Fantasy Baseball Today - 08/22: Giolito! And More of Wed's Standouts (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 22, 2019

Lucas Giolito goes off on Wednesday, and who's the sucker who benched him? Is Yu Darvish coming back down to earth? Willie Calhoun is hot and Yastrzemski is playing like Carl! You're playing with Fiers when...and we present a brand new Meter to the show! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy! Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Fantasy baseball today is right now. I am Chris Welsh, joined by Mr. Scott White.

Lucas G. Alito was on absolute fire tonight. I feel like we've had the last couple of shows. Maybe we'll just keep doing this. We have a guy that just lights up the scoreboard with, or at least a stat sheet, with all of those strikeouts, not a lot of hits, not a lot of earn runs. Lucas G. Alito, hello, nine innings, three hits, no run runs, no walks, 12 strikeouts. This is his third straight game with double-digit strikeouts and his seven straight games with more strikeouts than innings pitched.

How jacked up are you on Lucas G. I mean, if there were any doubts, and I think that rough patch right after the All-Star break may have raised some doubts, but he's put those to rest now. He's an ace. He's everything we ever hoped and dreamed he would be, and he will be one of the first 15 starting pitchers off the board next year, I would guess, as of now. Boy, you like to jump right into it. This is, you're all business, man.

I'm doing the thing. I mean, I have to fight against myself because I am a talker. And I like to take us into crazy directions. And I have to know my place, Scott. I got to know my place here because if I start going into, hey, let's talk about temperatures and let's talk about chicken sandwiches. And we just, we're going to go crazy and we're going to go off into a whole another ballgame. So I figure just Lucas G. Alito right off the top. Now, you bring up an interesting one.

I have the best thing to tell you here in just a second. So that's my tease here for in about one minute. But Flaherty versus Gialito 2020. I know we've been doing a lot of that right now, but I know people's minds are kind of in that. What do you do with the Lucas Gialito who strikes out 12 and goes nine? You just pat yourself on the back and say, good job me and you keep moving.

But if you're thinking towards the future, you just said top 15 starting pitcher. I feel like we've been talking about Flaherty a lot. What about Flaherty versus Gialito? I mean, I don't mean to oversimplify things. Or maybe I do, because sometimes we overcomplicate things, right? Sure. Gialito has basically been this for, you know, since the start of May.

And Flaherty has been about that good, or not even quite as good. I mean, he's not getting a dozen strikeouts at a time. And he's only been doing it for like a single month as opposed to three and a half months. So I don't know That there's really much of a comparison there yet I mean I'm not saying they're They probably wouldn't be in different tiers But I don't I don't really understand the case for Flaherty over Gialito

Well I mean I remember I think it was last week when the three of us you me and Adam were on and Adam Adam you and I He was making the case for Flaherty as a top ten starting pitcher for next season So that's Adam And I kind of gave him one of those, oh, Adam. Oh, Adam. I've got the greatest, oh, Adam. And I'd love it if we could do it at the same time here.

So I get a text. Adam couldn't make the show tonight, which is totally okay. And Adam says, I'm going to pull it up here. Let me get to my phone. He goes, I benched Lucas G. Alito due to the matchup. Please feel free to ridicule me. So one, two, three. Oh, Adam.

What are you doing? What a dunce. What a you do? Come on. You just said three minutes ago, we're sometimes oversimplifying or overcomplicating things. That's overcomplicating it with Jilico. That is probably my biggest, the biggest frustration to me as a fantasy analyst is how aggressively people play matchups. It really should only matter around the fringes.

And Lucas Gialito is clearly not on the fringes. I see that too the more that I dig into I do love seeing the CBS when I go in I look at the own percentage and start percentage and I'm starting to see that a little bit more too where people are you know I mean it's it's a smaller degree because I'll be looking at maybe guys that are own 60 or 70% of the time or even 80 and then you see down at a 40% start rate or something like that like there is an over complicate slash simplification that goes on one guy you don't have to worry about with that is Justin Verlander Justin Verlander on Wednesday night went nine, gave up two hits, two earned runs, 11 strikeouts in the game, and got the loss.

And I found this here from our friends over at Stats by Stats. Justin Verlander is the third pitcher in the live ball era, which is since 1920, to throw a complete game with 10 strikeouts, no walks, and two or fewer hits allowed and suffer a loss. Scott White. The first? No, he's the third. Do you know who the other two are? And they're relevant because they're both within the last seven years. Oh, man. I really want to guess this right, but it's, it feels like it's like finding a needle in a haystack.

Okay, I'm going to set you up then. One of them, one of the pitchers, he's still looming around, but I don't think he's pitched in a little bit. He is involved in one of the more embarrassing trades from a prospect that's been incredible this season. he was traded for this prospect and this prospect was incredible this season he is traded for this prospect and this prospect was incredible this season a starting pitcher who is still kicking around kicking around is a word yeah kicking around i don't know the answer james shields okay yeah october second 2012 and it was for nending Yeah, exactly. And the other one is, I call him Blister God,

habitually hurt Rich Hill. Rich Hill, who is always looming around. Rich Hill, James Shields, and Justin Verlander were those players. And Verlander at the top? Is Verlander in that mix, by the way, with maybe Max Scher as the guys that you can just close your eyes, feel great about next season? You know, the guys that you actually maybe reach for for the starting pitchers? I'd like to say he was because he's basically been there. that for, you know, he had that kind of weird mid-career decline, but then it's come surging back here over the last four years or so. But he's going to be 37. Like that, that has to give you pause. That has to, there has to be a discount factored into that age. He's super

frustrating in Dynasty because of that. He's so good and you look at his age and then all your wires start to cross because you're like, this doesn't make sense. I can't do a 37-year-old, but yet he's one of the best in the game. It's like him and Scherer, their values in Dynasty are so twisted. It's hard to comprehend, but I mean, if Erlander keeps coming out and doing it, what can we say? Yeah, I would not, like, obviously he's number one. He's been the best pitcher in fantasy this year,

partially because Scherzer's missed so much time recently. He might be like fifth for me next year of Rolander. That's the kind of discount I'm talking about, where it's just like, okay, I mean, any year now, just going to drop off and you'd rather not I don't know. You'd rather not try to catch a fine. It would still be bad drafting a fifth if it happened, but it would be slightly less bad than passing up, I guess Scherzer or Cole or.

