Fantasy Baseball Today - 07/12: Second Half Sleepers and Breakouts; Most Added (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

Lance Lynn is awesome! We start the show by reviewing yesterday's game with some HOU thoughts before moving on to Lynn (7:32) and his standout season. Then we've got some news and notes (12:00) ... Chris gives his second half sleepers (15:24) and breakouts (21:50). Good debates on Tyler Mahle, Danny Salazar, Jack Flaherty and more ... We're joined by Dane Martinez of FNTSY for some Fill in the Blank (28:40)! Then we look at the Most Added (40:00) list which features Dinelson Lamet, A.J. Pollock, Danny Duffy, Dylan Cease and more. Finally, Dane gives us some players he likes and dislikes moving forward (48:40) ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Domingo Texasized. Welcome back to the second half with the Astros and the Rangers playing yesterday. And now we're back to full slates.

Baseball's back and we are back on fantasy baseball today. Welcome to this Kokomo Friday edition of the show. Adamazer, Scott White,

Chris Towers. We're going to be joined by Dane Martinez from the Fantasy Sports Network in about a half hour or so. Hey, how was baseball yesterday? I enjoyed the game.

It was fun. Learned a lot of good stuff. For example, I learned from Buster Only that Lance Lynn is second in pitcher war behind only Max Scherzer. How about that, guys? Was B-War or F-war? Some other version of war.

B-for-B-B-B. I believe it's F-war. Oh. Yeah. What's that good for? Down with war. I prefer B. I prefer the War of Jenkins' ear.

I prefer Lance Lynn. He has been really good. We're going to talk about him. We've got just a few news items for you here. second-half sleepers and second-half breakouts. They are up on the website, and we're going to talk about them. It's going to be wonderful. I want to talk about Austin Meadows, who's been terrible,

Dee Gordon, who's been terrible. We got some fill-in-the-blank from the listeners. Let's start, though, with the game last night. A 5-0-0 win for the Texas Rangers, pretty much all of their scoring coming early on. Did they score 5 in the first inning or 4 in the first inning? Let's see. They scored 4, and then they scored one more in the third.

Framber Valdez. I'm not sure Framber Valdez is going to be a three-star pitcher. He didn't do me. Yeah, I have serious doubts about that. Yeah. Oops. Yes. Although,

A.J. Hinch had some, I thought, given the, given the situation, some pretty favorable comments about Valdez afterward, how dominant he can be at times. So, you know, I think there's a good chance he gets sent down. It doesn't even make a second star, but. Just put Josh James in the rotation. Just put Josh James in the rotation. I want to see it. That's going to take a while because Josh James is not stretched out. He's pitching one inning at a time.

It's going to be Matthew Boyd. It's going to be Matthew Boyd. What would really be fun is Trevor Bauer. Oh, that would be fun. I believe him and Garic Cole don't like each other. That would be great. I'm just here for the entertainment value. So, yeah, so I want to to toot my own horn because that's what I do here.

What was it? Five-ish years ago when I first saw Matt Boyd pitch, I was like, wow, this guy's got some good stuff. He's pitching for the Blue Jays. I watched this Major League debut. And it only took me like half a decade to be right about Matt Boyd. So I think Framber Valdez, if he's in the rotation next year or in a rotation next year, I would not give up on him.

I don't know that you're getting anything from Valdez this year, but there's a lot to like there. Cool story, bro. If he's good, you can thank me for it, is basically, I guess, what I'm saying. Thank you, Chris. It was a cool story. I look forward to following up in 2024. Hopefully we won't take that long.

All right, so anything else from this game. How about Jordan Alvarez? Jordan Alvarez. I try to find his slump. Okay, he hasn't homered in his last seven games, but he's batting 360 with five doubles in those games. He only has one. intentional walk to eight strikeouts. So the plate discipline for Jordan Alvarez

hasn't been as good as it was in the minors, but it's still been pretty good. But, I mean, his walk to strikeout ratio is basically zero to eight in his last seven games. I'm trying to find a reason to be disappointed. Well, I'm looking for something here. But the storyline is like Jordan Alvarez has just been amazing since coming up.

And he got off to that incredible start. It hasn't really stopped. And he's batting 338 with seven home runs and seven doubles and 20 games. and, you know, like we talked about Vlad's so much this week. We haven't really talked about Alvarez probably in a couple of weeks. Scott, your rest of season outlook for Alvarez and where you're ranking him. I haven't ranked pretty high.

I just did a trade chart yesterday. I'm trying to remember exactly where. I could probably find exactly where. But, yeah, I haven't ranked high. I think the one concerning thing I see is that it's not a good strike. You know, it's not a really scary strikeout rate, but it's the sort of strikeout rate that would lead me to believe if he's not making the ridiculous quality of contact. Like if that itself isn't sustainable at the level he's done. You know, there could be a downturn here. I'm not really interested in selling high on him because I don't think he's established enough to really do that. And I don't think the fall of the fallout. is going to be that great.

I mean, but it stands for reason just 338 batting average 701 slugging percentage. He's not that good. Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we all pretty readily acknowledged that Austin Riley was a great sell high candidate after his incredible start. And that turns out to have been pretty prescient. So, yeah, I think if someone, I think I view Jordan Alvarez pretty similarly to how I view Austin Riley at the same, I mean, it's a similar point.

The strikeout rate isn't nearly Riley. No. I still think more regression is coming Riley. Well, he's got a 740 OPS over his last 35 game. Well, Alvarez, right now, Scott hasn't ranked 21st at Outfield. After Bryce Harper, Max Kepler, Tommy Fam, before Marcelo Zuna, Austin Meadows, and Andrew Ben and Tendi, he doesn't feel as much of a sell high as Austin Riley did, partially because we were so excited about him getting called up.

We loved his pedigree. He was the best hitter in the minors, right? And it's playing out that way. I'm not saying Austin Riley was bad by any stretch of the minors, but what he did surprise us. This does feel a bit like revisionist. Because people were very mad at Scott when he said so high on Austin Riley. But he was right.

Right, but we just haven't seen what Jordan Alvarez is going. going to regress. Okay, but Austin Riley didn't walk. You know, he's got nine, he's got nine walks, Jordan Alvarez in 20 games. That's excellent. At least one of them intentional. Austin Riley has 10 walks in 49 games.

So that's a big difference too. I'm not saying they're the exact same player, but there's obviously regression coming. So it's just a question of how much regression is coming. And I would guess he's probably closer to like an 850 OPS bat. If you can move him for something more than that, I think you should try to do it. All right. Well, 850 is not so bad.

