Fantasy Baseball Today - 07/03 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Mailbag (Recorded Friday)!

Episode Date: July 3, 2017

We welcome you back from the weekend with a mailbag show as we answer your questions and get you set for the second half of the season ... Anthony Rendon or Jake Lamb (2:30)? Andrew Benintendi or Andrew McCutchen (5:00)? How are we valuing Carlos Rodon right now (5:36)? ... We play buy or sell with Michael Fulmer (11:20), Salvador Perez (17:33) and Starling Marte (20:46) while wondering if there is something wrong with Josh Donaldson (36:42) ... 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

We'll be here to the Monday Mailbag show. We're recording this on Friday, June 30th. You are listening on Monday, July 3rd. And everybody enjoy your Independence Day. You won't be hearing from us that frees up an hour for you to go and set off fireworks and have fun safely with your family and friends and eat good food because Fourth of July is about food. Let me tell you about Buffalo Wild Wings. Sports trades are scary.

One person can be replaced by another exchange for money or given away for a hypothetical future. person. That's always weird. Once they leave your team, you can't like them anymore, even if you have their jersey, which you can't wear anymore, except at B-dubs. They won't judge, but others might. Buffalo Wild Wings Wings Beer Sports. Adam Azer with Scott White and Chris Towers. All right, hello guys. Happy 3rd of July.

Hello. One last day to be dependent on us before you celebrate your independence from everything, frankly. Is it a bad, is it a bad look? I point out that July 4th is my birthday and nobody got me anything. Nobody cares about your birthday. It's America's birthday. It's only July 3rd, Chris.

We still have time to get you something. Oh, okay. Okay. I expect something in my mailbox. But in all seriousness, it's Friday right now and a lot of stuff's going to happen over the weekend and we're not going to know about it. I already predicted a closer would be traded. So, you know, I'm just going to tell you that Addison Reed is

probably just going to keep closing for the nationals. So don't worry about it. His body is the same. Don't jinx this life for that. Come on. We want to have a quiet weekend. Nobody wants to have to open their laptop at all during the weekend. Nothing's going to happen.

I volunteered to write the article for Scott. And he's like, he goes, give me a break or something like that. All right. So are you going to address is fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Fantasybaseball at cbsi.com. Let's do some baseball talk here. We'll do buy or sell, which I was going to put in the Wednesday show or Thursday show, but I saved it for today and a lot of your emails.

Hey, real quick, though, first, hey, real quick, I'm going to give you an option, two players. They have pretty similar slash lines. They're both top five at their position. One of them has more walks than strikeouts, and one of them doesn't. And one of them has terrible, that same one who doesn't has terrible platoon splits. So who would you rather have Anthony Rendon or Jake Lamb? If you're telling me the slash line is similar, I'm taking the guy with the good plate discipline, always, always.

Well, then you have to take Rendon over Lamb then. I'm happy to do that. Without even getting into the fact that Anthony Rendon has a track record of this. This is, what, three seasons now of being pretty close to at least a top 10third baseman? Well, I would have to disagree that he has a track record of this. He is, as of Friday morning, Anthony Rendon is having an unbelievably good year. He's got a 402 on base, 558 slugging percentage, and he had that three homer game. His number since then, 50 games?

That's the crazy one. 1061 OPS. He has a 1061 OPS, not including the game where he hit three home runs and had a double, going six for six with 10 RBI. This is clearly his best season. And Lamb did this last year before he heard his wrist, or I think it was his wrist, right? So they're both been good, but are you prepared to tell me that you would rather have Rendon than Lamb? Yes.

And I've never wavered from that. Yeah, we all had Rendon above Lamb. Before the season, nothing we've seen. I think you just like Lamb too much. I didn't realize that's like I have Lamb one spot behind Rendon. So it's not like a huge, but there is a gap there. Like that's one of the spots where there's a change. It certainly feels like Lamb's floor is quite a bit lower than Rendon's.