And I hope people realize what just happened. I just said an analogy and I just nailed it. And Scott and I, before we were starting the show, we were joking because Scott was only speaking to me in analogies. And I just, I told him, I'm like, I am. am known for being horrible, but I absolutely nailed the drop, you know, catch a falling knife. I'm proud of myself. Are you proud of me? I've never heard that before. Yeah, like, it's the, I call it, like, what you're saying, I call it the David Ortiz effect where there's about three years where

everyone was like, I can't draft David Ortiz because, you know, I don't want to draft him the year he finally comes off. So the idea is you don't want to catch a falling knife. So you always keep avoiding it. And that's the perfect example of a guy who never became the falling knife. Exactly. Pretty rare, though, that that never happens. Justin Burlander's pretty rare, too. In an implosion Wednesday, and one that maybe has to make a second guess, I'll ask you. You Darvish, a little bit unraveled, five and one-third, gave up seven hits, six earned runs, eight strikeouts, I believe four homers, but zero walks. And he now has no walks since July 2030.

He has not walked one batter since July 23rd. So it was a garbage game. He got his strikeouts, gave up a lot of runs. But the positive to make you think, okay, I think we could still roll him out without question. Because that's something we've been talking about for the last week is Darvish is bordering back onto the elite status. We say all this. Then he gets lit up. But he didn't walk a single batter.

So I'm okay after this game. I didn't want it. But I'm okay. How about you? This is such a 2019 start he had. Like this is the kind of start that I feel like has bitten every ace at some point this season, usually multiple times, which is why so many pitchers that we think of as dominant and that are among the most trustworthy have ERAs near four is because they just get blindsided by these home runs at a time when it's really hard not to because there's so many being hit. I'm actually encouraged by the fact he gave up four home runs. The stat I had for Darvish was two walks in his last nine starts.

I'm not sure if that's any more or less impressive than the one you gave. But the point is, the thing that was holding him back early in the year has been overcome and then some. And he's been truly dominant during that nine-start stretch with the exception of this one-start. Yeah, we've got some games that are still in progress. We've got about four, two that were the Yankees, A's, Blue Jays, Dodgers. The Cubs and Giants never wants to end, and then the Brewers and Cardinals, as we're recording this, is in a delay.

But to your point, talking about, you know, this being the 2019 start of starts, the Giants of Cubs are just mashing the ball. There's eight homers in that game right now. It's 12 to 11 Cubs right as we're recording this. So you're absolutely right. We can feel good about it. The Giants.

That lineup. They're hitting those home runs off of them. They're teeing him up. I know. They were absolutely teeing him up. Is this Mike Yistrimski or Carl? I mean, they're playing, he's invoking the inner Carl into him, and he's quite impressive right now. So we've got a lot of other stuff, news and notes.

We're going to be going through some notable home runs. I've got some hitters that I want to put to the test here as well as pitching and some of your emails. But, Scott, you got any Wednesday standouts that jump out to you that might not be on the sheet, or even if they are. That's okay. I want to talk about Caleb Smith, I think, and not because I've, feel like I have anything super conclusive to say, but just the opposite. He's

become kind of a head-scratching pitcher for me. This start against the Braves here on Wednesday. Six innings. I hadn't done that in a while. Three hits. Okay, that's good. Five earned runs.

Four walks. Neither of those is so great. Seven strikeouts on 18 swinging strikes. Oh, great again. and then the cherry on top it was his worst velocity of the season by far so he had a ton of swinging strikes gave up only three hits walked everybody

and yet the stuff wasn't quite measuring up and what does it all mean? I don't know he has one quality start in his last seven he pitches for the Marlins who of course make it very hard for him to win games he hasn't been pitching deep with regularity of late. I think the stuff is still good.

The swinging strike grade for the season is still very high. But the innings might be catching up to him, especially after missing so much time last year. I don't think he's a particularly trustworthy starter the rest of the way. I do think what he's going through now shouldn't necessarily discount the breakout and how we value him going into next year. But it is kind of twisting the season-long numbers and making them not so impressive anymore. It feels very Robbie Ray-ish to me with him.

I got a couple notes. He's walked 12 batters in his last four games. He's also given up 12 earned runs in his last three. I've got a segment that let's just hit it right now, since you're talking about Caleb Smith. I'm just calling Better Days, three pitchers that, I mean, two of them are in the very high-owned percentage. The other one is about 71%. But I'm curious, give me a take on these three guys, as you were kind of laying down where you are with Caleb Smith. He is one of them who's 93% owned, but only 61% start.

So, you know, he was, there was a little trust factor there. Another one, Mike Minor, who on Wednesday went five and two thirds, gave up 10 hits, six earned runs, two walks and seven strikeouts. But he had three straight quality starts before this, and you can throw in an 11 strikeout game he put in there. And then Joe Musgro, who is 71% owned, only 30. 8% started. He had, he went five inning, seven hits, gave up five earned runs, walk two, and struck out one. So better days for all three of these guys, but how do you approach if you were rostering all three of these? I know Joe Musgrove is a little bit further down than the other two, but yeah, I mean, concerns with Mike Miner to Joe Musgrove is Caleb Smith's strikeout

numbers enough for you to say, I want him over minor in Musgrove? Not minor. Okay. And, Rainer Minor. Yeah, I mean, Mike Miner is coming off three starts where he looked like a frontline pitcher, pitching deep into games, all of them were quality starts, the strikeouts were high. When it goes bad for him, it goes very bad, but he has a sub-3 ERA on the season. So, I mean, the X-FIP is a lot worse than the ERA, and that's something I've harped on for a lot of pitchers more often this year than ever, in part because I think FIP, as opposed to X-FIP is unreliable, just because of the way home runs are being hit in such spurts.

Like it can rock a FIP easier than it can rock an X-FIP. You know what I mean? I'm kind of getting off on a tangent there. But Miner has being an efficient pitcher with more than a strikeout per inning, while I do think Minor has pitched a little over his head overall, I still think he's basically must start in this environment. And meanwhile, Joe Musgrove has been so wildly inconsistent. I just, I don't think I can touch him.

