Fantasy Baseball Today - 07/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Bregman, Gausman, Mon. Recap

Episode Date: July 25, 2017

Recapping a fairly ordinary Monday that did give us a couple of trades and a prospect promotion. First we break down the big news (1:43) before revisiting Clayton Kershaw's Fantasy stock (12:40) ... Our thoughts on Kevin Gausman (5:00), Alex Bregman (18:55), Randal Grichuk (27:35), a new closer to add (28:40) and more Monday standouts ... Deep league options (33:35), JAG alert (36:30) and a great round of Team Name Name Tuesday (46:00). Plus, which supposed aces are actually must-start Fantasy options (54:05)? ... Email us at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We had a couple of trades yesterday. We're going to talk about that. Clayton Kershaw expected to miss four to six weeks. Now I will ask these guys again, is he a first round pick next year? Derek Fisher is up, and Kevin Gosman is pitching. What's up, everybody? Welcome to fantasy baseball today. I guess technically he's been pitching all season, but...

Well, I don't know if he's... I don't know if I would say he was pitching for about three months. He was throwing. He was throwing. He was definitely throwing baseballs towards Major League batters. Well, he's now... more of a pitcher than a thrower. And you know what?

We talked about those trades. Sports trades are scary. One person can be replaced by another exchange for money or given away for a hypothetical future person. And once they leave your team, you can't like them anymore, even if you have their jersey, which you can't wear anymore, except at B-dubs. They won't judge, but others might. Buffalo Wild Wings, Wings, Beard Sports.

I'm out of Bayser. That was Chris Dowers, and here's Scott White. Adam. How's it going? One. I missed you yesterday. Yeah, I missed you too. Kind Commissioner Scott White who let me, you know, make amends for not setting my lineup

properly. Thank you, Scott. Wow. Well, I mean, I can't just let your lineup be illegal all week. Sure you can. And you have to know. Let him live with the repercussions of his actions. Would have been the end of the season.

Treat others the way you want to be treated. There you go. That's how I see it. Thank you. And we're going to treat others very nicely here and tell them. Who should they add right now? I think there's a lot of players to add right now. And I'll begin with some of the repercussions of this trade yesterday,

the bigger trade, the Royals Padres trade. Hopefully you finally use this as your excuse to add Trevor Cahill. If you haven't already, he's still owned in less than 70% of leagues. Despite an elite ground ball rate and an elite swinging strike rate, that is a fantastic combination that could lead to ace caliber results. And now he's not going to get burned by win-loss record, presumably, the way he was with the Padres. Because he's with the team that wants to win. That's always a good thing.

Yeah. So Trevor Cahill is 63% owned. And just to stay on that trade, should we pick up Brad Hand? Or, yeah, Brad Hand, because he presumably is the closer now for the Padres. You could. You could pick up Brad Hand. He's probably got about six days left in San Diego. That's the thing.

Like, how long is he going to be a closer? I don't imagine any contender would acquire him to be a closer. He has to be the most in-demand. Like, he has to be the single most likely player to get traded this week. Because everybody could use a left-handed reliever, even if you are. already have a couple, a third one it heard. Especially one who can get right, he's out and can pitch multiple innings. He's the, you know, kind of the bargain bin Andrew Miller at this point.

Yeah. He's been really good out of the bullpen. Like, I don't think you can just let him go unowned if you're in the kind of league where every closer gets scooped up, but don't get too attached. So who on earth is going to close for the Padres? Carter Capps? Not him. I would think Kirby Yates would be the next one up. He's been outstanding.

Yeah, Andy Green mentioned him as... He didn't... Andy Green, by the way, didn't officially declare hand the closer. He mentioned Andy, he mentioned Kirby Yates, whose strikeout rate. It's been a lot better than you probably remember him being with the Yankees, Adam. 49 and 32 in a third inning. Right. Looks like a closer caliber pitcher.

There's also a rookie Phil Maton. Yeah, M-A-T-O-N, who Padres seemed to like a lot, and he's thought to have closer stuff. But I would rank him behind Yates. And then Carter Caps is back from injury at AAA and has been pitching a little better lately, so we can't completely rule him out either. It doesn't have the velocity back yet, from what I understand. He is pitching out of his mind, though, at AAA right now, looking at the game log.

Carter Caps has been great. All right. So that's obviously not the most attractive situation, but that is your breakdown of the Kansas City, San Diego trade. Were there any other angles, Chris? drop Brandon Mauer He's not going to close in Kansas City And then

Looking ahead to next year Matt Strom is someone who I think is going to have Some sleeper Potential at Petco Park He's got a big strikeout rate He just has to control the walks But that's for next year Chris who do you want to tell the listeners

They need to add Well I guess we kind of mentioned it Let's have the Kevin Gosman talk I'm not sure You know, there comes a time where every Every parent has to have the Kevin Gossman talk, yeah. I'm trying to think of a joke here, but there's nothing here, so I'm just going to let it go. I was the Kevin Gossman guy coming into the season, and coming into today in the office,

Scott is much more excited about what Kevin Gossman is doing. I'm just at the point where I, like, he's shown the flashes. The last eight starts, the strike rate, the walk rate have been really good. 57 strikeouts, 42 and two-thirds innings. Only 15 walks in that span, 14% swing strike rate. That coincides with him throwing his splitter more, which I've always looked at as the key for him. But he's got a 464 ERA.

He's still getting hit really hard. He's still giving up a lot of home runs. It's only really three bad starts in this span. I focus specifically on the last two because it seems like last time out, he made another adjustment. In addition to throwing the splitter more, the biggest problem I feel like for Gosman is that he doesn't have a diverse enough arsenal.

I mean, the splitter is basically another kind of fastball, and obviously he has a great fastball, high 90s fastball. So as a way, I guess, of kind of making up for not having the most diverse arsenal, he began to vary the speed on his fastball last time out. He got seven swinging strikes on his fastball in that game. which is a high number for a fastball. Not that high. Generally.

Not that high compared to last night. Well, yeah. Not compared. I was getting there. Let me build up to it. Last night, he got 12 swinging strikes on his fastball. Fastball is not generally a big swing and miss pitch. So for him to get 12 just on it,

before you factor in the swings and misses he gets on his splitter like he always does, he had 20 swinging strikes overall in this game. So I don't know. You know, he has to. A, stick with that approach. It has to continue to work, which, you know, as scouting reports get out, maybe it's not going to be enough to put him over the top. But at least it's something he's doing different that seems to be getting results.