All right. Well, Lamb does enter Friday as the number one third basement in fantasy. Number two in points behind Aeronado, number one in Roto. Actually, I've been seeing some questions. I don't think people realize how good Anthony Rendon has been for two months now. And I don't think they realize that he has, as a Friday, more walks than strikeouts. So I don't know if that's just a fluke or if this is a legit, like, maybe post-type breakout. He's healthy and he's really good. Okay, so he's got that 1061 OPS since May 2nd, not including the 300.

I decided to go ahead and hit the row above to include the three homer game. He has an 1148 OPS over the last two months. It's pretty good. All right. That's bonkers. Hey, real quick, who would you rather have Andrew Benintendi or Andrew McCutcheon? Give me McCutche. I still have McCutcheon ahead.

And I, as you should. And I literally just updated my rankings a few minutes ago, so this is fresh from my mind. I have McCutcheon 10 spots higher than Beninti in my outfield rankings. And how about this June for McCutcheon entering Friday? 398 batting average, 486 on base, 682 slugging, six home runs, 16 walks, and 12 strikeouts. Could walk a little more. McCutcheon over Benintendi. And we have Brian from Atlanta, since this is a mailbag with a hay real quick.

Rodon or Samarja, Rodon or Mania. I have a pretty sizable gap between Rodon and both of those guys. I do as well. Rodon, not in my top 60 yet. If he had looked better in his first start, I would have been willing to move him up a lot more. Samarge and Manaya, I think, are both in my top 30. Yeah. And I would say Rodon's, like, Rodon's trying to be as good as those two already have.

I guess Samar's ERA is still on the high side, so that might seem like a pessimistic way to word it. But, I mean, peripherally, Samarja's just been so overpowering that we're not even paying that much attention to ERA with them. I wonder, though, going into the year, I would bet that they were going in a similar spot, but I would bet that Rodan was going just ahead of Manaya before the injury, and certainly they were both going ahead of Samarja. Yes. So my point is not so much about Samarja and Manaya, as they have done really well. But, you know, Rodon, he struggled with his command, but he actually, you know, he kept the runs off the

board he settled in in that first start and I believe he starts today on Monday. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, he does have, he does have similar upside, but I feel like those two have more or less capitalized on their upside. And, Rodon, still a question mark. Those two guys aren't coming back from a forearm injury and their pitching arm. Yeah. And this is the first time Rodon, I think, has ever really had a serious injury.

So it's a question of how he'll return from it. And that change-up, you know, that was a big part of why he was so much better in the second half. He was able to get more swinging strikes with the change-up against right-handed batters. That helped improve his command and control. That's a feel pitch, and he hasn't pitched in games for three months. So it's an open question as to whether he'll have the feel for that pitch. And if he doesn't, we've seen he can be pretty pedestrian. Okay.

Injuries, news and notes. Philadelphia call-up outfielder Nick Williams on Friday. We didn't have a chance to talk about it. And hey, stop me if you heard this. Nick Williams has really good power and terrible plate discipline. Fits right in with Major League Baseball. And with the Phillies. That seems to be a trend with the guys that they've been looking to acquire.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this is a case of 1-800-prove it. Call 1-800 prove it. I'm not just giving Nick Williams. the benefit of the doubt in this outfield landscape. And his value in the prospect rankings has ping ponged all over the place. Pinballed?

Pinballed. Pinballed, yeah. Baseball America had him as a top 100 prospect in 2014 and 2016. Major League Baseball's prospect rankings only had him before 2016. Baseball prospectus, on the other hand, has had him as a top 75 prospect three years in a row and a top 100 prospect four years in a row. So a controversial prospect, it seems. Okay, Nick Williams, we are not rushing to pick you up. And Scott, 1,800 prove it.

Is that something? Is that a thing? That was what Old Spice Deodorant used to want you to call so that they would buy you a stick of your own to try. That was back when they had much more straightforward commercials than they do today. When they were the old man's scent and deodorant. Yes. They weren't targeting the,

younger audience yet. The Axe audience. They didn't have Terry Cruz. Right. True. Nobody knew who Terry Cruz was. Territ Cruz knew who Terry Cruz was. Maybe.

But he didn't really know who he was. He hadn't unleashed the Terry Cruz. He was Terry Tate. I know I brought... Yeah. Office linebacker? Yeah, absolutely. I think so.