I don't want to go anywhere near him. I was even going to rephrase, like, if you look at those guys where Mike Miner is a constant, and, you know, he's a high volume. You put him out there every start. Same with Caleb Smith. and then if you approach Joe Musgrove as a spot starter, has anybody come off of their value? So as Caleb Smith, you know, some of the later concerns, is that making him come off of a must start to being a matchup guy? Is Mike Miner at all coming off of that?

And is Joe Musgrove becoming a coming off of being a streaming option to a really, really matchup-based option? Does that make sense how I said that? Yeah, and I think I would, that's exactly how I feel about all of them, except, may be that I would still consider Mike Miner must start. I mean, Mike Miner's in my top 25 starting pitchers the rest of season, so I don't know how you bench that. Even recognizing that he's

overachieved. You, Darvish or Mike Miner? I will. They're very close. I'm going to lean Darvish after this start for Minor. Kind of thought I might get you to snap Darvish there, but I mean, I think that's a testament

to Mike Minor and, you know, your lack of concerned on a day that he could have been better. And like you said, top 25, you're still rolling him out there. So good stuff, Caleb Smith and all of those guys. Let's hit a break. When we come back, we are going to look at those endgame live progress stuff. We got a bunch of news and notes.

We got a whole bunch more. So breaking here, fantasy baseball today. Let's do this. All right. Games in progress, just a couple notes. Scott, Will Smith has hit another home run. Will Smith is crazy. I'm going to absolutely avoid.

the dad in me and make any type of a joke that I could possibly do, whether it movie-based or song-based with Will Smith, and just say, what a dang impressive catcher. And wasn't it you that said Will Smith is probably a top-five fantasy catcher next season? Is that accurate? Or am I put words in your mouth? Yes, I've said that. And I've actually, in my rest of season rankings, moved him up to number four. The different, the differentiator that there being Wilson Contreras, who is dealing with a long-term injury right now. But yeah, aside from Gary Sanchez, Yasmani Grondal, J.T. Real Muto, and Wilson Contreras, I can't think of another catcher who I would definitively take over Will Smith.

I think Mitch Garver, if the playing time was more regular, he'd be in that discussion. But they play Jason Castro a lot. Understandably, I mean, Jason Castro's had a fine year, too. But, yeah, I mean, Will Smith. I think he's in the conversation maybe to be the top catcher in fantasy next year. I mean, he's just improved so much offensively. I think Gary Sanchez, in terms of pure power, is the only other catcher who really compares to him.

And, yeah, I'm, I actually did, I think I mentioned this yesterday, but I do a quarterly, yeah, I mentioned it when we're talking about Sunny Gray. Sunny Gray was one of my five biggest risers in dynasty leagues from the last quarter. Will Smith was another one of the five. And I'm usually pretty tough on catchers as far as fantasy goes, just because, like, for the last couple of years, I've been very, like, do not take starting, no catcher deserves to be inside the top 100, just based on, you know, the top guy of Gary Sanchez down to the bottom guys, it just doesn't make sense to, it doesn't make sense to invest in these guys.

So when you get into fantasy or you get into prospects, I got my top 500 prospect list that I do within this league in my show, Prospect 1. 500. I know. It's like 800 further, though. But you got to remember, I go, this is like deep, deep, deep dynasty people. I'm looking at like these 16-year-olds that are out in the Dominican Summer League and stuff like that.

And I get crazy with it. But with that, I think on my 500, I probably got 18 catchers across the board. And that says where the value is, you know, the totality. of the value of these guys in general. What I wanted to add to your point is I agree with you. Will Smith has rocketed up positionally as far as, you know, the quote prospect catchers long term. Joey Bart is still in there, of course. I have Joey Bart over him.

But coming to your 2020 point, I think Will Smith actually is the number one fantasy catcher from a value perspective. He's the guy that I want to own. I will not pay for Gary Sanchez. But based on the cost you're going to get from Will Smith. Will Smith and the return. I think he's the best catcher investment, probably in 2020, at this moment. Well, you're assuming the industry as a whole, I think, isn't going to value him like

I'm saying he should be valued. I am. You're right about that. I mean, if he's like 78 overall, then I retract everything I'm saying. But I'm hoping a guy like Will Smith is going to be closer into the 160s, 160s overall. Obviously, assuming you're not playing two catcher leagues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, those type of things. But that's an interesting one.

Yeah, exactly. Dodgers up one to nothing as we're doing this. The A's are up 4 to 1 on them Yankees. By the way, he's live. Chris Davis, 83% owned, but only 39% start in CBS. It is 18th home or first home run since July 30th, Scott. Gosh. Oh, man.

Those are all the worst. This is the first year I ever bought into Chris Day. Well, I shouldn't say ever when he was first breaking in a middle of I was pretty high on him. But since he was an actual asset, known commodity in fantasy, this is the first year I was like, all right, all the shortcomings, they're worth it. Look how consistent the power production is. I mean, it's famous for hitting the same batting average every year for what, four years in a row? Yeah.

247. Which is not that you're drafting it for batting average, but like, you know, basically the entire stat line was exactly the same for that stretch. Yeah, the constant. You knew what you got. I just, I keep remembering when I did the hit on CBSHQ, just like a month or so back or a couple months back. And I put as one of my busts for the rest of the season, Chris Davis. And I kind of still, at that time, I still felt like, ooh, like, this is still dicey because there's a lot of people out there defending. But at this point, I mean, you look, he's under 85% owned at this point.

He legitimately might be out there for a lot of leagues because he's just a DH and he wasn't hitting. and he went, I mean, practically a month without a home run. But, I mean, even saying that an isolated home run, that brings him up to 18 for the season, like we're supposed to be impressed with that. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, if I had dropped him, and I actually had dropped him in one league, I had to head points league with nine-man, you know,

starting lineups as far as hitters go. I'm not picking up back up based on this. I'm not, you know, need to see a lot more. I mean, you know, we get to the end of the show and he's at like three homers or something like that, people start getting a little bit excited. He's slugging 384. It's not good.

