Fantasy Baseball Today - 08/21: Bullpens, Breakouts and Birthdays (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 21, 2018

Reacting to what's happening in the MIL, LAD and ATL bullpens (1:25) before getting into Monday's standouts as Mike Fiers (4:35) had another great start. We also wonder if Ross Stripling will get back to the rotation (6:48) and what's going on with Chris Archer (12:14)? ... Are we buying breakouts from Zack Wheeler and Xander Bogaerts (17:22)? And is Buster Posey done being a great catcher (21:45)? Scott and Adam also tell you how to break a tie in the playoffs (25:16) and how to reduce the impact of two-start pitchers in a playoff matchup (26:08) ... It's Luke Weaver's birthday so let's talk about him (30:00)! Plus more from yesterday including RIck Porcello's problem (34:32), streaking hitters (38:30) and fringy SPs (41:30) before we preview today's matchups (43:10) ... 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

I care about statistical scarcity more than positional scarcity. Have I filled fun? Yes. Podcast is going off the rails already. They're pop-ups. They're not infield fly balls. These guys told you look at Fip, not ERA. So wait for Glover's sale, but pass on Robbie.

Real quick, Scott's bummed about the humidor. And pick your milk for breakfast cereal, Mount Rushmore. They'll be there for... Tuesday morning, August 21st, Stata Mazur and Scott White, scamming you here on fantasy baseball today. Good morning, Scott. Good morning. Yeah, it is a good morning. Unless you're an A.J. Minter owner or a Kenley Janssen owner, and I have both.

Whatever. Whatever. Won't hold it against them. Yeah, we're going to talk about the bullpens. I hope you didn't start Stephen Gonzalez yesterday. Lucas Gialito. Is he a thing? Also, I'll ask you if you're buying a couple of breaks.

and if you're buying a bus. Scott, give me a standout from Monday. A standout from Monday. How about a guy who we rode off, I guess, just yesterday? We decided it couldn't be trusted. And Jeremy Jeffers ended up getting a save on Monday with Josh Hader working the seventh and eighth. It was the opposite of what happened on Saturday. Yep.

But it was closer to what we expected to happen. And I think, you know, Josh Hader's used to work getting multi-inning relief appearances. And as the lefty, I think he's going to be needed in the ninth more often. Or he's going to be needed earlier than the ninth more often. So, you know, maybe we were too quick to bang the gavel on that one. But who's going to get the next one? I'm just saying, you know, Hater had had the last three saves for the Brewers. I just don't know.

I thought that Jeffers was going to be the close. The two before that were a multi-inning. I don't know. I mean, I still think there's a good chance Jeffers gets the majority from here on. I'd certainly rather have him than, like, a replacement from the Braves bullpen, assuming Minter even misses time,

which, you know, seems like it could just be a day-to-day thing for him. How about Ken Giles or Jeremy Jeffers? Jeffers. Okay. All right, Scott. We'll see what happens next time they get a save, because if it's a hater, you're going to be a hater. So what's going on with A.J. Minter, Dan Winkler got to save yesterday for the Braves. Yeah, so he has a back issue, back tightness is what they've called it.

It's considered day-to-day. Now, I mean, it seems possible vague injury like that. data they could become a DL stent, but there doesn't seem to be any concern about that right now. And even if he did go on the DL, I don't think it'd be 100% Winkler was getting all the saves. I think probably Brad Brock would factor into that mix. Ew, really? Maybe Jesse Biddle. Yeah.

Brock. Are you worried about Kenley Jansen? Gave up two home runs, came off the DL, which was great, and then he gave up two home runs, which made me very thankful that in my daily league, I missed that, you know, if you take a guy off the DL on this website that I play in, he's not eligible for your team until tomorrow. So I couldn't start Kenley Jansen, and that worked out. Or I would have.

Yeah, he got crushed. You gave three hits to him, homers, against St. Louis. Yeah, that was obviously not what we wanted to see from him. And his velocity was done. down a couple miles per hour. It's not like where it was at the beginning of the season. Or, yeah, it wasn't quite that low, but it was down a couple, and maybe he just needs, you know, this was his first appearance in two weeks.

So maybe he just needs a little time to shake off the rest. I don't think it's anything especially alarming. And it's really great that we have Kenley Jansen back. Awesome news. Happy to see it. I'm going to ask you about Mike Fires, Scott. Mike Fires in his last 10 starts has a one. 181 ERA.

Nine walks, 50 strikeouts, six home runs allowed in 59 and two-thirds. So much less than a strikeout branding. But opponents are batting 212 with a 342 slugging percentage. There's a 247 Babbat in there. He's at Minnesota this weekend. Mike Fires has been ridiculous. He's 80% owned. How much do you trust him right now?