Yeah. Absolutely. And... Might not be. No, it had to be. You look that up, Chris. Google that. I know I brought this up before on the podcast, but

you guys voted for the new M&M color like 20 years ago, right? Yeah. Nope, not the same guy at all. Really? Nope. Damn it, Chris. You put that in my head. They're both Terry's.

Terry and muscular. Yeah. You voted. Yeah, no, I totally voted for the blue Eminem. Yeah, of course. It was obvious. Why is there no blue yet? Chris voted purple.

There's blue. I didn't vote. I didn't like my options. I decided to stay home. Give me something to vote for, Eminem. Pink purple and blue. I do kind of miss the tan, though. I'm not going to lie.

It had kind of a 70s feel to it that I digged. Why are you saying there's no blue M&M? There's definitely blue M&Ms. Now there is because they won the vote. Oh, I know what you're saying. Okay, I get it now. Hey, I got to tell you all about Seekek, the best way to buy and sell tickets online. Seekek.

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That's promo code fantasy for $20 off your first Seat Geek purchase. All right, the rest of the show is all about the people. From Paul Robinson, these are buyer sales. Buy or sell. Michael Fulmer is a top 10 starting pitcher and a Cy Young contender rest of season. That is a hot take.

I'm going to sell it because top 10 is aiming super high. Sell, sell, sell. I have them just outside of my top. top 20. He is right around 21 right now. I look this morning as of Friday after Thursday night's really good start. And he just, oh, he's a good pitcher, just doesn't have enough strikeouts. I think only three players in the top 20 had fewer strikeouts than Michael Fulmer as a Friday. And they were Dallas Keikle, Ervin Santana, and Jason Vargas. Yeah, he's a bit, a bit Jamison Tione.

Okay. Except Tione gets more strikeouts. and buy or sell cookie crisp is not a real cereal See I'm not sure Like what is the cereal then if you're drawing the line of cookie crisp What disqualifies it as a cereal? Okay so I bought this like Chips Ahoy snack pack thing the other day It's these little like bags

You know how you get like little bags of peanuts? Yeah it's like that type of thing except it's got chips of hoy And I didn't realize they are like the tiny they're like maybe a little third of the size of cookie crisp, cookies. It's basically cookie crisp but it's portable. Well, Cookie Crisp isn't actual cookies.

Like, those are just brown dots on lighter brown circles. They're not, you know, they're not actual chocolate of the same cookies. Buy or sell. Buy or sell. I feel like most cereal are just little cookies. But most cereals aren't breakfast anyway.

I mean, crackling O brand is basically little cookies in milk. It probably has a higher sugar content that cookie cream. The only cereal that's actually breakfast is the old man's cereal that Scott eats. What are you talking about? And it's all trash. All my own.

It's one. Like shredded wheat probably is cereal, right? Yeah, and it's trash. I don't enjoy it either. Tears up the roof of your mouth. There's no, it's just, you got to go to the hospital. Shredded mouth. Shredded wheat.

Cookie Crisp is just cookies and milk. Next, Byersel is from Patrick. Buy or sell, Jose Altova steals more than 35 bases. Where's he at now? I feel like he's not far off that pace. Yeah, that's about on pace. Not really. A little low.

Yeah, I'm going to sell it, I think. I feel like those paces usually slow down in the second half rather than speed up. He's having the exact same season he did a year ago. Yeah, who cares? We never talk about Jose Al Tuva. It was a good question, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't matter. He's going to steal enough bases to help you in that category. and yeah, he's been awesome.

Buy or sell from Matt. Buy or sell. Adam goes 26 and 0. Oh, jinks. Sell. Yeah, I'm going to lose this week, pretty sure. Pretty sure. But I think I'm going to go one in one.

I think I'll be 25 and one. Buy or sell from, I guess I have to read this guy's name because that's what it is. Buy herself from Doodoo Brown. Buy our cell, raisins are only still relevant because of those old singing raisins commercials and they're still gross. The California raisins? Is that what he's talking about? I think so.

I mean, raisins are used in a lot of things. I don't, I bet all these people objecting to our not complete dismissal of raisins, eat more raisins than they suspect because they're in all kinds of baked goods. Yeah, I don't eat any raisins. Get raisins entirely out of here.