Chris Davis, not good. He's not good at all. I can't believe he's still 83% own, but the 39% start rate shows people are just not willing to drop him, but nobody is putting him in their rosters. The Cubs game finally ended, by the way. Cubs won 12 to 11 as we were just finishing up there,

and still a delay on the Cardinals and Brewers. news and notes around baseball injury stuff as well. The Rockies placed pitcher John Gray on the 60-day IL with a left foot fracture. He's going to finish 2019 with a 3.84 ERA, 150 strikeouts to 56 walks and 150 inning. So a positive Rocky starting pitcher season that ends abruptly. And I know people are kind of scrambling. We might even have a question, an email coming up here about John Gray. People scrambling a little bit, but I don't know.

You really scrambling when you own Colorado Rock. Rockies pitchers to go pick up other stuff. There's stuff out there. Pick up Andrew Heaney, right? Sure. Yeah, I... Actually, you know what? John Gray's not bad, but he's not the reason you're going to win or loses your league.

Well, I mean, but people feel like that at this point because they're losing depth. To that point, we had, we did, it was a tweet, that's what it was. You and I got a tweet, and I'm going to see if I can find it. It was from Matt. He tweeted the both of us. He said, I just lost. John Gray and the playoffs are next week. Who do you like for a four-week stretch

between Savali, Haney, Musgrove, and Fulte, and they also added Zach Gowan into the mix. I stuck with Haney, Scott. Gallen really, really close. So are you Haney with me or are you going somewhere else? Pointsly, by the way. Let's get to the bottom right now. Is it Haney or Haney?

Haney. I'm sorry. I'm probably, I'm going to do that from time to time. I'm going to flow through my different words, and I definitely said it two different ways. I, Andrew Heaney. That's how you hedge, right? Yeah, hedge my bet. So the person that's like, you said it wrong. I'm like, I said it right also.

I mean, those are all fine choices except for maybe Musgrove. So, you know, I'm almost reluctant to pick one because then I'm on the hook for. Well, you could say Haney or Haney. If you say Haney, then if he picks up Haney, you're like, well, you picked up the wrong guy. So don't worry about that. Yeah. I mean, right now, I'm feeling Haney. Um, that sounds like...

That does so. It sounds like a song. That sounds like a, yeah, it's going to be a song from Pink soon. I'm feeling heaney. All right. Yeah. But, yeah, I... I mean, Fultenevich has questions.

Gallin has questions. I think they all have questions. So I'll say Heaney. I haven't looked at the matchups and it would take too long to pull them up. But, you know, I think any of them is a reasonable gamble. Eileen Heaney. And I said to him as well, like if Haney goes out and struggles in his next start, I'll snap-drop him for a guy like Gallen. You know, I don't look at any of those guys.

If you're really truly asking a question like, hey, for a four-week stretch, I wouldn't actually be approaching it like that, especially if the playoffs are coming up. I would be taking that spot. If those are the type of players that are actually out there for you, I would be looking at streaming at this point. And Haney's a good option. If he lights it up, you keep him. If not, move on to Galin and stream that through into the playoffs, especially at Points League. someone somebody might be out there needing to look at those same names if this injury is a bad thing marcus stroman left wednesday start with a left hamstring strain after going four innings five hits

gave up one run walked one and struck out one 62 pitches marcus stroman we just got to kind of sit and wait but if it's anything multi-week you done you out yeah okay uh multi-week well maybe not if it's two weeks if it's four weeks, then yeah, he's running into a problem there. If he's two weeks, you may not need a rehab assignment or anything. So, yeah, I think it's still wait and see.

It's been awfully disappointing with the Mets so far after what was, apart from win-loss record, which was really holding him bagging fantasy, it was looking like a career season for him before the trade. And that's why I ask, I mean,

because you're saying, like, yeah, obviously we hold on to a guy if we can't hold on to him, but has he been impressive enough to, like, there's plenty of leagues out there if you're a 16 team and you got nobody out there, this isn't even a discussion. But there's a lot of you are saying again questions about. Yeah, well, you guys are asking, should I pick up Zach Allen or Andrew Heaney?

And if at this point, is Marcus Stroman even worth sitting around if players like that are out there and you can stream them? I would actually probably say no at this point if it's any type of an IL stint. I think I would disagree if, you know, it depends on what you're having to fill your rotation out with. If it's just for a bench spot and you're, you know, realistically, in an ideal scenario, especially given that this is a two start week currently for Heaney. So it's going to be a couple more weeks before we see a two start week firm again. In an ideal scenario, I'm not having to start Heaney yet, even where I'm picking him up. Yeah. So, you know, it's probably going to be two weeks

before I would consider starting Heaney. Two weeks of him having to pitch well. So if Marcus Stroman only misses two weeks, I would rather have that. You don't make sense. Jake Frealey, we talked about Freely. He started in center field on Wednesday. He was batting 8th. He went 0 for 3 with a run.

I thought this was interesting. Freely made his Major League debut starting in center and became the 63rd player used by the Mariners this season, which is won away from the MLB record set by Texas in 2014. I mean, with September call-ups around the corner, and it's the Mariners, I think they should probably crush that record. I would think so Yeah

And they're going to set the record 2014 Rangers What was the state of the Rangers in 2014? Because that's not That's not where I would have would have guessed Yeah I wouldn't have either I mean was that I'll look it up real quick I don't look that up real quick

You can go ahead and I don't think Ruby was up Yeah a couple others Tyler last now He threw another bullpen session on Wednesday morning It was noted by Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that there were quote, fist bumps all around, which I think is just hilariously. It's just a hilarious comment.

Like, oh, we're all fist bump in Glass Now. He was great. He's expected to advance to face live hitters this weekend. Either they're saying at Tropicana Field or the Raids Spring Training Complex. So I know you were looking that up, but I'm curious. Do you have actual September interest in Tyler Glass now? Because I do not. I have no interest in Tyler Glass now because of the babying, potential openers with him.

I'm out on caring for 2019. Yeah, I mean, I was under the... Unless something changed here And since I was looking it up, I wasn't listening to you completely. But I'm assuming he doesn't have enough time to stretch out. I mean, I think that's the game that they're playing, though. The game that they're playing is if, you know, he's going to go face live hitters this weekend And then they can maybe put him out into a rehab start.