I don't think you can ever trust Mike Fires completely. He's had so many stretches like this in his career where he'll look. dominant for two months at a time and then it falls apart a pretty, pretty dramatic way. But I do think we're at a point in the season where it's not crazy to ride the hot hand. And he's certainly that right now. Just don't be hesitant to pull, don't be hesitant to pull the plug when he finally does have a bad start. All right, we'll get into more from yesterday in a little bit. we're going to do that birthday segment again.

It was very fun. Now I just have to, yeah, it was fun, right? So much came out of it. It was just so enlightening for everybody involved. Here's the problem. So we're going to use, you know, that was West from Oakland gave us that birthday segment. We ended up talking about the Lionel to Shields. Today we're going to talk about someone else.

And the problem is we're going to use that birthday song by Stevie Wonder, Happy Birthday. I queued it up on my eyes. iPad while we were on the air, like two minutes ago. And I don't remember the part of the song where he starts to actually say happy birthday. So we're just going to try to pick a random spot in the song where he says it. And hopefully it works out. He says it a lot. He does, but it takes a while to get there.

Okay. So, you know, it's going to be interesting. We'll see what happens. We'll probably destroy the segment. News and notes, Jose Altuve is going to be back today. Hooray. Ross Stripling will be activated soon, but it is unclear what his role will be, Ross Stripling. How stashable is stripling at this point, Scott?

I think he's pretty stashable because Dave Roberts said before this DLs didn't even happen when they were planning to move him to the bullpen, that he hoped to get them back in the rotation because he felt like he had earned it. I actually wrote a piece last night. It'll be up on the site, probably up on the site by the time you're listening to this. Pitchers who are coming up on an inning's limit or not a known inning's limit, but it seems like their innings are rising to a point where their teams are going to have to pull back on them. Stripling himself would fall into that category, but not nearly as much as Walker Bueller will.

I think Walker Bueller has at most three starts left, and maybe that's when they transition stripling back in Bueller's place as a way to kind of manage both of their innings, remove stripling for now, but then they flip the two, and Bueller starts pitching out of the bullpen. That's my expectation for how things are going to play out. And stripling's been, you know, obviously was great as a starter.

Oh, yeah. You'd be happy to have them back in that role. Yeah, and my ATA too also could factor in, but you think stripling would have dibs on the first over? Yeah, I mean, I think in the same breath that Robert said they wanted to get stripling back in the rotation, he said they're not putting naida back in the rotation. So I wouldn't count on that. He said that?

What a jerk. Yeah. All right. All right. I'd like to f***act the exact quote instead of just going off memory. All right, go ahead and search for that quote. I'll continue with the news and notes. Atlanta's starting pitcher Bryce Wilson made his major league debut, another young Braves pitcher, five scoreless sittings, three walks, five strikeouts at Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, Stephen Gonzalez got crushed six hits, four runs in an inning in a third against the White Sox wasn't his fault. There's a rain delay. Screwed up his flow, his mojo. Gonzalez will get one more turn. It'll be against Oakland this weekend. Do you see a reason to own Bryce Wilson for the Braves or Stephen Gonzalez? for the twins? I don't see much reason to own either.

Like I said, even before this start for Gonzávez, I wasn't really looking to add him in standard mixed leagues. I'm just not sure the upside is high enough. It certainly has to show something before I do. Now, Wilson had a great debut, but I feel like it's kind of like Tuki Toussaint a couple weeks ago, or I guess just a week ago, where he had a nice debut against the Marlins and a double-hatter,

and we haven't seen him in the major sense. I feel like those two, Wilson and Tucson, they're going to be what the Braves are going to use them to help space out Fultenevich's and Newcoms starts over the final month because both of them are coming up in that concerning innings area. And obviously the Braves have designs on the postseason. So they're going to use some of their minor league pitching depth to build an extra rest for their established starters. but that means spot starts all over the place and not a lot of predictability to it. I just don't think they're worth holding on to during that. Somebody asked me in a keeper or dynasty context about Mike Soroka. And I was really struck by how average his stuff looked, but great pedigree for Soroka.

What do you think about him? What is his future? I think, yeah, I think he's, going to be a fixture of the Braves rotation. Obviously, he has to get the shoulder right, and I feel like it was an abundance of caution, putting him on the 60-day D-L, just making sure he's right for next season is their priority there. But, yeah, he was considered the highest.

