Fantasy Baseball Today - 07/18: "Movin' On Up," Prospects and Breakout Stars (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 18, 2019

Yu Darvish was a clear standout yesterday and he headlines a list of SPs who may be "movin' on up" the rankings (5:30). Who else is trending up? Is Robbie Ray in that group? Also, have you noticed how good Josh Donaldson has been (13:38)? And find out why Adam isn't ready to drop Daniel Ponce de Leon yet ... Breakout stars (17:40)? Are Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Ramon Laureano really this good? Plus news and notes (21:00), Jose Altuve and Jose Ramirez streaks (25:50), fun emails (30:30) and a good Dee Gordon stat (34:10) ... Scott tells you the prospects you need to stash (36:10) before we discuss the best hitters (39:00) and SPs (49:10) from yesterday's games. We talk Trey Mancini, Mark Canha, Eduardo Escobar, Mike Clevinger, Chris Paddack and more ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS sports. One, one pitch, basketball pulled and fast. Alvarez and toward the corner. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Get ready to win your league. We're fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris.

Fantasy baseball today on Thursday, July 18th. Welcome, everybody. What's going on? I'm Adam Azer. I'm going to put Scott White on the spot. Spot White. to start the show. Are you ready? Scott on the spotlight. I always do so well on the spot. Yeah, I know. That is my strength. Spontaneity. Your favorite thing. Okay. How many players

hit two home runs yesterday? Oh, this has become your favorite question. Yeah, well, we're getting a lot a lot these days. Uh, I'm going to say five. You are incorrect. The answer is six. Now, how many can you name? Well, of course, there is Tyler O'N. Neil. He hit two, right? No, he hit one. I think he hit one. Oh, okay. Oh, for one. If I peaked in by notes, I could probably name a few. Nope. Let's see. Scott Tenneity.

Oh, I've spoiled it for myself now. You're just going to have to, you're just going to have to name. Okay, we have Tray Mancini. Snap to Slump. Let me see if I can name them. Trey Mancini, Teoscar Hernandez, Mark Kana, Jurekson, Profar, Oh, Eduardo Escobar. And I think I'm forgetting one person. Who am I forgetting? Double dongs.

Danny Santana. Of course. So interesting, Danny Santana. Well, we have a double don't know. I prefer Danny Santana, but I don't know how he feels about that. Okay. Either way, I think as long as he's playing, I'm sure he'll be fine with it. Well, anyway, welcome to the Thursday show, everybody.

There were really a lot of action yesterday. We had a near or no hitter in Miami with the San Diego Padres and Chris Paddock. Mike Clevenger with a great start. I just offered up Fernando Tatis from Mike Clevenger. Let's see if that happens because I believe in Mike Clevenger. I believe that we will win if we have Mike Clevenger on our team. U. Darvish was great. Chris Archer was good.

And we'll get to all that. Scott. How about who stood out to you in Wild Wednesday? I think the biggest standout is probably U.S. Darvish what he's done now and back-to-back starts where the line is very similar and very excellent six innings two hits and both of them seven k's in this one eight case last time zero walks in this one one one one last time and in fact over his past seven starts he has a combined six walks now my line on you Darvish all year is you know what the stuff still looks

good. He's still missing a lot of bats. If he can get the walks under control, I think he can still dominate. And he hasn't dominated for this whole six-start stretch, but it's been much better in the last two of course been dominant. Joe Madden said he hasn't seen him

with this much confidence in his fastball command before. You Darvish himself said, I don't need anything right now. It's perfect. Everything. So that's exciting. Very exciting. There's only one thing that you said that I don't really care about, and that's the three most insignificant words in fantasy baseball,

which are, quote, Joe Madden said, because Joe Madden pumps up his guys all the time. But here's what you Darvish said. I think Chris and Heath read this quote on yesterday's show. Darvish said this before yesterday's start. He said, quote, so last year I had the elbow issue and I was doing rehab for eight weeks. most of the time I'd feel the pain with the fastball.

I would try to feel less pain with a different arm slot. That's why this year, the first eight weeks, I had a weird feeling for the fastball. I don't have any pain in the elbow, but I think my brain remembered that. So he's obviously working through something. I'm encouraged. I think he's the kind of guy, Scott, that can trick you a little bit. You know, it could look good, and then something goes awry. Because the last two starts, he hasn't given up a home run.

I mean, he only has six walks issued in his last seven starts. That's awesome. But he's avoided a long ball. He hasn't given up any runs in his last two starts. So, yeah, I feel like you got to take a somewhat cautious approach, but like an encouraged, optimistic, cautious approach with you, Darvish, right? Fair to say? Yes, I don't know if I'd be particularly motivated to buy or sell him right now.

I mean, it doesn't hurt to put him out there. Or to make an offer for him if you're actually feeling like you're buying low or selling high. but I'm not totally confident I would get a satisfactory offer on either end because the overall numbers still aren't very good and because the upside is so high. It's ace high. If not true ace, then like just outside the top 20, I think is the upside he has. But I would be putting him back in my lineups if I had him out and I would be pretty happy right now if I stood with him this. old time. Okay.

So in terms of Darvish, you know, how would you describe what he might be doing in your rankings, Scott? So I... Would you say he is... What do you think? Do you like that? Move it out up. I can see you like that. I love it.

