Fantasy Baseball Today - 07/09: Fantasy All-Stars (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 9, 2019

Before the actual All-Stars take the field tonight, let's talk about the Fantasy All-Stars! This is a mix of performance and draft value. But first, we talk about trade candidates like Trevor Bauer and we answer a couple of emails about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (10:00) and Cody Bellinger (16:00) ... All-Star Teams! First the infield (24:00), then the outfield (39:30) and finally the pitching staff (43:30). As we discuss players like Ketel Marte, Eduardo Escobar, Christian Vazquez, Shane Bieber and Will Smith we tell you if any of our All-Stars are sell high candidates. We also get into a fun debate about RPs  ... Team Name Tuesday (52:30) and Grade the Trade (54:30) to finish the show ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Tuesday, July 9th. Welcome for the show.

Fair warning to you. Got a pretty lousy round of team name Tuesday coming up. Get excited. Yes. Yeah. But yeah, it's always fun with Chris. because Chris plays into it. Chris is the best person to have a lot for Team Name Tuesday.

I genuinely love Team Name Tuesday. It is one of my favorite things, especially when they're bad. Yeah, I can tell. I know you like that. So this is the show for you. How much Home Run Derby did you watch yesterday? I watched the whole thing. It was great.

Was it? I will probably not watch any of the All-Star game tonight. What? But the Home Run Derby I'm here for. What a strange take? Why? The All-Star game is a lot better than the Home Run Derby. a lot better.

I, maybe I'm a bad sportsman, but I find pretty much every All-Star game to be pointless. I'm not a, I like the baseball all-star game. That's the only one I like. But the home run derby,

I don't know, I watched like four Ronald Acuna swings. And that was, that was all I did. But apparently it was very fun. Exceptional. Yeah, it was great last night. Good.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. You know, some people thought he didn't deserve to be there, and he made the most of it. So I put on a bit of a show, but Pete Alonzo gets the win. I owe Jake Mariznick possible apology. I'm an apology. Because, you know, when I first saw the play where he barreled into Jonathan Lucroy, I really thought it was kind of a dirty play, and I kind of called him out for it yesterday.

But I was emailing with a listener yesterday, Joel, who said, look at it again. This is what I think happened. And I looked at it again, and I think Joel may have been right. I think I may have been wrong. I don't know that Mariznick intentionally went out of his way to destroy Jonathan Lucre. I don't... I don't think he did. I still think he should probably be suspended.

I don't think it was like an intentional. He wasn't like trying to hit him. But I still think a suspension would be warranted. I think you have to, uh... I think there is an obligation among professional athletes, not just baseball players, but professional athletes to, um, to exercise an abundance of caution. in making sure that they do not injure their competitors. And I think in this instance, while I don't think Jake Mara Zinkl was trying to hurt him,

I don't think he reached the threshold of doing his duty to avoid that contact. Well, but see, I think he did try to avoid it. I think he, you don't often see a player go sort of inside to avoid a tag. Like if he's coming down the third base line, he moved toward first base to avoid Jonathan Lou Croy, and it was a split second after Marisnick move that Lou Croy also moved in that direction, and the collision was unavoidable. You don't often see a player go around a tag by going inside. He usually goes outside, like closer to the third base dugout.

But this was unusual, but that's what it looked like to me on second glance. So I think what you said makes no sense, Chris. You're like, no, he didn't do it on purpose, but suspend him anyway. That's pretty bad. Because I don't think we have to make sports. into a morality play all the time. Sometimes it's just he did the wrong thing unintentionally. But it was unintentional.

Don't suspend him for that. Oh my goodness. That's fine. Guys get penalized all the time for things they don't intend to do. He was called out, right? That was the penalty. I don't have to suspend him. Yeah, because he was out.

Well, no, he was out because of the... Was he out because he was out or was he out because of the play? He was out. Lucre held out of the ball? I have no idea. Yeah, you don't know. News and notes. Jose Alvarado expected to miss six to eight weeks with an oblique injury.

Would you pick up Emilio Paghan or Diego Castillo or both? I don't think there's going to be one person who gets all the saves in Tampa Bay, but I would definitely want to pick up Emilio Paghan over Diego Castillo just because he's been better this season. He has been better now. Diego Castillo has somewhat blow to the RA 393. It was 205, four appearances ago. And then he gave up eight run runs and four appearances, and then Castillo went on the IL.

And he should be back right after the break. Meanwhile, Pagan is having a great year. So 175 ERA, nine walks, 47 strikeouts, and 36 innings. So they're both right around 25% owned. And I think Pagon, this type is native. into this league right here. Oh, he's owned. Stupid 16 team league.

So, yeah, pick up Pagan. I, of course, picked up Castillo and not Pagon. So good for me in one league. There really are no other notes. Guys are going to get traded, Chris. Now Zach Wheeler's name is on the market. What? Yeah, yeah, it's going to happen.

It's July. But when we saw today or yesterday, Ken Giles, perhaps in a package deal with Marcus Stroman. So I think actually Daniel Hudson would be the closer in Toronto. It's my guess. I think he was the closer like one time when Giles wasn't available. And he's the only... The Giles is on the IL. Oh, that's right. For a very short period. So... But I think it was Hudson who got the sakes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Hudson is the that bullpen's terrible. Hudson's the only one with respectable numbers. I don't know if Felipe

Vasquez is going to get traded because, man, the NL Central is... wide open right now. The weirdest one is that the Indians are, quote, aggressively listening to offers for Trevor Bauer, which honestly, just can we contract them if they do that? They're five and a half games out of first place. They're in the wild card spot. If they trade Trevor Bauer midseason while they're in a wild card chase, just move them. They don't need to exist.

If that's what the Dolans are going to do, just get rid of the team. When is his contract up? Is he a free agent after this? Probably, but still, he's an arbitration. You're trying to win games. This is not a rebuild. He's an arbitration next year. They're in the middle of a playoff hunt.