Well, some publications, I guess, had Louise Gohar higher, but of all these Braves pitchers, Soroka was considered one of the best, if not the best. by the prospect publications coming into the year. Do you believe in him? Because he's not a big swinging strike guy, right? That's your thing. Yeah, yeah, I do. But the scouting reports are so favorable.

It reminds me a little of Aaron Nola or even Zach Rinkie, who like the command and the pitchability was so good. pitchability is one of those made up pitching prospect words, but it means they really know how to use their stuff. And eventually we saw the strikeouts obviously become a thing for both Grinky and Dola. I feel like Soroka fits into that same class. I'll be ranking podcast ability soon. That would be a new term podcast ability.

And right now you and I are leading the charge. It's the scam show now. Chris was supposed to be on today and then he bailed. We have to make fun of it. He bailed. He found out I was going to be on. Yeah, they don't need me. Chris Archer left with leg discomfort, but he's optimistic about making his next start. I really encourage everybody to watch Chris Archer pitch and tell me what I'm missing here.

He just, like he got lucky yesterday. He gave up one run in four innings. Did you watch the game, Braves Man? I did, yeah. What did you think of Chris Archer? I'm glad you watched because he gave up three doubles in four innings. You know, one was nearly a home run. I just don't see it.

I mean, he's throwing like 95, which is good, but it's not great. We know he's got the sliders, changeups, whatever. I don't know, man. I'm losing faith in Chris Archer. Yeah, this was, ironically, probably his best start of Pirates uniform. Yeah, it was. Even though he lasted only four innings. The thing is, other than the ERA and other than the actual stats, he looks the same, you know?

Even the swinging strike rate is high like it usually is. So I don't know. It's been really strange. And I certainly don't view him as a must-start pitcher down the stretch. I'm not to the point where I am with like Robbie Ray, where I think he's dropable. But this was a two-star week. This was supposed to be a slam dunk stardom situation. and already it feels like it backfired.

You've got to hope he makes that next start since he left this one with an injury. It doesn't seem like a big deal. He pitched an inning after suffering the injury. It was on a swing where his legs just weren't feeling quite right. And it was his best inning. It was a clean inning. But they decided to take him out.

So hopefully he still makes his start over the weekend. But if he doesn't, man, that's going to be the time you felt like you could trust him and you couldn't. It's going to make it hard to trust him again. Yeah, I mean, I trust him enough to start him because I just, I don't, in the one league that I own Archer in, I don't have enough pitching. I start him every time out. You know, you hope for some strikeouts. He's an okay strikeout pitcher right now.

He's good enough. I just, I think now when I watch him, the last two years are starting to make more sense, the kind of high ERA. But I also think that the move to the National League should still be helpful. In fact, I felt like there were a couple times yesterday where, seemed like he was in trouble and then maybe the pitcher would come up or some crappy eighth hitter or something like that.

You know, National League is great for pitching. His average fastball velocity has been exactly the same for three straight years. His swinging strike rate is, you know, going by baseball reference standards. It's 21.4 this year,

22.6 last year, 21.4 the year before. 21.6 the year before. Like it seems like he's the same and he's just not getting the same results. He is the same, and that's the problem. He never developed the change-up. Well, I mean, he's the same, but, you know, the last couple years he was getting

a lot more strikeouts than he is this year. The more things change, the more they stay the same, Scott. Wouldn't you agree? Sure. I don't agree with that quote. I think it was a silly quote. Derek Rodriguez is scheduled to start against Texas on Friday.

Brandon Nimmo's on the deal with a finger injury. Ozzie Albies batted sixth yesterday. Oh, boy. Max Muncie batted zero yesterday. He, well, I don't know. He may have pinched it, but he sat again against a lefty. The Cardinals started a man named Patrick Wisdom at third base. So that was a smart move, right?

Smart move. I see what you did there. Wisdom usually just pinch hits. Kyle McHugh is definitely not going to start tonight, Scott. He threw two innings yesterday. So who do we have lined up to start tonight? Maybe it'll be Peacock after all. Maybe.

Oh, my goodness. Could you imagine? If I, let's see, who we got on? Yeah, we have McHugh right now. There's no way. He threw two innings yesterday. He's not starting. Like, how is this not out there?

I keep looking for it and I cannot find it. Scott will find it. Yeah, Scott will find. When's the last time Peacock pitched? He actually has multi-hitting relief appearances, unlike McHugh. Actually, McHugh did yesterday, which I thought was ironic. You had two innings the day before I thought he was going to start. Well, Peacock pitched two days ago and three days ago also.