You could be looking at maybe the second week in September. I mean, I'm just... I'm putting this out there. I haven't seen the official word on that, but I think that's kind of the thing that they're alluding to. And really, people are having semi-interest in Tyler Glass now because they're seeing this fist-bumping news. People are thinking, hey, maybe I can get what was a top 15 starting pitcher for my playoff run or at the back end of the year. And I don't think that's the case. Well, it depends how late your season goes.

Yeah, some head-to-head leagues might cut off the last season or two. it would be much harder. But if they're, you know, kind of letting him build up on the fly, there's a possibility he could give you two or three true starter workload type starts. And, like, I would, you know, I think this moves him ahead of, like, Louis Severino or. I think they already said Severino's going into the bullpen, though. Right. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Like, I don't think that's definitive for Severina, right? There's been some talk of that, but... Yeah, I don't think anything gets definitive. I guess I just look at the raise and I go, well, I mean, if there's a team that would be like, hey, that's great, you're starting. Let's go two innings. It's the raise. Like, I can't see why they would push him.

That's more of where I am. Like, he can be activated September 9th, but I just don't see how the raise are going to press them into five or six innings of relevance. Well, because they... Are they in line for the playoffs right now? I don't think they are, but they're very much. much in the mix, right there. So the two wild cards right now would be Cleveland

and actually Tampa Bay over Oakland. So, yeah, I mean, they have... There's incentive, I suppose. They would be motivated to stretch them out again. Did you find the Texas Rangers, though? I did, yeah. So they finished last place that year, which makes sense. You would think a last place team would be

calling all those players up. That looks like the year they got... They got the Prince Fielder bomb. of he's damaged goods and oh that was the year they acquired him actually from the Rangers and he was never the same and yeah it was not a good year for them so that makes sense okay yeah I mean now I'm did another podcast again if I wasn't raining it in I'd be like I have to go look at the entire roster of that 2014

ranger can see who all those players are Brandon Lowe left Wednesday's rehab game with AAA with left quadricep strain they're gonna check back in in a couple days that's not great especially if people were preemptively looking. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters on Wednesday that Dustin May will return to starting soon, which is good. He's going to make, he also said that he's going to make some relief appearances on this current road trip, and then when they come back, there's a potential for some starts in there, and Joey Votto could return from the I.L when he's first eligible on Sunday. So of those three injury bits there, Dustin May is, well, I guess Dustin May is not

an injury thing. He's a relief to starting pitcher. Is that the most interesting note between Lowe returning, Votto returning, but Dustin May going back into a starting role means anybody that dropped him, you could get some viable starts on the back end of this year. Yeah, I care about anybody starting for the Dodgers, yes. Okay. Carlos Santana hit his 30th homer of the year on Wednesday,

and Scott, I was looking on CBS. Coming into Wednesday, he was the sixth-first basement. I've kind of been obsessed with this lately. He has more hits, more walks, less strikeouts, a better batting average, and on base percentage then Josh Bell and he is now only one home run shy of Bell

I can't help myself when I do it but Carlos Santana or Josh Bell for 2020 right now We're talking yesterday about how I had to move Josh Bell down from third to eighth in my rankings and I moved him behind Santana but you were asking me for next year Yeah I mean I'm good with this year or next year

I think right now it's easily Santana for the rest of this season, but next year, Santana versus Bell. Oh. I mean, let's see how the final six weeks goes for Bell because he could totally light it up again. Sure.

It would ring that bell. But assuming season ends today, their numbers are where they are, maybe you could justify Santana in a points league because he's such a specialist for that format, but generally speaking, I would take Bell I mean, Santana's not a young guy.

I think he's going to be 33 next year. And we've never seen him do anything like this before, especially in terms of batting. She'd always been a batting average liability, a guy whose fly ball rate really worked against him during the fly ball revival. Like, that's really what's helped it this year, is he's cut down on the fly balls.

But it's an outlier, and you factor in the advanced stage as well. and I think he's going to be a solid player because he's always a solid player, but this just seems like it's going to be an outlier for him when we look back on his career. It'll be an interesting discussion as well. Every time I think it was a go-ahead home run, Carlos Santana just continues to dominate. And then I just happened to start going, I was looking at just his overalls on the CVS and just Josh Bell happened to be right there.

And I was like, look at this, man. I mean, one more game in Santana is going to be, you know, tied with. with homers and across the board he's beating the stats, but we always have to temper ourselves getting a little bit too excited. Some notable home runs from Wednesday. Ronald Acuna hit his 36. He's now 36 homers and 29 stolen bases, Bing, Bing. A couple 27th homers for the year.

And if I would have asked you at the start of this season that Bryce Harper and Catell-Marte would have the same home runs on August 21st, and there was no injury stuff, they both had 12. You would have called me a crazy person, right? Absolutely. My biggest fantasy regret, at least in terms of drafting, was in Tout Wars. I'm in the 15-te-te-te-team online draft league.

There's like five different Tout Wars League. That's the one I'm in. Late rounds, as a fill-in shortstop until D.D. Gregorius was ready. I chose Oh no Andrelton Simmons Oh no Over Catele Marte

That burns Catel Marte is my greatest 2019 accomplishment And you know We all love our victory laps I will so you know The ITL stuff

We'll kind of focus as much as we possibly can On razing each other But Cotel Marte is my greatest accomplishment Because I have been all in on him Andaldon Simmons would hurt But I was also in on Willie Adomas, and that one hasn't worked out so well for me. By the way, Bryce Harper, nine home runs in August. So he's been going.

And the strikeout rates much better, too. Yeah, he's looking a lot. But improving. His demise were exaggerated. I don't know about greatly exaggerated. I can't imagine taking him in even the second round next year. But he's still a quality player. Yeah.

And actually, I was just about to say, like, he's improving enough, but it won't be enough for him to, like, get that top 15. You know, like he always kind of slides in that top 15. You're absolutely right. This will be the year that he's going to slide back down. And I'm really, really be curious if Stanton were to come back, hit a couple bombs, like where would Stanton versus Harper actually look for next year, which would be weird. Kyle Schwerver hit his 29th. And how about this one?