Yeah, yeah, it's weird. They've been, it's like they just gave up. Even going into the season, it just didn't seem like they wanted to be sellers. It was weird. It's offensive to the very nature of the game. what the Cleveland Indians have done. Yeah. And maybe if Bauer goes somewhere,

they won't throw them 117 pitches every single time out. I will say the Yankees are the kind of reported frontrunner, and I'm not sure you could possibly think of a worse fit for Trevor Bauer. Why? Like a... He doesn't have a facial... A guy with shaky control who gives up a lot of fly balls... Talks a ton.

and generally gets into it with fans going to the New York Yankees? Great fit, the best fans in baseball. Oh, come on. All right. Today's sponsor is Seekkeek. Use the promo code fantasy for $10 off your first Seekkeek purchase. Again, the promo code is Seekkeek. And I would ask, the promo code is fantasy on Seekek.

I would ask you, hey, should we look to sell high on Trevor Bauer? But who knows where he's going to get trade? Who knows if he's going to get traded? He's been on the block since spring training. So I don't know. Yeah, I think like sell high sort of makes sense just because he is outperforming his peripherals quite a bit. But, you know, there's also the chance that he just figures it out

and pitches closer to what he did last season. So I definitely don't think he's an obvious must sell high. Right. And I think it's possible, right? Let's say he does get traded. I would assume any team that acquires him will not treat him. him the same way the Indians do. I think they'd probably give him a shorter leash,

especially if it's the Yankees, since they have that bullpen. And that actually would be a bad thing for Trevor Bowler. I mean, I know, like, long-term, limiting his pitch count would be a good thing, but short-term, limiting his pitch count. Like, his pitch count is pretty much the only thing that's saving him this season.

The fact that he is allowed to go into so deep into games, rack up more strikeouts, rack up more innings, which obviously count in points leagues. Like, I don't like it because I think it's a little reckless, but it is good for his fantasy value. and if that changes and he still pitches like this doesn't get better, then that would, like six innings of Trevor Bauer wouldn't really be that good.

If it's any consolation, and I don't know if it is, but Trevor Bauer is very confident that he can hold up to this workload. He's actually lobbied the Indians in the past to let him pitch every fourth day. And it seems like that's part of his pitch moving forward when he goes into arbitration. and goes into free agency as he wants to try to pitch every fourth day for whichever team he's with. So I'm skeptical. Yeah. But he believes he can do it.

So he's certainly not going to be the guy who begs to get pulled out of a game. All right, Chris, let's take a look at the rest of today's show. We got first half all-stars for you. Chris has an all-star team. It's published on CBSports.com slash fantasy. I don't have the same privileges. so my All-Star team is not published anywhere. But I came up with different.

You can send something anytime, Adam, anytime you want to get something up. I want people who publish things. You don't want me to publish it, Chris. I won't put that onus on you to have to publish my stuff. So we got All-Stars at each position and some emails, some grade, fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Let's do a quick round of emails. Okay, just two here.

Let's do it. This one's from a guy named Chris. I was hoping you all could do an in-depth look at Vlad Jr. He was the most over-hyped rookie by so many different baseball sites and sports writers in quite some time. It would be interesting to use him as a study in both the risk and frequent inaccuracy or hype, as well as a look at why he is so underwhelming. As he was highly touted here as well, an explanation and examination of Vlad's struggles would be greatly appreciated.

Also, to what extent does his excessive weight affect his short and long-term prospects? I worry he can easily be another Pablo Sandoval or Prince Fielder. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Sandibald and Fielder were pretty good. Yeah, and I don't know how much their weight. I mean, maybe Sandoval there were reports of it, but Prince Fielder was really good and then he had a neck injury. And I'm not a doctor.

I don't know how excessive weight would impact your neck specifically. but I feel like that wasn't exactly the reason. You would prefer Vladimir Guerrero to lose a little bit of weight, I suppose, but there was a lot of talk in the preseason of, you know, when he got to spring training, people were like, wow, he looks really big. And it's, well, he's always been big. You know, this is not, he's not a small dude. And, you know, even his dad had a similar body.

He wasn't quite this big, but he was also six foot four. and Vlad Jr's a little shorter than that. So that's not my concern. And I actually really don't have any concerns for him. I didn't end up drafting Vlad Jr. in any leagues this year just because we were drafting him as if he was going to be a Justin Turner level bat coming into the season. And that's what he needed to be to justify that fourth, fifth round draft

price that he was carrying with him. and it's really hard to do that. Playing professional baseball is incredibly difficult. He is probably the best hitting prospect. Just strictly speaking as a hitting prospect, Joe Maurer was probably a similar hitting prospect, but you're going back a little ways for that. It's playing professional baseball is hard.

I mean, I guess so. But at the same time, that's not really an in-depth breakdown. So we'll go a little bit. He is a major ground ball hitter. And major, he's a ground ball hitter. I don't know why he's not hitting for power, because his hitting profile is actually very similar to Juan Soto's. You know, and we were a little worried about Soto's home run to fly ball rate.

He hits a lot of ground balls. Well, he's a great player, and he's going to hit home runs. I can't really understand why Vlad is not homering. He has eight home runs in 61 games, 13 doubles. He is walking a lot. He's at a very good walk rate for a rookie. not hitting the ball all that hard, but I think it's kind of similar to Juan Sotos.

So I don't know why the ball's not leaving the park more for him. Part of it is the ground ball rate. Part of it I think is just inconsistency. He has, I believe, I think he has more batted balls hit 115 miles per hour or more than anyone in baseball so far this season. But he only has an average exit velocity of 89 miles per hour, which is right around average.