Okay. One more thing. Oh, Lancel. We got to talk about Lance Lynn. Did I honestly skip Lancelan? I honestly skip Lancelan. 11 strikeouts and seven scoreless innings. His fastball was so good yesterday.

I mean, he just located it beautifully. And this is actually a fun game to watch, at least the first few innings or so. the first inning was very fun to watch. But this is five straight starts of seven or more innings, 10 straight starts with 100 or more pitches, 134Ks and 122 innings, a 12-1 whip, 369-e-R-A, 12 wins. I mean, what more can you say about Lance Lynn?

Is anybody buying it rest of season? I may be stupid not to, right? I think you're a little ornery today, Chris. But I'm pretty stupid. Chris, let's talk. Are you okay? I feel like you're a little ornery. I came in a little late and I haven't had my diet coke.

Oh, that's a good thing. But I wasn't calling anyone else stupid as you'll... I was calling myself stupid because... For no reason, I don't buy it. Like, I'm not even saying it's a... It's like, I have some secret insight into Lance. I can't give you an explanation. I just don't buy it.

And I'm just going to continue being wrong about Lance Lynn, I guess, because I just have a really hard time seeing how some... someone can continue to be successful in Major League Baseball in 2019, throwing 23 breaking balls last night? Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, that was the formula for success before Tommy John's surgery, too, the four-year stretch with the Cardinals, where it was, it was at times confounding then, too.

Obviously, aside from the ERA itself, which FIPP suggests he's had bad luck in that regard. But aside from the ERA itself, everything's even better. The numbers are even better than during that four-year strip with the Cardinals. But the biggest difference might be that he's just figured out how to throw strikes better than he did in those days. He has better control than he did in those days. And if he's recaptured the free Tommy John stuff along with that, I guess it's reasonable that he take a step forward. I don't know. It's been hard to explain for two and a half months.

But my stance on Lance Lynn has always been so hard to. find a pitcher in this environment who can deliver, start like he's been delivering for two and a half months that how are you giving that up, unless you're getting a pitcher in return who can also do that. But not many people are giving up those. Right. By the way, speaking of which, I am thinking about trading Fernando Tatis for Shane Bieber. How do you guys feel about that? I feel good about that. Yeah. I can tell you, I remember exactly where Shane Bieber is in the latest trade chart. Now it is head-to-head a head-to-head point trade chart, which

elevates all the pitchers a little bit. But I have Bieber 19th overall. Yeah. Yeah, man, those strikeouts are so good. But it's just like you got depthed hitting. You don't have any pitching in most cases. Okay, Lance Lynn, Scott's updated rankings is Lance Lynn

27th. Heath has him 30th overall. And right behind Lance Lynn is James Paxton for Scott. And what I heard on the broadcast yesterday was that James Paxton is the only pitcher that throws a higher percentage of his pitches as fastballs than Lance Lynn. That taught me by surprise. I didn't think that was the case, but that's what they said.

Final note on this game, just real quick because I want to move on. Robinson Chorinos, at one point looked like one of the true must-start catchers. In his last 15 games, he's batting 152 with only one extra base hit. It was a double. He's been terrible. Do you think Robinson Chorinos is droppable for a hot-hand play like a Danny Jam? I mean, Danny Jansen could be more than just a high-hand play. But Danny Jansen, Carson Kelly doesn't play that much.

Mitch Garver is not playing that much lately. Do you think Robinson Terenos is dropped? Roberto Perez. Roberto Perez. Less than 50% own. He's on a 29 homer pace, and he starts more regularly than Torenos. Yeah, I think in one catcher league, that's fine. I would still bet Torenos finishes ahead of a lot of those guys,

but I don't think you're forfeiting too much upside if you want to pursue the upside of like a Jansen or or yeah i'd swap them out for brez at this point all right today's sponsor is indochino get a custom suit for just three hundred and sixty nine dollars at indocino com i n d o c hino dot com use the code f bt at checkout three hundred and sixty nine dollars for a custom suit is an amazing deal f bt at checkout and don't have to worry about getting it taylor or anything like that uh it's great stuff indocino dot com f bt the code news and notes yadier malina is on the with a thumb injury. He could return within three weeks.

We just named some catchers you could look for. Matt Carpenter is off the IL for St. Louis. Kansas City called up outfielder Bubba Starling, who was the fifth overall pick way back in 2011. Same draft as Garrett Cole and Trevor Bauer, I believe. And does Bubba Starling matter for the Kansas City Royals for fantasy owners? He has an 806 OPS with the juiced ball. So it's a little hard to get excited.

But maybe Scott's more excited. I am ornery today. You are. I wouldn't say I'm excited. I look for him in like my AL only leagues, my, you know, 24 team dynasty league.

Um, because he was such, like when his minor league career started, it's like, wow, this guy is an all time. But, and,

you know, he's really turned things around the past couple years. Has he turned it around enough that he's going to be an asset in fantasy? Yeah, I think that's suspect, but with the royals, he can probably find semi-regular bats if he isn't terrible and sent back down right away. You are going to have a hard time. I have no idea if this is true, but I'm going to say it anyway.

You're going to have a hard time finding a better top 15 than what the 2011 MLB draft gave us. Garrett Cole, Danny Holtson, Trevor Bauer, Dylan Bundy, Bubba Starling, Anthony Rendon, Archie Bradley, Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez, Corey Spangenberg, George Springer, Taylor Youngman, Brandon Nimmo, Jose Fernandez, and Jed Bradley. So that is Garrett. You could have just stopped at 14. Well, I could have. Who stops in 14th guy?

Cole Bauer, Rendon, Archie Bradley, Lindor, Hobby Baez, George Springer, Jose Fernandez. And then like Brandon Nimmo and Dylan Bundy, respectable, it's quite a draft. It's quite a draft. C.J. Crone, Sonny Gray. Sonny Gray? Lots of guys. Colton Wong? Could have kept going.

Could it kept going. That's a weird collection of guys who I would not have guessed were drafted together. I would not have guessed Francisco Lindor and Anthony Rendon were in the same draft last. That just does not make sense in my brain. Alex Brebman got hit by ground ball. It needed stitches on his chin. Hunter Pence could be back this weekend. The Atlantic League is experimenting with stealing first base.

So I believe it is like, you know what happens if you strike out and the ball gets past the catcher. Well, that can happen now at any point in the abat if the ball gets past the catcher. Yeah, I think if it hits the ground, you can run. Right. Right. So move Hobby Baez up your draft boards, folks. San Diego's

interested in Matt Boyd and St. Louis is interested in Will Smith. If the Cardinals acquired Will Smith, do you think he stays as a closer? I do. I think Adam would be taking a big L. What? We had our big Will Smith debate the other day.