I'm not ready to put him in lineups yet, but 52% ownership, I want to be the one who picks him up and has him on my bench if this does continue. Would you rather own Kevin Gosman or Mike Leak? Kevin Gotham. Yep. Gossman or Irvin Santana. Santana. Yeah, I'll stick with Big Erv.

Okay. Vince Velasquez or Kevin Gosman? Gosman. Yeah, I think Cosman. Gosmania over here. All right, let's move on. Here's a trivia question for you. We'll come back to players to add.

We'll talk about Alex Bregman. He's 82% own, but he's killing it. Randall Gritchick is homeward in four straight games. I've got a Deepesh mode section here, which is all about players in deep leagues. Because, like, deep-ish mode. Yeah, whatever. I don't know why.

DeFish? Yeah, I don't know why that came to me, but. Oh. Oh, the band. The band. Okay. You just missed those Nick Teppish references. Oh, was that what those were?

You don't remember the Nick Teppish craze where it was an opportunity to talk about Depeche Mode all the time. Oh, yes. I actually, if you knew Al Melchior, you knew about that part of fantasy baseball. Okay, so anyway, here's a trivia question. Who has thrown the most pitches in baseball this year? Clayton Richard No He's giving up the most hints He pitched last night though

The most pitches in big Justin Verlander Correcto Justin Verlander I don't know if I should care about that I remember getting a little concerned earlier in the year about all the pitches that Jacob de Grom was throwing

And that didn't end up being a problem But Verlander threw 119 pitches last night Seven innings had a pretty good start Yeah, I would say he got a little unlucky with one of the runs on a pass ball and then a sacrifice fly. I won't explain the whole thing. But I think he can be pretty encouraged. But, man, he's throwing a lot of pitches most in baseball. Anyway, Justin Verlander is on an upcoming segment where I give you a name and you tell me if they are must start.

And let's just go to him. Is Justin Verlander must start? Yes. Yeah, I think after the last two starts, he's back to being that. I was hedging a little bit in Roto leagues, even though I still have faith in the skill set. Is that? Okay. I think he's back to being must start.

And I'll comment also on the pitches. I think that's fairly normal for him. I looked back over the last couple years. He's normally up over 110 more than half the time. So he's a guy who's always thrown a lot of pitches. Justin Verlander is a workhorse. Now, I would say I was watching the broadcast yesterday, and they said something pretty interesting. So apparently, Verlander has been having a big problem this year with foul balls.

Guys are just fouling off a lot of pitches, and he's had trouble putting people away. Or even if he does put them away, it's taking longer. And maybe that's why he's throwing the most pitches in baseball. So he looked at some video, and I guess he made a mechanical adjustment. Verlander is now getting on top of his fastball a little bit more, throwing a little bit more downhill, something like that. Does it really matter? The bottom line is he's trying to figure out why he's getting so many foul balls and made an adjustment recently. Let's see if that helps.

Stat of the day from ESPN stats and info. Jose Altova is hitting 507 in July. The last player to hit 500 for a full calendar month was Pudge Rodriguez in June of 2004, with a minimum of 75 at bats, by the way. Jose Altuve is incredible. He's batting 507 in July. He is the number two hitter in points leagues, number three in Roto. Chris, say something interesting about Jose Altuve.

I think he's hitting like 377 since the sixth game of the season. Right? He started off kind of slow. Only had four hits in the first, yeah, he had four hits in the first six games of the season. He is hitting 380 in the last 90 games, which just goes to show you how impossible it is to hit 400, because as good as he's been, one little four for 26 stretch has dropped his batting average. 15 points. You know, I had a...

Yeah, he is amazing. I had the third pick in a, in our 14 team points league. I think maybe it was the fourth pick. And I was deciding between Jose Altuve and Paul Goldschmidt, and we did an untimed draft. And Jamie and I share the team. And we really debated Altuve or Goldsman, Altuve and Goldschmidt. And I took, we decided to take Goldschmidt. Sorry, Jamie.

We decided to take Goldschmidt. It wasn't me. And, uh, I was so pumped about it. But now I feel like a loser. Because Al Tuve has two and a half more fantasy points than Paul Goldschilds. What an idiot. Yeah. Jose Al Tuve.

He only needed eight hits in his last two games to get that. Jose Al Tuvei went fifth in our mock of the first two rounds during the All-Star break. So what can we say? He's as safe as they come, basically. He's amazing. I mean, second base, like it's deep. Every position but shortstop and catcher are deep, right? Yeah.

But it's lacking in standouts. So I do think Al-2Ve still has a little bit of the position scarcity benefit going for him. He's going to steal 30 bases and hit 20 home runs again this year. Yeah, he's awesome. So the big news, Clayton Kershaw is expected to miss four to six weeks with the back injury. Is he a first-round pick next year? I asked Heath yesterday, and Heath kind of hedged based on how long the injury would sideline him. Now it's four to six weeks.

Is Kershaw first-round pick? But you have to remember, too, he's, well, I don't know, Chris may be in the same boat. He's a guy, he's never going to take a pitcher in the first round, period. But Kershaw did go, what, sixth or seventh in the mock that we did two weeks ago? Yeah, something like that. I don't think it changes for me. I mean, it's, it's, it's easy to connect the back to the injury he had last year, but it's a very different injury. One was structural, this is muscular.

Last year was a disc. issue. This is a muscle strain. Yeah. But I just, I have a hard time thinking they're totally unrelated and that just goes to my pessimism about pitchers in general. I feel like usually when back injuries pop up, it's, it's a core problem. And there are ways to correct that by strengthening the rest of your core. Like, I'm sure the training staff is all over it. And I think, I don't think this is going to be, like, We should just assume this is going to be like a recurring thing every year. We got to worry about Clayton Kershaw's back.

So I'm, but I don't, you can't dismiss it. No, you can't. What was his injury in 2014? He missed the beginning of the season. It wasn't a back, was it? That was a weird situation because he pitched opening day in Japan, I think, right? Right. It may have been a back issue.

I can look that up. It's three out of four years now that Kershaw's had an injury. Yeah. Well, maybe he needs to strengthen his core. Get on a training staff. He's not even having that good of a year. Like, his ERA is over two. It's 204.

That's, like, crazy high. Yeah. It was a back issue. Uh-oh. Back it up. Out of the first round. That led to a strained shoulder. Whatever.