So I think what you're seeing there is a struggle with consistency. He'll make really good contact on one at bat. The next one he won't hit quite as well, 8.4% barrel rate. Most of these things are fine, but right now he looks pretty much like an average hitter overall. Now, I do think it took him a little while to hit his first home run. I want to find exactly what the stretch was, but basically he got. off to a bad start and he's been pretty awesome ever since.

No, false. Fake news. Because he really hasn't been for fantasy. I mean, if you look at his fantasy points by week, that's just, I really don't think that's the case for Vlad. What is your second half outlook for Vladimir Guerrero Jr.?

Okay, yeah, he hasn't been awesome. He's been good. Like, he didn't hit a home run in his first 13 games in 48 games since he has an 801 OPS. So he's been better. at least. But sure, he hasn't been great. Zero steals on the season.

So an 801 OPS with zero steals, not great. No, yeah, he's been. He's been okay. His last two weeks have been two of his three highest scoring weeks, but still not something that you're excited about. But there's a little progress there, I suppose. Yeah, so what is your second half outlook for Vlad? I definitely think he'll be better than he has been so far.

but this is like I wouldn't expect a superstar turn in the second half it's absolutely possible but you know if he ends up with something like a mid 800s OPS I think that's probably a win in the second half and could make him a by low candidate if the person who has him on their roster is a little worried about him but I still think if you were willing to draft Vladimir grow that high you know what the upside is and so you know maybe Maybe he doesn't hit 20 homers in the second half, but he's probably going to hit closer to 300 than he has. I just, I think you have to buy into the elite abilities here. All right. Let's do one more email here before we get to our All-Stars.

It's from Andrew. He says, some fun debate. Why are we so quick to think that Cody Bellinger, the one we are seeing right now, is what we should expect moving forward for Bellinger. This seems like it will be his career year. To me, it seems Bellinger may just be on an extended hot streak. He has never come anywhere near a 15%. strikeout rate in his major or minor league career, we have to assume that that will not be the norm. And to that point, Bellinger's strikeout rate has steadily increased throughout the year.

11.4% in March and April, then 14.7% in May, 18.2% in June, 21.4% so far in July. If his strikeout rate jumps back to the 21 to 23% range, Bellinger could still be elite, but the batting average will normalize. His counting stats are also outrageous, and he can't be counted on to repeat that. I'd much rather have the safety of Betts and Aeronado over Cody Bellinger. Don't get me wrong, he's awesome. But number three seems risky to me. I want that first round pick to have a high level of safety.

And then he goes on to talk about Fernando Tatis, but let's just stick with Bellinger. I mean, it's, yeah, he's probably not going to be this good moving forward, but he doesn't have to be this good moving forward to be one of the best players in fantasy. He has an 1124 OPS right now. If he has a thousand OPS the rest of the way, if he has a 980 OPS the rest of the way,

you're still going to get a lot of power. You're still going to get a surprising amount of speed for a first baseman. You're probably going to end up. You know, I think moving forward, we've got, what, 70 games left or so. Yeah, maybe 75. I think you probably still expect close to 20 homers in that stretch.

I think you probably expect five to ten stolen bases in that stretch. Maybe the strikeout rate comes up, but even like it's gone up, but if it's 18% like it was in June, that's going to be awesome. He's still going to be great. He's not going to hit 340, but you shouldn't expect him to hit 340. He has, I think, it's hard to fake the kind of improvements he's made.

You're telling him that someone who's hitting the ball as hard as anyone in baseball. the strikeout rate, even as it's crept up, is still 15%. And the walk rate is still really good. I mean, that's the thing. As the strikeouts have crept up, so of the walk. So his plate discipline has still been like one to one, basically, most of the year. And like Mike Trout's been one of the best hitter in baseball with a pretty high strikeout rate in the past.

I mean, it's lower this year, I think. But, you know, as long as he's walking as well, I'm not really as bothered. Yeah, yeah, the batting average has come down. He's at 3.30-ish now, 33, 33, 36. He was batting on May 1st. He was batting 425. On June 1st, he was getting caught up. Yeah, yeah.

But he's pretty awesome. The thing that stands out to me with Bellinger is that in his minor league career and now his major league career, he's gone back and forth hitting very poorly against lefties and hitting amazingly against lefties. This year, basically his lefty-righty splits are exactly the same. So lefties, lefties in general scare me a little bit. I don't think it's a huge coincidence that, would you say the three most consistent hitters in baseball over the last,

I don't know, four years are Trout Betts and Aeronado? Oh, I don't think I would call monkey bets consistent at all. He's been two MVP, C's, two MPP Calver Cs. And then good. Okay, but when you look at the grand scheme of things, like, fine, who have the three best hitters in baseball been over the last four years? I think they're all righties.

I mean, I think it's those three guys. I would say J.D. Martinez is probably in there, but I don't really change the point. Yeah. Yeah. They're a little safer to me. They really are. Because you just get these random years with lefties sometimes where they just struggle against lefties. So that was last year for Ballinger. I'm not really worried about it for Yelich, though. Plus over the last four years are Mike Trout, Jady Martinez, Aaron Judge, Freddie Freeman. Oh. Okay.

So Freeman's a lefty, right? Yeah, and three of the top seven are lefties. Yeah, they, lefties, left-handed hitters generally have more platoon issues than right-handed hitters. It's just kind of the nature of things. They don't face as many lefties overall, so they don't get quite as many reps to develop. There are, I think there are reasons to believe that just the way a lot of left-handed pitchers throw compared to right-handed pitchers makes it tougher on the, the soft side of the

platoon. So, yeah, maybe Mookie Bets will be better than Cody Bell in the rest of the way. Mookie Bets is really, really good. But it's not like Mookie Bets is a sure thing to be a top five hitter based on his track record either. All right. So Scott gave his first round last week. Let's get your top five for next year.