Maybe. Maybe. Okay, Chris, you have the spotlight on you today. I want your second half sleepers and your second half breakouts, you cranky, cranky man. But I don't want all of them. I want your three or four favorites from the columns you wrote. Let's start with your sleepers. Give me your three or four favorites. Okay, I'll start with Tyler Malley.

I've been interested in him all season. I know most people probably scoff at that because you look at, his major league track record before this season, especially, but even, you know, he hasn't been great this season, but he is a completely different pitcher than he had been the last couple of seasons. His pitch mix is entirely different. He's throwing, he's throwing a curveball and a cutter, and he has turned into, I think, a much better pitcher. And if you look at some of the underlying numbers, he actually looks a lot like Shane Bieber did last year before his breakout. 26% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate, 44% ground ball rate,

FIPP and Sierra and the mid to high threes, not quite as good as the peripherals that we saw from Shane Bieber last year, mostly because of that walk rate, but 6.4% is still a very good walk rate, and I think there is a chance, especially as he continues to lower his fastball usage and rely more on those new secondary pitches, that he could have a very good second half.

Okay, he's going to need those second. Pitches because his big problem, Tyler Malley, is not being able to pitch deep into games. He's only 36% own. And there was a game, it was a couple of starts ago. He gave up one run through six innings. They let him come out for the seventh, and he did not record it out. So he's got ERA over seven third time through the order. But, but yeah, like, there's potential there.

There's good things to like about Malley. It's why he's a sleeper. Well, that's what I wonder about, too, is he has changed. Yeah, throwing a slower breaker now. Changed his next. I'm just not sure. I believe he's also throwing a splitterly work recently. I mean, it is.

Beaver had that great swing in this slider from the beginning. And Beaver, Malley's swinging strikes basically a large majority of them still come on his basketball, which he still throws about 60% of time. So, I don't know. I'm not sure I'm seeing. All right. All right, Chris, that's not going to make. Chris, that are you less cranky? Go ahead. Who's your next?

No, it's fine. Scott's allowed to have his wrong opinion. Remember Danny Salazar? No. I is way back. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. He's working his way back from shoulder injury. We haven't seen him pitch since 2017, but when he was pitching in 2017, he had a 33% strikeout rate over about 100 innings. And the Indians are still moving forward with the idea of him as a starter. Um, you know, there's a possibility he gets moved to the bullpen, but right now they're going to have him pitch every fifth day, see how he reacts. If he can hold up, I think he definitely has a chance to be a really good pitcher in the second half. I know there, the podcast has had some arguments about exactly how good, uh, Danny Salazar is. And I think he might have been one of the ERA matters guys, because he always tended to underperform his peripherals and was more of a mid threes, the high threes era guy. But, if he can be a mid to high threes ERA guy

with a 29% strikeout rate or something in that range, he's going to be really useful. He's 20% owned right now. Okay, I shouldn't have dismissed him so quickly. I did that maybe more for entertainment value. Danny Salazar, I was typically on the high side with Danny Salazar, so I don't think he was one of the ERA matters guys. I always kind of made the case for Danny Salazar.

Scott usually didn't. He doesn't pitch deep in the games. Yeah, he's very inefficient. Sure. But that's all fair. That's, like, the thing now. Danny Salazar was a trend center because nobody pitches deep into games. Right.

And all that's fair. Totally fair. Those are legitimate criticisms about his game, even when he was at his best and healthy. But there's a difference between having to draft him as a top 100 player and getting him for free on the waiver. All right. Sure. One more sleeper, Chris. Then we'll do breakouts.

I'll give a hitter, and that is Justin Smoke, who if you look at the underlying numbers, might be hitting better than he ever has, including that breakout 2017 season. He's been awful since coming back from the IL. He wasn't particularly great before that. But even since coming off the IL, he's got a 16% walk rate in ISO well north of 200. He has the lowest striker rate, highest walk rate of his career, matching the best ever expected Wobah that he's ever had. I think there's a lot of good things going on in Justin Smoke's profile right now,

and he just has a 224 Babbap. I think if he sees that normalized just a bit, we could have a big second half for Justin Smoke. Obviously, first base is very deep, but I think he can be someone who is useful in the second half. Okay. Danny Sousar, Tyler Malley, Justin Smoke, just three of the names. If you go to CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball,

you will see the rest of the list, and you will see the rest of Chris's breakouts. We're going to get to Chris's second half breakouts right after this quick break on fantasy baseball today. Welcome back, quick programming announcement. If you're watching our video on YouTube or CBS Sports, we're only going to have about five more minutes of video. Then when we bring Dane on, it'll be just audio only.

It will not affect any of you podcast listeners. Okay, Chris, your second half breakouts. Give me your three or four faves. Faves means favorites, by the way. What's that? Faves means favorites. It's short for favorites. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. We always struggle with like the breakout. term especially. So I'm going to need some rulings. Can J.D. Martinez qualify as a second half breakout? No. Yeah. If he if he's like one of the

three best hitters in fantasy, yes. And I think like that's what I expected coming into the season. Most of the peripherals back it up. I don't see very much. Like he's been a disappointment so far. Yes. I don't even think that's a question. 100%. And I think

like he was the basic the only non-steels guy taken in the first round who wasn't a pitcher. And so he doesn't just need to be good as a hitter. He needs to be, you know, arguably the best hitter in baseball like he was last season. I think he still will be. His exit velocity is down a little bit, but not so much that it's concerning. It's actually higher than it was in 2017,

which was his really big breakout season. You look at the batted ball profile. It all suggests that he should be just about as good as he was last season. If I could trade someone like Fernando Tatis for J.D. Martinez, I would do that right now. I think that's a great combination of buy low and sell high. He is the number 37 hitter in points, and somewhere around 40th in Roto. Pretty surprising. And there's hopefully a lot more. And his numbers are really good. It's just not totally standing out.

All right. Give me another second. He was 13th on yesterday's trade chart. Yeah, okay. Give me another second half break up. So you agree 100%. Jack Flaherty, who I was down on coming into the season and looks like I was right. But I wasn't right in the way I expected to be. I thought he would struggle with his command and control. And that really hasn't been the case.

He just hasn't been getting swings and misses on the slider and curveball. And especially the curveball has been an issue. But, you know, like the peripherals actually aren't that great. This isn't a situation where you can just look at and say, well, he has a 4-6-4. but he has a 3.6 whip or Sierra so he's going to be better. His peripherals are pretty middling, but I think in this instance, buy into the talent, buy into the pedigree, buy into it at a reduced rate because he's still that talented guy we thought he was coming into the season.