I mean, there's raisins in cinnamon rolls sometimes. Not the ones I eat. Okay. I don't eat cinnamon rolls. This is from dugout Who eats cinnamon rolls? I don't know. You go to your trying out

to new coffee place. They are delicious. I don't drink coffee, so it's like, what am I going to do? Just stare at my wife drinking coffee or am I going to snack on something? It would be weird.

That looks good. Yeah, that would be funny. All right, dugout derby. Buy or sell, Angelton Simmons finishes in the top seven short stops for Roto. Top seven shortstop, Angelton Simmons.

I mean, top seven at shortstop. to like top 18 at any other position. Well, the six are taken care of, right? The six. So is he just the best non-stud at shortstop? No, because Elvis Andrews, remember? Yeah, I don't... I'll sell that pretty hard.

I'll sell. Elvis Andrews, Trevor Story, I'll still... I do give Simmons a chance and points because he so rarely strikes out, but even then I'm going to sell it. And he doesn't walk that much. Yeah. Now, Scott, we should talk about this.

You're kind of the prospect guy. And all three of you guys, two and Heath, talk no prospects but but scott wasn't on when we got the question about brendan rogers is that it yeah yes and whether or not he could take over whether or not he could take over for trevor's story and story has been as about as bad as it gets what do you think about that well brenda rogers is 20 i think and it's a long shot i guess he did just get promoted to triple a after a ridiculous stellar performance at double a which was kind of a really A, because he hadn't really lived up to the hype in the lower miners and B.

No, he got promoted to double A. Oh, he got promoted. Okay, so he just, okay, so he put up ridiculous numbers in the California League, which is a hitter-friendly league. So, you know, those numbers aren't totally, totally, you shouldn't take them totally at face value. But he's only 20 and just promoted to AA. I think he's at least a year away, probably even a little more.

and by that point, DJ LaMayhew might be a free agent, and we're talking about Trevor's story moving to second. There's also the possibility that Ryan McMahon, another Rocky's prospect, who's even further up the ladder, and has been playing some second base, though he's naturally a third baseman. Maybe he enters the second base discussion. So the bottom line is things could get interesting here for Trevor's story

if he doesn't make hay here in the next couple months. Okay. Keep an eye on that. Now, this is from Caleb Edelman. By or sell, Salvador Perez does not fall apart in the second half. Let's just stop there. By herself, that Salvador Perez does not fall apart in the second half. You know, Heath and I were looking at this the other day.

I don't know if it was on the podcast, but he's actually not one of the top players in innings caught this season. He's not, huh? I think he was seventh when we were looking. Interesting because he is He does lead In-It-Bats or he's second-in-at-Bats But I didn't think he was playing anywhere other than

Catcher But I guess I mean that's something I could easily miss He hardly walks, so at bats Right Played appearance is maybe a better gauge He's seventh currently in innings caught now He's not far off number six But he's not

Maybe you're more worried about Martin Maldonado Falling off this year He somehow leads baseball innings-Cott, The thing with Perez is it's been so consistent over the years. He's only caught 60 games. He's deached 11 times. Yeah, I... Like, I just don't even really... The upside of selling this, of assuming he's going to, quote-unquote, fall apart in the second half,

I don't really get what the upside is, because Salvador Perez is one of three good catchers in the first half. year. So you're going to dump him and live with a bad catcher. I mean, maybe if the return is great enough, but if the return is great enough, this wouldn't even be a factor. You'd just trade him anyway. Yeah. I guess you could be gutsy and pick up Wilson Ramos if he's still available and then trade Perez for, you know, an upgrade at any other position. I just, I don't have that much confidence in Wilson Ramos. We've hyped him understandably because it's a weak position and he had a great year, but it was an isolated year and he's coming off a major surgery. There are no guarantees. He starts more than three times a week or gets back to doing what he did last year, which was an

aberration. And it's kind of like what we're seeing with Tom Murphy. We were all really excited about the talent level. He's barely played. Devin Mazzaraco might be an even better example of Wilson Ramos, where we've seen elite production. And Devin Mazzarocco has actually been really good this season. It's just he only catches three times a week. Yeah. Buy yourself from Jeff. Jonathan Lucroy is dropable in a points league. Jonathan Lucroy drop a bowl in a points league.