He's still a first-round pick. Okay. I mean, the thing is, like, even if he makes 25 starts, he's probably first round. tier, still, right? Yeah, probably. Because he, in categories leagues,

he basically carries you in three categories. And, you know, how many pitchers are going to make more than, how many pitchers are going to throw more than 160 innings or whatever, he'd end up with 25 starts anyway? I know, I know Scherzer's come close to his ERA and Whip, and I guess Sail and Cluber probably aren't far off either.

But it's so rare to so reliably find that kind of dominance in ERA and WIP, you know, that reliably from a pitcher who throws the innings to get all the strikeouts, if you knew he was only going to make 25 starts, you wouldn't draft him in the first round. I probably would. I mean, late first round. Yeah, I don't see how that's possible.

Well, you put him in your queue, and then when your turn comes up. Obviously, there's a good chance he doesn't, so that's kind of a hypothetical situation anyway. Kershaw out four to six weeks. Hopefully, you know, they can be cautious with him, obviously. Hopefully, hopefully it's not longer than that. Hopefully he dominates when he comes back.

We talked about the Kansas City trade. How about Atlanta trading Jaime Garcia to the twins? Jaime Garcia value up down are the same? Same. Okay. George Springer left with a sore quad. He's day-to-day, as of now, not expected to go on the D.L. The Astros called up Derek Fisher.

They may have done this even without Springer getting hurt. And Fisher had a pretty darn good cameo. 278, two home runs, three walks, five striker. In five games, and he had, he did not have any doubles, but still, he had a 6-11 slugging percentage in five games. And Fisher is 22% owned. Do you think he will play every day? I think there's a chance he does. I forget which Astros beat writer I was reading, but they wrote there's a chance he stays for good this time.

And this was something, I was a little surprised they went with Colin Moran. ran when Carlos Correa got hurt instead of Fisher, since obviously Marwin Gonzalez is moving from left field back to the infield. They had a free outfield spot where they could play Fisher, and AJ Hinch said it was bittersweet when they had to send Fisher back down after he had that good cameo. Who did they send down for Fisher? They sent down a pitcher. Okay, so Tyler White is still there as well.

Yeah. And he's been playing second and short in the minors, so that gives them the three. the flexibility to potentially keep Derek Fisher in the outfield and use Tyler White as the kind of do it all infield guy. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And Fisher, I feel like, has the kind of skill set. He could make an impact

kind of like what we've seen from Tommy Pham in the best case scenario. Had a 318 batting average 967 OPS at AAA, some base stealing ability, walks a fair amount. So we need to see if you see. playing every day, but if he is, I think even at a deep position, there's a chance he could make a fantasy impact. All right, that's Derek Fisher, 22% own for the Houston Astros.

Johnny Quedo could throw a bullpen session today, and Justin Boor is likely to go on the DL with an oblique strain. Boo! Now, I bury the lead. We'll get to this a little bit later, but I need to tease it. We got an awesome edition of Team Name Tuesday, all Raphael Devers' team names. So, including this one, which... He better be good.

I'm just going to go ahead and give this one here. Let's see. It is where, oh, come on. Oh, it's from John in Boston. Yaz Devers Money-Rafel Problems. How great is that? I wish Heathen around here to defend the worst team name in team name history. It's just as reasonable as the actual one, I think.

That pretty much. Okay, Monday standouts. We got a closer to. tell you about a new closer perhaps but first Alex Breggman the new shortstop is 82% owned and you may not have noticed but in July Bregman is hitting 328 with two home runs three steals 19 runs scored in July remember they had the all-star break in July too and 10 doubles also 10 walks of 10 strikeouts so look it looks a lot better now that he finally you know he had his second home run he hadn't really hit a lot of home runs but a lot of doubles this month for Breggman batting 328 same amount of walk to

strikeouts. Is this the start of something, you know, a strong, strong finish for Bregman, or is it too soon to make that conclusion? It's too soon, but I mean, there's a chance he's this good. This is who he thought he'd be coming into the year. And frankly, now that he's shortstop eligible, I know technically he hasn't scored the points of a top 10 shortstop, but I just, I don't see, like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, think he's absolutely a top ten shortstop rest of the season. What do you have him at third base? What do I have him at third base? Like 16, 17?

Yeah, that's one thing is that like, I have him in like the 1920 range and that's probably a top 10 shortstop. Yeah, but he hasn't been. At least not before yesterday, maybe yesterday changed that. Yeah, he technically hasn't been. But I, like, I have, I trust him to outperform Marwin Gonzalez rest of season. Not that I think Gonzalez is a bad play at shortstop. Well, and let me give you.

The following numbers. Okay. If a shortstop hit 270 with an 833 OPS, 15 stolen bases, and 20 home runs, like 60 RBI, 90 runs scored. That'd be a top 10 shortstop without question, right? Yeah. That's basically his pace since May 1st. Well, then, oh, well, since May 1st, okay, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But a lot of that is July, right? A lot of it's July, I would assume. His OPS for the season has risen about 60 points, but. You know, he also was pretty good in May. So, you know, it's not all July. Would you rather have Bregman or Trevor's story? Trevor's story.

Well, I'd rather have Bregman. Like, I think Bregman is, you can win a championship with Bregman as your shortstop. And, yeah, there's upside for story. I'm not, I haven't completely given up on him just because, you know, he has course field. as his home. But there's a lot of downside there, too. And I just, like, I couldn't, I don't have so much trust in story rebounding that I'm going to pass up the high, high floor of Alex Breggman. Okay.

Just, you know, story was on like a 50 Homer Pace last year or something. You know, and they both, they're similar in that they were both very good last year for, you know, well, Breggman. But the difference is, Gregman, disappointing Breggman has still. been for a shortstop, I would say more than competent. I mean, no, he hasn't been top 20 technically, I mean, top 10 technically at the position, but he has been top 12. Well, has he been top 12? He has. He's 11th and points at shortstop. That's because of yesterday. If we had this discussion yesterday, that would not have been the case. Okay. And maybe he would have been 13th. It's still true. Yeah, but that's the thing. Like, is he really competent? Because Dedi's been better than him.

Seguera's been better than him. Nunez has been better than him, and they've all played fewer games than him. They've played fewer games than him. That's what I'm saying. I disagree. I just disagree. I think Breggman's had a crappy year. I'm just like he's had a crappy year. I don't know how you could say a top 12. Because he's not top 12 on a per game basis. And it's shortstop and it's not far off. Like, I mean, he's got 30, it's July 25th. He's got 30 RBI and 50 runs scored. He does have 10 home runs and nine stolen bases. So that's, but that's not far off. Like, I mean, he's got 30, it's July 25th. He's got 30 RBI and 9 stolen basis. So that. He does have 10 home runs. So that. It's, that's okay, but like, he hasn't been great this season. He's hitting two. Like nobody saying he's been great this year. We're just talking about competence.