All right. I don't know. It's a great mystery. It's probably going to be a bullpen game. Okay, great. Which is what it would have been if McHugh start. it anyway. I mean, he wasn't ready to go out and pitch four inning. Alex Wood has allowed three or fewer earn runs and 12 starts. So that's good.

Bad news is the only pitch four innings yesterday. And George Springer was scratched with quad soreness but was available off the bench. Speaking of off the bench, for a great podcast on CBS Sports off the bench. Scott, are you buying the breakout? I got two players for you. Are you buying the breakout? Number one, Zach Wheeler. Zach Wheeler in his last 15 starts has a 271 ERA, 28 walks, 93,000.

strikeouts and five home runs allowed. 12% swinging strike rate. That's a 96 in a third inning, by the way. So just under a strikeout per inning. He's thrown a lot of innings lately. He's pitching great. He's been a must start. Zach Wheeler, are you buying the breakout?

Yeah, I am. Here's the problem. He's up to 146 in a third innings. He had thrown about 87 in the previous three years combined. So how much longer are the Mets going to let this play out? They still have him for next year. He's showing signs of living up to his potential finally. Obviously, they're not playing for anything.

They need to shut him down. They're probably going to shut them down sooner than later. He's like my best pitcher in the podcast league. I know. I would – if trade deadline is still open in your league and you're looking to bolster your rotation, I would not make a move for Zach Wheeler because – I just, just doesn't make sense for them to keep running him out there at this point. Are you buying him, though, as, like, next year, where are you thinking you're going to rank Zach Wheeler?

I think he'll be top 40, would be my guess. So what happened? What triggered this breakout for Wheeler? Well, I caught, like, the, you know, they have, like, a sideline reporter. I don't know what they call it in baseball. Dugout reporter. Talking about Zach Wheeler and what changed for him. and I sort of caught the end of it.

And I had read this before. Like, basically the difference is he just started throwing harder. He was like, I think I'm going to add a tick or two to the fastball, and everything's been great since then. He throws really hard now. He always was a hard thrower, but, I mean, what's the average? He probably throws, like, 97. Yeah, he's averaging almost 97 miles per hour with the fastball.

So that helps. Scott, you're buying the breakout from Xander Bogart's? Breakout. Well, I mean, a lot of people thought he was this guy coming into the year, right? But you know. I was more of a downer on him than most. Scott's cell phone makes an appearance.

So popular. I don't get text messages this time of day. Yeah. Actually, this is from you. I just now got it. Oh, wow. How about that? That was just playing in the segment.

Yeah, you are responsible for this for all you're complaining. I love that. I mean, people, he's hit 20 homers in a season before. He's having his best year by far. He's got an 874 OPS, Zander Bogarts. His previous high was 802. He also missed a little bit of time. I'll give you some numbers.

Zander Bogartz is averaging 3.4 fantasy points per game. I looked at the top five short stops, top six short stops. They're averaging about 122, 222 games. So if I gave Bogart's 1202 games, he's only played in 103, he would be, about the number five, no, number four shortstop. And remember, shortstop's been amazing. It's Lindor, Bregman, Machado, and then if Bogarts have been playing 122 games like the others,

he'd pretty much be tied with Javier Baez and just the head of Trevor's story in what's been a great top six at shortstop. So I would say he's broken out this year. Yeah, I mean, it's, he has the 20 homers in the season before. Like I said, he's on pace, I think, for 22 this year. He's at 21 before. But his ISO that year was 152, and this year it's 235.

Yeah. So definitely has hit for more power. A lot of it's taking the form of doubles. He's on pace for about 45 of those. Yeah. I mean, sure, he's hitting the ball harder than he ever has. Fly ball rate is, it's about the same, but he's at an age 25 where, it makes sense to see more power from a player.

So given the upside we suspected he had, yeah, I'll go along with it as a breakout. All right, are you buying the bust? You know, I didn't get everything right this year, that's for sure. Got a lot wrong, Greg Bird. I did not draft Buster Posey in any leagues. He felt like a bust to me. He felt like a player in the decline.

And even though Buster Posey is the number five catcher in points leagues, number eight in Roto, he has really had very little impact on fantasy teams, I would say, and he has the most played appearances at the position. Most played appearances, and yet he's fifth in points and eighth in Roto. Are you buying the bust for Posey? Yeah, he won't be an early round pick next year. I think the fact he'll be 32. I mean, that's definitely getting up there for a catcher.

uh you know he'll he'll be yeah i i i think this is who he is now i think he's uh somebody who obviously needs to start in fantasy but he doesn't stand out of the position anymore and the power like you're not you're not counting on him he hitting even 15 home runs i mean 12 would be a good season for him at this stage of his career and amazingly heath's going to end up right and Posey's going to outscore Gary Sanchez. We really ridiculed him for that one, and Sanchez. Well, Sanchez, all of these predictions are barring injury. I know, but it happened.