Nick Castiano's hit his 19th Homer, three for three with three RBIs. I'd have to look. Yeah, I think that is updated. Three straight games with a home run coming into the Wednesday games with the Cubs. He was averaging 365 and had seven homers. Mr. Nick Castellanos has been absolute fire. And I think he even said there's a note I saw that he walks in every day and tells Joe Madden, you know, happy opening day because he treats every game like it's opening day. I mean, he has changed his absolute season and tune since he's been a Chicago Cub.

Well, it must have been so miserable with the Tigers. This is, we're going to talk about this. what we're seeing from Nicholas Castellanos now, I think for years. The way we cite David Ortiz as the guy who you kept waiting for it to fall off, and he just never did up to age 40. Like Castellanos is going to be the guy, the ultimate change of scenery guy, where you say, okay, the skills are pretty much intact, yet the numbers are way down. Let's get him in a good lineup and see what happens.

And not only did he go to a good lineup, he got put in the favorable really Joe Madden did him a favor because I think statistically it didn't make a great deal of sense to bat him second ahead of Rizzo and Bryant but it's obviously worked out very well. Yeah, Cubs Cubbin. Hey, some hot bats.

Kevin Keirmeyer got a combo meal hit his 13th Homer and got his 19th stolen base. Two hits in his last two games, but he was 0 for 16 prior to that. Only 37% owned in CVS. Willie Calhoun hit his 13th homer, has at least two hits

in seven of his last nine games. Love Me Some Willie. 65% owned. Only 54% started on CVS. As Drewbo Cabrera hit his 14th homer, he's got a 345 batting average coming into Wednesday with the nationals, 11 RBIs in 11 games with them, only 51% owned. And Mike Rstimski, who we talked about, five-game hitting streak, hit his 17th homer, eight homers in August.

Who's the hot bat that you want? I want Calhoun, Willie Calhoun. I mean, if it was Cole Calhoun, that would be the guy too, but he's more owned than this. I don't understand why Willie Calhoun's only 65% owned. I did not either. I was expecting 80 when I looked. Yeah, it's the most confusing thing to me. In head-to-head points per game, which I often cite, because there really isn't a roto-equivalent.

And I think sometimes we overstate the difference in value between players in the two formats. So I'm just going to, you know, that's my preface to use. you've never heard it before and maybe to people who haven't, you know, I probably haven't said it much this year. So, you know, newcomers may not have heard that before. But he has had more points per game this year than Reese Hoskins, David Dahl, Yasio Pueig, it's playing every day, actually has better numbers against lefties than right. He's homered again off a lefty today, even though he's a left-handed hitter. And I think, like, I'm pretty close to saying he's not only must own, but must

start. Maybe not in shallower three outfielder leagues, but anything deeper than that. By the way, Nick Solack, two for three, two doubles, three runs, only 5% owned on CBS. I mean, he's not in the same camp, but we're moving on up, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was

yeah, I mean, he's usable again. He's got hits in all the games. He's got hits in all the games. And, and look, he's more owned than Yistrimski. And I'd rather have Yistrimski. I mean, since the All-Star break, Yistrimski's batting like 315 with an OPS over a thousand.

It's not like an inflated babbip during that stretch. He's just powering up. A lot more fly balls, the harder contact. And the stat line is basically what he put up in AAA. PCL juice ball all of that. Yeah, I don't think he's really a 1,000 OPS guy. But, I mean, Yistrimski, we don't really know what he is because he's a 28-year-old rookie who started doing new and amazing things.

this year. And he could be, he could be pretty good. So far, so good. Let's hit a little break. When we come back, I have got a little quiz of under 240 batting average, guys, and I'm going to make you pick one. We've got to get to some pitchers and whatever emails we get to. So a little break, fantasy baseball today. Checking in on the live progress stuff, by the way, five to one A's are up on the Yankees, Dodgers are up one to nothing, so really nothing too much of note has happened for us to freak out about. But Scott White, I picked three players who have an under 240 batting average and have hit 28 or more homers. Renato Nunez, he hit his 28th on Wednesday, 64% owned on CVS. Dan Vogelbach hit his 28th on Thursday, or on Wednesday, 78% owned,

and I wanted to pick one more to make you battle here. How about Hunter Renfro, who's 75% owned? All of these guys are within 2% start rate, though. And I didn't say that yet. Nunez, 49% start on CBS. Vogelbach 48. Hunter Renfro, even though he's owned high, 51%. He was 0 for 4 on Thursday. He only has two hits since August 11th.

So, not great batting average. Lots of homers. Nunez, Vogelbach, Renfro. Who do you want? Ah, man. The Padreys traded the wrong guy, huh? Wow. Fran Mill

Come back Indians aren't even playing Fran Mill either that much So But that's true It hasn't It hasn't worked out So great for them either

Yet But I think Fran Mill's better than All of these guys All of these guys Anyway To answer your question The guy I want

Is Forgetting the names now Okay So the guy I want I want Not loving any of them right now, to be honest. I mean, in a head-to-head lineup, I don't think any of them would have a spot for me,

but you expand it to a roto lineup, and you know, you might have to start one or two of them. Nunez is the hardest to start. I feel like you have to catch him at the right time. He's been used, I mean, 28 home runs. Obviously, he's been useful at times this year. It's the quietest 28 home run season I've ever seen in my life, by the way. Every time I look at him, I'm like, what? what what is he doing and it's been kind of like these little power bursts and and the problem with that

I mean obviously that's hard to predict a continuation of that but the problem with that is he doesn't walk at all and he plays for the Orioles so when he's not hitting bunches of home runs he is doing literally nothing and that makes for a frustrated player to own uh renfro i don't think is much better than that so I guess that leaves vogelbach is my favorite because at least he gets on base when he's cold. And he is the most owned in CVS. But ironically, he sits against lefties, right? He's the least started of these three guys.

Most owned least started of these three. Yeah. He got a lot of traction early, which might be impacting the ownership right there. Because some people just August 21st, they've tuned out with Vogelbach still on the roster. Yeah. I love Vogelbach just because he's a, I love fat guys, of course. And during spring training, he threw my kid a ball this year. So got to love Vogelbach.