We're not talking about greatness. Well, then by that measure. I don't often find ourselves in this discussion of our player. Okay, but what I'm saying, but what I think Adam's saying, and I agree with him, is that he might be number 12 in points right now. He has not been a top 12 shortstop. Like, if you pick 10 different days. Okay, so he's been a top 15 shortstop. That's not good.

That's not good. But that's still, right, but that's still pretty. I'm tired. of this discussion. No, Scott, Scott, Scott, I just, I don't understand your blanket statement that if a guy is top 15 at shortstop or top 12 at shortstop that he's had a competent year. Why can't we just accept that Carlos Santana hit two home runs yesterday? He's another guy that we've had the same discussion about. Carlos Santana has had a bad year.

Like, they've moved his own standards, yes, but he has not been a bad contributor in fantasy. I really don't understand how you can say that to the Carlos Santana owner or the Alex I'm so tired of this conversation. I just have to agree to disagree. I can't do this again. I would like to have a civilized conversation about it. I can't do it. I'm incapable of civilized discussion when it comes to the competence of players and fantasy.

I think it's interesting. I think it's interesting perspectives. I'm not trying to be adversarial here. I'm trying to, we both are obviously coming at this differently, and it really clearly affects the way people evaluate players. I cannot sit here and say that Alex Breggman has had a competent year. Alex Breggman has been a straight... Yes, you can. Look at his numbers.

They're fine. They're competent. Are they confident? He has nearly 800 OPS as a shortstop. How is that not competent? Okay. Yeah, I think he's been fine. Okay.

So what are we arguing about? It's been a recent hot streak. He's been a total bust for most of the year. He has 24 doubles at the end of July. Again, please... That's what a 40 double page? But we cannot only argue about points leagues. Scott, we can't only...

I can't believe this league leader in doubles is on my I can't believe we only argue about points leagues. Like, what about the people in Categories leagues? Again, you neglect to... He's a shortstop with 10 homers and nine steals. I mean... And he's like... He's like...

And he's like 18th in category... He's played 143 games in his career. He said 18 homers, 11 stolen bases. He has a 264 batting average. Eighty-one runs scored, 64 RBI. That's fine. That's pretty good. but it's not, it's not great even for a shortstop.

It's pretty, like, you're okay with it. But you're not, I am okay with it. But I don't think, that's what I mean, but I think the point is having that guy is not necessarily a situation where you say, all right, I'm set at shortstop. And whereas, like, we assume he has upside to build on, but we're 600 plate appearances in. The batting average hasn't gone where we hoped it would be,

despite some pretty good strikeout prevention. But it is now. It's 265. I know, but he seems to be picking it up. Yeah, he's had an overall... I understand the idea I'm not necessarily set at shortstop with Alex Bregman there. I think when you factor in the upside, maybe that puts it over the top. Like, I see it, would you say Jed Jerko's been competent this year?

I think Jed Jerko's been better than him. Yeah, Jed Jerko's been competent. Sure. Yeah. I mean, Bregman's actually in points league. He's outscored Jerko now, but. Breggman's been fine. I don't think there's, like, if anything, he's going to take a step back from what he's done this year.

So I would absolutely be looking to upgrade from Breggman. Marwin Gonzalez, same thing. From Jerko. Nope. You'd be looking to upgrade from Jerko, yeah. Like, I don't know. Yeah, I think Bergman's fine. Okay.

That's what I want. Look, but to say he's fine right now, you know, he's fine as your shortstop going forward is different than he's been fine all your long. Right. His overall numbers are fine. He has not been for, if you pick out 10 random days throughout the course of the last hundred during which the season has taken place, he probably has not been a top 12

shortstop at that specific moment more than a handful of times. Yeah. But has he been so far off? at shortstop? It's been really worth. Well, he also hasn't been your shortstop until last week. Yeah. Or this week, actually.

Sure. He can be useful moving forward. He has not been very useful this season overall. Okay. All right. Let's move on. I'm glad we found clarity there. I think we kind of did.

Randall Gritchick is 28% owned. He has homered in four straight games. Oh, the Kevin Gosman of hitters. How much of a must add is Randall Gritchick? I mean, is it going to get sent down next week? Like, are we sure that's not going to happen? It's Randall Gritchick, you know? He gets blazing hot.

He gets freezing cold. Like, you know, you guys have had this discussion on the football podcast a lot about consistency because Heath just views things differently. And, you know, he talks about how consistency is not predictable. That, you know, you should look at the overall numbers, not the way they're distributed. And, you know, that makes a lot of. lot of sense. But then you look at like Randall Gritchick, who's just never been consistent. And it doesn't seem random. Like, he's the kind of guy that they talk about. Like, he needs to go down and fix something.

And then when he fixes that thing, he looks really good for a while. And maybe it's just that he runs into a couple of fastballs every couple of weeks, you know? It's really hard to say. But at this point, it's hard to get excited about this guy. All right. So would you rather have Nick Williams or Randall Gritchick? I think I asked Heath yesterday. He said Gritchick, I think. I'd rather have Nick Williams. Okay. And Anthony Swarzak got a save yesterday, and Rick Rantzeria, I believe, said,

we're just going with the guy who's pitching the best, and that would be Swarzac and Clippard. I don't know why they weren't doing that. I don't know why they came out and said Clippard was going to get the saves. Yep. Because Swarzac was pitching better. Yeah. So if they're going with the guy who's better,

like things got a little shaky in the ninth. They did, but he threw more than an inning. He threw an inning in a third. He was facing the Cubs. and he got the saves. And the heart of the Cubs. Yeah. If Clippard loses his role,

loses the closer role before the White Sucks even have a save opportunity, I would say Clifford is not the closer. And Swarzek is, and I'd rather have Swarzac than hands or anyone else in the Padreys' bullpen because there's more clarity there, first of all. And then beyond that, I think the White Sucks may be a little better than the Padres,

just a little. It might be, you know what, the Giants stink, but if you picked up Sam Dyson, you've gotten six saves from him. So it happens. Yeah. Here's your tweet of the day. It's from Ryan McGarry. What is your Worryometer on Miguel Cabrera and Josh Donaldson? I have an offer for Dee Gordon for either of them.

