependent on his power production. So it just doesn't jive for me. He has been really good to this point, but unless he starts elevating the ball better,

I'm skeptical it's going to continue. And my by-high would be Michael Brantley. I think he's back to being the stud, and I'm frustrated because the past, two years. I had a lot of shares in Michael Brantley expecting him to get back to this level of production. I've got them all. You got them all.

You kept the faith for a third straight year. He was so cheap you didn't need to have any faith. Oh, maybe. But yeah, I mean, the Babbitt, like, he's batting 325 with 316 Babbitt. Like, he hardly ever strikes out, and the power production is enough, certainly, to play with that kind of

batting average potential. Yeah, I I could have probably traded you Darvish for Michael Brantley a few weeks ago. And I mean, maybe at the time, you know, Darvish was healthy. Maybe it would have a slight loss. Yeah, like a slight loss, but not a huge loss. Would you rather have Nomar Mazar or Yohanna Cespitas? I would rather have Mazarra, but, you know, I have been a big Cessbitus guy from the start of the season. On fair comparison.

Would you trade Noamar Mazar for? an injured Will Myers my rankings showed that I would obviously it'd have to have the depth to accommodate that but yes

we try to trade no warmer czar for showy Otani absolutely and a player actually worried about Heath I'm gonna say J. Bruce we keep thinking that he's just going to come out of this

and I'm not totally sure he's going to come out of this And with Cespitus coming back and the way Brandon Nimmo has hit, I don't know that Jay Bruce is going to play every day for a while. You know what? I was going to bring that up because they actually said that on the Mets broadcast. They didn't say it's going to happen, but they speculated that Bruce could lose playing time when Cisputus is healthy. Of course, Conforto has been horrible, too.

I mean, that's a player I'm actually worried about. But Conforto has been better than Bruce, right? Everybody's been better than Bruce. But Adrian Gonzalez has it, so they could use it at first base. His strikeouts are down just a little bit from the past. His swinging strike rate is actually up. It's just the power has completely disappeared. His hard contact rate doesn't look awful,

but it is down pretty considerably over the last couple of years. I think he'll be a little better than this. I'm not sure he's going to be good, though. Like, that's the thing for me. I don't see any reason looking at the bat at Ball Pro Pile to think he's just a different. hitter than he's been. His line drive rate is actually awesome.

They're just not as hard of land drives. I guess, but I mean, relative to all of baseball. I'm not sure Jay Bruce could have a good bad bet with a 30% line drive rate. All right, Scott, let me get to... But why not is the thing. Well, he just never has. I don't know if the Mets, I don't know if the Mets will be patient with him either because obviously Brandon Nemos is complicated things.

but I think if they are patient with him, Bruce will be fine. Okay. Scott, give me your player actually worried about. Gone with Sean Mania. Player I'm legitimately worried about. And we kind of got into it a little yesterday. I wasn't totally buying him even when he was, quote, unquote, dominating because not a lot of strike out there.

It's only gotten worse recently. And as much as he's scuffled lately, 218 Babib still. what's going to happen when the BAB abnormizes? Yeah. It may not be pretty. Yeah. I wonder when people start dropping, Shaman.

I don't think we're there yet, but we are there. We are there with Chase Anderson. You know, that like, you get like low strikeouts and, you know, I'm not saying they're the same, but people need to start.

And a quick aside, you need to drop Chase Anderson. He's like 78%. Oh, and there are just too many interesting players out there. So let me recap. The by lows were Shohei Otani and Luis Castillo. The cell highs were Sunny Gray and Nomar Mizarra. The buy highs were Andrew Benintendi and Michael Brantley.

And we are actually worried about Jay Bruce and Sean Mania. And I'll throw in Chase Anderson and Michael Conforto. I have a Michael Conforto segment coming up later, or he's in a segment coming up later. I have to tell you all about a new sponsor, though. And I do want to thank all of our sponsors for making it possible to give everybody this fantasy baseball. coverage every day. Our new sponsor is Lightstream. I was on the Lightstream website, lightstream.com earlier today, just kind of messing around. It's a pretty cool website. It's easy to use. And Lightstream is a credit card consolidation loan site. So this is your

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Yeah, it's good stuff though. Micromachines guy. Lightstream.com slash strike people, check it out. All right. I've had enough of us. arguing with each other. Let's help the people out with a bonus edition of the fantasy regulators. All right, this is really strange.