Just off the top of the dome? Yeah. I think you've got to go Trout Yelich 1-2. And that's when it gets interesting. I think right now I would go Bellinger, Betz, Aeronado. But the next couple of months could change that. But right now, yeah, I think what Bellinger is doing right now is a more viable fantasy skill set than certainly what Aeronado does because Aeronado

is incredible, but he's also always going to be basically a zero in stolen bases. And then Mookie Betts has been so up and down. He's so inconsistent with the power, especially, that, you know, Bellinger, I buy the power. He's got 70 grade raw power and he's playing it up in games and has been in two of his three years now. And the plate discipline, you know, he's swinging pitches out of the zone less. He's making a lot more contact overall when he swings. So I just, the skill set that he's putting together

is really, really hard to argue against. And Betts only has two more steals than Bellinger. Yeah, Bellinger runs. Bellinger, bets, you know, the steals pace is a little concerning for bets and for Trout, concerning only in the sense that it makes it easier to take Yelich over them. think there's a case for Yelich over Trout. I really do. We'll see how that plays out because

Yelich might double him up in steals. And I don't think you can just ignore that. But, all right, we'll move on. Let's talk about our first half All-Stars. We're not going to do this like Heath. Heath would just say, oh, Christian Yelich, Cody Bellinger, Mike Trout. Those are my outfielders. I mean, that's two-thirds of my outfielders. Yeah, I get it. I guess. I mean, it's a little weak, I think, on Yelich. But Bellinger certainly deserves to be an outfielder on your All-Star team. We'll talk about that right after his quick break on fantasy baseball today. Chris, I think I forgot to tell you about the surprise segment today. Okay.

We have baseball quote movie trivia. Baseball movie quote trivia. We're working title. I'm going to give you a quote and you're going to tell me which baseball movie it's from. All right. That means let's get through these all-star teams so we can do the important stuff. Now, let's talk about these guys and tell me are they buy high, sell high, like, What are they doing second half?

All right, who's your catcher? And everybody out there, you can decide who was the better fantasy all-star. Who's your catcher, Chris? Christian Vasquez, catcher for the Boston Red Sox. Did you know he's the number five catcher in Roto League right now? Yeah, I talked about him yesterday, actually. That is wild, and I don't think there's anything legitimate about it at all. But nobody's been of better value at the position.

He was the number 31 catcher drafted before the season. ADP on fantasy pros basically means he wasn't drafted even in two catcher leagues. And for good reason, he's not a very good hitter. There have been some improvements that he's made when you look at the stack cast data that suggests that he's a better hitter than he has been in the past. But that's mostly because the hitter he's been in the past was abysmal. All right, so Christian Vasquez. And if you're watching our video, please watch it, by the way, on YouTube.

just search for CBS Sports on YouTube and you'll see all of our fantasy baseball today videos. Yeah, Christian Vasquez is behind the dish for Chris. For me, it's Wilson Contreras, who had a great bounceback season. That junior slump is real, people. And that's what happened to Wilson Contreras. But no, he had this really low home run to fly ball rate last year.

9.3%. It was bizarre. It's up to 29% right now, which is high. but 23.5% in 2016, 25.9% in 2017. I don't see much in Wilson Contreras to make me think that he's, you know, a sell high. I think he might perform a little bit worse than this in the second half, but basically he's the number two catcher in fantasy. He might be third in points behind Grandal, Sanchez's number one.

But, yeah, Contreras has been great, and if you took him 1202nd overall, all fourth catcher off the board. You're very happy. The reason why my all-stars better than Chris's is Christian Vasquez, a lot of his production was probably on the waiver wire. You know, people have been starting Wilson Contreras from day one. It took probably a while for people to buy into Christian Vasquez. And he's still only like 80% own, I think. So mine's better. So, so. Mine's better. My choice of Christian Yelich as an outfield all-star is weak because he was the fourth outfielder taken and has been the number one player in fantasy.

Wilson Contreras has been an amazing value jumping from the fourth catcher off. He was a hundred and twenty second overall. Christian Yewitch was like eighth overall. Yeah, no. Okay. First base. I'll go first with this one. Carlos Santana.

And I just want to say like when I did this list, I did not find really any, I didn't find that many people who seem like. they're doing something unsustainable. Because Santana, fifth and points, seventh and roto, he's changed his hitting profile. He's hitting the ball harder than ever, but his ground ball rate is up, which is good for him because it means his batting average is up.

Now, maybe the power comes down a little bit, 19 home runs, but in the year of the home run, I'm not so sure that's going to happen. So Carlos Santana's been a steal, 178th overall, 24th first baseman off the board. He's fifth and points. He's seventh in roto, and he's batting 27th and roado,

and he's batting 27. Home runs. Quick thought on Santana. And your guy is Josh Bell, which makes sense. That's really, it would have been my guy, but yeah, I chose someone different. Yeah, I think both of these, Josh Bell was like the number 33 catcher drafted or something this season. So pretty obvious choice is the best value at the position. But both these guys, I think we're going to see them fall off a bit in the second half. I think that's just natural. I don't think either's going to hit 300. you know, Josh Bell's on close to a 50 homer pace, Santana close to a 40 homer pace. I think we'll see both of them fall down.

But we're also talking about two of the guys who are hitting the ball harder than anyone in baseball, basically. Carlos Santana is in the 95th percentile on average exit velocity, 92.3 miles per hour. And Josh Bell, I think, is second in baseball overall on average X velocity. they're both absolutely crushing the ball. Let's look at our second baseman. You have DJ LaMayhew. What an interesting year. MVP candidate DJ LaMayhew.

Stop. Hey. Stop. There's one MVP candidate. He shouldn't win the MVP, but he should, at this point, he should get votes.