Please help. McGee and Donaldson. If you need stolen bases, like that's the only thing Dee Gordon will give you above either. Then maybe he'll give you batting average, but I still think we got, like, we had the whole Miguel Cabrera discussion last week, We're not going to rehash it. I'm not worried at all. I think zero or one. Donaldson, I'm a little higher on the worryometer just because the peripherals aren't there.

They are not. He's not hitting fly balls. And this is the godfather of the fly ball revolution, right? His fly ball percentage is 34%. His hard hit rate is 33%. He's just not the same guy that we've been hoping to see. And I don't think he's ever been right since that calf injury. That's interesting.

He came off the DL at Josh Donaldson and he was awesome, but for about two weeks. I'm not really worried about either. I have a little more concerned about Miguel Cabrera, but I'm not really worried about either. Chris, maybe I'm crazy. I thought that Donaldson was hitting more fly balls this year. Am I crazy? Oh, yeah, I'm crazy. Yeah.

Yeah, down at 34%. I thought I was crazy. No, yeah, he's hitting more ground balls this year. And, wow, a lot less hard contact. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's the thing. is that Miguel Cabrera's peripherals are arguably better than they were last year. And that's why I'm not worried, even though the production hasn't been there, even though we're 90 games in.

Donaldson's peripherals are all worse, pretty much. The more I start to look at peripherals, though, the more I, you know, now that I just, all I have to do is hit F and fan graphs, auto fills on my navigation. You know, I see a lot of, we're at the point in the season now. I see a lot of, well, the peripherals are really good, but the number, or this looks a lot like last year, but the results are completely different. I'm just not really sure what they mean. My only response is Nick Castionis is a top 12 third baseman, or was like five days ago whenever we discussed him. I'm sticking with it, he's going to be a top 12 first basement forever. Thus, I am correct.

Third baseman. I'm just saying, like, the peripherals don't tell you everything. No, but they tell you, I still think they tell you more than just the numbers. But do they tell you more than the fact that Josh Donaldson for the last two years? years has been one of the very, very, very best hitters in baseball. And he might just be slumping. He might just be slumping, but he's also a 31-year-old who... It's not that old. He's not that old, but he's older than me.

Yeah, that's the thing. Like, you always think people are old. That's because you're like, you're like 23. No, he's old. Like, you were ready to, like, you were, like, packing Andrew McCutcheon's bags and sending him to Del Boca Vista. Well, look at the last two seasons for McCutcheon and the last two seasons for Donaldson. promise I wouldn't have.

But I'm saying you were like Andrew McCutcheon's done. He is. Yeah, I did. I did. It was a much longer stretch of time. He's moving to, he's taking, he has to eat with dentures. You don't have to. There were other indicators of age beyond just what he was doing at the play.

But that's what I'm arguing with Josh Donaldson is that there are also indicators. There, he's not hitting the ball as hard. He's not hitting the ball in the air with the frequency. He was. I still see those as all part of the same package. They're what he's doing with the bat in his hands. As opposed to Andrew McCutcheon stopped running. He stopped playing defense.

Right, but Josh Donaldson didn't run. So that's not really like it's not like you stop running. Right, but we did have that. That could be those indicators that just aren't as obvious. Interesting show so far today. Let's move on here. So I guess overall, Chris is a little worried about Donaldson. Nobody seems all that worried about Miggy.

But you do have to consider the injuries with Miggy. You know. All right, let's look at Deep League's. Deepesh mode. First, a guy who's 25% owed. He's owned in a lot more leagues than these other guys. Ben Gamel. Ben Gamble is batting 323.

Do you consider Ben Gamal to be anything other than a good source of batting average? If he remains that, I still have some skepticism there. His bad bet has to be... It's over 400. Yeah. Yeah. I'm impressed he's kept it going this long because the bottom hasn't fallen out yet, but I'm still waiting for that to happen.

Gamble has seven extra base hits in his last seven. games. Would you rather have Gamma or Gritchick? Gritchick. Yep. Okay, I'm just going to give you some names, and you stop me when you think they should be owned in more than 10% of leagues. Mark Chapman, Miguel Gonzalez, Chris Smith, Adam Conley, Adam Conley? I could see it. He seems to have solved the control issues that he had before going down to the minors. He's never going to be a high strikeout guy, but he did a really good job of limiting hard contact last season when he was right. He's someone who can be owned as much as Martin

Perez is, who's 16%. He's still not throwing nearly as hard as he did last year. No, he's lost velocity for sure. All right, Adam Conley. So nobody yet. Martin Perez, Johann Carmago. Okay. There's... Waste of a segment. At least we got it out of the way. Time for the Jag Alert. After I tell you about Buffalo Wild Wings, it is sports season. Whoever invented Summer was obviously a sports fan. They didn't even try to hide it.

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

They're just waiting on the legal change. Buffalo Wild Wings Wings beer sports. All right, so we put Adam Jones on the Jag alert section. I don't know if we had the Jagometer or whatever. And this JAG stands for Just a Guy, meaning you could drop him if you needed to. And yeah, we kind of felt like Jones was just the guy. But lo and behold, the same thing has happened this year as what happened last year. They moved him to lead off and immediately a spark.

So here's what has happened. Adam Jones, last season, he had a 639 OPS on May 27th, so about two months into the year. They moved him to lead off, and in the next 33 games, he had a 952 OPS and 11 home runs. He was terrific. And then he went back to being kind of lousy. The last three months of the season, Jones had 13 home runs and a 709 OPS, which is terrible. Now, Jones homered again yesterday. that's four home runs and he's batting like 500 or around 500 in his last seven games.

And entering yesterday, he was batting 326 and 10 games with three homers as a leadoff hitter. So question, long-winded question, is Adam Jones a jag or is he worth owning in the 96% of leagues that Jones has owned in? I think he's more a jag than not. I just don't see in a year where everybody, I mean like 20 home runs is the expectation. A lot of players are going to come 30. Home runs are just such an easy asset to come by. And that's really all Adam Jones provides. I mean, he doesn't get on base enough to score runs.

He's not really a useful source of batting average. You know, for points leagues, he doesn't walk at all. So he's not winning on peripherals. He's just when he's hot and hits a lot of home runs, you want him in your lineup. And when he's not, you can probably do better. Like, I like, I think there's more upside with, like, Domingo Santana. I think there's more upside with Tommy Fam for sure.

This is just a guy that we're going to look up at the end of the season, and he's going to have 27 home runs and 85 RBI and 86 runs scored, and we're just going to be like, he wasn't that good. No. And that's kind of what happened last year. Yeah, but his batting average isn't good anymore. he doesn't steal ever. And if you play in an O.B. P.