I'd almost buy it more to a Roto League. I mean, the strikeout rate is so low. But it's almost like catcher in a Roto League. Let's say like a head-to-head category is one catcher league, which I play in a league like that. I mean, points is his better format, is my point. Because, I mean, kind of like Yadier-Malina, even when he's not very good, he's still among the top points options. This is a part of that's just because he plays so much, but part of it's because he doesn't lose points on strikeouts the way most players do,

and Lucroy's, at least in that boat. So sell. Yes, he is, I feel very confident he's going to be a top 10 points catcher, and I still have him ranked fourth just because maybe he'll get hot. From Nick, by or sell, Starling Marte will be a top 10 outfielder when he comes back. Starling Marte, top 10. Top 10 outfielder. I will sell that.

He's getting very close, right? Yeah, right after the break, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. I think we all had him as a top ten guy coming into this season, right? I didn't. I had him in my top 15, but that was before Aaron Judge came along. That was before... Stanton bounced back.

Yeah, Stanton's bounced back. George Springer's been. kind of a best case scenario. Why don't I tell you the top 10 roto outfielders? Okay, top 10 roto outfielders as a Friday. Aaron Judge, Charlie Blackman, Trey Turner, Bryce Harper, George Springer, Cody Bellinger, Corey Dickerson, Marcelo Zuna,

and I think Jose Ramirez is 10. No, Adam Duvall is 10. Ramirez is 9, Adam Duvall. I mean, I'd rather have win Marte's back. I'd rather have them than Duval. We'll see what happens to Bellinger between now and then, but as of today, I would expect him to be better than Bellinger from that point forward, better than O'Zuna. So, all right. Here are the three guys I could see him leaping in my top 12.

J.D. Martinez, Chris Davis, Yohanna Cespinas. Those are in your top 12? Those three are in my top 12. None of those three are in my top 12. So I already have guys who've leaped them. Let me see who's in my top 12 if this is good to listen to it. I mean, the thing about those three guys is that they're all power guys. And Marte is so different.

So that's kind of a specific. Yeah, that is true. I mean, if we're talking categories, I mean, he, Marte excels in batting average and stolen bases, which are two of the harder categories to fill this year. I mean, he's going to, he's going to hurt you in home runs, probably, by today's standards. Let's be cowards. Push. Push.

I'm not going to be a coward. I'm a coward. What was the question again? Top ten, buy or sell? I sell it. Okay. Now if you combine the two, if you want to be a coward, you can sigh or bell, I'd say. Sybel would be a good name.

Sybel would be a... Sire Bell. Okay, Sire Bell, Will Myers will have a second half surge. Buy or sell. Will Myers' second half surge? You know, it's... I was like... looking at Will Myers yesterday as a well I'm sorry on Wednesday as part of my enough is enough column that came out Thursday

because I feel like he's been underwhelming this year but his number like he's been more or less it's like his flashlines exactly the same his his home run pace is actually a little better he's hit for a higher average than he did last year the strikeouts are up yeah he struck out 30 times in every month so far but even that it's not like it's led to this ridiculously high Babbitt that is obviously unsustainable. He's been just as good as he was last year, which I think shows just how much better first base and how field has gotten. Like, even from last year it's gotten better. This is, I think, the telling thing. In 2015, he had a 763 OPS with a 112 OPS plus. A hundred is average.

So in 2016, he had a 797 OPS, a 114 OPS plus. This year he has an 829 OPS and a 117 OPS plus. So his OPS has improved 66 points since 2015, but he's only been about 2.5% better than league average. That is interesting. Just because of how much the offensive environment has changed. And Myers is another guy who is better in different formats. And Categories of League where the plate discipline doesn't matter.