It's such a fun song. Who doesn't love this song? So, Darvice is one of four pitchers that I wanted to ask you about that appear to be moving on up, trending in the right direction. Chris Archer. you Darvish, Robbie Ray, and Sunny Gray.

A little rhyme there. Chris Archer, you Darvish, Robbie Ray and Sunny Gray. When you look at that group of four, yeah, who's moving on up? Well, Darvish is.

I didn't make a super aggressive move up my rankings with him yesterday. I feel like I had been, I hadn't buried him in my rankings at any point. I was still, you know, wanting to make sure I ranked him high enough that he'd be on my roster. So he's just inside the top 50 now. You know, I could be talked into as high as top 40,

but I didn't want to move him ahead of guys like Cole Hamils, Robbie Ray, which putting him in the top 40 would do. Others moving up. Oh, Sunny Gray, of this group, Sunny Gray made the biggest move for me for sure, because his biggest issue doesn't seem to be an issue anymore, and that was pitching deep into, I mean, he's legitimately pitching deep into games now. I don't even think he had to pitch deep into games necessarily.

He just had to start throwing more than five at a time. And this start yesterday was this fourth straight of six plus innings. And yeah, he's, it's, the ratios look really good and have pretty much all year. So I think he's a must-star pitcher now. Okay. He is just outside my top 40. I'm 41st right now. The other two, so Darvish and Gray are moving up.

Chris Archer and Robbie Ray. Now, Archer yesterday did not really throw his change up much, but he had been pitching a little bit better lately and throwing his change up more. He only threw it 6% of the time. It had been closer to 12% of the time in his previous four starts. But this is the first time Chris Archer, has had back-to-back quality starts since April, his second and third starts of the season, I believe. So Archer, you know, unfortunately a lot of his good starts are like six-innings three runs,

and the ERA is not that good, but 18 strikeouts and 12 innings over his last two starts. You know, obviously Archer's been a source of frustration on this podcast and for everyone, but where are you on him right now? I'm encouraged. Like you said, he barely got a quality start his last two-starts. start. So how encouraged should we be? Well, I know the first start was kind of an issue where maybe they left him in too long and a couple of those runs actually came off the bullpen. There were inherited runners. But the bullpen didn't do archer any favors. Right. You're right.

But, I mean, he's made a conscious change here where he was trying to expand his arsenal at the start of the season because things went so wrong from last season. And then he just reached a point here before the All-Star break where he was like, I got to look at what I did in my best years with the race. And that was emphasizing the fastball. And the slider, which is one of the best sliders in all the majors, and 95 of his 101 pitches in this start were either the four-seem fastball or the slider. But that's not good.

That's what it's like the storyline before this because Chris was, well, Chris was writing about this. All right, fine. I won't say it's not good. I'll just say it's different because what it looked like as he was making progress that he was expanding his arsenal and he was throwing his change up more. And now in this start, Scott, Archer goes out and basically goes back to being a two-pitch pitcher. And I don't think that's been working for him. Well, this is what he says he wants to do.

And it is who he was in his best years. And I know a thing we talked about back then was, man, imagine how good he could be if he did have a good third pitch. But, you know, that hasn't been working out for him so well. And I think he should aim to be the best pitcher he is as opposed to some idealized version. that he may never, he may never be able to reach. So I think it's a, I think it's a good development. All right. So let me, let me just say why I don't, this is our first argument about Chris Archer.

So I would argue though, well, maybe it's not that strong of an argument. But I would argue that he really has been a two-pitch pitcher, even in his worst times, that the change-up usage increase was kind of a more recent development, although I'm looking at his game log, and I don't know how true that is. Maybe you're right that earlier this year he was trying to use his change up too much. I don't know. I feel like there's been bad Chris Archer when he's just been a two-star pitcher. And the reason why is I don't think his fastballs is good anymore.

It doesn't throw his hard. So, all right, well, that's, you know what? We spent enough time talking about Chris Archer. Robbie Ray is the last guy. Interesting what's going on with him. He had one quality start in his first 12 starts. He has seven, six quality starts in his last nine. nine starts. He's been good lately. His last three starts in particular, I believe, have been

very good for Robbie Ray. We know the strikeouts are awesome, but the walks are way down. As the walks have come down for Ray, sorry, for Ray. As the walks have come down for Ray, the home runs have gone up. He's given up 14 home runs in his last nine starts. Those are his six quality starts. So yeah, Baltimore and at Miami next week. So he could continue a nice little stretch here. what do you think right now about Robbie Ray? Is he moving on up? Well, as I said after his last start, he's gotten his, in this recent stretch, he's gotten his BV per 9 down below 4, which still isn't very good,

but it's a big improvement for him and maybe enough to make him a fantasy asset again. I mean, if it makes him just efficient enough to go six innings with consistency, with his strikeout rate, that's going to be a big step in it of itself. I think the upside is limited. heading into last year we were talking about him as a potential ace and I think that's unrealistic but can he be more or less a must-start option I think he can and I think the way he's trending recently has me thinking of him that way now yeah okay that's Robbie Ray good stuff and two good matchups next week Scott we have a lot to get to today so I'm going to give you two more standouts

and I just want your quick thoughts on them before I get to that we have two sponsors on today's show. We have Seatgeek. If you want to save $10 $10 on your first Seekkeek purchase, and this is to go to games, concerts, comedy, whatever. I think I'm going to go to a Yankees game pretty soon. First place I'm going to look is Seekek. Going to buy those tickets. But if you want $10 off, use the promo code fantasy on SeatGeek. Promocode is fantasy.