So you got to be in him because that matters, of course, guys. How about some of the rotation? Sure, we had some great performances on Wednesday. Luis Castillo went six, gave up five hits, one and run, struck out four, and is all over if you want to look at, as they called the sword, and just making people look stupid. Patrick Corbyn went eight, struck out four, no run runs, walked two. How about Julio Trey Ron?

88% on in CBS, 62% start, went seven, struck out nine, gave up none, and walked three has a 3.71 ERA this year. 128 strikeout, 68 walks, 7 and 8 record. He's just one of those guys. I don't feel like you ever want to own him, but then you end up having him and you're just like cross your fingers every start. But it's been all right this year.

That's basically it. I mean, X-FIP over 5. But, and I feel like if we were doing a Mount Rushmore of weird pitchers, he would be on it. I like that. he's always outperforms his ex-fip, but usually like half a run. Now, this year it's been more than half a run, but I feel like, you know, there were some walk issues early on that it maybe inflate that mark.

The home run rate is actually very low, and yet, you know, he gives up a lot of flyballs, so that that would impact the ex-fip in a way that we don't, doesn't show up in the ERA. And maybe it's just good luck. Maybe he's just had good home run luck, but it's been a long stretch of that. The strikeout rate is at least average. I mean, lately he's been getting a lot more of those, too, it seems like. So he's, I have a hard time saying he's not good and you just shouldn't start him. But you're definitely, you're playing with fire, but not as much as I feel like you're playing with fire when you play with Mike Fires.

You said that up here I was thinking of my Fires he's going tonight Went five and one third As I'm looking at this Only gave up one earn run Four strikeouts and three walks You are playing with fire

When you put out J. Hap Who gave up five Only went four Struck out four Scott so you're still in on fires Out on Half Is that good? I'm still in on fire

No I just made I just said I'm out on fire Oh you're completely out on fires Oh okay So when you're playing with fires you get the Mike Fires. When you're playing, you're playing with fire

when you play with Julio Taran, but you're not playing with fire as badly as you're playing with fire when you play with Mike Fires. Boy, I mean, put that on a mantle. Put that on the statue right there. That is the most quotable thing ever. I like that.

How about some deeper league guys then? Andrew Plectco, 24% own, six innings, gave up two and runs, walked one, struck out five on Wednesday. Four of his last six have been quality starts. And Adrian Houser, 28% own, went 5, walked 2, didn't give up any run,

struck out 6, 2 straight quality starts coming in, and he had a 10 strikeout game. Any of those, I mean, I know these are just purely deep league stuff and at best streaming options, but did anything jump out to you with these two guys, or just, you know, solid performances? I mean, Plutco 4 is the last 6

is when quality starts. Yeah, he's efficient, he throws strikes, and that's how he survived this so far. Actually, it's not like he's avoided the home runs, really. up a lot of fly balls, but he's giving up home runs just so few walks. I don't think it'll last. I mean, guys who give up a lot of

home runs and don't miss bats, it's just a formula for disaster these days. And Hauser, uh, he has a ground ball rate going, a good ground ball rate going for him, but he basically, uh, that, that's basically it. And he's good three starts, but only one of those starts I would classify as an eye opener in any way. The others just seem like,

you know, favorable, favorable circumstances. you know, some Babbick luck, some stranded runner luck. Not that excited. Yeah. There's a lot of different ways I could go with this segment that I've titled Who? I could go, Who are you? Who, who? Tim Melfill? There's a lot of different ways. That's what I chose. Probably not the good one. Literally, nobody owns Tim Melville.

I look, 0% start, 0% owned, of course. Literally, who is Tim Melville? Well, he's a 29-year-old who went 7. gave up two hits, one earn run, walk two, struck out four in the miners this year, has got a 5.42 ERA, 96 strikeouts, 40 walks in AAA, 29 years old. He apparently made us start in 2016 and 17, not last year. But, I mean, this is our favorite 29-year-old prospects. Now, this is going to amaze you, but I actually, when I saw Tim Melville was pitching, I was like, wasn't that that guy for the Reds?

No way. Sure enough. He made his major league debut of the Reds in 2016. They made an impression on you. But this seems like a classic case of junk baller, you know, suddenly gets thrust into a starting spot before anybody has a chance to review the scouting reports. And he just, like, hitters don't really know what to expect. And it's so out of character with what every pitcher is doing right now.

They just caught the Diamondbacks off guard. Yeah. I mean, five ERAs. the minors year after year. Forget this guy. Which absolutely happens. Over to the bullpen, we had Reisel Eglacius 26 save,

which I think puts him in line. I think he just tied Kinley Jansen, unless it goes down tonight. He tied Kenley Jansen and saves into like the top seven. He's had six saves in August. Joe Jimenez, only 33% own, got his fourth save. And Emilio Pagan, though.

This is what I want to talk about. 75% owned. We've talked a lot about him. he blew it he blew a save went one gave up three hits three earned runs only struck out one but he ended up getting the win so beg on uh see i wouldn't care closers blow saves sometimes i mean his numbers for the season are awesome he'd been on a nice run but he closes for the raise who want every possible excuse to have a closer by committee and he just opened the door again i think the guy he most has to be be worried about actually is

Nick Anderson who's since coming over from the Marlins nine innings 18 strikeouts four hits no walks and he was also the guy who came in before Pagon in the eighth he was a setup man had a nice clean one inning gave up a hit

didn't walk or strike out anybody but he got the hold in that stance I'm not saying you should drop Pagon I'm not even necessarily saying you should pick up Nick Anderson except in very deep leagues where saves are impossible to find, but I'm just saying, Pagon may not end up being the answer to all your prayers.