So we got to see, but I'm not even going to include the name or the Twitter handle of this guy. This is what he said. Oh, yeah. A member of our league was sentenced to 90 days. He and I worked together at a factory that makes salt and pepper shakers. He wanted to leave our shift early on opening day, and our shift manager was being a jerk. So my friend beat the crap out of him. He's now in jail, and he lost his job.

job. I have been visiting him twice a week and managing his team based on what he tells me. What a great friend. Yeah. Right? I started sleeping with his girl and I think he knows. No one else will visit him and I don't want to get in a verbal altercation with him because that wouldn't be cool. What should our league do? 12-team points league with no keepers.

And we don't allow sparse. I don't know if it's serious, but we seriously got this email. Of course it's serious. Of course it's serious. Oh, bad. I think this goes beyond our expertise. Well, let's just handle this on a case-by-case basis. Very nice of you to be helping him run his team.

Right. I think we need to make sure the rest of the league knows that you're running as team, because some other owners might have a problem with that. There could be some conflicts of interest there. Yeah. So I would probably try to keep trying to help the guy out and run his team. If you can't do that by visiting. him maybe we could arrange some phone calls

what about the sleeping with the girl thing heath that's really the issue here no i don't think that's that's uh yeah it you see it says girl and not wife and we need to know like did she break up with him for going to jail for punching his boss well i mean it's possible if if she did then it's probably fine do you want help from the guy who's sleeping with your girl Well, I mean...

You've got to win fantasy. Yeah, I'd hate to just miss an entire season because I punched my boss. Scott, if I punched Chris, would you come visit me and run my team for him? Oh, my God. Could you imagine if Heath punched Chris? That would never happen. Although I guarantee he's made you close. Get pretty close a few times.

All right, that was this round of... I'm not even going to let Scott answer that question. That's this round of the fantasy regulators. Let's talk baseball. All right, the own o meter. This is a bet. This is a Chris, actually this was Chris, our boss telling us a better way to do the addometer. So the oometer, you give us a number 1 through 10 or 0 through 10, and it coincides with how owned the player should be.

So if you say he's a 10, he should be close to 100% owner. He's a 5, 50% own. On the ownometer, Ian Kinsler, he has been hot. Last nine games, he has four homers and three doubles. Kinsler's 66% owned. Where is he on the ownometer? Five. Okay.

So this corresponds with ownership percentage? Where you think it should be? Seven. Okay. 50 to 70%. That's cool. I think he's much better than his stat line today. The batting ball profile is actually really good.

Yeah. Okay. Was it also last year? He's not lately. It was last year, yes. I looked, and he did have a seven-game stretch in June, Kinsler, with four homers and two doubles, and he was obviously garbage for basically the whole season. But I didn't drop him in our first year.

Roto League. He steals a base every now and then. He's batting lead off again. There are things to like about Kinsler. So, 50 to 70% 0, and that's where we're cool with him. Jurex and ProFar. I mean, in points he was pretty good last year. Like, I know he hit, the batting average was low, and it's just one of those, he's just one of those players where, like,

the sum is, the whole is greater than the sum of the part. I mean, like, I guess, but isn't that sort of the reverse of what you were saying about Joe Hottani versus Tanner Roark? If you started in. Cantor Roark isn't unownable. We're just talking about the threshold here is he worth owning? Inkinsler was not worth owning last year. I think it's 70% of leagues.

Kinsler is worth owning. But last year... It isn't 100% of league. But last year, he was not worth owning in a points league. I mean, I don't have my per game numbers pulled up, but I want to say he was about on the level of like a Cesar Hernandez. He was better than him, but Cesar Hernandez wasn't worth him. What are you talking about?

Last year? Heath, do you think Seizar Hernandez was worth owning? Well, I do, but you are a strange cat to be making this argument now, because I think we can probably go pull the tapes from 2017 and hear multiple times where you did not think Seizar Hernandez was worth owning in a points league. I'm only giving him a seven. All right, I'll move on. I'll move on.