He's missed half the season. Okay, let's get into some playoff questions. Let's get into more from yesterday. We got the birthday segment coming up. Got to tell you about a really cool sponsor, though, ladies and gentlemen. I'm talking about hymns forhims.com. Hymns is a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, sexual wellness. For men, it is an awesome website. And we're focusing on hair loss because 66% of men lose their hair by age 35. Every time I read that, I remember that I am 34. And uh-oh. But no, seriously, when you start to notice hair loss, it's too late. You have to be preventative. You have to go out. there and be proactive. And 4hems.com can really help you out.

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Yeah, no problem. All right, back to baseball. Here's an email from Mark. Email of the day number one. What is the best way to break a tie in a playoff categories league? Break a playoff tie in a categories league. I think tie should always go to the Oh

No it'd be the same thing Yeah tie should always go to the higher seated team I feel like that's that's kind of the home field advantage That obviously doesn't exist in fantasy But it's that little extra Advantage you're given as the better As the team that was better during the regular season 100% agree

And if you don't do that Then obviously there's only one other way to break the tie And that would be fewest letters in your last name. Fewest letters in your last name. It's always a good tie break. You've got to, yeah, you've got to reward the higher record for sure. Email of the day number two is from Don.

Can you please discuss this on your podcast? All right, Scott, this is going to fire you up a little bit. It's going to fire you up. Oh, okay. Going to make you sneeze. My league has grown extremely frustrated with two-start pitching scoring in week-long points leagues. Year after year, teams are knocked out of our points.

playoffs or lose the World Series to inferior teams simply due to the complete luck of the pitching schedule. For example, last year I missed a trip to the World Series by a single point despite my offensive pitching being vastly superior to my opponent. However, I had the misfortune of my pitching studs only having one start each, whereas my opponent had only two-star pitchers in his lineup. Those extra four starts cost me a victory by a single point. We feel that the playoffs and World Series being determined by sheer luck of quantity over actually having a quality pitching staff is ridiculous.

And we have already agreed as a league to look for another option next year, whether on CBS or at another site. Do you have any suggestions to remedy this Bush League scoring system for weekly scoring periods? Perhaps the two-star pitcher only gets the points for their better start, so it's still an advantage, but it's not doubling their points. Can you please suggest some new pitching scoring options to CBS? Well, this isn't something they've been able to implement on the site, but one. One thing my longest standing league has done, we've been doing it for years, is basically the first seven starts count. You have five pitcher spots to fill, but you can only start two two-star pitchers. If you start another and you end up with eight starts for the week, the start, the game that ends last is the one that's removed.

the points are negated from that start. So it takes some work for the commissioner, which isn't ideal. But that's one way to help limit the effect of that. In the playoffs, we've actually done, there are no two-star pitchers. You announce heading into the week which are the two-starts you want to count from a two-star pitcher. And the others eliminated. If for some reason that second start doesn't end up happening, then you automatically get the first start so that you're not left with no start from a pitcher

just because you haven't to choose the second star. So that's how we've handled it in that league. That's interesting. Yeah. I don't know that it's necessary. I feel like, you know going in how many starts you have versus your opponent. And if it's that big of a difference, he has four more starts than you, then maybe you turn two-star sleeper off the waiver wire. It forces you to think on your feet a little bit.

I don't think that's such a bad thing. I think that's part of what makes a good fantasy manager. So it's not something I felt was necessary myself, but I don't complain about the way we've decided to do in that particular league. It's worked out fine. And also we have two-week playoff rounds in our podcast league. Yes. And that helps. That is my faith.

Like, yeah, the reason for that isn't necessarily to take care of this problem, but it's true. That is a side effect of it. To help reduce the element of luck overall in the playoffs. All of my leagues, I set up that playoff periods last two weeks instead of one. You still set your lineup each week as usual, so you still have the opportunity to change if somebody gets hurt. Or if you want to take advantage of two-start options both weeks. But that gives you a little more – that gives – you know, if somebody happens to have all their stud pitchers making two starts in one week, they obviously won't in the second week

and there's a chance that some of your studs will be making two starts that week so it helps even it out more too sure all right Scott let's see if we can get this happy birthday properly here moment of truth did I cue it up to the right spot Stevie Wonder take it away yes

happy birthday come on Scott you're not even smiling right now there you go he says it so many times it's crazy Happy birthday, Luke Weaver. This is our baseball reference birthday segment inspired by Wes from Oakland. Wes, thank you for giving us content on an otherwise contentless day.

