Fantasy Baseball Today - 09/04: Ryu Concerns? And More from Tue. (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: September 4, 2019

Worryometer Wednesday. Can we trust Ryu? Is Othani's lack of flexibility enough to ditch him while he's riding cold? Meters are running hot! Gavin Lux is hitting, and we dig into where the line on ownership and trust is. The two-start pitchers we added this week, underowned hitters to add and much more! 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. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. It is Worryometer Wednesday. We have got ads. We've got where we worried.

A guy that we were sending packing. There's a guy we were sending packing last week. and he's turned it around, so I'm going to maybe turn the Worryometer on our heads a little bit. But I am Chris Welsh. That is Scott White. Safe and Sound on the East Coast and no crazy hurricanes, thankfully. Yeah. It looks like the threat has pretty much blown by us,

and it's going to direct his focus to other parts of the U.S. So that's very possible. Everybody there stays as safe as we did. All right. Well, good. I'm glad you are doing good. And people losing themselves because they didn't have us yesterday, so there's a lot to catch up on, of course, here.

And let's kick it right off here, Scott, with an epic comeback from the Washington Nationals against the New York Mets. Washington was down 10 to 4 in the 9th. They come back, six straight hits, and then you have, what I'm curious at your take on, Edwin Diaz come in the game. Seth Lugo came in the 8th.

Edwin Diaz blew his sixth save with two earned runs, so it's not all his fault here. And then the comment after the game was Mickey Calloway saying, well, Edwin Diaz's stuff was electric. He just got his. Hit. Okay, thank you. 82% owned, should he be? Probably not. I think, I don't know if maybe this was the start of it. Seth Lugo working the eighth, like you said. So they obviously weren't saving him,

keeping him around for a potential save chance in the ninth. And Diaz had been better, by all indications, since, you know, getting kind of a break from the closer rolled, but doing some sidework on a slider. It looked pretty good, and the opportunities he got it was kind of an unfair situation brought in the bases loaded and I believe only one out and uh and things didn't go well for him gave up a double in a home run so but i mean you look at the situation then and i think to what you're saying is like well you can't put it all on him i think that's also what mickey's doing he by saying well this stuff was electric he just got hit with it but i just look at the own percentage him not getting in those save spots though

it was interesting lugo coming in at that spot i mean 82% that seems like it seems like oh you're Like an overowned percentage for a guy that is only holding on to name value in an article about a slider. No, I get you. And as I said, that is overowned. I was just, I do think there's a good chance he is the closer again before season's end. But are there safer options that are more available than him? Absolutely, there are. This happens a lot.

Relief pitcher especially, I mean, Hansel Robles, who's been in the role all year, 74% owned. You go down further somebody like Mark Malanson, Brandon Workman, they're each 66% owned. Those are all guys

I'd rather have than Edwin Diaz. So, yeah, I mean, from that perspective, sure, he's over-owned. Paying for the opportunity at this point is difficult and you laid out

all of the good stuff there with that. Let's talk about some ads. What I liked about the Tuesday games we're recording here around 1130 Eastern was we had a whole bunch of streaming pitchers that we focused on last week that are kind of aligned into the two starts here.

So let me talk to you about some fringy-ish around the 50% range of CBS owned. I want to get your take on these four guys because I know at least two of them you were pushing. We had Jordan Lyles, who is 58% owned on CBS, goes six and one-third, two-run runs, only two strikeouts, but he had struck out 14 in his previous two starts and only gave up an earn-run run. Chicago or Miami next. Your boy, Mike Montgomery, five and two-thirds, one-earned run, five strikeouts. He's got the Marlins up next. Dylan Cease at 44% own struck out 11 but gave up four.

And Sandy Alcantara, seven innings, seven strikeouts, four earned runs. He's got Kansas City up next. So Cease has got the Angels. Alcantara's got Kansas City. Montgomery has Miami. And Lyles will have to see, Chicago or Miami. So what do you think about this group? How do you sort it out?