A points league, yeah. I mean, Kinsler, 70% ownership probably doesn't include many points league. Jurexon Profar. Jurexon ProFar, 52% O. And where's he on the O-N-O meter? Five. Yeah, I'll give him a five, too. A lot of doubles, because he actually shows up pretty high in the points rankings for, you know,

sub-800 OPS, low batting average. But he doesn't strike out much, and he's hit a lot of doubles. And obviously two home runs yesterday. Oh, my bet. There's the potential for him to. to rise on the onometer. I do wonder, though, what happens when Andrews is back? I think there's a decent chance.

I mean, Rugnett O'Dore's got to do something before then. Right. If ProFar keeps this up and O'Dor keeps this up, it might be ProFar playing more often. Or maybe they put him somewhere in the outfield, I don't know. Danesby Swanson, 50% Owen. Oanometer. Four. I'll give him about, you know what?

I'm going to change my profile answer from 5 to 6, and then I'm going to give Swanson 5. All right, so we all would rather have pro far than Twonson. Yes. C.J. Crone, 76% owned. Where should he be? C.J. Crone? Five. Probably about a 7, 6.

Okay. Yeah, not quite as rosterable as Kinsler. Jason Kipness, 37% owned. Like 5. Five. Four. Four. You know what? Lower than Swanson. He's four. Three. Fran Mill Reyes, 28% owned. Three. That's like a three.

Okay. He sat yesterday. Yeah, he sits. Fran Mill Reyes. Jack Peterson, 21% owned. Three homers in his last three games. Two of them were at Colorado. Two. Four. And that actually was three homers' last three games entering yesterday. He did not homer yesterday. Derek Dietrich, 18%.

Oh, Derek Dietrich has an 1120 OPS and a 400 batting average in his last 21 games. Derek Dietrich? Like a two, three. Two, three? Okay, not really feeling it with Derek Dietrich. How about Pablo Sandeval? He's been pretty good lately, and he's playing first base for the time being. One.

The time being. Yeah, that's a one. Okay. And just because he homered yesterday, how about Louis Brinson, who homered twice yesterday, one of them was off Jed Jerko? I guess I'll go to, just if you're looking to Stash Shepside. I think a more important question with Louis Brinson

is Chris Towers right, is a certain radio program being cruel to him? I don't know what that's in reference. There is a campaign to get Louis Brinson into the All-Star game. Oh, come on. That's not. Just to make a mockery of it. That is, that is me. That is me.

I don't. It's kind of funny. And the whole vote Omar thing happened two years ago, and that was just nobody thought, oh, they're being mean to Omar Infante. Well, I mean, Omar Infante was actually, had actually been, like he hadn't been an all-star level player, but he had been a quality player that year. No, he had a 269 on base percentage. He was awful. When? The year he made the All-Star team?

No, the year that Royals fans almost voted Infante. Oh, who cares about Royals fans? Yeah, but everybody was making fun of Royals fans that year. Yeah, who cares? This is a Royals fan. I want to talk about the best fans in baseball, Marlins fans. They shouldn't be voting in Lewis. I don't think it's actually, it's not actually Marlins.

The Marlins may have the best player at a position, the most deserving representative at a particular position in the NL and J.C. Rio Muto. Like, if you just like the idea of a Marlin starting in the All-Star game, because that's funny. The idea is specifically a bad Marlin. All right, guys. Let me get on to the craye creometer in just a second. But, yeah, I told you you can go on draft and win some money, specifically my money, because I came in last place out of five last night. I had Jack Flaherty and J.D. Martinez, Chris Davis, who homered,

Charlie Blackman, and Eddie Rosario, who combined for zero fantasy points. So bad day for me, which is pretty typical. And I did wait on hitting, which is a good strategy. It did not work out. No, I did wait on pitching, excuse me, which is a good strategy. and it did not work out. It was actually pretty psyched to get Jack Flaherty. It did not have a very good start at the Marlins.

But anyway, or home against the Marlins, rather. You should get on draft right now and use our promo code FB Today because it is super fun. Look, that was a buck last night. Whatever. I don't care if I lose a buck. I have a great time doing it. Now, if you want to play for more stakes, higher stakes, feel free. But draft start at a buck, so there's a draft out there for everyone.

And if you use the code FB today, when you sign up and make your first deposit on draft, you'll get a free entry into a real money baseball draft. Again, the code is FB Today. You'll also automatically be following me. Search for draft in your app store or go to draft.com and enter the promo code FB Today. How crazy would I be if I dropped the following players on a scale of zero to ten? How crazy would I be if I dropped Oduble Herrera, who is now just outside the top 30 at Outfield? Oduble Herrera.