Luke Weaver, it's your birthday. Happy birthday, Luke Weaver, Simpson's reference. You've been demoted to the bullpen, we know. But what happened with Luke Weaver, Scott? I was very high on Luke Weaver. He had a 205 ERA last year after getting called up. And then his final two starts. He gave up 14 runs in 7 and 2 thirds, and he ended up with a 3rd.

and he ended up with a 380-80-R-A. But I said, you know what, he probably just got tired. 17 walks, 72 strikeouts, and 60 and a third. Everything was just beautiful for him. And Luke Weaver has gone all Luis Severino on us, and he's been terrible in his second year. Is he going to go all Luis Severino on us and be a Cy Young candidate in his third year next season?

I'm not confident at that at all. And I was high on him coming into the year, too. But this is maybe a testament to how important swinging strikes are, because his swinging strike rate was low last year. It was about the same this year, and obviously the results weren't nearly as good. He had to be so fine with his control to be the 10.7K per 9 guy he was in 2017 with that swinging strike rate.

And you see the difference in the number of 02 counties had this year. It's much lower than it was last year. And I don't know that it's reasonable to expect him to, repeat the 2017 version of that. Part of the reason I was optimistic too coming into the year is because there was a lot of hype about him developing a curveball to go with his fastball change-up combination.

And it seemed to be getting good results in spring training. When push came to shove, it wasn't a pitch he used that much. It wasn't one he used really any more than last year. So he was still basically a two-pitch pitcher. and still didn't have a great swing and miss pitch. So, I mean, you still love the minor league track record. If you look at his minor league year-by-year stats, I mean, they're crazy.

They're sub-2 ERAs, strikeout rate through the roof. And maybe he gets it figured out at some point down the line, but I did not see a lot of reason for optimism over the course. of this season. Okay. Luke Weaver, I hope you bounce back. And actually, I wanted to check this. Check it.

His strikeout rate in the minors, well, it was pretty good. Yeah, well, it was less than K-per-D inning for his whole minor league career, so maybe it wasn't even as good as I was talking to it up to me. The ERAs were definitely low, but the strikeout rate inconsistent. it.

Quick round of team name Tuesday. We've got Wobah Fett. Wobafet. Okay. If you smell what Kopeck is cooking. Can you smell what the rock is cooking? Yeah, it's a stretch. Tuki torches?

Tuki torches. Like Tiki torches? That's all right. And how about... Well, see, here's one from Jesse. He has Zach Wheeler, Zach Granky, and Zach Godley, and his team is Zach Attack. But it's good. The problem is nobody ever looks at who's on your team when they see your team name.

They just want to laugh at the team name. So they're going to see Zach attack, and they're like, what does this mean? His name's Jesse. He's not Zach. What's that mean? You know, I was thinking if you had a team with Yudarvish and Adam Ottavino, your team name could be you ought to I knew he were going with it. Yeah, I liked it. I liked it. I had three-man rotation from yesterday. Corey Kluber got off to a rough start. And he gave up nine hits and six and a third, but he only three runs at Boston. settled in nicely. Rick Porcelo did a lot of numbers crunching on Porcelo, and I just don't get it. I think it comes down to home runs with Porcelo. You know, because he's had four years now with Boston. And the only time he's had had a home run rate under 1.2 has been his Sye Young season. It was 0.9. I don't know.

Like his Babbup this year is 280. It was 269 when he won the Siong. It's been 333 and 324 of the other two seasons. It feels like if you look at Porcelo's numbers, like his advanced numbers, it seems like they're closer to his Siong year than the bad years. But at the end of the day, and now he's a 414 ERA. And that's it. I mean, it's home runs because like he's 15 and That's great. He's got a low whip, 114 whip. He's got a career high K rate, 8.8 per 9. So I feel like it's almost like a Tanaka situation.

He pitches pretty well, but serves up some long balls and the ERA is over four. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I actually think he's a little better than Tanaka. Oh, I do too. I just making the comparison that everything else looks good except the ERA. Sure. Of course, this is what I was saying about Carlos Carrasca.

Well, this is, and this is what kind of what I've been saying about Jose Barrios, in that he's probably going to finish with about 200 innings and about 200 strikeouts. And can you live with ERA round four, if that's the case? I think you can. Obviously, it can be a little frustrating start for start, but I don't feel like many people have the pitching depth to bench Porcelo. So it's not like the bad starts are scaring them away from the good starts. Yeah.