Lee, God help you. Yeah, I think he's just a guy. How about Matt Kemp? Matt Kemp in his last 43 games is batting 224 with a 592 OPS. He's another guy who goes through stretches, but this is pretty bad. Is Matt Kemp a jag? He's, I think he's basically in that same class as Adam Jones. Like, I do think that's a little better than a jag.

because there are times when you're genuinely excited to have them in your lineup. But I don't think either or must start anymore. And in shallower leagues, I don't think, even like a three outfield or 12 team league, I don't think either is necessarily must own. And he's been, he had that hamstring injury in mid-June. And he's hitting like 2-10s since then as well. He missed like three games in a week span. The big thing for me, though, is his bad at ball profile, he's a guy who's bad at a ball profile changed last year, started hitting a lot more fly balls.

Now he has a 27% fly ball rate, which is like better than Christian Yellage, but probably still one of the worst or one of the lowest in baseball. So it's really hard to hit for power when you're doing that. Well, he, so Kemp, I don't know. Is it a stretch to say, it's a stretch. I was going to say maybe the strike. struggles coincided with Freeman's absence, but that's stupid. But he did hit 35 home runs with 108 RBIs last year. So he's somewhat of a jag, but is Matt Kemp maybe a buy low? No, not interesting. I mean, maybe in the most technical sense, like the way he's been recently is not as good as you expect him to be over the long run.

So maybe you can buy low on him, but I just, I don't really feel like he's a game changer. Okay. Jackie Bradley is 89% owned. Last year he was the number 14 outfielder in points leagues, number 15 in Roto. And this year he is struggling, batting 268 with only 12 home runs, 16 doubles in 83 games. He was on a nice little hot streak, though, just before the All-Star break. 51 games, in fact, he had a 321 batting average, 10 homers, and a 976 OPS. So Jackie Bradley started off terribly, and he's a very streaky player.

First 20 games terrible. Next 51 games great. 12 games since the All-Star break. 465 OPS, one walk, 19 strikeouts. So he has been ice cold since the break. Is Jackie Bradley Jr. a jagger? Would you regret dropping him? He's better than both Matt Jones, Adam Jones and Matt Camp. And Matt Jones, for that matter.

And Matt Jones. Okay, thank you. Is he even in Roto Leagues? Do we expect him to Homer at the same rate as those two? Yes. Yeah, I think he's a legitimate 25 to 30 homer guy, and I don't think the other two are at this point. Oh. Well, Adam Jones, you think, is?

I mean, he already has 19. Yeah, Adam Jones just, like, he's not to go here again, but I think Adam Jones is one of those guys who's going to finish, like, 30 second. And I've made this argument about Eric Cosmer, and he's kind of disproved that over the last month and a half or so. But he's someone who will finish 32nd in outfield, but actually be like the 45th best outfielder or something. on any given day. And just like the numbers are going to be there because he plays every day and he's batting lead off now. And he never,

never walks. So he's just going to get a ton of at-bats and rack up counting stats. But like on a per game basis, he's very replaceable. And I don't feel the same way about Jackie Pratt. Okay, lovely. So let's look at the double dongs from yesterday. Three guys, John Carlos Stanton, who I believe is now tied with Aaron Judge for the major league lead in homers.

And in his last 16 games, Stanton has a 339 batting average and 11. home runs. And he is slugging almost 1,000. His OPS is 14-01. He has four multi-homer games in the month of July. Yeah. Stanton is on fire. Hunter Renfro is 43% owned. I don't think we care about his two-homer game, right? I think he's maybe a little bit under-owned, but all he gives you is batting ever, home runs. And Carlos Santana is now the number 16 first baseman in points leagues, number 29 in Roto, 241, 12 home runs, 52 RBIs. And yeah, he's Santana, just kind of a bad version. And I think the number 16 ranking at first base in points leagues, that's with a little bit of bad luck. Yeah, for Santana?

Because the home run to fly ball rate's only 11.4%. For his career, it's 14%. Last year, it was 17%. I think he's got room to grow. Okay. Yes, he does. Oh, yes. Thank you for that, Chris Towers.

I'm not alone on Carlos Santana Island for once. No, no. He's pretty jaggy on, in Roto. Oh, in Roto. But in points, I think he's like a legitimate top 12 to 15 first. Hang on, though. I got to clarify. I never thought that Santana was like dropable or wasn't going to turn things around.

I always supported you when you said, by low on Santana, the best. You said, like, last week the best was yet to come. I said, absolutely. My argument was just how had he been doing so far this year? That was it. I mean, 16th best first baseman in this first base crop in points league. I understand.

We just have to be points league specific when we talk Carlos Santana. Okay. That's pretty good. He might have the biggest gap. The first base. Yeah. Yeah, he does. You have the biggest gap.

I, okay, I, you know, but But on a per game basis, he's probably not 16th. Oh! Well, it's true. It's true. Um, it, I don't know, because like, first base isn't a position where there's a lot of guys who just, like, like, there's just everybody's good at first base. So I feel like you're ranked, that's the one position and, you know, maybe outfield is the one position.

Like, where you rank probably tells us a lot about who you are, just because there's so many good players. Chris, I'm just going to tell you, like, the honest to God truth. There are three players that are behind him in the standings and points leagues that I'm going to assume have been better on a per game basis than Santana. Marvin Gonzalez, Justin Boer, and Freddie Freeman. All right. What were they again?

Marvin Gonzalez, Freddie Freeman, Justin Boer. Well, certainly, Freddie Freeman has. Has been one of the probably six best hitters. I would guess Marvin Gonzalez has, too. I'll look up exactly where Carlos Santana ranks in points per game. Okay. We'll be actually very interested to know. But look, this guy's a second half player.

Chris is all about breaking the tension today. He's been goofing around with the sock puppets. Yeah, I've got a little sock puppet. He's wearing a little, like, hat. Yeah. He looks like a finger puppet. A finger puppet, yeah. Okay, lost my train of thought.

So let's move on with some news and notes for you real quick. Oh, it's almost time for team name Tuesday. Zach Wheeler's on the deal with a stress reaction in his arm. No timetable for his return. Great year for the Mets. Matt Carpenter expected back today. Wilson Ramos had a head laceration. He could play tomorrow.

That's crazy. How could he play tomorrow? He has six stitches in his head. Come on. He's a hockey play. A piece of wood. Right? What?