Somebody else paid that premium price for him and now you can swoop in and grab him. And I think he is someone who could have a very, very good second half. I still believe in that big talent. Man, I'm a little nervous. It's just not happening. He's been so inconsistent. And, Scott, I want to know where you are in Flaherty, but for, you know, reference,

I think it's probably pretty easy. I would trade, I would trade Tatease for Beaver. I would not even think about trading Tatees for Flaherty. I'm trying to think of guys, I would trade for Flaherty. I might trade, like, Conforto for Flaherty or something. And I like Conforto a lot. But I'm not trading anyone that I think can be elite for Flaherty, no way.

Do you think Flaherty's a buy-low? Do you believe in a second-half breakout for him? I think it's definitely possible. I'm sure I rank him higher than his performance. The date suggests. And there are a lot of – there's clear talent there. I'm not confident he's going to figure it out this year, but I am confident he's going to figure it out in the years ahead. And it could be in the second half. It feels a lot like where Luis Castillo was at this point last year. great first season really impressed everyone. The hype probably got a little too out of control in the draft

and then didn't get off to the start we thought. But in this situation, when you've got someone whose price is so deflated now, I think you just want to bet on the pedigree that he'll turn it around. If not, you're probably not going to have to give up too much for him. We've gotten emails that people are considering dropping Jack Flair, which you should not do. in yesterday's trade start.

So clearly not in the drop range. Yeah. 118th overall, not at pitcher. So just to be clear. Last breakout, you want to spotlight? Second half breakout. Andrew Heaney, I think there's no question

that he has not been good enough to be disqualified for this column. So the biggest issue so far for him right now, he's got an average launch angle on his sinker of 25. degrees. It was 15 degrees last season. So that explains a lot of the home run issues that he's having. I think eight of the nine home runs have come on that fastball. And that's not what you would expect to happen. He's getting a decent amount of whiffs with the pitch by pitching up in the zone a little

more. But that's not what you want to see from him. You want to see him getting whiffs with his curveball and change him, which are working really well so far. So for me, it's just if Andrew Heaney can keep the sinker down, I think he can have a really big second half. The strikeouts have been there so far. So it's really for me just a question of getting those home runs lower. He's not really allowing a lot of base runners. So I think moving forward, Androhany can still be a mid to high three ZRA guy with a lot of strikeouts.

And that's very valuable. And you can probably find him on the wire in a lot of league. Danny Salazar, Tyler Malley, and Justin Smoke as sleepers, Jady Martinez, Jack Flaherty, and Andrew Heaney as breakouts. And we're going to say goodbye on video right now. When we come back, we're going to talk to Dane Martinez. our guest analyst for the remainder of the show. We'll do some fill in the blank.

We'll get his second half takes and look at the most added list. And hopefully have time to read your emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, we are back here on Fantasy Baseball today. So we've got our special guest here. We got Dane Martinez of the Fantasy Sports Network. You can follow him on Twitter at Spittin' Speeds with a Z. A very cool Twitter handle.

And he hosts two shows, by the way, on Fantasy Sports. He hosts Make It Rain from 7 to 9 a.m. every Monday through Friday. And then during the football season, the fantasy freestyle from 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern Monday and Thursday during football season. Welcome to fantasy baseball today. How you doing, man? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on, guys. Oh, it's our pleasure. All right. So, we've got some fill in the blank from the listeners. And we want to hear from down. I'm going to let Dane answer first, Chris and Scott. Don't jump all over him like you always do.

No, it's fine. All right. Kind to the guest. There you go. I'm like chum to you guys. I'm just going to jump in. I'm warning you guys now. I'm just going to do it. You don't have to worry today. We know this. We know you're going to. Fair enough. It's a summer Friday. Come on, guys.

It is a summer. It's such a good mood right now. It's casual. Half days. So, Dane. First one, we just heard from Chris saying that Jack Flaherty is going to be a breakout in the second half. This was from Mike on Twitter. Zach Wheeler and Jack Flaherty will be blank and blank starting pitchers rest of season. Wheeler and Flaherty.

All right. So I think they're both, I think they could both be top 30. And it's interesting with Zach Wheeler because he's going to be an answer to one of these other fill in the blanks that we have coming up. But I think, you know, I think both of them can wind up being in the top 30. They can be reliable SP3s for you kind of moving forward. The only problem, in my opinion, I like Flaherty better because I like St. Louis better. You know what I mean? And so the problem with that, it depends on your settings. It depends on what stats you're talking about, right? If you got quality starts as a stat in your league, I'm okay with Wheeler. But the wins I just don't see coming.

And so that would be the thing that would hamper me for Wheeler. But I think they both got good stuff. And I think they both can be serviceable for the rest of the year for you. And definitely starters on your squad. I'm pretty satisfied with that answer. I don't even think there's anything that needs to be said. Well, let's go to our next one. Wheeler was also one of my breakout.

So I think they're both going to be much better in the second half than they were in the first. Yeah. Okay. It feels like the fantasy baseball today consensus is that you should be buying Zach Wheeler right now. All right, this is from Trey. This might be the one that Blank will be traded and benefit the most from it. Yeah, absolutely. Like when I saw the way you listed these questions, I was like, I'm going to be talking about Zach Wheeler a lot.

I think it's Zach Wheeler. Honestly, I do because here's the thing. You go from the dumpster fire situation that is the New York Mets. I mean literally fires going on in the Mets organization to celebrate July 4th, right? And I think there is buzz about him being moved. You know, we hear, I'm here in New York, we hear the Yankees may be interested. We hear the Bosox may be interested, right? And I think when you put him in a different situation, albeit it may be tough if he does, in fact, get traded to the ALE East.

That's a little bit of a different animal. And I acknowledge that. I understand that. They're not going to see the pitcher, you know, hitting twice, you know, twice in every start. but I still think he will benefit the most if he is in fact moved. I think Zach Wheeler would be my answer to that question. Other guys that I think could move and benefit from it, how about a guy like Nick Castellanos, you know, in Detroit?

Like that offense scores absolutely no runs. You put him in the middle of a different kind of lineup, and maybe there's more production there. Another name, if we're looking at offense, that could be on the move, that I think could benefit from another situation is a guy like Justin Smoke. Okay, I know he's one of those 220 guys, but he will hit, you know, a bunch of bombs. And if you put him in another lineup, you know,

that's contending with other guys around them, he could have an uptick in production as well. Oh, all right. We just heard before you came on, Chris was talking up Justin Smoke. Oh, really? Yeah. And Castellanos has been better.

I promise. I was not hearing this. Sure you were. So, Zach... Hasniz is having a bizarre season. I don't know if you guys know this. He's tied for the Major League lead in infield hits. Who?