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Josh Donaldson is one of my standout, Scott. He homered yesterday. Before yesterday, in his 30 games prior to yesterday, he was a top 15 hitter. He was eighth in points and 15th in Roto with a 282 batting average, 13 home runs, good plate discipline, 1071 OPS. And we had been saying before this hot streak that he was hitting the ball really hard. So if anything that I take away from Donaldson, it's that hard contact rate is possibly my favorite advanced stat when trying to predict future outcomes.

Okay, yeah. How do you feel about that? I think it's important. I mean, if we're looking at a percentage like that, I prefer ground ball rate and how low it is. You know, really all three of line drive rate, ground ball rate, fly ball rate, because those are a good indicator, both power production and batting average potential. But, I mean, if we want to be more precise, you know, I think ex-wobun,

to a lesser extent, XBA, sum it up pretty well, which is why I've been citing them so frequently this season. And I will point out that even with this recent binge for Donaldson, his woe buzz less than his ex-wova. The way he's batting the ball still suggests that there's more ground to make up. So that's very encouraging. He was a guy who I moved up a lot in my, In my Roto trade chart, the top 250 for Roto, which is going to be published today.

Okay. But since it's a little easier to put it in context in like a points league, his head-to-head points per game now are higher than some notable players like Javier Baez and Yon Mokata. Well, that's a play discipline thing. But he probably has just been straight up better than them. He's been, he's having a good year. 22 home runs, 21 doubles, and 93 games. But got off to a terrible start. Now, he's red-hot.

Daniel Ponce de Leon is 53% own. Now, I personally am not going to drop him. He gave up eight hits in three and two-thirds. Seven of them were singles. So it was a bad start. I want to see one more. He's a two-star pitcher next week for now. There's a lot of rumors that the Cardinals could acquire a starting pitcher.

If you want to drop him, I totally understand he was the most added player in fantasy. I'm going to hang on to Daniel Ponce-Delio, and I want to see one more start. His next start will be at Pittsburgh, the same team that just clobbered him yesterday. I want to ask you about some breakout stars. We will talk about Lord Escorial, Jr. and Ramon Luriano. Are they true stars?

Are we seeing something special here or just an extended hot streak? That's coming up next on Fantasy Baseball today. Since being recalled on May 24th, Lorde Scoriel is the number eight hitter in points leagues and number four in Roto. May 24th, he's batting 3.20. 24 with 17 home runs. You go back a little before that,

Ramon Luriano got hot on May 19th. Since then, he's the number 14 hitter in points league's number seven in Roto. Both these guys are better in Roto than points. Their plate discipline is not so good. Lordus Gouriel Jr. and Ramon Luriano. But Luriano in his last 49 games is batting 315 with 14 home runs at nine steals. Scott, when you look at Guriel Jr. and Luriano, Luriano's still just 78% home, by the way.

still might be available in your leagues. Do you think we're seeing legit breakouts or just extended hot streaks? I think there are enough changes in Gurriel's batted ball tendencies that I'd be most comfortable saying legit breakout for him. Now, obviously, he's not this good. But is he a power hitter? Yes. Is he a good enough power hitter to ban your lineup all year? I think there's a very good chance of that.

And there may be for Luriano as well, but I feel, you know, while Buriel isn't this good, Luriano during his hot streak isn't that good either. He's probably as good as his season long numbers, which still put him in the range of, okay, this guy probably needs to be starting in all formats, but, you know, he understand Luriano is at his hottest right now and is going to cool off at some point.

Would you rather have Luriano or David Dahl? Dahl. Would you rather have Luriano or Justin Upton? Upton. All right, Luriano or Lorenzo Cain? You're in the right range there. I don't want to contradict my rankings, but I would lean Luriano right now, I think.

Okay. Would you rather have Guriel or Eduardo Escobar who double-donged? Eduardo Escobar. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right, Scott.

How about one more? Lordis Gouriel or Dansby Swanson? Oh, man. I think, I think Gereel. We almost got a heat sigh out of you. That was a tough one, I guess. You're asking tough questions. It's what I do.

I'm most likely to start Gouriel. Does he have second base eligibility? eligibility garrille i can't remember i think so uh i think i'm most likely to be starting him in the outfield but you know second base is a possibility as well shortstop is less likely but it's an option i mean quadruple eligibility that's obviously a rare and valuable thing if he in fact has it yes uh so uh it up okay all right news and notes for you adroberto mondesies on the aisle with a shoulder subluxation there's no time timetable for his return, which is never a good thing, Scott.

You think who will miss more than a month at Alberto Montesey? I would guess not the way they're talking about it. It's going to be re-evaluated in seven days. Not that that means he'll be better in seven days, but it doesn't sound like a severe case. So I'm hopeful he's not, but it's certainly possible. Nick Senzel left with a hamstring injury, but he downplayed it, thinks he might be able to play today.