Staples in there is. He got hit by a giant piece of wood. Yeah. He did. What's the difference between a stitch and a staple? Is a staple what it sounds like? Like, is it? Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it's like a staple. Yeah, like Milton with the stapler. Tyson Ross on the DL with a blister. Raja Davis started again. It was against the lefty. That's what we expect. Rajah Davis was caught stealing. J.D. Martinez returned to the lineup, and he hovered.

And Alex Meyer is on the D.L. with shoulder inflammation. And Meyer has a history of shoulder issues. So let's do some team name Tuesday. This is from, oh, man, I hate when I leave the names out. Peter in Chicago Hey, some combination of Sal, Murr, Q, and Joe That's practical jokers

Impractic jokers Impractical jokers, yeah, that's it Never say... Yeah, good. My favorite show to watch when nothing's on Because it seems like it's always on You're 100% right. True TV plays nothing but impractical jokers until March.

Yeah, you're right. That was the first show that my wife and I ever watched together, actually. Aw. Yeah. Anyway, these are all Rafael Devers' team names, so Never Say Devers. Yep. That's pretty good. From Keenan, the Red Sox need to leave it to Devers.

Sure. I think it works. Written out, it works. Yaz Devers Money, Rafael Problems, is the winner so far. Fantastic. Mike in Riverdale, New York. The Devers in the details. Sure.

That's good. Tyler from Minneapolis. us the Devers ending story. Yeah, that's very good. And Steve wants to reclaim Enter Sandman from Mariana Rivera, and he says, we're off to Devere Devers land. Good. Good, good. I don't know.

I don't love any of these. Sorry, guys. It's not easy. I don't know where to go with this one. So I'm just going to leave it. Something about like Endeavors? Yeah, that could be. Maybe.

Maybe that could work. So never say Devers, leave it to Devers. Y' Devers' buddy and Raphael Problems. The best one. The Devers of the details, the Devers' ending story, and we're off to Devere, Devers' Land. I'm going to give it to Devers, even though it doesn't rhyme with Beaver. I'll give it to that one. Was it Devers say Devers or never say Devers?

Never say Devers. Devers say Devers is actually maybe better. Oh. Okay. Carlos Santana is 19th in points per game at first base. So honestly, how do you feel... Starting utility guy. How do you feel about him knowing that?

Well, like I said, I think he's better than his numbers. How do you feel about the season that Carlos Santana has had based on that? It's been a little disappointing. I think it's been fine. I mean, he's better than Eric Thames. He's better than Eric Hosmer. Really? Yeah.

It's better than Yonder Alonzo in per game production. All right. Like, I mean, part of the problem is just he was coming off a career year and people were drafting him too high. Yeah. And so you feel this disappointment that may not be entirely appropriate. All right, three up, none down. Three up number one is A.J. Pollock. Very interesting player.

He's really good. I'm not going to get into all the numbers, although his last seven games, he's raised his OPS from 770 to 856, Pollock steals bases, he's really good. He sits a lot. He sat two of the last five games. Is A.J. Pollock a top 15 outfielder? Yes. I think so. He hasn't, like, the difference between Pollock today and Pollock two years ago when he had that monster season that made him put him up there with Mike Trout at the top of the outfield rankings. that was a different offensive environment that wasn't so home run dependent. He hasn't really homered at a rate to keep up with the way everyone else has begun to homer more around him. So I think he's borderline top 15.

I will say he's played 53 games, so that's basically a third of a season. If you give him, you just multiply all his numbers by three. 15 homers, 42 stolen bases, 114 runs, 64 RBI. That's pretty fantastic. I can't even begin to accept that because you have to take 40% of that away. Well, I don't know about that, but he sits recently two of the last five games, like before the All-Star break two of the last five games. And there is a reason for that.

They're trying to keep him healthy. So it's almost like, you know, like Scott, you always kind of say that a guy who sits against lefties is barely mixed league relevant. I feel like it has to be brought up with AJ Pollock, you know, because he just, they do sit up. I mean, it doesn't go as far as he's not mixed league relevant. Sure, of course. But it does hurt his overall value. And that's part of the reason why I do believe fantasy points per game are a better indicator

of talent and relevance than just straight fantasy points. But there are sometimes reasons why a player doesn't play as many games as another player. Yeah. And, yeah, that is worth bringing up for Pollock. But you understand my point about home runs. If he's on a 15-homer pace compared to the 20-something homers he hit two years ago and everybody else is homering more, that brings Pollock down in relative value, even if he is completely healthy and playing every day.

All right, three-up numbers two and three. Chris Taylor and Scooter Jeanette, do you buy them? Do you buy them, Chris Taylor and Scooter Jeanette? Yeah. Yeah, Chris Taylor's just going to have a 569 Babbitt forever. What is this bad bit? Wow. It's 569 in July.

It's like probably still 390 or something for the season. Like I feel like I can't just keep this missing, Chris Taylor. There have been adjustments made that explain the increased hard contact. 422. The increased line drive percentage. And what's his batting average? 318. Yeah.

I mean, the batting average is going to have to go down. But I think the power gains are enough that he's still going to be. a useful fantasy option. Like, his ownership now, I think, is 78%. I don't think that's over-owned. He's multi-eligible. Yeah.

He changed his stance in the off-season in a way that seems to generate harder contact. So I think there is some legitimacy to what Chris Taylor's doing, and I'm not just going to write him off anymore. What about Scooter McGavin? Scooter McGavin. Scooter Jeanette is,

I mean, they basically stop playing Jose Parraza. Yep. He started, I think Jeanette started seven straight, including two against left-handers. He's homered in two straight.

I don't think his line is 100% sustainable, but there's enough need at second base that I don't think his high 70% ownership is over-owned either. I think he's getting to be appropriately owned now. So who's on the show tomorrow? I think. Chris and I again.

I really think it's so interesting that there have been a number of hitters who've come out of nowhere this year. Some of them have kept it up and some of them have not. You know, like Jed Lowry hasn't really kept it up. Kevin Pilar didn't keep it up. And I guess you could argue Justin Bore didn't keep it up either. He'd been pretty cold. Maybe that had something to do with his first D. L stint. I don't know.

It's really interesting, because this is sort of an era where, like, Justin Smoke happens. Scooter Jeanette happens. Scooter Jeanette, since the Four Homer game, not even counting the Four Homer game, has an OPS over 1,000 in 36 games. So, I don't know, maybe something worth exploring. Is there something that's making it sustainable for some people? Like, how do we know when it's just a slump and we ignore the history? How do we know when it's Justin Smoke? It's really, it's really fascinating to me, and maybe we can explore that tomorrow.