Nick Castellanos has 14 infield hits. He's tied for the major league lead. That makes me a little worried just because he's hitting 282 with an outrageous number for Nicholas Castiano of infield hits. What would he be hitting if he just had a normal amount of what you would expect from him? Sure. It wouldn't be in the 280s. It would be like in the 260s or something.

But the other part for me is if he moves, odds are he's going to be in a much better offense. Right. So the idea of the people around him and the opportunity for productions and those counting stats of runs and RBIs, that sort of thing, I think that opportunity would dramatically increase if he was on the move. Scott, do you have any candidates for Blank will be traded and benefit the most from it? Well, I think he's less likely to be traded than some of the guy's name there. Certainly Wheeler, who's a free agent at season's end. But Matthew Boyd seems like somebody who would benefit a ton for being moved. and just because his name's been out there

as a possibility. He would probably be first in my list. I'm definitely rooting for him to get traded just for the win potential, which would be huge. All right. How about, let's go to this one from Nick. Joey Votto will be a top blank first baseman

in the second half of the season. Dane, Joey Votto, top blank first baseman, second half of the season. You know, Joey Votto is someone that I love, okay? Especially in this day and age. I'm very sorry that you're having such a rough season day. I know, I know. And you would think, especially with the preponderous of like the three true outcomes world that we're in,

you would think that Joey Votto is a guy that can still, you know, get me a decent batting average. But apparently that's not the case anymore, right? So, I mean, I still want to plant a flag and be a fan of his, but I can't get any higher than, say, top, I don't know, 20, maybe. You know, like he's had, he's defecated the mattress all season long. And at some point, you have to kind of take what your eyes are seeing instead of like hoping for positive regression to the back of the baseball card. So, I mean, I would love to see it get better. But I don't think it's necessarily going to happen. Top 20, 25 is the highest I can go.

What do you guys think? Joy Votto, top blank. Are we talking to hitter? First base. First base. Yeah, I'd probably put him in about the same range. There's just too many other exciting options who are actually delivering on their price. And while I'm not ready to write Votto off, you know, it's been two years in a row.

This year worse than last, where he's underwhelmed at an age when it may just be the end for him. This Joey Votto Slander will not stand. I'm going to defend baseball's best dad Vod in Joey Votto. Last 35 games, Joy Votto is hitting 344 with a 928 OPS. He's already turned it around. Joey Votto will be a top 15. first base. All right, let's talk about, so I've got some interesting numbers here.

I didn't go as far back as Chris. I went to the last 26 games. He has a 933 OPS. He's batting 315 with four home runs and seven doubles. 933 OPS. That's really good in 26 games. During that time, Joey Votto is the number 18 first baseman in points, number 22 in Roto.

Now, there's a lot that goes into that. Like I said, 933 OPS, 18th and points, 22nd in Roto. He is the 22nd most run scored among those plays. players, the 39th most RBIs, and the 13th most hits. There are actually 11 first base eligible players with a higher batting average than that 315 with a minimum of 80 at bats. So it's not that good. But here's the problem with ranking infielders these days.

When you say he's the number 18 first baseman in those 26 games, you are putting guys like DJ LeMayhew, Yuleiguriel, Max Muncie, Whitmerfield, Reese Hoskins, Kevin Biggio, Yasmani Grandal, Ian Desmond, all of them, eight of them, play different positions, can be used at different positions. So he could be in that stretch the 10th best first baseman if people were, you know. So that's kind of interesting. However, a 933 OPS hits his hot streak for him to not even be a top five. You know, if he doesn't keep that up, then he's really not going to be that good.

So there's a lot of things. Check this out, though, Adam. Like, here's another first baseman, right? That's maybe hot right now. Like, I'd rather have Jesus Aguilar than Joey Vat. No way, no, no. Haster's Aguilar's not playing. He doesn't, he sits against right.

He's often. He does get a lot. You know, but I mean, I can see him having a power surge and helping a team just as much as, you know, Jodi Joveito, like maintaining hitting well. I could see that if they commit to playing him. I have to take Vito. All right, let's do one more. Who's your favorite team day and your baseball team? Oh, I'm a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, so you know I'm a Yankee fan.

Oh, I don't have any Yankees. I do have one from Iron Mike. Glaber Torres will finish with blank than 40 home runs. That's a good number. We'll finish with just under 40 home runs. Well, you screwed up. You just said just under than 40 home runs. You didn't read the question.

Less than. Less than or equal to. That good sign with like the little line under it, less than or equal to. Okay, that's what I'll go with that. Slightly less than. How many games does he have left against the Orioles? Fair question.

I think he has six. I think he has six. That's 12 hovers. He has one more series of Camden Yards. I'll go for it. That's 12 homers there. He has 19 homers in 81 games. They have about 70 games left or so.

He will not hit 40, you'd think. But Scott, where are you on Glaber Torres? I was surprised. I was talking about this with Chris the other day. I was surprised that he's not higher in the rankings, but he hasn't had as many of bats as some of the other guys. He's, I think, the number 10, maybe 12 shortstop, because his bats are pretty low. He gets eighth in this order, you know?

Not, but that's recently. But throughout the season, like, there were times when he was bad, because of all the injuries, you know, he was batting cleanup. I think they just give him some days off every now and then. So, I don't know. Scott, Glaver Torres, is he a stud or what? I think he's pretty close to a stud. I have him 71st in yesterday's trade chart. But second base is the weakest of the infield spots.

So the fact he's eligible there helps a lot. But even so, there are, you know, like Ozzy Albies has come through again. Obviously, Telmarte. It pushes him close to the back end of the top 12 even at that position. But, I mean, I can't imagine he's owned in too many leagues where he isn't started. You know, I know every league where I have him. I never think about removing him from my lineup. So he's pretty close to a stud.

All right, cool. And, Dan, you and I have to catch a Yankees game sometime. It'll be fun. Sounds good. All right, let's take a look at the most added players here in CBSSports.com leagues. And if memory serves me, Yuleiguriel is number one on this list. And he, I think it was an Ofer yesterday. Oh, no, he's not number one.

He's one of the highest hitters, but the Nelson Lamed is number one. I do want to start with Yuleiguriel. And, Dan, your take on him, he's now 89% owned. He had homered in five straight games before the break. He'd been on the best streak of his life. How about this? rather own Yulee Gouriel or Lordus Gouriel? That's an interesting question.

I've seen it more with Yulee, right? So I like the offense. I like that Houston offense. Give me as many Astros as possible, especially as the weather gets warm over the summer, okay? I think Uri-Guriel is the brother that I would go with there. All right, all right. Well, all right, then let's take a look at the most added list, I guess, in general.