The only one who I feel like has the skills that fantasy owners typically look for, is Dylan's cease. And, of course, his first go around the majors, there's been a lot of inconsistency. So particularly coming down the stretch here, that makes it very difficult to use. The others, Liles, Montgomery, and Alcantara, I think they're,

observe the matchups and cross your fingers types, which unfortunately is a lot of what we have to do, given the shortcomings of the starting pitcher position this year. And, yeah, I mean, Montgomery especially, who's the Tigers today, and the Marlins later this week, those two matchups heading into this week. I mean, that's what you look for

when you consider whether or not you start this type of pitcher. They've all shown they're capable of putting together halfway decent starts, but it's obviously risky to rely on them beyond just favorable matchups when you have an obvious need to fill. On the same kind of front with the hitters, a couple top hitters that people can look out that had some performances that are noteworthy on Tuesday. You had Luis Arise.

Arise, chicken. 54%. Two for three. Three straight multi-hit games. Brett Gardner, who's 43% own. He had his 20th homer on Tuesday. Second straight game with a homerun. For some reason, I was about to say Thursday.

I don't know why. Maybe it was the last show you and I did. I was about to turn today to Thursday. That's why you heard that hesitation. And then Anthony Santander, one for four, six games hitting streak, fifth homer. on that streak. So six game hitting streak, fifth homer on that. Arise Gardner, Santander. Let's rock this one out.

I mean, they're all kind of interesting. Kind of interesting doesn't play well at basically any hitter position. I think the most playable is probably going to be Santander because outfields might be, might be the one position where I could see a good team still having kind of a need. And I came across an interesting step. for Santander earlier today and that is kind of where he rates on a per game basis with other notable outfielders so he's in terms of head-to-head points per game he's right in between david doll and Andrew Benintendi this year also ahead of Nicholas Castianos of course castianus has turned his season around just probably better but he's ahead of Ramon laureano too so I mean Santander definitely seems useful even in like a three outfielder sense a rye is interesting because he's a clear standout at kind of a scarce category with batting average there, but inconsistent playing time. And again, I don't know how much somebody needs

a, well, he's eligible to a few spots, including the outfield. So I guess I should probably he's one of those uniquely multi-positioned guys that we can look and pick on some of the the counting numbers, but then it kind of, you know, moves away from us. I mean, Gardner's not bad with the right matchup. You could use him too. Not terribly exciting at this stage of his career, but in a deep lineup and tends to bat. Does he still bat high in that lineup? He was earlier, but I know they've gotten some healthy players back. But, you know, decent power.

Plays a lot. One guy we talked about that's in this kind of general range, at least of ownership, but name value has boosted tremendously. It is Gavin Lux. Who just so happens as we were walking into the episode is the most viewed and most added player. No shocker, right, on CBS? On Tuesday night, he was,

leading off for the Dodgers, beautiful, playing second base. And as we're recording this, the Dodgers are pretty early in the game. He's the only Dodger hit right now. And he is up, if I can pull that up, if I remember, up to 65% own. So just any of your take on the early look at Gavin Lux and where his ownership should be? Well, the one disappointment with him, you know, his arrival and obviously the fact there's a need for him. And that's all great. That's all very exciting.

We've been talking about it for weeks. And you should probably pick him up beyond what his ownership is. But the way Dave Roberts kind of laid out the playing time, it sounds like the goal is to play him only against right-hand of pitchers. They have Chris Taylor. They have Enrique Hernandez, who historically has been a lefty killer. I don't know that so much in recent years he has. But that's the plan.

I think Gavin Lux could change that plan. with his performance against right-handers, which is why I still think he's worth picking up. So force the hand regardless of the, you think he forces the hand regardless of what info is in front of us for him? Because he is going to, he's going to be up next week by probably, I mean, unless he starts to stutter,

he's still going to be up probably by the end of this week up to the 75, maybe 80% range. Yeah, and I think it should continue to rise. And yeah, I think it's, you know, teams, this is their best prospect now, right? teams don't want to they don't want to limit particularly somebody known to have so much upside

they don't want to limit his upside by kind of putting him in this less than everyday role so I think if he has the kind of performance that we're hoping he could have then Dave Roberts is going to say shoot I need to play this guy as much as I can. Do you think we have enough time to figure it out with him, though? I don't think,