So I'm fine with him. Yeah, the home run rate, like he was cruising in this start. He had given up no runs through four innings, and then suddenly the Indians hit three home runs off him. So it's clear that's what happened in this start. Yeah, that's the strikeout rate is good. The walk rate is good. It really is that.

How many home runs does he give up? It seems to be the determinant for how good the start was. The Red Sox have some real easy opponents coming up. at Tampa Bay this weekend That'll be Porcelo's matchup I think next week it's like White Sox and Royals or something Or maybe I'm wrong

But it's easy opponents Alex Wood How much confidence do you have in Alex Wood? Not much He He felt pretty safe Coming off the DL He gave up nine base runners

And four innings So So much for that, right? That's a bad start Whip above two And he left with the bases loaded and nobody out and only one run scored this could have been a really bad start yeah could have been really awful the walks have been kind of high for him lately and it's 2.2 per 9 for the

year so still really good but i feel like he's been slipping and um if you can't count on him to be control guy i mean because obviously he's not big bat misser guy then i don't know i don't know i I'm not looking to drop them, but this was a two-start week that he couldn't take advantage of, and are you going to start him in one-start weeks? Probably not. I start him in my daily league lineup.

You're not really choosing weekly starters. Because I do expect Alex Wood to give me a quality start. He usually does do that. But, yeah, strikeout rate pretty low now. 117 strikeouts and 132 in a third. One quality start in his past four. So, like, that's kind of the... He does have a lot of quality starts this year, but he still rarely goes beyond six innings

that it doesn't take much from to fall short of that. It's not like they're going to let him work through issues to get kind of a bad quality start, you know? All right, four up. Let's look at some hitters who did well yesterday. Jackie Bradley has an 882 OPS in his last 44 games. He's 39% owned. Kendris Morales and Ramon Luriano homered twice yesterday, a piece. And Johann Camargo, since my birthday, Scott, Johann Camargo, June 19th, 51 games, is 847 OPS.

So he's batting 311 in that stretch with seven homers and 12 doubles. That's pretty similar to what Jackie Bradley's done in 44 games compared to 55. Not as high of a batting average, but same seven. homers, few more extra base hits, 882 OPS compared to Camargo's 847. Also, Bradley has five steals in 44 games. Camargo has no steals this season. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, Morales, okay, let's forget about Ramon Luriano, just had to be mentioning Homer twice. Jackie Bradley, Kendris Morales, Johann Camargo. Who is the most useful one in fantasy? Camargo, by a pretty significant margin.

You know, Kendra's Morales has, how did I stretch here? Sort of. August has been really bad for him, except his last four games. So he has three home runs in his last four games, and he's seven for 13. He has four home runs in August, and he's batting 214 in August. July, though, he had 1033 OPS. July was a great month for Morales. Yeah, and he has a good K-to-B-B-B.

during that stretch. Last 37 games, so most of July, 292 with a 924 OPS and 21 walks to 23 strikeouts. So I think with the right matchups, he could be considered a sleeper bat, but I don't think he's somebody you're looking to pick up and start regularly. He doesn't play quite every day for the Blue Jays even. So he's probably the second most useful of these, but Camargo's a distant first. Yeah, so you just never seem to want to give Jackie Bradley any love. What did he do to you?

I mean, he's hitting 220. Yeah, but he starts with that. Yeah. Not fast enough. Not to a good enough extent. One down, Justin Smoke. Justin Smoke since the All-Star break is actually batting 284, but he has a 129 ISO. He overall, Smoke is the number 18 first baseman in points leagues,

and number 23 in Roto. Yeah, whatever, he's fine. In the middle of the road, yeah. Yeah, he is who he is. Better in OBP leagues. Bullpen, Jose Alvarado got a save. That was strange. Sergio Romo had to be available

unless he was hurt or something. He only threw 14 pitches on Sunday. I think it may have been a lefty situation. There were two lefties due up for the Royals and the ninth Alvarado's left-handed. So maybe that was it. Fringy starting pitchers, Scott, Austin, Gomber, Derek Holland,

and Lucas Gialito. Any interest here, Gombor, Holland, and Gialito? I mean, Gialito, I guess, has been better lately. He's been better in like a James Shield sort of way, where is it enough for you to care? Is it enough for you to think he's a different pitcher? Well, he's, okay, so Gialito has six quality starts in his last eight. In August, he has 26 strikeouts in 24 innings.