Mike Trout sat again, but he thinks he could put. play today. A role this Chapman denied a report that he will opt out of his contract after this season. We'll see what happens. Hector Nerris has suspended three games and Noe Ramirez. I don't know if I said that right. No way did I say that right, I think. He's suspended three games. Both of these relief pitchers threw at batterers because they're jerks. So, no, they're not jerks, but they shouldn't have done that and they got suspended. Rogelio Armenteros is going to start for Houston on Sunday. Any interest? Less interested than I was in Bromber Valde. and we see how that turned out.

But I mean, Astros have a really good track record with pitcher. And Armenteros has an interesting minor league track record. Scouting reports have never been that high on him. But, you know, he was good on him failing out Valdez the other day. And I will at least be interested in seeing how this turns out for him. I'm not rushing to add him in all but very deep league, though. David Dahl, Matt Chapman, Kenley Jansen, and Gene Seguerra are all day to day. so is Jonathan Scope, who has a mild abdominal strain.

Max Scherzer could start on Sunday. Two Red Sox are going out on rehab assignments. Nate Avaldi today and Mitch Moreland tomorrow. Gerard Dyson left with a hamstring cramp. He's day-to-day. Jordan Alvarez is bothered by a knee injury right now. He's been a little cold, and he's been dealing with his knee injury. So that's just something to keep in mind.

Reisel Osses is on paternity leave, and Elo Jimenez is on the aisle with an ulnar nerve contusion. And the Yankees acquired Terence Gore, who will maybe not surface until September, but he will probably be on their postseason roster so he can pinch run and steal bases. Baseball stuff. There's a category called baseball stuff.

I don't know what else is on the show, but this is baseball stuff. Yeah. We might as well spend that aside. Right? Yeah. We might as well spend some time on baseball. Ryan McMahon is 41% owned.

And you just need to know that he is slashing 304, 372-507 at home. And he's batting 2-11 with a 3-11 with a 3-1% 33-33-slugging it on the road. They're on the road all next week. So if you own Ryan McMahon, you know what to do with him. Whitmerfield is batting 4-10 during a 15-game hitting streak. Pete Alonzo is obviously in a home-run derby-related slump.

He was one-for-17 going into yesterday's game, and then he hit a 474-foot home run. So he's back in the derby mode. Maybe he'll get hot. Rafael Devers is having an amazing season, but you should know. He has made 15 errors. Yikes. and who has the longest winning streak in baseball?

And who is the second longest? Why, let's go to the Bay Area. Scott, the A's are on a six-game winning streak. The Giants are on a five-game winning streak. The Giants, Scott White, are two and a half games out of the second wildcard spot. Yeah, that kind of shows you, I mean, how tight things are when you have two wild-card spots.

And really the Marlins are definitively out of it. the Mets are getting pretty close, I think. I think the team with the third worst record is the Reds in the NL, and yet they have a positive run differential. So I'm not sure how many sellers they're going to be in the NL, really. That'll be interesting to see, because we're less than two weeks away from the trade deadline, and it's the trade deadline this year.

Right. You've got to commit to being in or out on July 31st. So that's, that's going to be, that's going to be fun. And by the way, the Indians are now only four games back of the twins. Yeah. And the team that leads the National League wildcard race is the Nationals, who I think in May, people were talking about should the Nationals trade Max Scherzer? Yeah.

Like, I feel like every year people forget how long baseball season is. And, I mean, you could have looked at specific. the pitching talent on both of those clubs and figured, you know what, they're probably going to navigate the slog that is baseball season pretty well. And the A's are only four and a half back of the Astros now. A's are playing great baseball,

eight and two in their last 10, six in a row. I think they're like 13 and two in the last, something crazy. They're on fire. All right, here's a category. Here's a segment called Yes Way, Jose. What do you think, Scott? Sure.

Sure, right. Why not? Jose Altuve and Jose Ramirez. So Altuve is really not having a good season. He stole a base yesterday. In his last five games, he is batting 458 with a home run, a steal, and three doubles. One walk to seven strikeouts. That's his last five games.

The game before that, he went one for five, but he homered. He is having a power increase this year. Career high, ISO, tied for a career high. Not surprising. But only three steals in 62 games. But Al Tuvei, last five games, 458 batting average. Ramirez, last 18 games, he's batting 353 with three home runs, three steals. 18 games, he scored 17 runs.

He's driven in 12. Six walks to seven strikeouts, seven doubles. I'm a little worried about the home runs because two of them came in one game, but he has doubled in four straight games. At the very least, Jose Ramirez is looking right now like a points league beast with amazing plate discipline and a ton of doubles, like two years ago. But yeah, are you encouraged by both Jose's, Altuve and Ramirez? Yeah, I'm encouraged.

And you look at Jose Ramirez, I take it back a little further. I take it back 25 games he's batting 316 with a 928 OPS4 home runs in less than 100 of bats, four steals. You know, certainly if you translate that out over a full season, you're talking about pretty close to a first-round caliber player, I would think. But this is his hottest stretch of the season and is fair to evaluate him on that. I mean, the BABIP is 3.07 during that time, which is what we would normally think as sustainable. Just like I was slow to, just like I wasn't quick to rush to judgment when he fell off a clip.

I'm not, I'm not totally sure he's back. But it's encouraging. Obviously, you've needed to hold on to him this time, all this time. And it's encouraging. That's as far as I'll go with it. Altuveh, though, I mean, the fact that he's outside in this roto trade yard I did yesterday, he's right around 50th for me overall, which may be foolish. I mean, he could just decide to start running again someday.