You got a standard 12 team league? Yeah. Ten. I wasn't going to go that high, but yeah. I'd probably swoop in and pick them up if you dropped them, so I'll go eight. Miguel Sineau. This one's going to be a real-life situation for me pretty soon with Sineau. So lower means more likely to drop, right?

Yeah, like lower is it's totally okay to drop. This is the confusing? I think like three. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of backwards. All right, fine, fine. Let's do the dropometer then. Dropometer on Odubo-Herrera is zero. Where's the drop-o-meter on Miguel Sineau?

I like the great great alma mater Uh Four Three four Three uh I'm gonna go I'm gonna go Uh

Like standard 12th team league I'd probably like a seven My fear with dropping Suno is that he becomes the hottest hitter in baseball in a few weeks You know That he's that kind of guy That fear could absolutely be realized Yeah But

Like I like Jamer Candelario more than Miguel Sineau, is that unfair to say at this point? Like, if I have Jamer Candelario as my starting third basement, I don't feel like I have a problem at third base. If I have Miguel Sineau as my starting third basement, I feel like I do. Oh, yeah.

First stretches can Sano be better than Candolario? Sure. But why have the headache if you don't? Well, I mean, this is a guy who had 276 with 21 home runs before the All-Star break last year, and then he dealt with a shit injury in the second half. And we have seen, we have missed to see Miguel Snow be awesome.

He has a lot more upside than Candelario. All right. And yet I think Candelario has an all-star level upside. Okay, well, you like Candelario a lot. How about Michael Conforto on the dropometer? He's like a nine. Five. All right, Scott, you ready to drop him for him?

Are we talking about the same-sized leagues here? Maybe I'm thinking more of a head-to-head context. All right, 12 teams, three or four outfielders, or three outfielder and one or two utility. That's probably about enough of nine. Yeah. Five outfielder would be lower, but three outfielder like that, nine. Heath, you're at a five with Conforto?

Yeah, I'm staying with a five. And I think the difference with both of these guys is, based on what they've actually done, they should be tens on the Tropometer this year. But I'm just still valuing their upside and the possibility of what they could be in the second half. Like a three out field or league, like how many hitters are you going to have on your bench? One or two. You're losing if you have them in your lineup.

I don't, yeah. I don't really know that one guy is losing you head-to-head matchups each week, one hitter. Oh, that might be. Well, okay, so here's the thing with this segment. It's like, I understand that based on what Miguel Suno and Michael Confordo are doing right now, they're extremely dropable. What I don't want to do is drop a player who's going to have a huge second half and make me look like an idiot and beat me later on in the year or help some other guy win. So, you know, that is really the issue with these guys because you know what they can do when they're right. They just haven't been right.

So, for example, if I have a bench spot, and I'll just get off the dropometer here and talk about some other guys. If I have a bench spot and I'm debating between dropping Michael Conforto or Nick Marcaicus, I might be in the minority, but I think I'd rather drop Nick Marcaicus because I don't think he's very good. No chance. Yeah, I knew you were going to say that. I would much rather have Marcaacus. I would much rather start Marcaacus, but in a bench spot in a more shallow format like that, I'd much rather have Conforto's upside on the bench.

I understand what you're saying. Like, yeah, Confordo wants to know they could still become good. but like roster space is limited and I don't think I don't think it's I don't think it's so automatic like I don't think it's a situation

you look at the number the underlying numbers and you say okay obviously this guy's just underachieving he's going to be fine there's legitimate reason to think conformito and Snow won't be fine and so I agree like I don't have

I don't have room for that in those leagues I look at the worst player on my roster and like our standard podcast league, 12 team head-to-head points league. I'm not dropping my worst player for either Sino or Conforto. I'm not. Yeah, I think the difference is when you're looking, because I do think one or two bench players, it could be hitters. I mean, I have one league where it's four,

but just because the pitching staff is so good. I do think we're just looking at that bench spot, and you're wanting the better player, and I'm wanting the higher upside. Yeah, like Scott, you just pick up Gregory Polanco in our podcast league? I mean, he's, you can easily be on this list.