I mean, right now, obviously, if you're talking, weighing whether to start or sit lux, you have to look at how many right-handers the Dodgers are facing, because that's, it's more of a, I mean, it's a good point. I mean, it may take two weeks of splashy numbers for him to start playing against left-handers and then how much is left of your season. So check this out. Let me put, we can put a little context. We had an email, which people you guys can send in any of your questions to fantasy baseball at cbsi.com and we will answer them as we can kb emailed this and it was about gavin lux and he said um what range of a player would you drop for him he had a little bit of a context otherwise just saying this you know heavy playoffs he's really concerned but he got lux so

what type of a player would you drop for him he says he currently has glaber torres give me a break joan montcotta and matt chapman rotating in his second and third base spots and he says he's stacked at shortstop. He says, I'm debating if I should drop someone like Mankata, maybe Zach Gallen, or one of his starting pitcher relief pitchers to potentially make that ad. So, I mean, you know, you're not dropping Montcata. You're not dropping Galen. You're going to drop a ratio starting pitcher relief pitcher type of guy for him?

Even if you can't start him? Because it doesn't sound like he can get him in the lineup. Well, who is the lowest in guy he mentioned there? Gallin, right? Yeah. He mentioned one of his SPRPs. Yeah, he says that Torres. Montcotta and Chapman fill up the second and third base spots and he's got too much at shortstop right now.

So it's a wealth of riches he's dealing with. Right. I mean, obviously you're not dropping any of those guys. You're not dropping gallon. You know, SPRP, Sparps, as we like to call them. It just depends who that is. I mean, Montgomery, sure. Kinta Maeda, who now has been banished to the bullpen as happens at the end of every season.

Sure. I drop him. Adrian Houser, sure. Jordan Lyle's, sure. I mean, like, most of those guys are scrubs, and you'd rather have just a true closer you can slot in there and not have to use up so much roster space that way.

And in which case, then you can stash Lux and have the upside play. I mean, if nothing else, just to keep him from burning you on somebody else's roster. Okay, I like that. That's a very good approach all the way around for Gavin Luxe for you there.

And very good question. Fantasy baseball, CBSI.com. We maybe even get to a few more here in a little bit later on in the show. We've got some games that are in progress, as I told you. Let's see, the Cubs Mariners, Royals Tigers just ended. So we have got Diamondbacks Padres with Merrill Kelly, who has been pretty solid. We're in the mid, yeah, we're in the middle of the seventh right now. He's only giving up three hits, nowhere in run. So he's pitching a gym. The other one that is going on, Scott, Julio Arias, did go three, struck out three.

Give up two hits, one earned run, got about 44 pitches in and kind of like that, that role that we thought he was going to end up playing. Because remember, we were talking and you made a really great point. I think it was on the Friday show where we were talking about stripling and Aureas. And we were talking about, I think even like Rich Hill and Dustin May. And now you've got Tony Gonsolin, who's actually getting the start. So is there any encouragement in Arias having, you know, three innings, three starts or is it or three strikeouts? or is it simply, hey, he's the opener, they're going to mix him in stripling,

and Gonsland is officially the guy to own. I would personally be happy not talking about Julio Ereus again until next year, because there have been so many fakeouts. He hasn't gone more than three innings in an appearance since April. And I see no signs of that changing.

The Dodgers have given no indications that's going to change. And his ratios, are, you know, particularly if there's no hope for a win, they're not strong enough to, I mean, I guess he pitched three innings of relief last time out. So his role is just bulk inning guy wherever we can use them, it seems to be. Yeah, a pure ratio type of a pitcher at this point. You're not chasing your wins.

You're just getting innings and strikeouts. And he has less than a strikeout per inning, so how good are the ratios, really? Yeah, that's a good point. Hey, stand out for you. Tuesday Standout for you, Mr. Scott White. Who do you got? Tuesday Standout. I am going to go with, this is the favorite part of every show.