That's often how it works with stolen bases, honestly. But yeah, I'm not counting on them. Now, maybe the fact that there's more power once his batting average normalizes, and I think the batting average will normalize. He may be starting to. Will that be enough to overcome the lack of homers? Maybe. But, you know, he's been talking all year like the knee isn't 100% still.

And I just think there's a lot of things to worry about with Jose Altuve. Wow. Okay. Would you rather have Zander Bogarts or Jose Altuvei? I know they play different positions, but. Bogarts. Bogarts. Yeah, he's, I think he's in my top 20 in this last one.

I moved him ahead of Trevor's, Trey Turner and Trevor. story and Francisco Lendor, which I feel like the difference between them was pretty superficial anyway. But I went ahead and moved Bogarts to the top of that group. Bogart's what he's been. The silent superstar.

We never talk about him. He's just awesome. He's like a 940-ish OPS or something. All right, Scott, when we come back, we'll talk about Clevenger. We'll talk about Paddock. We'll talk about Kichel, Homer Bailey, Danny Duffy. I like Danny Duffy. We got screwed on Danny Duffy

in that start last week. I'm telling you, he was going to have another good start. We have some really fun emails and an interesting stat about Dee Gordon and prospect talk. That's coming up next on Fantasy Baseball today. Our email address is Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Here's email of the day number one. It's from Jonathan. Guys, I'm a regular listener. I caught a home run at the Indians game with my wife. We had free tickets, and it was after a couple of deflections, but I still got it to Nick Castiano's home run.

How rare is it to catch a home run? Would you be excited about it? I was beyond excited. I mean, I don't have odds for you, but it's pretty rare. I mean, how many home runs get hit in a game? 15. And, I mean, obviously, it's, you know, you have to be sitting in the right section to have a chance at an event. Would you be excited? Scott, I would be so excited. Scott, you remember when I met Bill Clinton?

I do. Do you remember that? How could I forget? I just wanted to bring that up again. No, I would be almost as excited to catch a home run as I would to meet Bill Clinton. Now, if I, okay, 10 on the Clinton-on-o meter, like meeting Clinton was a 10. Catching a home run would be about an eight and a half. Catching a foul ball would still be like at least a six.

I mean, yeah, it would, it wouldn't excite me as much as it probably would have 20, 25 years ago. But it would still excite me more so than a foul ball. No, that's what's what's... A foul ball would be serious. I mean, I haven't caught either. I've caught foul balls at a college game when there was like 30 people there. I think I had to run down and get it.

Okay, email the day number two is from Jason. My question is about a former player. If Bo Jackson had went strictly baseball and never got the hip injury, what do you think he would have been as a player and as a fantasy baseball player? Could you compare Bo Jackson to a modern player? Oh, that's... I mean, the little bit he played, he had a horrid plate discipline, which, I mean, maybe if he had focused on it more baseball through his life, it would have been better. I think there's a reasonable chance of that, certainly athletically.

He gets, you know, Yasio Pui gets compared to Bo Jackson. Right. And really, Bo Jackson, I think, had only one year where he was super productive. I don't know if it was quite a 30-30 season, but he definitely had 30 home runs. He had a 32-26 season in 135 games, and he had a 28-15 season in 111 games. That was an 8-76 OPS.

He also had a 25-27 season. He's pretty good. He had a three-year run from 88 to 90 when he was, certainly from a fan agency perspective with that power speed combo good. However, you know, the OPSs were 758, 805, 866. Yeah, but that's probably good back. Like an 805 OPS was probably pretty good.

Well, yeah. You know what? The 866, the OPS plus was 142, which is definitely high. Yeah, 124. Okay. Yeah, it's pretty good. So preparing this. Yeah, it was pretty good.

It was pretty good. The war, the highest war he had was 3.5, but that was in 111 games. Not bad. Yeah. Man, I'm trying to think of a comparable modern. There are so few that deal bases. Puegan. Byas jump out to me. Bad plate discipline and home runs and steals.

Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe Bias might be on the high side based on these numbers, but, you know, we're assuming he would have played baseball, gotten an earlier start on baseball, devoted more attention to it. And that might have been, that might have brought him to Bay his level. I think that's pretty good. All right. Tweet of the day comes from Frank Stample. Remember him? He's been on our show. He was on HQ. I noticed D. Gordon only had 16 stolen bases this season, so I looked into his stat-cast sprint-speed, and here are D-Gordon's sprint-speed ranks the past four seasons. 12th, 18th, 53rd, and 93rd. He says, I guess that's your answer. Looks like D. Gordon is losing a step.

So I put D. Gordon on the Worryometer yesterday. I think Heath and Chris, I got to tell you, they're not probably going to listen. They did a terrible job in the Wariometer yesterday. They misrepresented my intentions, and I was very upset with them. and I'm going to tell them. Maybe I'm not going to tell them.

Maybe I'll just let this hang out there. You can tweet them. I put Gordon on the Worryometer because how could you not be worried? He's not running. There are a lot of people that have DeGordon on their team. He's supposed to carry them in steals. He's batting ninth. He doesn't get the plate appearances, as Chris mentioned.

If he's 93rd in sprint speed, I'm quite worried about D. Gordon. I own him in a 12-team Roto League with the extra middle infield spot, two extra outfield spots. I'm not starting. It's a pretty good team, but I'm not starting. The stolen bases haven't been consistent enough, and there's nothing else he does. So why would I? You know, he is 16 for 18 on stolen bases this year.