Now, I said six quality starts in his last eight. If you look at his last nine starts, Lucas Gileito has three terrible starts. So the overall numbers aren't going to be that great because, you know, these terrible starts. Well, let's just look at the eight. Yeah, all right, look at the eight. The eight. He has a 450 ERA.

He has 43 strikeouts and 48 innings. Okay, that's pretty good. But a 450 ERA. In spite of, by the way, a 264 Babb. So it's had some good bad to look during that stretch. He had a seven-year-old. He had a seven-runs. That's the main thing.

20 walks, that was he said? Yeah, 20 walks. Like, he's still, the walks are still an issue, and home runs aren't great either. So, yeah, I don't think there's enough here to get excited about. Okay. And Gomber had a good start, but, you know, bad walk to strikeout ratio, and he's at Colorado this weekend. And Derek Collins, Scott talked about it, you know, not a terrible two-start option. Five innings, one run at the Mets.

He's got Texas at home this upcoming weekend. And let's see who's pitching today. We don't know who it's going to be for the Astros. But it's Kevin Gosman at Yvonne Nova. I would start Gosman. I would. Yep. Vince Velasquez at Tanner Roark.

Definitely Roark. And it's not crazy to start Falafelazquez. It depends how much you're looking to help ERA and whip versus strikeouts. One of our emails pointed out, emailers pointed out that Vince Velasquez has been much better on the road. So these are fun splits. At home, Vince Velasquez has a 502 ERA. On the road, he has a 302 ERA. But he actually has a higher batting average against on the road.

It's entirely home runs. 11 home runs at home, two home runs on the road. road. Well, that would make sense. I mean, Citizens Bank Park is a good place to hit home runs. Sure is. So that doesn't seem like one of those fluky splits that it's hard to explain. I think that makes sense. So it's a road start for Velasquez. Maybe that's reason enough to start him. Yeah, there you go. Are you going to start Dylan Bundy or Sam Gavillo? No. No. Cubs and Tigers, Kyle Hendricks at Jordan Zimmerman. I would rather start. Yeah, I'd start Hendricks. I mean, against tiger sure but not zimber Shane Bieber at Nate Avaldi

Shane Bieber You can come up with a better song choice for that Probably to represent him Probably I thought it was funny to Sing a song about Bieber and not have it be a Beaver song I don't know that I'd start either I'm not starting Bieber

No way Yeah, Evaldi's interesting Of all the 104 whip this year But, boy, when he's bad, he's really bad. Yeah. Cleveland, I mean, they have a great lineup, too. Cleveland, actually, Scott, I don't know if they get in Carnaccio.

I'm back today. He's eligible. Cleveland has a freaking terrible lineup after their first three hitters. But those first three hitters are so good. They're so good. But, man, it's so bad after that. All right. Chris Stratton at Stephen Matt's.

Neither. Glenn Spark. Markman at Blake Snell. Yeah, let's hope Snell gets unleashed this time. They've had him on a tight leash, but it's going to change. Masahiro Tanaka at Pablo Lopez. Let's start Tanaka in Miami, sure. I would be interested to see if Stanton plays tonight.

I said he's been nursing a leg injury. He's been D-Hing. He's coming home. You know he wants to play at the Marlins. but we'll see. Reds at Brewers, Sal Romano at Junior Gera. Gera's fine. Let's do Gera.

Jose Barrios at Michael Copeck. Well, definitely Burrios against the White Sox. We gotta roll the dice on Copec Major League debut. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's do it. As excited as you were about picking him up, let's cash in on that right away.

And just hope he doesn't have a Gonzalves' like debut. He's a better pitcher than that, so I would hope not. But you never know. Robbie Erlin at Tyler Anderson. I would start Anderson, given the opponent. He's been shaky recently, but I'd do it. Patrick Corbyn at Felix. Yeah, Felix Pena.

Obviously, Corbyn. Yeah. And not Pena. Ariel Harado at Brett Anderson. Nope. And Astros bullpen or Mike Leak? Huh. Hmm.

Leaks been really good since about May. I think we can continue to ride it. They're still not back to full health, the Astros. They might be. They might be. Well, so Springer sat yesterday, but Altuvae's coming back today. Springer might be back today. Corre is back.

But they're not really, yeah, it's close call. It's a home game. That helps. Maybe it's a Springer decision. I don't know. I hate the Springer that on you. Cardinals at Dodgers. Ponce de Leon at Riu.

You could use Riu. I want to use Ponce de Leon. We are done. I know it's a short show. I apologize, but it was a short slate yesterday. Tomorrow, big show, 15 games. We'll get back at you then. We'll hopefully do some regulating

and read some emails. For Scott White, I'm Adam Azer. See you later.