I'm going to go with, I'm going to mention a couple closers here, be a couple closers who have been on the Fritz, and maybe we can start them with confidence again. And those two closers are Josh Hater, who got about a week, off and was losing some save chances even before then, but he got a save today. He has of the brewer's safe chance. He has three straight conventional saves for the brewers, like the last three conventional

saves chances. Haters got them. He's converted them. It's been great. And then Trevor, no, it's not Trevor Rogers, right? It's Taylor Rogers of the twins. He has the twins past five conventional save chances. He's gotten all of those.

So whatever platoon might have been developing there, it seems to have settled again into being just Roger's job. And that's a good thing because he's somebody who's less owned than Edwin D.S. And deserves to be more owned. That's a really good one. We also, Emilio Pagan, ended up getting his 17th save of the year, a couple strikeouts. We saw Carlos Martinez, my guy, getting 18th save. I always like to see that. But we also had Richard Blyer, go one inning, 1K, 3rd save of the year.

a third save of the year, and they use Givens in the 8th. Zero percent owned, Blair was. I mean, this is as good as a one-off, even though they put Givens in the 8th, and then he came in. Any thoughts on Blyer? Yeah, I wonder what the distribution

of those three saves is, because I hadn't, I mean, Givens has been good lately. Yeah, that's why I was surprised he came in. I believe it was in the 8th, and then Blair came in. Like, they so rarely get the save opportunities, the Orioles,

Like, it's, I don't, I don't think they even care to designate roles. It's, they're just, they're just piecing it together one day at a time. Yeah, Blyer's last save was, gosh, May. Is that right? Yeah, May. He had one April 1 May. Was it May 31st, I think it was? Yeah.

Okay. Yep. Yeah. So it's been quite a while. But he ends up getting the third and they used, uh, Givens in the 8th, something to monitor if you're just like scrap heaping. for saves. Not so sure you go and drop Edwin Diaz for this

because that was probably a total one-off, but just watch the name Richard Blyer getting a few saves. Let's take a little break, a little moment for sponsors. When we come back, let's hit the Wauriometer. I have got three players for us to discuss

whom are, I would say, owned at a very high percentage across the board, but let's see how comfortable we are over the next couple weeks as we're ramping into the playoffs. So break here and then Wariometer Wednesday moves on. All right, Scott, first up on the Worryometer, I am bringing up a player that I called for dead.

And I think you essentially agreed with me. We both said, Eloy Jimenez overowned. He was overowned. 88% is where he sits right now. So we had our worries of essentially going and cutting him. Hits in five of his last six games, they're all multi-hits. Tuesday had a little double-dong action, 23 and 24th Homer. But he was hitting 163 in July, ramped up the game.

ramped up to 281 in August, but there was really no power eight homers over those two months to speak of. So are we still worried about Elo Jimenez? Where does the meter hit for you? Yeah, a two homer game. Like, he's going to hit some home runs sometimes. I don't doubt there's ability in there.

But these two home runs were his first extra base hits. The first extra base hits for Aloi Jimenez since August 18th. So it's going to take. take a lot more for me to decide I want him in my lineup again in anything shallower than a 15-team league. So worryometer, if I got to put a number on it, I guess, I don't know, four. Okay, so let me follow then real quick, because we were essentially good with cutting him.

So are you, the four is you're still worried enough, but you're only out of four of your worry, or I'm just trying to wrap my head around it because if we were cutting him before and he was overowned and you kind of poo-pooed the good performance he had here it sounds like the Woriometer maybe I'm just convoluting it

would be more of like you're still at a 7 for him. The Worryometer is a difficult thing to calibrate. Usually I think of Worryometer in a sense of a good player who's struggling as opposed to a bad player who just had a two homeber games. So I kind of confused myself, I think,

is what it is. But yeah, it's still the ownership thing. It's still the ownership thing. Okay, that's how I should have been thinking of it then. Yeah, no,

that makes sense. I will, I'll say eight. Okay, okay, good. I think I'm still with you. You know,

encouraging signs with the batting average jumping from July, or jumping in August from July is good. A couple homers, the power we want to see quietly could walk himself into a close to 30 home run season, which would be intriguing. It's funny that a 30 homer season.