He is the number 12 first baseman, which is really impressive. better than Jose Ibrahim, you know, basically the same. Better than Eric Thames. So, so, you know, it's sort of, well, the question is, will we have a second half surge, I guess? I don't think he could get better, really,

than he's been. So I sell it. And I'll add another player like that who you feel like has been a lot worse than he, when really he's been about the same as last year, is Jackie Bradley. Yeah. The slow start really hurt him.

and then the knee injury. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because with Jackie Bradley, he got off to such a slow start and we kept saying, probably shouldn't drop him because he's so streaky. And when he gets hot,

Jackie Bradley gets as hot as anyone in baseball. So I'm slightly discouraged that his hot streak has just been like good and not otherworldly. Now maybe he'll just be a more consistent player this year. Adam, you know what this means.

Oh, no. What? He just has to make up for lost time. It's going to happen at some point. But he's not. That's what I'm saying. He definitely got hot, and he's definitely been good. And I start him every week in my five outfielder league. But Bradley, I was hoping he was going to go on like an epic tear.

Maybe this means his lows won't be as low as what we're used to seeing. He's still a young player. We don't know everything about Jackie Bradley. But I was hoping he'd get hotter than this. Like some hot wings of Buffalo Wild Wings. Great time to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. Because whoever invented Summer was obviously a sports fan. They didn't even try to hide it.

gave it playoff hockey, playoff basketball, and the opening of both soccer and baseball, it's a clear display of favoritism, and the other seasons didn't stand a chance. With three months of clutch playoff drama and the awakening of new seasons, it's clearly the work of a sports fan. They may as well have called it sports season. In fact, at Buffalo Wild Wings, they do call it sports season. Don't ever call it summer. That's not what it is. It's sports season.

They're just waiting on the legal change. Buffalo Wild Wings, Wings, Beer Sports. All right, guys, we'll finish up about 10 minutes or so with some emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com From Marquise. Adam, I turned 40 on Monday, July 3rd. Happy birthday! Can you and the guys discuss which players will end the season

with more home runs than my age 40 in years so Chris doesn't try any funny business? I don't know what that means. I don't either, but I'll take it as a compliment. Okay. And what each player's value? I'm not going to do that. How many players will finish the season with more than 40 home runs?

Oh my goodness. Two. Two, that's it? What? Are you out of your darn mind? Three. I'm trying to pull up the home run leaders. Okay, there are 14 players with 20 home runs.

Of those, I would say Aaron Judge definitely gets there. Uh-huh. Junkerlo Stanton. gigantic Giancarlo Stanton-sized asterisk. John Carlos Stanton gets there. First time ever. After that, I think the best options are Cody Bellinger, who's 16 away. Chris Davis with a K, who's 19 away.

Yeah, you might be right. I don't feel that good about anyone else. I don't think Marcelo Zuna gets there. Springer? I don't think Joey Votto gets there. Springer? I said he's a sell-high candidate yesterday. I got to stick with my guns.

four days ago. And then I mean there's there's a chance some of these people who aren't quite halfway to 40 just have better second halves. I mean, I think it's going to like I can't say everybody who has 20 home runs to this point is going to have 40 either, but enough of them will and enough who aren't even among that group will that I think it's going to be more like I will say six, seven. How good does my bold prediction that two players hit 50 home runs look? It's pretty good. Well, you're only given 240. What do you know how about it was before the season though? Okay. I'm going to say, I'm going to say Ebenei Encarnaciona is a dark horse. He has only 17 home runs, but the last five years he's hit 42, 36, 34, 39, and 42. So three of the last five years, 39 are more home runs. So I'll call it when I'll say five, five people get there. Scott, did you give a number? I gave six or seven.

I'll go seven. Right. Big year. Somebody remember this. I'm going to look like a genius. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to remember. it, so you can just say whatever you want.

This is from Sean and Kingston. Hey, Marco, Joe, and Francisco. Anybody? Me either. I have no idea. No. Please tell me who you drop in a 10-te-to-head categories league. You have to drop one.

Faria, Peacock, Jimmy Nelson, Nola, Hamels. Faria, Peacock, Nelson, Nola, Hamels? Peacock pretty easily. I kind of hedge with him in Nola. but I go peacock too. Okay. This is from John, Grade the Trade. I need to replace Trey Turner.