He didn't have a very good success rate last year, but this year is, I mean, that's obviously good. But he may be having to be so selective because he is slower that, you know, he happens to be making good decisions. but yeah, it's not translating to much fantasy production. All right, Scott, I want five prospects that we might see soon. Who do you got? Well, my five to stash

in the latest prospects report, the two that have been there before Kyle Tucker and Luis Arias and I think it could be any day for either of them. You know, it doesn't help that, like, Ray is about to come back for the Astros and Yulea Guriel has broken out.

So, you know, even though Tucker's been getting some time at first base, I don't know that there's a clear path for him, but the Astros could make one whenever they wanted. He's certainly ready. There's been some turnover since the last time we talked about this. Jesus Luzardo getting hurt, obviously guys like McKay getting called up,

Keston Hira coming back. So my three, my next three in terms of how badly I want to stash them are Bo Bichette of the Blue Jays, Luis Robert, of the, White Sox and Mitch Keller of the pirates who of course we've seen before

I will say though that there is no reason to believe necessarily that Bichette or Robert are going to get called up at all this year just based on the way those two organizations handled Vladimir Guerrero and Eloy Jimenez's last year when four months it looked like there was nothing more they could accomplish in the minors

and yet they kept them down all season. I don't know why their approach would change for Bichette and Robert this year. But if it does, those are the potential standings reshapers there. I think just because of the potential impact they could have in your league, they're worth stashing over somebody who's a little more certain of being called up, like an Asan Diaz of the Marlins, who looks like their second basement of the future. but, you know, isn't quite that same caliber of player. Okay.

So Tucker, Arias, Bichette, who are the standings changers? Bichette and Luis Robert. And then Mitch Keller was the guy who rounded out the list. And he's doing some impressive things at AAA. I don't, should have plenty of innings left. So I suspect the Pirates Bull. Having already reached down and grabbed him once, that was a weird thing to say. They'll do it again.

We just got an email from Dave, an interesting email about the Tampa Bay Rays rotation and what they could do. I've been reading it while Scott was talking about prospects. Thought it would be fantasy relevant. And big takeaway is that McKay's been pitching. He has been pitching every five days. He's been pitching every six days or so.

So they could use McKay as a reliever. This is just speculation from D-raysbay.com. but they could use him a little bit as a reliever and back in the rotation. Kind of worth noting here. We don't know what will happen with McKay, but he's pitching this weekend, and it looks like he's going to be a part of this team, but to what degree we're not sure. All right, double dongs from yesterday.

Trey Mancini. Give me a quick thought on all these guys. Let's start with Mancini. He had that 174 with one home run, six walks, 22 strikeouts. It was ice cold. before two home runs yesterday. He was ice cold, but I've mostly bought into what he's doing this year, and I hadn't really removed him from the line of anywhere,

ex-woba-un-woba match-up. I think he's legitimately this much of a power hitter, and the batting ever should be solid. Eduardo Escobar, the guy that we all seem to think was the one first half, like incredible All-Star that's probably a sell-high candidate. He hit two home runs yesterday. five RBIs and a 194 win. Eduardo Escobar.

Yeah, I've moved him up my rankings. I'm still skeptical that he can sustain this pace, but having him behind guys like Cabin Bizio was feeling pretty silly. So he's more in a range you'd expect him to be, but still lower than his actual production today has been. Eduardo Escobar.

Okay, next. Danny Santana, 41% own, eligible at first, second, shortstop and outfield, and working out a little bit at third base. Danny Santana, 41% owned. I don't expect to see him at third base much, but they got to keep this guy in the lineup. He's been so good. He has a 922 OPS, Scott.

And he started, I believe, 5 of 6 for them. So, you know, the fact Willie Calhoun got sent down helps a little, although Calhoun got sent down because Hunter Pence came off the IL. I don't think with regular bats Danny Santana would be able to sustain this. But, you know, in deeper leagues where you need another versatile guy, it doesn't hurt to pick him up and seeing how long you can write it out. Jirkson ProFar double-donged yesterday. He is 59% owned, and he's having a bad year. But he has three home runs in his last two games. That was after losing his job to Franklin Barreto, but Barreto's been terrible. Did this light a fire under

Brokso? Yeah, last two starts. Profar has three home runs. And maybe it lit a fire under him. I don't know. I mean, there were reasons to wonder about he didn't hit the ball very hard last year for having a good year. And so there were plenty of pro far skeptics coming in, especially with the venue change. I don't think they've been terribly surprised with the way he's performed this season. But at the same time,

he's a guy who doesn't strike out much and had the year he had last year. So it's something to keep an eye on, even though I'm not hurrying to pick him up again. Tayasca Hernandez has three home runs in his last two games, but he is still having a bad year batting 207, slugging 396. Teasca Hernandez. Yeah, that's... I haven't been to nail only, but he...

About as far as I can go with that. And Mark Kana is having a good season. He has a 944 OPS. He has played... Mark Kana for the A's. He has played just about every day since... Well, I think every day since Piscati has gone on the I.O. Maybe he sat once.