I know we're like, oh, that's all right, right? That's an average one. But that's like baseball. Well, it was like five years ago that there were seven players who hit 30 home runs for the entire, like across the whole league. And there's like legit like seven guys who might hit like 50 homers this year. We're like, well, 50 is the marker now. We don't even care about 30. It's just a drop in the bucket for sure.

So yeah, I'm going to go with you. I'm going to go with a seven. Still continue that, you know, maybe not overowned is so much the issue with him as it is overpour. played, especially when he's struggling. You just keep putting him out there and, you know, doing it really at your own dismay there. Here's another one. And it's kind of in a same general sense, but my idea was he's only a utility, DH type of guy. Shohei Otani. He's 92% owned. But went looked on CBS, only 61% start right now. On the season, 289 average, 16 homers, 11 stolen bases coming into Tuesday. But over the last two weeks, Otani's been six for 30. with a 171 average and one RBI.

So the reason I bring it up, high, high ownership, people are starting to worry. He has no flexibility for you, 171 over last 35 at bats. Where you at rest of season? Show Hey Otani. Yeah, and it looks like the playing time has suffered some lately with these struggles. He had set out two games in a row prior to this one, both against lefties. But, you know, he starts a lot of times against lefties too. the angels have faced a ton of lefties in August.

They did face a ton of lefties in August. My goodness. A lot of lefties. Yeah, I mean, worryometer. It's mostly the position limitations, like you say, because everybody has an extra first basement to start, an extra third basement to start. How committed are you to keeping Otani in that DH spot?

I mean, look at guys like Luisra Rice, like we talked about, you know, with all that flexibility getting hits, he's doing something. Yeah. I'm not really that worried from like an ability standpoint, but, you know, is he must start? No, he's not. And I think the start percentage reflects that. So I'll say Worryometer for Otani.

I'll go like a five. Okay. That's where I was going to go. That's the exact number for mine as well. Like, he still borders enough that you're going to find justification to try to get him in there. But the lack of flexibility and really, if anything else, don't let the name value hold you too much when you've only got one spot to pop him in.

he has been in a relative deep struggle. Though, you know, I'll probably go look and see what the angels are playing right now, and it would only be serendipity for him to hit a homer. But he does have a hit, one for three in that game currently. All right. Last one on my version of the Worryometer, Hinginjian Ryu with the Dodgers. Over his last 21 and two-thirds inning, which is 60 days, he's got a 748 ERA and a 157 whip. coming into the back end of this season.

I mean, he's one of those guys that is, he's out there, you're putting him in, but he's been getting blown up on a last couple starts. So worryometer the rest of the way through, because it counts more because this is the only time that it has truly mattered in your playoff run. Yeah, a worryometer on Ryu. I can't imagine anybody actually sitting him having the depth at pitching to sit him based on three shaky starts. I worry about his

Sy Young candidacy because I think that's taken a big hit and I challenge you to come up with who is the front runner for the NL Cy Young right now because you could probably go nine different directions but in terms of actually like he was owed some regression I think obviously but to the point that

I'd be scared to use them not given my alternatives at starting pitcher So I will go like a three for you. Okay. I think I'm in the, I mean, you summed it up really well because the options that were truly given is going to be kind of the dictation. He's going to be starting here as people are listening to the episode against Colorado. Maybe that'll tell you more than probably a road game against Baltimore coming up.

But his last three have been bad. I mean, he obviously hasn't qualified for a quality start there. Three straight losses. Two of them, he didn't get into the fifth inning. You know, if we know the regression is there, boys. it a bad time to know the regressions there while it's happening in the playoffs. So like you said, don't know if it's enough where you don't go and put him out against Colorado because of the guy that he is. And we've, we said it yesterday too. You don't want to be the guy that puts him on the

bench. He pitches a gym and then you, you know, picked up an Adrian Houser and they get lit up. You'd rather go down with the ship than watch it, you know, move away from you. Yeah, exactly. That was a point we brought up before. A couple of details that I kind of left hanging earlier to change subjects abruptly. Gardner, Brett Gardner, bats in the lower third of the Yankees lineup. So, you know, even more reason why we should only be so excited about him.