DeNelson Lomet. Chris, I know DeNelson Lemaet was in one of your articles, Sleepers or Breakouts, right? sleepers. Talk about him. Would you rather have him than Tyler Malley? I actually think I would rather have Tyler Malley. I'll take the guy with four pitches over the guy with two, although Denelson Lemaugh, both of his pitches

are very good. I just think there's probably a hard ceiling on him getting through the lineup the third time of the order. Whereas I think Tyler Malley, if he continues to develop his pitch mix, move away from that fastball, does at least have the potential to move through the order more than that.

I question whether Malley has more than one pitch. No, those pitches have been good. Like they may not be like big 12% swinging strike rate is what they're getting. That's good, isn't it? Isn't that good? No, not for a secondary. For a fastball, it's great. It depends which one.

For a curveball, it's okay. For a cutter, it's not great. And for a splitter, it's not great. But isn't there more to life than, just swinging strike rate, Scott White. This is why you don't know this. In measuring the effectiveness of a pitch, I basically just care about swinging strike rate and ground ball rate.

That's mostly all I care about. All right, but, okay. So this is why I didn't vote for Scott president, by the way. All right, whatever. Talk about the Nelson Lemette, because my take on, my take on LeMette is you're going to get five innings with seven strikeouts. Yep.

Often. But in 2019, that's pretty valuable. I think we got to reframe our frame of reference on what we expect from pitchers, especially guys who are on the waiver wire. If you get five innings, two runs, seven strikeouts from Denelson-Lemette every time out, he's going to be pretty close to must start. Oh, there's a big news item that I don't think I got to. Liam Hendricks is like the eighth most added player.

And he's just taking over it? Is he just taking over? He is the Oakland Athletics closer. He's their closer. Yeah. Wow. Dane, do you think we should drop Blake Trianan, or do you think this is temporary

until Chironin gets stuff more? Because it needs to be mentioned. Liam Hendricks is having his best year. He is not. I have shares of Leon Hendricks. You know, and the thing is he was pitching well before Trinan went down, like in a setup kind of role.

You know, so I think Hendricks is for real. And, you know, this is a thing. I say it all the time on FNTSY, the idea of you have. have to know your settings, right? And if you're in like, for example, if you're in a saves plus holds league, it doesn't matter when Trinan comes back, you know, because Hendrix is still going to get you those kind of stats, right? So I'm all in on him, whether he's wherever. I added him just before, before the All-Star break, when Trine went down, because I thought this was a little bit more

serious than people were letting on. But do you think, who is the closer in a month? Oh, I think it's Hendricks. Like, let's put it this way. If he continues to perform well, right? He hasn't given up a run in, you know, like three weeks. If he's performing well, I think it's an if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's not like Trinan is, you know, Kenley Jansen or oldest Chapman, some kind of, you know, guy like that. I think that if Hendrix is pitching well, it's like if it ain't broke, don't fix it situation, in my opinion. Yeah, and boy, Trinan's having a bad year. As a Trinan owner, I'm not dropping him yet.

But, yeah, if in a month he's not the closer and it's clear that Hendricks is, then, yeah, we'll renew this conversation in a few weeks. weeks. So I sent you the most added list, Dane, and it's a bunch of guys who are somewhere between like 30 and 70 percent owned at the top. Denelson Lemette, Danny Jansen, Alex Young, who's an Arizona starting pitcher, Andrew Cashner, Danny Salazar, and Michael Paneda. When you look at that list of Lamette, Jansen, Alex Young, Cashner, Salazar, Paneda, is there one or two that jump out of you is like, oh, they are must-owns? I don't know about must owns. I am intrigued by Lamento.

You know, this guy coming off the Tommy John, it's been so long, 18 months, right? But he was sitting in his first start back. He was sitting in like 96, 97. So it looked there. It looked good there. And he was facing, I believe it was the Dodgers when he put up just that exact line that I think Scott mentioned, like five innings, seven Ks and only two runs. And if he can do that against the Dodgers, it stands to reason that he can have those kind of starts moving forward. I'm intrigued by lament, by the way, by that comeback as a kind of new asset.

So that's someone that I would add. But honestly, I go a little bit further down the list. And I am very intrigued by Ramon Luriano out of Oakland. Okay. I think, listen, this guy has, what, 25, 25 potential, you know, in just in his rookie year. I think in Dynasty leagues, you definitely have to consider him. But that's a guy that I would be interested in. And I think you can get him in about 40% of leagues right now.

He may be the guy who I think that one of the other fill in the blanks things. Like if you own him, he can help a lot of teams win in the second half. That's my guy right there. I'm glad you mentioned. I was about to talk about Ramon Luriano. I picked him up yesterday. I dropped Oscar Mercado. That was an easy call.

He is 68% owned. So Luriano, even if it's just a hot streak, it's an extended one at this point. Write it out and enjoy it. Chris, we got A.J. Pollock, who's 78% owned. that seemed right to you? You've been kind of the Pollock guy? Yeah, I think we'll see how he does when he comes back, but I remain optimistic just because the last time we actually saw him healthy, he was hitting incredibly well and he was a swing change guy and it really looked like it had worked for him. He was on pace for by far career high

in home runs. Then he fractured his thumb. Then he comes back this season. He's dealing with this infection. I would assume pretty much from day one. I don't. I don't, think so. So, problem, but yeah, I think it's not a guarantee.

And picking him with a top 100 pick like I was doing coming into the season, clearly did not work out. But he was dropped in a lot of leagues. He's still available

in a fifth of CBSSports.com leagues. And that's the kind of, that's the kind of guy when you're looking on the waiver wire who can be an impact bat. And I definitely think if he's still available in your league and you have a roster spot to spare,

go get a, Okay. And finally, Scott, Dylan Cease is 66% own. How would you rank Dylan Cs with Denelson Lamed and Michael Paneda, who basically have the same ownership? I like all three. I'd want to own all three. I think I'm going to go, I think I'm going to go Cease number one there. I usually prefer to chase the upside when it's a possible. Like, obviously there's upside for all three of those guys, so I'm not even sure. how much that argument applies. But I do think C-Sys has the most. And

I think also probably there has been the most attention paid to him since his top prospect call-up. So if his next start is great, he's the one that somebody else is more likely to grab than the other two probably. So, yeah, I'd go

cease. Finally, last thing, I promise. Danny Duffy is 36% own. He's facing Detroit tonight. I like it as a streamer, especially if you're playing a three-day week and you don't have enough starts to fill out your roster or, you know, as many as you want. Look at Danny Duffy 36% on. The spotlight was on Chris Towers for a while, but we're going to let him go.

Goodbye, Chris. Get the heck out of here and enjoy your weekend already. Bye. Bye, man. Take it easy. Have a good one. All right. Cranky Chris is out of here.