Give up Dylan Bundy, get Jose Ramirez. Well, I don't, first of all, maybe you had Trey Turner starting at second, and so that's how Ramirez fills in. He's not normally a shortstop Ramirez, not normally eligible there. This is great. I'm going to find this email and respond to it on Friday

because there's no way we can wait to let this guy know on Monday. I already did it. I already did it. He needs to do it right now. Yeah. It's too, like, even without the Turner, losing Turner and needing to fill in for him,

this is like a terrific sell high of Bundy. Yeah, this is an, that's an A plus. From Auburn, Rick Porcelo just became available in my league. Is he worth the waiver wire ad? What do you think his fantasy value will be rest of season? Rick Porcelo. If you're in such a league that you have,

have to question whether he's worth adding, then it's probably not that big of a deal if you add him. I don't think he's going to have this massive turnaround in the second half where he re-enters the Cy Young discussion or whatever. He's probably a high three ZRA guy. I mean, he's had some bad luck. He's second, I think, in Babbitt this year, but he's also giving up a ton of hard contact.

And I would be surprised if he got his ERA below four by season. You know what you should do. read Scott's 12 studs that I'm done with column on cbosports.com or as i've been calling it on the podcast enough is enough enough enough it's the same column but basically it's 12 players who at the midway point i'm ready to say aren't going to turn things around here's an email from chris dan in lansing michigan first of all the towers serial mount rushmore is greater than the heath cummings cereal mount rushmore captain crunch of all varieties is phenomenal. He didn't even spell Captain Crunch right.

His opinion's invalid. It's C-A-P-A-P-N. There's no T in there. Right. He didn't even write Captain. He just wrote, he didn't, he put the T in there, but he didn't spell it out like C-A-P-T-N, he wrote. That's like a combo. I feel like it's time for Captain Crunch to get promotion. Advo? Let's make him like Commodore Crunch.

Second, our league has one minor league slot, and I've had Gialito in it for two years. I'd rather go with a hitter as they seem to have the best quick to help outcome as of late. Should I drop Gialito for any call-ups? And he gives a list of those who are owned. But is there a hitter that you would drop Giolyto for? There's probably more than one at this point. Lucas Gialito has been bad. 486 ERA, a lot of walks, a lot of home runs, a lot of hits.

strikeout rate is still pretty good but not elite Scott you might know who specific names but I specifically don't mind dropping Lucas Gialio at this point he wouldn't be the top pitcher I don't even if I couldn't think of a better hitter with the ones

that are already owned Moncada and Rosario are the two clear front runners among prospect stashes I feel like right now but they're owned if Glaber Torres is still available obviously he's not going to help you this year but he would probably be the number one hitter on my list from a long-term perspective

I might swap Gialito out for Reese Hoskins at this point Is Gialito still a top 20 minor league guy for you? Did I think this or actually say it Brent Honeywell? You didn't say it. Yeah, Brent Honeywell

would probably be a higher choice I did say it? No. I didn't. Just that you had to ask. Chris is a nice laugh. I like Chris's laugh. He laughs.

Are you done with that, that thought? I think so. What about Brent Honeywell? I do a prospects report every week, so you know, you'll have plenty of suggestions. CVSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. Go check it out. In fact, next week I'm going to have a mid-season top 25 at least. Whoa!

So you'll get all your answers there. All right, next email. Chris also doesn't like my music taste. You know what, Chris? We don't like the way you spell captain, so... I liked it. By the way, do you know how to spell fruit loops? This is the goofiest serial spelling, I feel like.

Yeah, it's a bunch of O's, right? You just gave it up. Because they're O's. F-R-O-O-T-L-O-P-S. There's like three levels to that wordplay. Hey, I don't know who. wrote this. Hey, fantasy snap, crackle, and pop. Who are some pitchers who may have innings caps in the second half?

Well, you can just go on any website that tracked people's age and look at anyone under the age of 25, and there's probably a 50% chance they've got an innings limit. McCullors is the obvious one. Yeah. Yeah, that's the one who really worries me. Severino is an interesting case. Severino, I don't think, is going to be too bad. bad, but there will be some questions coming up, you know, late August probably. Jordan Montgomery won't, I don't think. We looked it up the other day.