But even a few games before that, he was starting to play every day. For some reason, Kna's been much, much better at home than on the road. But, yeah, I mean, he's having a career, and he's a 15.2% walk rate, which is awesome. And it was K rate under 20% for the first time. I can't believe, I mean, for a guy to have a 944 OPS with a 31% hard contact rate, that's hard to believe. That's pretty low. But what do you think about Kana? Is he underone at 5%.

Yeah, probably. I mean, if there's a chance this playing time continues, I don't think he's this good. But he's good enough to be more owned than that, certainly. I think even in some five outfielder leagues, like a 15-team five outfielder league, you know, it's probably to the point that he should be owned. And that's, you know, that's certainly more than the lowest 5% of CBS leagues.

It might be the lowest 40% of CBS leagues. Yeah, Mark Kana, 5% own, keep an eye on him. All right, let's see how we're going to navigate through the rest of this show here. I think we can pull it off. All right, I got a segment called, you know who's interesting? Scott, you know who's interesting?

Who's interesting, Adam? You're interesting. You met Bill Clinton, I heard. Bill is very interesting. Anthony Rizzo is interesting. Anthony Rizzo is the number seven first basement of points, number nine in Roto. He's batting 285, 394 on base,

525 slugging. and everything looks good. He has not homered since June 15th. It's been more than a month since Anthony Rizzo was homered. And to have, what is that, a 929 OPS, and not even be a top five first baseman is amazing. Seventh in points, ninth in Roto. Every time I look at the box score,

it's like Chris Bryant's homering, Baez-Irower something. Anthony Rizzo never homer. It's been a month. He's interesting. He's interesting, Scott. Yeah, I mean, I don't. In a way, I think that's a credit to him that he's still that high, despite not having

homered in a month. I mean, great plate discipline. And you know he's going to finish with 30 to 35 home runs. I mean, he's at 19 now, so that's going to happen. I struggled with him doing the trade chart yesterday. He's better in points leagues, and I was doing a roto trade chart yesterday. Josh Bell is the first basement I ranked directly below him. He's not off to a good start in the second half.

Tom run derby. I went ahead and kept Rizzo ahead, but I mean, Bell's numbers are better so far, certainly. A lot better. Gallo. Gallo is right in that range, too. I think I'd have Rizzo over Gallo, but that was another one I struggled with. I wonder if we've got a buy low opportunity here for Rizzo, because his hard contact rate is a career high.

His hard contact rate has basically been the exact same thing every single year that he's been on the Cubs, from 2012 to 2018, between 31.6 and 34.4. This year it's 40.3. Now everybody's hard contact rate is up. League-wide, it's up. But it's a nice jump. And I don't know. I mean, I feel like, I want to say by low just because I don't know that anybody's excited about Anthony Rizzo. Like, I could see you give up Josh Bell and Chris Paddock. get Anthony Rizzo and Mike Clevenger, some type of trade like that, where you're upgrading at starting pitcher. It seems like you're downgrading at first base, but you might not really be downgrading that much, you know? Yeah, I like that. I think that makes sense. I think,

I would agree that Bell and Rizzo are closer than the numbers show and that Clevenger is a big step up from Paddock, especially when you take into account the innings situation for Paddock. All right. You know who is interesting, Scott? Who? Starling Marte. Starling Marte is a top 20 outfielder. I'll look up specifically where he is. I didn't check after yesterday's game. But he only has 13 steals.

16 home runs. We know what he is now in terms of batting average. This is three straight seasons between 275 and 277. So that's what I would think. But like the strikeouts are down, the ISO's up. He's just not running as much as he normally does. Like he's not going to be a 40 steel guy. That's for sure.

But he's still having, Marte is still having a very productive year. He is having a very productive year. And while we could criticize the steals for him, I mean, he's still one of the best in the majors at providing that. There are three outfielders right now with 20 or more steals. One of them is completely useless.

Jared Dyson. And then you have, looks like, 13, which is where Marte is out. You got Keirmeier at 17, the Cooney at 17, DeGordon at 16, pretty much useless. Billy Hamilton at 16, pretty much useless. Whittmarie Field of 15, Victor Robles at 15, then you get to the 13th, like Starling Marte. So it's not like, he's not helping you there. But what I found most interesting about Starling Marte is that in head-to-head points leagues, which isn't even his format. Yeah. He has outperformed both Aaron Judge, J.D. Martinez,

as Michael Brantley, Reese Hoskins, in points per game. So, I mean, what he's doing is certainly valuable enough. How is that possible? Like, I just don't understand it. How Starly Marte is a top 15 outfielder in both points in Roto, with a 275 batting average, 16 home runs, 13 steals. It's not like he's a standout in runs. He has 59 runs.

It's good. It's not great. Like, it's just, I know it's happening. I'm not disputing what you said. I just can't figure out how Starling Marte is ranking this high in fantasy. How is he better than J.D. Martinez on points per game?

How is he better than Aaron Judge? Aaron Judge has a 400-something on base percentage. Starly Marte has a 316 OBP. You know? It's just, I don't get it. Yeah, I agree. I was surprised to see it. Okay, well, I think our website must be broken.

That's the only thing I can... Well, I mean, you do got to remember he is about 10 games behind the highest games played guys. So that has an impact on some of those numbers that don't look as high. You know, I was given the per game stat. But I guess you're saying he's 15th just in terms of total points. 15th and total points at outfield. He's interesting.