So now we're putting the spotlight on Dan Martinez, fellow Yankees fan. That's terrific. All right, I want some second half takes from you. Guys you like, guys you don't like. what do you got for us? Sure. And, you know, one of the things I always say on my show, first of all, Adam, is like, I try to not just give you a fish.

I try to teach you how to fish, okay? And so I think that's really important because I'll give you some guys, but I want to put some overall things out there first, okay? Some of these guys that I'm going to be fading are because of, I'm worried about innings limits for some guys that there are coming up, okay? There are some guys that were great in the first half, that I'm just worried that when you need them in your push to the fantasy playoffs or in your fantasy playoffs, they're going to have starts skipped, they're going to be pulled after five innings, things of that nature.

And so I think the Atlanta Braves are really at risk of this. A guy like Max Fried, for example, okay, the highest he's ever pitched, the most innings he's ever gone, is 118 and 2 thirds. Okay, he's already at 98 and 2 thirds right now. You know, so how many more starts are we going to get out of him, you know? And the Braves have even come out and said that when it, relates to Freed, when it relates to Soroka, they are going to watch this. They are going to manage this. So I'm a little bit worried about guys like that. I mean, I think they're great.

Chris Paddock almost falls into the same area for me, okay? This is a guy who through 90 innings last year is already at 82. And the catch here is he's a Scott Boris client. Okay. We've seen Scott Boris do this before with Matt Harvey, with Strausberg. So that's something I'd watch out for. Interesting. Yeah. And kind of overall ideas here of people that I might sell for 80 cents on the dollar, you know. And then another kind of thing that is conceptually here, and this may be, I know if you're listening to this podcast, you could be deep in like an AL or NL only league. You know, guys that might move, guys that might get traded and evaporate from your player universe, I think are a big time concern. Like, say like a Marcus Stroman,

for example, or Zach Wheeler that we were talking about. What are you going to do now? You've been riding a guy like Stroman, you know, as one of your top three SPs, and what do you do if he's just gone if he gets traded to the Padres or something like that. So these are some of the things in the bullpen. A lot of closers could be on the move. Kirby Yates, Shane Green, Felipe Vasquez, you know, so those are things I really look out for at this point of the season to try to get ahead of it. So you're not left holding the bag just in case innings limit or trade impacts kind of happen. But in terms of kind of what I call my diamonds in the rough guys that I think you can grab right now. AJ Pollock is one of them. I agree. I think the other thing I do is I follow

the money. They gave him four years, $55 million. They're going to give him every opportunity to play. I think if you're a verdugo owner, it could be a problem. I'm on, listen, I'm on Kevin Biggio, okay, as someone who could kind of help you out in the second half. We talked about the second base position. He had a 59% hard hit rate in June, okay? And he has only like a 220 average, but that hard hit rate could show to me that something could be clicking a little bit for him. So I'd be intrigued to follow him in the second half. arm for me is Brandon Woodruff. All right. Like this is a guy, I mean, his babbip, the babb against him in June was 361.

That's going to have some positive regression. He's in June he had a 478 ERA, but his FIP was 265. His X FIP was 301. I think those are numbers, peripheral numbers that will help him, you know, kind of be a little bit better moving forward. So I think you're in for kind of an increase in productivity or satisfaction when it comes to Woodruff. And he's, you know, he's had a decent season already. Yeah. Good. So I would call him a buy high. I, you know. Okay. Yeah, because somebody offered me Woodruff for Gary Sanchez.

No, really? And it's like, if I were drafting today, I'd probably take Sanchez over Woodruff, but it's just, it's just because of track record, you know. But I think it's a reasonable deal. I think Woodruff could be that valuable. There's just so many strikeouts there. And I just, I wonder, Dane, because you brought up the concern with the innings limit, how concerned would you be? If that applies there. For Woodruff, yeah, because, I mean, hasn't pitched much the past couple years. I think it's career high in the minors with 164, and that was back in 2017 or something. Yeah, I think that's valid.

I think that's possible, you know. But also the brewers are going to need every start they can get, right? As opposed to, say, the Dodgers, right? With a guy like even a Walker Bueller type, you know, who would, oh, my God, he's at the top of my rotation. lot of leagues. You know, if they say, oh, you can only go 170 this year, that would really be a problem. But I think the brewers are going to need him more down the stretch, so maybe they push it a little further with him.

Sorry, Scott, let me just give the numbers that you were referencing. Last year, Woodruff pitched 103 and two-thirds. Somebody said 113 and two-thirds. It's one of the two. And this year, he's thrown 108. So he's basically at where he was in 2018. It was 2016, Scott, when Woodruff threw 158 innings. that was a season high.

There you go. Yeah. So Scott, talk. The correction there. No, not a correction. Just I wanted to write a clarify.

Talk about Scott, what you think about Woodruff and also what you talked about with the Braves guys earlier this week. Yeah. So I'm pretty much on the same page with Woodruff. I mean, the Brewers don't have another good starting pitcher.

He's so clearly their ace that I think it might be, I was surprised how the Dodgers kind of turned Walker Bueller loose last year when he had even more concerning innings history there, and they had other starting pitcher options. So, I mean, if the Dodgers are kind of willing to throw caution to the wind in that way, I think it's reasonable to expect any team who's going to be in the playoff mix to do that. And I'd actually heard, I'd actually seen something different, an interview with Alex Anthopoulos, Braves GM, I think it was on the athletic,

where he kind of, and I didn't totally believe him. but it was a pretty convincing answer where he talked about how he doesn't really believe in innings limits for the young guys, how he's planning to just ride Soroka and Max Freed as far as as far as they need to take them.

Again, I don't really believe him, but he had pointed to past instances during his time with the Blue Jays, during his time with the Dodgers, where we tried it with this guy and he still got hurt, we tried it with this guy and he still got hurt. Like, so I'm, I still think, I still expect them to at least skip some starts down the stretch,

give guys like Tuki Tucson a chance, Kyle Wright, another chance. So I don't totally believe them. But it, but even if they start him and they pull them after five, you know, you get, like, let's say you're in a quality starts league, right? And they pull them 90 pitches, stuff like that. That still hampers, you know, the value that you think you have going into it with these guys. Yeah. Freed has struggled enough, I think, recently to skip him a couple times. I'd be interested to see what happens with Soroka.

But, yeah, I just want to say. It's also worth noting that Freed, and I don't know, I guess, he was in the rotation from the very beginning, right? He hasn't spent any time in the minors this year. He's only on pace. He's on pace for less than 180 innings. So just if he sustains that pace, it's not like a crazy number we're talking about. If there's one player in a dynasty league that I am higher on than anyone, I would say it's probably Max Fried.