Let's move on. Are these guys must start? Kyle Hendricks. Not yet. Nope. Justin Verlander. Yes. Yes, sir. How about who's next? James Paxton, yes.

He's amazing. He's going to end up, like, if he stays healthy, he's going to end up throwing like 170 innings of a mid-to-high-2 ZRA with maybe 200 strikeouts. He's fantastic. James Paxton. Garrett Cole must start? Yeah. Yeah, two run runs are less than 8 of 9, I think.

How about 8% swinging strikes, though, in his last 8 starts when he has a 304 ERA? I wish he was better. Yeah, but he's good enough to start every week. Is he sell high, Garrett Cole? It depends what you can get for. Yeah, it depends if it's honestly high. Because he's got the 412 ERA for the season, I'm not sure anybody's going to give you more than he's worth. But if I could get Johnny Quato for Garrett Cole, I would do that.

Would you? Yeah. Quato's on his way back and says it's not a true blister that he had. And I have a lot of faith in Quedo. This is the issue with the fingers he'd been pitching with since May. So I think it's excusable some of the issues he's had this year, especially the control problems recently. But I don't think that's high enough to sell coal.

I don't see that as a genuine sell high. I think it's at best an even swap. And, you know, based on the way Quoedo's pitched this year, it could be worse. And Eduardo Rodriguez, is he a must start? Not yet. Not yet. And his velocity's been a little down since coming back. But if you believe in the breakthrough he was having before,

he deserves your patience now. Yeah, it was one bad inning for Rodriguez. You don't like the – he's been walking some batters since coming off the D.L. But one bad inning, and Hanley Ramirez made a pretty below-average play that cost them a run. So not so – you know, not terrible. Well, it wasn't – look, the ground ball to Hanley Ramirez. Runners coming home from third. He should have been out.

He didn't make a very good throw. I'm just going to say – Yeah, that'll happen when Hanley Ramirez is playing in the field. Yeah, yeah. So Hanley-O-Mare is starting to play in the field against lefties with Chris Young D.A. aging and Mitch Mortland's sitting. Surprisingly a good start yesterday. Do you care about any of these? Josh

Tomlin, Blake Snell, Francisco Laryano. I'm happy to see Blake Snell pitch well. I'm happy to see Blake Snell get out of the fifth inning. I've been saying all season, the light's going to go on for him at some point. And it's just a question of whether you have the patience to ride through it until it does.

And I'm not sure this was that moment. He only had four strikeouts, so it seemed like he sacrificed something to get there. But, you know, step in the right direction. Okay, in order to try to get to some emails, it's going to be tough. Let's see how quickly we can go through today's games. Carlos Rodan at John Lackey. I would start. I will start both.

Really? I'm going to start. I'm not starting Rodon. I'm definitely not starting Rodon. Cubs have been just killing it lately. I'd be more likely to start lackey, but first start back from the DL. I'd rather not. Is this his first start?

I thought he made a start. I think he made one start. Oh, did he? Okay. Yeah, and I thought it went pretty well. Yeah, five innings, one run, one strikeout at the Braves. All right. Next game.

Come on, Scott, I was at the Braves. How'd you not get that? Charlie Morton, Nick Povetta. I'll start Morton against the Phillies. Yeah. Zach Davies, Edwin Jackson. No. Somebody picked up Edwin Jackson in one of our leagues.

Are you crazy? No. Don't do that. It's that 40-team NL-only league we've got. No, it was the points. It was the podcast points league, I think. Wow. Don't do that. Yeah.

Don't pick up Eddie Jackson. Spamming the two-star pitchers there. He must be a two-star picture next week because they picked him up this morning. He was. Oh, this morning? Yeah, I think so. Am I insane here? We're not getting the emails today.

Am I insane? Let's play a game. Is Adam insane? No, he's not. Edwin Jackson was picked up. Who could... Yeah, would not approve that move. Who could this team have thought they were picking up that spells his name similarly to Edwin Jackson? This is the first place team, by the way.

I'm coming for you, Cocoa, Chris. Okay. So I came, like, high stepping into the end zone. I've got more games to give. get to here and I've gotten off track. This is a tough one. Luis Castillo at Jordan Montgomery. Jordan Montgomery's been bad for about five starts now. I'd be more willing to start Luis Castillo. I would too, but I think I'd start both. Castillo, I think, is a must. But Montgomery I'm still worried just because I've been so high on Luis Castillo and there's going to be a bad start

at some point. It happens for everybody. I don't know that he hasn't already gotten it out of the way, though with all the walks and everything. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, we're at an hour. Casillo Montgomery, they're dicey. Sunny Gray, we're going to start him at the Blue Jays, against Valdez. First initial C, what is his first name? Caesar.

Cesar. Good job. I wouldn't have gotten that. So don't start Valdez, right? And, you know, keep an eye on Sunny Gray. If he starts giving people hugs during pregame warmups, you probably want to sit him. Wade Miley, Jacob Faria.

Start Korea. Duffy and Fulmer. Start both. Jesse Chavez and Clevenger. Start Clevenger. That's it. Dan Strelie, Cole Hamels. Start both.

Yeah. Australia is bad on the road. Yeah. All right. John Gray at Lance Lynn. Start both. It's away from course. Fultenevich at Taiwan Walker.

I will start both, but I'm very scared of starting Fulte against the downbacks. Yeah, why are you starting him then? Because it's been good recently. Seth Lugo at Yolisha Sine. I will start Lugo. Yeah. I'm definitely.

I'm starting both. I'd start both. Burrios at Maida. We'll start both. Yes. Yeah, Burrios you're cool with? Yeah, I'm cool with that. Drew Pomeranz at Felix Hernandez.

I'll start both. And start... Sorry. Okay, yeah, we'll start both. I was hedging on Felix, but that's fine. Tyone and Bumgarner, we're going to start. It's time for me to make my bold prediction. Yolisha Sine will be better then.

All but he will be a top five pitcher today. Out of 30 pitchers, Yolisha Seen will be a top five pitcher. Okay. I'm the best. Gosh, I'm so fun with these bold predictions flying all over the place. Zaney. Is this kind of like Bonanza in football? No, I got the last.

Last one right, so. Oh, yes. I think it might have a bit about Yoli. I think it was Yolisha Seymou will be better than James and Tyone last time they pitched. Nailed it. See ya.