We'll see what happens after this. A nice fun save too. Milwaukee bro is just all over. Let's see. So Guerrero came in, who was it? Junior Guerrero came in and got a third of an inning save, which was his third after Drew Pomerant had started the inning, and he went two thirds of an inning, struck out one,

walked one, and then they brought in Guerrero, and Albers had came in before that. So, I mean, they're just all over the board here because of this game, which was called, by the way. It was they called the game, so it didn't go through the full thing. I guess it ended up going six, so we were into the seventh inning, so Guerrero got the safe. So probably nothing to really read in there, though they're always, they're always an oddity, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess you can't count on Albert. being the primary save source there. I mean, before it got delayed,

he came in in like the six ending. So we were talking about how excited you can get about, you know, quote, excited you can get about Albers. They just, they're not going to do anything. It kind of felt like looking at that, that might have been a game

that they would have throw Hader back out there. Yeah. And who did you say got the, ended up getting the save? Junior Guerrero. Junior Guerra. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I thought you said Guerrero,

so I was just making sure it wasn't, I wasn't crazy. Yeah, no. Yeah, just the illiterate there. Junior Gera was the one that got the save. But it's wonky because the game was in delay that they called it. So that's how that ended up going. A couple emails, Scott.

You got a couple in you? Sure. All right. Ken, he emails us saying, I was looking at the current player ranks to pat myself on the back for drafting Freddie Freeman. And I noticed that Raphael Devers is the number five hitter in our format. I was kind of shocked to realize that. I'm not even sure I've heard his name mentioned once this season on the show,

which I can't. I don't believe that. I look back at my draft results and he was taken in the 11th round of a very competitive 12th team league. Easily the best pick of the draft. Is he the most underrated fantasy star right now? Where would you have him in your overall ranks in 2020? League leading 47th double, by the way, he hit on Wednesday and 27 homers. So, I mean, unbelievable, what is that?

74, 74 count on homers. Yeah, 74 on the doubles in homers. Yeah, we've talked about him some. We may not have really talked through the breakout in real time. But I know I made reference recently to him being, he's another one of these like textbook cases where I think I was tweeting about this the other day. Because the only real case you could have made for Devers coming into the season after the year he just had when, you know, failed to live up to a lot of hype and really. he seemed to take a step back in terms of performance, both the stats you see and the stats behind the scenes.

The only case you could have really made for Devers coming in was he was an elite prospect, elite prospect pedigree, and eventually that's going to come through, right? I mean, he's early 20s. And look, it did. It did. So it was kind of a blind faith pick, and it always feels kind of icky making those arguments because it's become such a stat saturated industry. I mean, I feel like if I don't have a stat to back up what I'm saying,

I just sound like a dummy. That's what I worry about. And I didn't have a great stat for Devers. So, you know, but, you know, obviously it stood to reason, given the caliber of prospect he was and how young he was breaking into the majors that there could be great times ahead. I'm not really discounting this performance in any way, except maybe the doubles total.

It would be hard to believe it'd be quite that high again. But I absolutely expect him to be among my top five third baseman next year, and maybe even more like top three. I think it's justified. Very big fan of Raphael DeVos. Hey, one more. Andrew and Glendale, dear George, George, George, George and George. So Georgia the jungle. I don't know. There's a lot of Georgia's in there.

I know you have too many, quote, meters, but this one is just too perfect. The Van Meter O-Meter rates a player's ability to escape his prison sentence of versatility and become a regular fantasy contributor. I would give Hernan Perez a 1 on the Van Meter-O-Meter and 2017 Javier Baez a 10 on the Van Meter o'-Meter. What number would you give Josh Van Meter for the rest of this year in 2020? Thanks. I know your favorite thing is meters. So now you have the van meter o meter.

The van meter. No, I like the examples he used. I like it too. This guy is super deep into fantasy base. Like, that's great. The van meter o meter. I will give him a four. Ooh.

I don't expect him to. I don't expect him to. My expectation for him now. is super utility guy, kind of the role Derek Dietrich was playing before he got there. And it'll be hard for him to be an impactful fantasy player in that role. Obviously, there's upside for more. But that is my expectation for the way Van Beter's career is going to play out.

The Reds also are quite an oddity where they seem to take these prospects that are non-prospects in people's eyes. Josh Van Meter wasn't really on many radars until he started leading the minors in homers early this year, as was Aristides Aquino. So they've taken multiple prospects, and they've just thrown them out there, and they've been absolute guys at the major league level. So I think George Foreman has five sons named George. I think you're right.

I think George, George, George, George, George, and George was, we're George Foreman's sons. That's very good. I mean, do you usually, is it Adam that usually gets these or you? I mean, because you are, you're very impressive at these. Oh, thank you. I have my blind spots for sure, usually having to do with music. But every now and then, you know, I'm not pop-culturally illiterate, except when it comes to music, maybe. Yeah, but that's okay.

You're doing, killer job. I'm very impressed with getting those names. I always think that's a great bit that everybody does, so I love it. By the way, make sure to go and check out that Scott, you've got your top five to stash. That's coming out today as people are listening to this. If people want to get a little bit of an inside look as far as prospects go, probably a couple new names on there. Can't have Thai France on there. So people should be on the lookout for that, right?

Yes, yes. And not just the top five to stash, but five other prospects. You'll just have to see who they are. Some of them, you may not have heard their names before, which is. always great if you play in a dynasty league. Give them those clicks. Go check them out. All right, that is it. That is what we've got on the show today. If you guys want, you can follow us on Twitter.

You can follow me at Is It the Welsh, because it is. The question is implied. And really, it's always people like, is it the Welsh? That's how the Twitter is meant to be. And you can follow Scott at CVS Scott White. As he said, he's a company man. So follow us on Twitter. We will be back again with you tomorrow.

I've been told that there's a Kokomo Friday. I know nothing about this, but someone did ask if that. will live on i literally don't know what that is scott but i will leave it up to you if you would like okomo friday to continue uh well just to educate you um over the last three years we have had our a theme song introduced that was a parody of some you know well-known song and the original one was cocombeau and it's you know it's it's it's lived on usually on fridays because it's one of people's favorites. So you'll have to get you'll have to ask Adam where you get that and insert it into the file. All right. Well, if he if he will look at his phone after not starting

Lucas Golito on Wednesday, I will see if I can get the file and we'll rock some cocomo Friday. I'm all I'm all for going with the same game plan. All right. Thank you guys for tuning in. We'll be back with you again tomorrow. This CBS fantasy baseball today. Later.