Like, I really like him. There's been some skepticism about him, and he's having a really good year. 429 ERA is not great, but strikeout training, good control. Like, I really like Max Fried. I think the future is bright for Freed. I don't know if the second half of 2018 is bright for,

of 19, is bright for Freed, Scott, but I really like him next year. He's a guy who's underperformed his ex-fit. You know, so many pitchers we talk about, you know, we see, wow, he's doing great, but look how high to X-FIP is. And Freed's the other way. Great ground ball pitcher.

Him and Soroka both have that in common. Neither is, you know, even a strikeout per inning guy. Soroka's not particularly close to that. But you can make up for it with ground ball rates that high. So, yeah, I think Freed's numbers should be better than they are. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see as these innings pile up, in the second half if he's going to rebound from this recent rough stretch or if he's going to continue to slide.

Because I could see it going either way. But I do like the skills for Max Breed. And I do agree. He's definitely a dynasty asset. All right. Let's read some emails to finish the show at fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Dame, we only have about five minutes left. So we probably have to answer these sort of quickly.

I do this to my guys all the time. Like here's a question that's really interesting. Answer it in 15 seconds. This is from Mike. basically wants to know, does Andrew Benintendi's batted ball data suggest his second half will be significantly better than his first? Yeah. You know, why not?

You know, you want me to give you a quick, concise answer? Sure, I'll trust Ben and Tendi moving forward. And the note in the email was also that he's undropable, right? So in that situation, it doesn't matter. But no, I'm down to even as a Yankee fan, Adam, I'm down to still have some faith in Benetendi. His fly ball rate is way up, so he should be, you know, having more power. But Andrew Benetendi has not homered in a long time.

I'm just, like, I can't even blame the counting stats anymore because the Red Sox are I think the second highest scoring team in baseball now. So he's just having a crappier. It will probably get better. It's just the question of how good is Andrew Benetendi, really. From Jordan, with A.J. Pollock coming off the IL. who should I drop to make room for Pollock? Jackie Bradley Jr., Jorge Soler, Yandy Diaz, or Dan Vogelbach?

Dan, what do you think? You know, generally, the thing is, or do I not take Pollock? You know, I believe in Pollock, but like I also kind of want to see it before I invest in it. But if I was going to cut one of these guys, and this is just a personal preference, I have always been lower on Jorge Soler than most. I just always have. I don't know that I believe in his quote unquote light tower power, you know, that sort of thing. And, you know, the Royals offense just does not excite me.

So if it was going to be someone that I was lower on, it would be Solair. But I would sort of kind of wait to see if Pollock, you know, hits the ground running starting this weekend in Boston. Scott, who would you cut? Soler, Bradley, Yandy Diaz, or Dan Vogelbach? I cut Bradley, acknowledging that he's been much better over the past few weeks. than his overall season numbers. It changes probably a little, depending on the format. Like Yanti Diaz is much better in points leagues.

So if you weren't in a points league, you could think about him. But Pollock does rank pretty low on this list for players. I'd want a roster. I would put Bradley behind him, though. Okay. This is from Irving. Dan, I'll give this one to you. Would you drop Armand Marquez for Jack Flaherty or Dylan Sees?

You know, I know Hermann Marquez is clearly the best Colorado Rocky out there, but the idea of Coorsfield is something that you can't really trust on a consistent basis, right? So I'd be comfortable with that, sure. Scott, for you from Sean, what is your opinion of Eric Lauer rest of season? He's been pretty great other than at Coors Field. That's true. Yeah, well, how is he being pretty great? because he's not missing a lot of bats.

He's not a great ground ball pitcher. He has avoided home runs, but I don't think in a way that's believable. Curious what his ex-fip is, because I'd imagine it's much higher than the ERA, and I'm not sure how quickly I'm going to be able to pull that up. But, yeah, I don't have a lot of faith in Eric Lauer. I would not be putting much trust in him. 465 is the ex-fib. Yeah, but that obviously includes the two Colorado starts.

That's 13 earn runs and 5-2-3rd. You take that out, you know, and Eric Lauer probably has a low to mid-3s-ERA. But yeah, the strikeout rate is pretty damn low, so it's kind of hard to believe. And I'll let both of you answer this one. I was surprised at my own answer when push came to shove from Garrison. I just got offered mooky bets for Charlie Blackman in a 10-team 5-5 categories league. What would you do? And I answered Garrison, and I started writing, I typed out, I'd take bets.

over Blackman, and then I backspaced, and I said no. In a categories league with the way course field is playing this year, there is no justification for taking Mookie Betts over Charlie Blackman, his batting average, his power, his stat, everything but steals. Blackman is crushing Mookie Betts. Probably not runs. Betts still scored a ton of runs. I got to take Charlie Blackman over bets.

I'm sorry, I got to do it. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not taking Charlie Blackman over Mookie Betts Because what you have to remember about Charlie Blackman When you look at his numbers is He entered June batting 300 with a 921 OPS

I mean still good but like we're catching him at the end of like An ridiculous hot street You know who wishes he entered June with a 921 OPS? Yeah Mookie bets Yeah numbers aren't that far off from that He's got an AEEEEE

860-ish OPS, 859, I think. Yeah. I'm with you on the Blackman side. You talk about this being like a ridiculous hot streak. At what point is it not a hot streak? This is who Charlie Blackman is. Right. And I mean, it's not, so that's the way I would see it.

And I agree with you at. I think I would lean towards Blackman. It's two out of three years where Blackman's completely elite. Also, here's a fun stat. I'm not saying he's not elite. Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, since the start of June he is a 395 back. which is which is not that crazy in course field like he could have a 350 bad bit but those gaps are wide

we're talking in the trade chart we're talking about the difference between my number four player and my number 15 players so you know I'm not I'm not trying to trash Charlie blackman here why do you hate Charlie blackman so much well I take bets in a points league this is a category like bets is actually outscored Charlie blackman in points but blackman way ahead of him in rode out in categories. Last note here, it's just kind of funny. Blackman's batting 3.30. Betts is batting 23.

That is 57 points more of batting average for Blackman. And Betts has a higher OBP. Betts has 48 more walks than Charlie Blackman this year. So if it's an OBP league, maybe I take bets. But if it was a batting average league, I got to take Charlie Black. Who scored more runs? Betts has scored 10 more runs. Okay.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Dave. Thank you for joining us. Follow him on Twitter. It was at Spitting Speeds with a Z. There you go, man. It's great to hear from you. We appreciate you coming on.

Have a great weekend. Thanks a lot, guys. For Scott, for Dane, for Chris, I'm Adam. Have a great weekend to all of you out there. We'll talk to you Monday on Fantasy Baseball.