He's at his career high is about 140, so he should be good. I think Sean Mania is mostly safe too. Sean Newcomb, probably okay. He threw 140 innings last season. He's only at 81 right now. He's got a lot of way to go. Yeah. I don't think it's going to be too bad. Yeah. I don't think there's going to be a lot of panic.

It's mostly McCullors. You know, the time Paxton's already missed, I think he's okay. Yeah, he'll probably be fine. Because he was like 130 or 40 innings last year. Yeah. So I think maybe once, when we're about into August, that's when you really think about aggressively shopping McCullors. But even then you don't want to sell low on him.

The idea of selling him at that point is to get him. full value for. Yeah. Yeah. He gives a list in his email of names, though, of, like Jason Vargas, Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn, players who are coming off injury. The veterans, I'm not so worried about. Cobb is kind of in the middle, like he's a veteran, but he's not, Jason Vargas is like

34. Lance Lynn is in his 30s. And the Cardinals have explicitly said they're not going to hold back on Len. I think he might actually be a pre-agent this off. Yeah, he is. So what incentive do they have to hold back? Yeah. We just got two emails here to end the show, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com.

They're both about Josh Donaldson. Brian wants to know if Josh Donaldson's age is starting to catch up with him. Yeah, I had a couple people ask me on Twitter, what's wrong with Josh Donaldson, which caught me by surprise because I feel like he's been great since coming back. I guess it's been about a stretch of 10 days where he hasn't hit so well, but I mean, come on. It's not nearly enough of the sample to worry. Strike cut rate's a little up, but not. at an alarming rate. He's still hitting for pretty good power.

He's been like, I don't know, 95% what you hoped for in every category. And so the sum total is disappointing, but I think it'll be okay. Six home runs and 107 at bat since returning. I mean, that's a perfectly fine pace. Yeah, just not evenly distributed. He got really hot and then really cold. Maybe he had a big weekend. Who knows?

Grade the trade from Dan from Graham. Grafton, Massachusetts, give Jacob de Grom get Josh Donaldson in a 10-team Roto League. Give the Grom get Donaldson. I don't think I want to give up the pitcher. I mean, I don't know what his third-based alternative is. In a 10-team league, you really do need to have a good third baseman. But, you know, if you have Rendon there, even if you have, like, Kyle Seeger there or Adrian Belteret, I think I'd rather stick with the pitcher, which is... The replacement level is a pitcher is so much lower.

That's the big thing. So here's the thing. If we were drafting today, I feel like we did this exercise, you would take Donaldson over to Grom. I feel like you would. I won it at this point. I mean, I don't think Donald – if we're redrafting today, I don't think Donaldson's a first round hitter, first of all. And I've already said, you know, I'll take a hitter in the first round, but then two, three, four, I'll probably go pitcher. So I would, I think, legitimately take DeGrom ahead of Donaldson.

All right. And that's fine. I'm not really disagreeing. I just think that... This is like the same thing with quarterbacks. We always say, wait on quarterback, wait on quarterback, and nobody waits on quarterback like Chris Towers. But then by mid-season, these elite quarterbacks are freaking killing it.

And we'd say something like, hey, we get a grade to trade. Would you trade Doug Baldwin for Aaron Rogers? And we say, yeah, do it. But nobody is taking Aaron Rogers ahead of Doug Baldwin in drafts. not nobody on CBS really so i will at him i haven't done a fantasy football draft for the new season yet i will take rogers ahead of baldwood because i agree with you but that that gets into like in the draft you've got we don't need to talk about the specifics of it but like but actually that actually no the logic is is consistent and applicable here you draft josh don't know if

well said well said well said well said So have a great 4th of July, everybody. Happy birthday, Chris Towers, man. Happy birthday. Thank you for that very natural, you know. Yeah, thank you. Dude, are you 30 yet? No.

How old are you now? I turned 29. All right. One more year of fun. For Chris and for Scott, I'm Adam. Thanks all for listening to this mailback show. Hope you enjoyed it. We'll talk to you on Wednesday.

Enjoy the fourth week.