Only because I had an immediate need in the outfield with branded belt going on the DL. Okay. Like, I didn't pick him up just because I wanted him. I looked at all the outfield options and said, okay, yeah, this guy's probably the best. And so I added him. But like, as soon as Belt comes back,

unless Gregory Polanco is suddenly performing like a stunt, I'm probably dropping Gregory Polanco for the next whatever flavor of the week pitcher emerges on way before. All right. So this has been the worst show

that I've ever hosted. Really? Really? Oh, terrible. I thought that was a pretty good conversation. That was a good conversation. But, you know. I think I can make the show better.

Go ahead. We got a very important tweet, and I need to check and see if it's correct. Scott, can you please say the word didn't? Didn't? The tweet was wrong. The show is awful. Sorry.

Wait, wait. How did you want me to say? I've been accused of not being able to say the word didn't. You clearly can. Yeah. All right. So in the bullpen, Jayree's Familia pitched the eighth. They wanted him to face the heart of the order.

And that's the second time he's pitched the eighth in his last four appearances. And he gave up a run. Not entirely his fault. It was kind of a bad play at short or weird play at short. Brad Boxberger blew a save. He had pitched – that was his third day in a row pitching. One thing I noticed, Archie Bradley has not pitched more than an inning in 13 straight appearances. So that's a different way they're using Bradley.

I don't think we're worried about familiar. Boxburger losing their jobs. Soria got to save his sixth for the White Sox. Nate Jones, but I think he's the closer again. Okay. Because Jones blew one. They were the double-heder yesterday, and Jones blew one, and Soria got one. And yet at the same time, if two days from now, let's say Soria is fully rested,

if Rick Rinterea decided to go with Nate Jones, like it, not going to be surprised by that either. Hunter Strickland was used as a closer, I guess, yesterday pitched in a tie game in the 10th inning, got the win. That was a home game, I believe. And, yeah, Melanson's pitched only twice. So, obviously, we don't know anything concrete there about what will happen. And Hector Rondone got a save for the Astros. This one was pretty annoying. No reason why Giles couldn't have gotten the save there, but they used Rondon for a four-out save.

And he's having a good year. I don't know what to say at this point about the stinking Astros and their stupid bullpen. It's actually got a lot of very good pitchers in it. Don Cooper. People want us to know that Jose Catana and Chris Sale thrived under Don Cooper, so that is noted. John Jay got traded. The Diamondbacks have now acquired the nicest player in baseball in John Jay. Let's talk about some pitchers from yesterday.

I keep mentioning Tanner Roark. So he pitched. Dylan Bundy pitched. Edwardo Rodriguez pitched. John Gray pitched. and Jose Cantana pitched. And two of them had quality starts, Tanner Roark and Dylan Bundy. Who's the most interesting one here?

Roark, Bundy, Eduardo Rodriguez, John Gray, Jose Cantana. I don't think any of these starts were particularly interesting, but the Cantana getting the 10 strikeouts against the Phillies, I guess would be the most interesting thing to me. Okay. Yeah, he's more or less turned it around. I know it hasn't been totally steady, but last eight starts is lower to ZERA from 778 to 420.

He's Sunny Gray all over again. Kentana? I'd much rather have Katana. I know, I know, I'd much rather have Katana, too. I know. Hey, Eduardo Rodriguez, guys. Very interesting pitcher. Strikeout rate is through the roof, 77 strikeouts and 66 innings.

1-20 whip is great for Eduardo Rodriguez. It's usually closer to 1.3. 1.29, 1.30, 1.28 in his first three seasons. So the whip's been much better. The walks and the hits are both lower. That's still kind of a high whip, but, no, it's. That's just okay. But he just, he pretty much never pitches six innings.

How do you value Eduardo Rodriguez? I mean, if he did pitch six innings consistently, he might be like a top 30 pitcher in fantasy. But a question. Can I put a sell high label on Eduardo Rodriguez since he's really never been this good? No, I think. And maybe I was alone in this,

but I suspected he had this kind of upside. I mean, he had a great strikeout rate last year, too, and it was just a matter of, like, it seemed like he was underachieving with the kind of strikeout rate he had prior. And the strikeouts were up this year, but the ERA is pretty close to, like he's got a career 415 ERA and 399 FIP,

and he's got a 3680 ERA this year. So I don't think he's out of his skis too much. The seven and one thing is probably going to elevate him and the points in Roto standing is a little more than a shot. But you know what? The Red Sox are amazing. And he's going to win between 15 and 20 games that these days healthy. Feel pretty confident in that.