There's one MVP candidate in the American League. But you can't just vote for one spot. You got to vote for multiple spots. You should. Yeah, but LeMayu's been great. And surprisingly, because boy,

he was pretty bad away from course. field last season. And my guy is Mike Mustakis. I think he's an MVP. I think he's an all-star Mike Mastakis because we were worried about him playing every day. You know, we were worried about him having to be part of a platoon and whatnot. Travis Shaw being so bad has maybe made it easier for him to stay in the lineup.

And Mustacas is the number five second baseman and points number seven in Roto. What do you think about DJ LeMayhew? Do you think he'll deliver in the second half? I think he's certainly playing over his head so far. But, you know, there were, I was definitely skeptical of LaMayhew coming into the season, getting away from Cores, even at Yankee Stadium. But there were some people who looked at DJ Lamahue's hitting profile, the fact that he hits the ball all over the field. It's a ton of line drives, especially the opposite way, and said, you know, he could still hit for a very good average. and those people look really smart.

He's going to be more like a high 700s, low 800s OPS bat moving forward. And the fact that he's only stolen four bases is a bit concerning because when he was not hitting for power early on, he was at least stealing, you know, 15 to 20 bases for a couple of seasons. I think he's going to fall off the earth to an extent. But second base is so bad that you're probably still going to be starting him first. Is second base so bad? We've had like this influx of young second baseman. Yeah, the thing that kind of concerns me for Mahehu is that he is batting 462 with runners in scoring position.

So 63 RBIs for a lead-off hitter, that's pretty incredible. And I think that goes down. But leading off for the Yankees is one of the best lineup spots. I mean, one of the best situations in baseball. So, yeah, it'll probably be pretty good, but I think I'd entertain selling. Oh, sure, yeah, because I think he's probably going to hit more like $295,300. And you're probably looking at a scenario ultimately where he'll still be pretty good in head-to-head points.

Roto, you're probably only looking at like a two, maybe three category guy. still useful, but more of a low-end option at second base or a decent middle infield option. So not someone that I think is untouchable by any mean. Yeah, I think an interesting comparison would be LaMayhew versus Glaber Torres. Oh, I'd definitely rather have Glaber. You know, I was looking at where Glaber Torres ranks among second basemen. This has really stood out to me, at least in points leagues.

I'll try to get Rodo. So he is... So LeMayhew's third. Torres is ninth. And Torres, like, just comparing him to Ozzie Albiz. Albies has 22 more fantasy points than Torres, which is not...

Which is significant, I'd say. Torres has a slightly higher batting average, 10 more OBP points, and a much higher slugging percentage than Ozzy Albies. He has hit five more home runs. I don't know what it is. I don't remember Torres.

His play discipline isn't great. No, it's not that. It's 301 at bats. It's way, it's much lower than every other top 10 second baseman except for Yoan Moncada who's right behind him. And I think he just gets rested sometimes. Max Muncie only has 305 at that, sorry.

But it's much lower than most. I don't understand it. It might be because he bats sort of low in the order, but he's also bad to clean up a good deal this year. So it's something to keep in mind. It hurt Torres' value last year. The plate appearances just weren't there. And on a perit bat basis,

I mean, his slash line's terrific. But the fantasy points are just not what you'd expect from him. It's weird. Yeah, that's interesting. And it's not something that I had necessarily noticed. So that's a good call. I think probably he might be a better roto than points guy. Yeah, it might be.

All right, moving on to third base on our All-Star team. I have Eduardo Escobar, and Chris has Rafael Devers, who learned how to hit lefties this year. Rafael Devers just seems like an obvious choice here. He's the number one third base, and he was drafted as the 20th. Escobar's been great, but Devers has just been unbelievably good this season. I wouldn't say I was ready to write him off, but coming into the season, he didn't look like he had any kind of above average skill that he had shown in the majors. And now we're seeing he's among the league leaders in average exit velocity.

All the stat-cast metrics pretty much back up what he's doing. Always been someone who struck out more than his minor league track record. But so far, he's looking more like the guy we kind of hoped he would be. He's taken a huge step forward, and there's a lot of reasons to believe that it's legitimate. Yeah, hitting lefties, which is something he was just terrible at. He's batting 2.92 with a 448 slugging against lefties, Raphael Deverson. Escobar, I don't really get it. I don't understand how he's fourth and points, sixth in Roto at third base.

He, like 18 home runs, but I don't know, man. The RBI number's good. 67. Yeah, 50. Yeah. This guy to me just feels like a very average fantasy asset. Yes. Right? Yeah, and if you look at the expected stats, he basically, like, almost identical to what he was last year. You know, 249 expected average last year to 250. This year, slugging percentage right there as well.

and he was pretty much a fantasy afterthought last season. You know, it was surprising, though, because Eduardo Escobar was an afterthought, but at the end of the year, he finished as a top 12 shortstop and the number 13 third baseman. He had 48 doubles. I think maybe just some doubles are becoming home.

Yeah, and like 11 triples, I think. I only see three. I wrote three. I could be wrong. Oh, okay. But I'm probably wrong at him. Yeah, I just, he was really good with Minnesota. He got traded to Arizona.

It wasn't quite as good. But here's the thing. If Escobar does what he did last year, he's not going to be a top 12 shortstop or third baseman because this environment is so different. So I think that's a guy that I'd be looking to sell. He should be good, but won't be great. Let's go to shortstop.

Wait, where's Katel Marte, by the way? Shortstop. Oh, is it shortstop for you? Okay. All right, so this is one of the most interesting players in fantasy. Who? Cotel Marte. Yes.

He's your guy at short. someone who I group with Josh Bell and I think when you see them side by side it makes perfect sense. They look like the same guy. Catele-Marty, no, he was someone who had actually shown surprising flashes of power. He hit the ball pretty hard early on. Now, it wasn't consistent, but over the last couple of years, you started to see his average axis of velocity creep up more towards the average range. And he was, like Josh Bell, someone who reworked his swing in the 2018 off season,

before the 2018 season. And we didn't really see the fruits of that. We saw it a little bit. You know, he did, I think he led the majors in triples. And unlike Eduardo Escobar, I'm actually looking at his page, and he did have 12 triples last season. Okay, there you go.