That's why he's in the, you know who's interesting. All right, rotation time, Scott. Chris Paddock. I want to say sell high on Chris Paddock, but everybody knows what's going to happen with Chris Paddock. So what do you do? I'm not sure everybody knows. You know, I know.

Maybe everybody who's paying close attention in mid-late July. Yeah, certainly we know. I mean, I think you can try. For a fact that he's going to be shut down, because I don't think they're going to make the playoffs. They're last in the NOS. So, like, when do you think he throws his last pitch? Well, I'd have to pull up the numbers and see exactly how far ahead he is. But, you know, the fact he's never thrown even a hundred.

innings in a minor league season. He's right at, he's right at where he was last year, which is his first year back from Tommy John surgery in a career high, 90 innings. So I would guess, I mean, it might be a month from now. It just depends on how much they limit him along the way. Well, he hasn't thrown more than 97 pitches in a start, but his whip is... Maybe he'll follow an opener. I don't know, but, you know, it could just...

be that they you know the fact that they haven't called Luis Erius up even with Ian Kinsler and Greg Garcia doing nothing for them at second base I think suggests they're not really considering themselves contenders in which case

you know that makes it easier to shut down Paddock so you know he might have a month long answer Shorten team might have a month John Lester or Chris Paddock Paddock. I'd rather have the impact over a shorter period of time. You can tell, by the way, we've spoken about Mike Clevenger.

We are quite high on Mike Clevenger. 23 swinging strikes yesterday. He was on a pitch count of 100, which is what he threw. That's probably the last time he's on a pitch count. Dallas Keikl, rough start for him. It was going pretty well before the sixth inning, and then the Brewers got to him. He said he didn't have fastball command.

Do you have anything interesting to say about Keikel, who will go from being at Milwaukee this week to Keele? Kansas City at home next week? Not really. Not really. I think just the fact that when he's good, he goes seven innings with a great offense backing him, I think that counts for a lot. Yeah.

Especially in points, but really in any format, it's hard for starting pitchers to get wins, but he's in a good position for them. Chris Paddock or Dallas Keikle? Paddock. John Lester or Dallas Keikle? Keikel. Okay. Those are three distinct tiers, I feel like, though.

Okay. Dallas Kike goes in a tier of his own. He is like the opposite of Robbie Ray. Right? Could any two pitchers be more opposite? One goes deep in the game. In terms of results, yeah. I mean, maybe Kyle Hendricks, you know, basically along the same lines.

Yeah. In terms of innings, strikeouts, and then whip. Whip is the question for Kike. Is he going to be a low-whip guy like he was at his best? I'm skeptical. All right, anyway, Eduardo Rodriguez had a good start, pretty good against the Blue Jays. He was 78% started.

Do you more or less just started Eduardo Rodriguez? No, I wouldn't go that far. I think based on his peripherals, that's where he should ultimately wind up, but it's been such a winding path that I play the matchups with him. And how about John Gray, a bad start at home against the hottest team in the National League, the San Francisco Giants, 11 hits and six runs in five and a third? He still has a better ERA at home than on the road this season. John Gray has never really been affected by Corse Field.

So how would you rank Keikle, Eduardo Rodriguez, and John Gray? I would rank them Keikle Gray Rodriguez. I feel like Gray had pretty much graduated to the must-start range. now maybe we're having to rethink that. I don't think we should necessarily, but obviously it was disappointing yesterday. Do you want to know how I'd rank them? How would you rank them?

Gray, Rodriguez, Duffy, Daniel Norris, Tommy Malone, Wade LeBlanc, Dallas, Cairo, no, no, not. Fringy starting pitchers. Any interest in these guys? is Martin Perez, Chase Anderson, Homer Bailey, Danny Duffy, and Trevor Richards.

Not really, though. Apparently you want to make a case for Duffy. Not next week. No, Danny Duffy has been pretty good when he's faced easy matchups. That's it. Two starts ago, he got lit up by the Tigers, I believe, but he was cruising, and then he hurt his hand, and he pitched through it, and it was awful. If you just look at his game log, he's been the kind of guy that you would stream with good matchups.

He has two starts next week there at Atlanta and home against Cleveland. I don't trust Danny Duffy, but there could come a time where I do trust Danny Duffy. If he has Detroit, if he has the White Sox or Detroit, I don't think he's going to face the Royals this year. Then maybe... I think all of these pitchers fall into that same category

where you could stream them with good matchups, but you're holding your breath when they do. I mean, they can... They're not very good, but they can look good at times. So, you know, that makes them not entirely... Use. And let me ask you about Pablo Sandoval. He has started five straight games, and Longoria is on the IL, and he's 4% owned.

What do you think? He's been super cold, but for the year, he's having a pretty good year. It's weird. Sandoval. Yeah. We're ending the show on Sandoval. I am unmoved by this. I think, I mean, he's having a good year with the 309.

Like, it's a good year because we thought Sandoval was just done. And, you know, was a sympathetic roster for player to roster for the Giants. But so it's good, I guess, from that respect. But I don't think there's much for him to offer. All right. There was some more I wanted to talk about. We'll have to save it for tomorrow. There's a relief pitcher that you should pick up that has 22 and two-thirds consecutive

of ittings without allowing an earn run. I'm sure you know who it is, but if you don't, I'll tell you who it is tomorrow on Fantasy Baseball today. Thanks for listening, everyone.