All right, I'm Wada Rodriguez. Probably not 20, but closer to 15. Yeah, let's go 12 to 17. By the way, Rodriguez is 17th in points, 18th in Roto since making his season debut on April 8th. Fringy starting pitchers, give me your top three. Daniel Mangdon, Jake Odoree, Chase Anderson, Clay Buckelts, Zach Wheeler, Sam Gavillo, and Bartolo Colon. Mangdon, Odarezi, Anderson, Buckholz, Wheeler, Gavillo, Cologne.

Top three, huh? Okay, I would probably, I mean, I don't love this group, first of all. No, I hate it. But I'm going to drop Anderson out of the top three and go Odarezi, Wheeler, and Mengden. I don't own any of these pitchers, and I don't have much interest. in owning any of these pitchers. So I have a hard time arguing too much with Scott's ranking. What do you think about Sam Gavillo,

seven scoreless innings against the Yankees, and he's got a 251 ERA, and his previous two starts were against the Phillies and the Red Sox. Two starts next week for Gavillo. He's 8% owned. He's at Tampa Bay and home against Washington. What the deal is Sam Gabilia. I know.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I don't think he's anything to get excited. about. Okay. Then I won't get excited about him. All right. I think that's more or less it

for a really, I'm sorry, convoluted, disjointed show on my part. But Scott and Heath brought it. I will do the matchups for today's games in just a moment. Just, uh, get the, well, somebody else wants you get those queued up on your

working computer machine, unlike my terrible one. Yeah, you've really pulled this show. you're really salvaging it here. All right, today's matchups. It's a Thursday, so we've got a lot of day games, only four night games on the schedule. We have Jason Hamill against Paul Blackburn.

Nope. Tyler Anderson against Tyler Malley. Adam's going to do the analysis now. Yeah, I'm going to pass on both. Yeah. James and Tyerson, Ty. Don against Danny Santana.

Oh, I can go with Tyone. Tion, yeah. Jose Barrios against James Shields. I will go with Barrios. And not Sheet. Miles Michaelis.

Against Trevor Richards. Yeah, Michaelis. Yeah. Nick Povetta against Tyler Chetwood. Oh, Pivotta. Just Povetta. Jaime Garcia

against Hessell. David Hess. Then let's sit them both. What do you say? Matt Boyd at Fenway. Is this when the regression finally hits against Beeks making his debut? I mean, he could have a bad start.

It wouldn't necessarily be regression, right? But yeah, I'm not starting Boyd against the Red Sox. What about Beeks, guys? Is he a streamer? Like, no. I don't think so because I think there's too much danger of the Red Sox. Handling him with kid gloves here and like even if he pitches well I doubt he goes six and there's a chance he doesn't even go five Even if he pitches well

What else we got Heath? Mike Leak at Tampa against Ray's bullpen I'd start leak That's the first borderline one That's the first borderline one I wouldn't have a problem starting league Garrett Cole at Texas against Cole Hamels.

This is the Cole, Cole match. I'm starting them both. Let me just look up real quick all of the coal. I think this is third or fourth start against the Astros this year. So he started against them on opening day and he went five and two thirds, three earn

runs, six innings, two runs at Houston, and six innings, no earn runs at Houston. So I'm starting, Gary, Cole Hamels. So the fun thing about this matchup, I'm stealing this from Twitter, but if somebody asks you who's pitching the Astros Rangers games, you go Cole Hamels.

And it sounds like you're just talking about one pitcher. Yeah, yeah. You could also do that with the first names, Garrett and Cole. Yeah, oh, yeah, very cool. Yeah. All right, Heath? Those are all the matchups for today. Good job.

You did a great job. So last thing, Jason Hayward hit a walk-off Grand Slam yesterday off Adam Morgan. It was Jason Hayward's first hit all season against a lefty, and Adam Morgan's first extra-base hit allowed to a lefty this year. And that came from the beat writer for the Cubs for the Athletic. Where is your name, kind, sir? Oh, I don't have his name. Oh, why should this go smoothly? Yep, it's a great way to end it.

That's a great way to end it. For Chris Towers and Jamie Eisenberg, I'm Dave Richard. Talk to you tomorrow on Fantasy Baseball today.