They're the same guy. Had a career high in doubles, career high in home runs. So there was a little bit of a breakout last season, but it wasn't quite, I mean, it wasn't anything close to this, but now you're seeing that average launch angle has increased, the average exit velocity has increased again. He's just starting to get a little bit better,

and with his plate discipline, the fact that he never strikes out, you know, he does look like someone who should be a pretty good fantasy option moving forward. So you're buying, you're buying, you're buying a Tal Marteay overall. Why has his batting average jump so much? he's hitting the ball harder. You know, he doesn't strike out. He's got a 14% strikeout rate and was right around there

the last couple of seasons. But now, you know, he's getting the ball over the fence. He's hitting more line drives. So I think it's just kind of incremental improvements in all the batting average stat factors that has pushed him up and maybe a little bit of good luck on his side as well. And my short stop was Jorge Polanco.

Number seven in points, number 13 in Roto. He was drafted 233rd overall. Polanco was the 27th shortstop off the board. He's batting 312. This guy, he's already starting to come way down to earth. Since June 1st, Jorge Polanco has a 710 OPS with two steals. But his hard contact rate, his fly ball rate, have gone way up, and yet still only has a 9% home run to fly ball rate.

So that's kind of strange. Polanco is a switch hitter but he struggles against lefties so that's probably going to hold him back another guy that it's hard to argue against him you know as it all thing yeah the slide we're seeing you know there's a little bit of regression there's a little bit of coming back to earth and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a stretch like that from Cattel Marte moving forward but overall I think he's improved just like Cotel Marte has enough where you can say he's certainly going to be better than he was in years past and is going to be a useful fantasy option, a good fantasy option. Okay. Let's go to the outfield here. So I have two twins and Shinsu Chu.

Shin Su Chu, Max Kepler, and I put Eddie Rosario on there. He's on the IL right now, but he's 11th in Roto, 18th and points. It was the 23rd outfiel that off the board. Just having a really good year. He's a little inconsistent, but he's kind of backing up what he did last year, Rosario. Kepler last 15 games only batting 209 so that's he was 239th overall off the board and Shinsu Chu was 260th off the board chew I think I'd be looking to sell I just don't buy that like he's he's old and he's walking less his babbiff is 361 it's usually good but it's not this good so I think Chu you know will probably be something like a top 30 outfield or points leagues, top 40 in Roto. I don't know what you can get for him, but so far he's been

17th and points, 26th in Roto. My question for you is about Kepler. What do you expect from Kepler in the second half? He was an interesting guy coming into the season because last year he actually did make pretty sizable improvements in his plate discipline against lefties, if I remember correctly. Yeah, he was pretty good, you know, 21.6% strike out rate, 9% walk rate. but the results didn't quite take a huge step forward. He had a 745 OPS against them, but what was more interesting is against Ritey's, he looked a lot better,

12.6% walk rate, 13.5% strike rate, and he had a 720 OPS against Ritees. That was mostly because of a 219 Babbitt, but he also didn't hit for a lot of power. But there were reasons to believe that Max Kepler had improved last season, was one of the fly ball guys who started hitting the ball in the air more. But what he had last season was a lot more infield fly balls as well.

This season, it looks like he's just kind of put things together a little more. So he's hitting lefties okay again, but he's really hitting right as well. And I kind of buy it. Yeah, all right. Going to be a low babbip guy, I think, because he still does hit a lot of infield fly balls, pop-ups. but I think the power is you know it's not 40 homer power but I think he'll be a solid source of power

and he gets on base he'll score a lot of runs so I think he's a pretty solid guy overall who are your outfielders you're really like daring outfielders some boring Christian knowledge Cody Bellinger you've probably heard of them and then Domingo Santana is actually surprisingly a top 10 outfielder in Roto so far this season

I don't know how much of the gains are real, but he has actually sustained this all season. And my impression of him was that he had slowed down, but it was really just the month of May. He was awesome in June. He was awesome in April. And he's gotten his ground ball rate down a little bit, which is helping the power play up a little more.

And he's pretty good. He's always going to be an incredibly high BABIP and Homer. run-to-fly-ball ratio guy. So there are definitely reasons to believe in Domingo Sanana's breakout. In Roto, yeah, in points. Yeah. He's like 20th and early, you know, before his recent hot streak, Domingo Santana was closer to 30. So I think he's, you know, worth owning, but he's going to drive you a little crazy in points leagues because this plate discipline's not very good. Starting pitchers. Who are your starting pitchers? I think we only pick three each. what's your rotation?

Junjun Riu, I think, is an obvious choice. Is the number three pitcher in Roto, probably a little lower in points, but still very good. And it's one where the injuries were the only concern with him coming into the season, and maybe we probably should have not been that concern. And I drafted him a decent amount

just because, look, every pitcher gets hurt, and he's got bigger injury concerns. concerns than most, but if he stayed healthy, he was going to be very good, and that's what we're seeing. And then Lucas Gialito and Matthew Boyd, two of the biggest breakouts of the season. Surprisingly, Lucas Golito actually still top 10 starting pitcher ranks higher than Matthew Boyd, even though he's slowed down just a bit. Well, they both have. I mean, Boyd, his last six or seven starts has an ERA over six. He's given up a ton of home runs, 12 home runs in that stretch. But I mentioned it, I think I said all of this yesterday, and I said it the day before on HQ. You know, the walk to strikeout rate.

show even in this bad stretch for Boyd has been extraordinary. But Gialito, like, look at his schedule. His last five starts have been the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox, Twins, and Cubs. So it's not a huge surprise that he's struggled. But in those starts, the walks have been way up, except for one start against the twins where he didn't walk anybody. But other than that, four, three, four, and five walks. So when you look at Gialito and Boyd going forward,

are you nervous about the walks for? for Gialito, the home runs for Boyd, and what that could mean? Yeah, I'm a little bit nervous, but I think both have made enough gains that, you know, even if they do fall back, I would still expect an ERA in the four range rather than the six range for Gialito where he'd been before this and, you know, a ton of strikeouts for both. And Gialito has said that he's not worried about the control issues because he's identified a mechanical issue that he thinks he should be able to fix. All right, that's good.

Hopefully, you know, because the stuff has looked better than it ever has, and it's, you know, that hasn't come down to Earth yet. So I think, I've said come down to Earth a lot this morning. Yeah, you also said something like falling off the earth, but not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm running a little slow. It's Earth Day. I only got a couple of sips of my Diet Coke before I got into the podcast.

When are you going to get off the salt break? When I die, Adam, I'm here for a good time. a long time. Okay, cool. Are you done talking now about the Earth? Or what? Yeah. Okay.

All right, then my pictures... No more geology. My pitchers are Charlie Morton, Shane Bieber, who's only allowed one home run in his last five starts, and was the 39th pitcher off the board. Morton was the 29th pitcher off the board. And Lance Lynn was the 161st starting pitcher off the board. He's 10th and points, 20th and rodeo.

He has the highest whip of any. top 18 starting pitcher in points leagues. His ERA is 391. It's not that great, but he got off to a terrible start. And for like two months now, Lanslin has been just... Dino-mite! He's 11 and 4, and he pitches super deep into games, and he throws nothing but fastballs, basically.

So, yeah, nobody is really super buying into Lance Lynn, but at the same time, I don't think you should trade him, because I don't know that you're going to get much of value. He might just be good. Lance Lynn might just be good, Chris. Yeah. Yeah, I'm skeptical, but he might be, yeah. I don't know what else to say.

Like, what else is there to say? You just ride it out and enjoy the Lance Lynn Slid run. If someone wants to treat him like a high-end starting pitcher or a very good starting pitcher, go ahead and move him. But I don't know what you're going to get that's going to make it, you know, a really obvious win for you with Lance Lynn,

because the peripherals are very good too. He has, I think, one of the lowest fips in baseball. My two relievers are Kirby Yates and Brad Hand. Yates was the 11th pitcher off the board. Hand was sixth off the board. And Yates has been number one so far. He has, oh gosh, what does he have, 30 saves or something? Yeah, 30 saves in 31 chances.

And the Padres are in the race, so I don't think they're going to trade Kirby Yates. And Brad Hand's just, he's great. Like, he's just, they're both really good pitch. I don't have much to say about them. I completely buy them. I suppose the Indians could trade Brad Hand if they're trading Trevor Power. Yeah, they could.

I think he's under contract for one more year. So, actually, I'm not sure. He might be an expiring, so maybe. Who's your stinking relievers? I went with Brandon Woodruff, Sparp, who I think has pretty firmly established himself as certainly one of the most talented pitchers. in baseball, and I think a top 15 starting pitcher for fantasy moving forward at the very

least top 20. And then Will Smith is just, we outsmarted ourselves on this one. He was the number 21 reliever off the board coming into the season. You know why, right? What's that? You know, remember why, right? Because we thought he was going to get traded. Well, he is going to get traded. He's about to be potentially dropped, or maybe he'll just go to a place where he closes. But no, there were some concerns that he wasn't going to be the closer. And, you know, Mark Balanson and Dyson, they actually have good arms. But I think they called him the closer pretty, or like pretty close before the season. Like not a day before the season.

But I think it was just this, I think there's a lesson to be learned from Will Smith. Once he was named the closer especially, he should have been, you know, one of the top 12 relievers taken. even with the concerns about him getting traded, and it seems like it obviously will happen in the next three weeks, half the relievers who were taken above him have either gotten hurt or lost their jobs. Closers lose their jobs. But that could have to Will Smith. I don't agree with your premise.

Sure, it could have, but you should draft for talent. Yeah, no, but okay, fine. But there are 12 talented closers, you know, like Edwin Diaz and Blake Trineenon, deserve to go ahead of Will Smith. Sure. You know, like, I don't agree with the premise. But like, Arroyo Viscayano went ahead of him. Well, okay, that was a mistake.

But I don't agree with the premise that the pitcher, the closer who was most likely to get traded at the start of the season. I would say Will Smith was that guy. That should have been a top 12 closer off the board. Because, yeah, he has been great. But how many closures keep their job all year? But you don't know who it's going to be. Like, he probably should have been top.

But that's what I'm saying. You should target the real. good closers. And Will Smith... But he's going to lose his job. He's going to lose his job. But so are a lot of closers. He's really good. So are... Okay, so, all right. You know what? Who went ahead of him? Let me pull up the ADP right here.

God, you're so wrong about this, Chris. I'm really not. Who went ahead of him about it? Go ahead. Do I have to pull it up? Because I'm almost there. No, no, no, I've got it. So you've got guys like Arrodes Fiscahiana, Jose Alvaria. Cody Allen, David Robertson, Ken Giles, Rysel Igles, Wade Davis, Jose LeClerc.

Pretty much all those guys except Giles have either gotten hurt or lost their jobs. And, you know, I think Giles... You cannot sit here and tell me that Ken Giles should not have gotten ahead of Will Smith. I mean, they were talking about not using him as a traditional closer in sprint training. And he's not as good as...

No, he was... He's been very good. He's having a bad year. But if Rice of Iglesias pitched as he normally does, you know, pitched to his career norms this year, and didn't get all of the saves, at the end of the year, he'd end up being more valuable than Will Smith, because Will Smith is only going to be a closer for four months,

unless, of course, he gets traded a little. Maybe. He might get traded to a team where he could be a closer. That's what I'm saying. We over, we outsmarted ourselves. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. We did. I mean, we obviously did, Adam.

No, I mean, it turned out that way, but I think the thought process. He's been one of the best closers. He's been one of the best relief pitchers in fantasy so far. Absolutely. He's been a great draft pick. I am super happy to have him. But you're also talking about a guy who we expected to be on one of the worst teams in baseball. That's usually not great for saves.

And, you know, before last year, he wasn't a great reliever. He was a good one. And I'm ready to play our game. Well, he was terrible in 2017. and he didn't pitch. I'm ready to play our game. His strikeout rates were consistently. Yeah, his strikeout rates were,

but his ERAs were not. So, two thousand, so, yeah, whatever. Okay, team name Tuesday.

Luke, I am your Vado. Yep. No. Yeah. However, this one might be the best. I'll come back to it.

I mean, because Votto is like the most dad player in baseball right now, right? Oh, I mean, that's ridiculous. That might be, but Luke I am your Vado makes no sense.

How about this one? Heath Sye Young Award. That's the first time I've heard the sigh drop because I haven't been around for a couple of weeks. And I had only listened to a couple of football podcasts. I know it's been a big deal there. But I don't think you did it on the two that I had listened to. That's very discomforting.

Oh, it's creepy. And now Dave Richard inspired. me to make a compilation, so now I'm going to make the greatest hits, but don't tell Heath. Oh, boy, that is, yeah. No, I keep seeing the emails of people asking for it as a ringtone, and boy. I can't, I just praying for an email that I get. Like, I was walking in the mall the other day and I passed some guy and all of a sudden I hear, oh. And I'm like, you have that ringtone too? I said, let's hope it goes viral. Was he stretching when that happened? No, he was ranking pitchers.

And that was his intro. It's a ranking the pitchers. It just, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little. By the way, Chris, we're not playing our quote game today. We'll have to do that later in the week. We've taken too much time. Wow. Victor Caratini, shaken, not stirred.

I like it. Cease and Darvish. No. No. That's bad. How about this one, though? Cease Fires. Yeah, that one's good.

That's good. Yeah. Okay, and that's it for Team Dave Tuesday. Great, the trade from Rodney. 12-team points league. Give up Cindergarde and Donaldson. Get Rendon and Wheeler. I like it.

Love it. Actually, I love this trade. Cindergarde and Donaldson for Rendon and Reader. Like, Rendon is awesome. He's really good. But... In a points league, he is a first-round caliber hitter. Yeah, he's incredible.

And Wheeler and Donald Wheeler and Thor have been Wheeler's been better than Thor I would say a B. It's an A minus. It's a B plus. From Dan. Gray the Trade.

Also Scott White 2020. I would not vote for Scott. I don't think Scott would be president. I don't think he's, is he old enough? Yeah, he's 35. Okay. I thought he was 34.

Yeah, he's not. He'd be a terrible. Scott, I love you. You'd be a terrible. He's talking about swinging strike rate all the time. standard scoring 5 by 5 give Bogarts and Flaherty Get Catelle Marte and Kenley Jansen Bogarts and Jack Flaherty for Marte and Jansen

I think that's like a D Yeah I don't know because I don't know how much faith I have in Jack Flaherty I would just rather because obviously he's doing this because he needs saves I would rather try to play waivers or try to get a less expensive closer because it's, Kelly Jansen

hasn't really been the elite closer anymore these last two seasons. I mean, you're still getting a decent amount of saves, but track out rates way down. The FIP basically shows that he's more like a three to mid three ZRA guy. And so I think you're paying an awfully large price

because Xander Bogartz has been unbelievably good. The silent, the silent superstar is Andrew Borghards. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Next up from Jim, moving on. Dynasty League. 10 team 7 by 7 Dynasty League where you keep 10.

Give up Garrett Cole and Dedy Gregorius. Get Raphael Devers and Treat Turner. He spelled it Treat, but he meant Trey Turner. Give up Garrett Cole and Dedy Gagorius. Get Devers and Trey Turner. I think that's a B. All right, let's go to Ryan in California. Ryan and California.

Well, you might not be. Treat Turner might be the best player if you realize this potential. Ryan in California says grade the trade in an eight-team league. It's a points league. Give up Paddock and Austin Riley and get Patrick Corbyn. A-minus. Love it. I think that's a C.

What? All right, listen. It's an eight-team league, right? It's a points league. Austin Riley's plate discipline. Look at his points. I didn't realize it's still Heath pointed it out yesterday. That's a decent point.

Yeah, they haven't been very good. So basically, it's, yeah, I love it. All right, I'll switch it to a B. Good. Last one, no name on this. Ten team categories, five Keeper League. Give up bets and a fourth round pick in 2020. Betts and a fourth round pick in 2020.

Get J.D. Martinez and Patrick Corbyn. I think that's a B. Yeah, I like that. I like that. Pretty good. Thanks for the wonderful show, Chris. You're an all-star. Get your game on.

Thanks. You like smash mouth. I have seen Smashmouth in concert before. I can't remember they opened for somebody that I saw in like the early 2000. Last night was at dinner with my dad and he was talking about music and he said he knows more about modern music than I do. I said, you're absolutely right. And I said, rock and roll is dead. Rock and roll is dead, Chris.

It's not, Adam. You're just lazy. It's for whips. Get an electric guitar. There's a ton of rock and roll out there. An electric guitar for goodness sake, Mumford and Sons. All right. They did.

They probably did. It wasn't very good. Okay, we're out of here. They used to know a rock. It wasn't very good. I'm not sure if we'll be back tomorrow. Either tomorrow or Thursday. See you later, everybody.