And it was five years ago, 2014, that 11 players, not 7, hit 30 home runs, among them Chris Carter and Lucas Duda. What a list. Good old Chris Carter. 11? 11. In 2015. I mean, no, 2014, I'm sorry, 2014, 11 players.

One hit 40, Nelson Cruz hit 40. Really? Yeah. And we're what, I think we're what, deep like 30 into 30? I mean, there's 25 right there. I can look it up real quick. I believe we are at, my guess is 33 players with 30 homers as I'm just glancing at this. Really quick, depending on how fast the internet loads the page.

33. Boom. Did you hear that somewhere? Boom. No, I did. I swear. I swear. It's just a guess. I did. Well, I had like players up, so I just did a quick, like visual scan and 33 was the number. So, there you go. That's a lot of them. And what did you say? 11? 11. Yeah. Wow. All right. Well. Five years ago. It felt like we were talking about like, you know, 1987. And it's like five years ago that were 11 with 30. This year, we're up to 33 with 30. With three and a half weeks to go. Yep. And multiple on the cusp of maybe hitting 50 homers there. So, all right, there you go. Version of the Wariometer, hope you guys dig. What else are going on around baseball?

Carlos Correa hit off a T on Tuesday in Houston. So further speculating that hopefully we can get him back. Another one, U. Darvish played catch on Tuesday and was on target to start Saturday in Milwaukee. Any caution? I mean, he's been so good, but any caution against Milwaukee at all for you? I'd probably play him. I'd find, you know, I'd see if I had a good reason not to, but like we always say with pitching, it's, what are your options? I'm not picking some scrubby guy off the waiver where I'd use instead. Yeah, you'd have to have a pretty good matchup. I mean, you might be faced, honestly, where you could say, do I start U. Darvish versus Milwaukee or Mike Montgomery versus, who did we say he's got? Is it Detroit? He's got Miami. Or Miami? There you go. So would you want Mike Montgomery versus Miami or U. Darvish coming off of an entry against Milwaukee? I think I'd take Darvish.

I think I'd already have to have like a good pitcher that, you know, I'd have to be in the rare situation where I had a lot of pitching depth. Okay, that's, I like it. One of the guys that Milwaukee will not have against you, Darvish, or maybe we'll have to keep watching how it goes. But Mike Mustakis was out of the Brewer starting lineup on Tuesday due to this lingering discomfort in his left hand. He had come back for Labor Day, but then they've got Travis Shaw out there.

So Mike, or Mike Mustakis, you're going to have to monitor here to see if you're going to get him back in your lineup. Not good one. This is a really bad one. We're going to have to see where this goes. But George Springer had to be carted off the field after just crushing into an outfield wall against Miami. He made a catch on this long drive off of Ryan Braun, but he stumbled, hit the

wall, hit his head really hard. And they said he's, I think it's a concussion protocol. And there's, you know, they're monitoring for any other head injuries. And then, by the way, Kyle Tucker came in and proceeded to go 0 for 2. So Springer might open up a little bit of an opportunity. for Kyle Tucker, but I'm not sure. How optimistic would you be on that? Because I think Springer's missing a little bit of time here.

I would assume so. I can't imagine he didn't suffer a concussion. Hopefully he didn't, but I think we have every reason to believe he did. And that'll keep him out for a while. You know, nobody wants the trade-off of Springer for Tucker, but it does open a door for Tucker that we wondered if it would be open for. him. I don't know if it would be, it'll be every day. But, you know, I think at five outfielder leagues, at least, you need to make sure he's rostered. Yeah, this is a lot of upside. This changed a little bit of

my take, you know, where I've said before, like, what were they, you know, why were they going to push it, have they not before? You know, Jordan Alvarez is going to be first opportunity guy. Abraham Toro is playing really great right now. So, you know, why are they going to press Kyle Tucker? Well, you know, the unfortunate reason for a guy like George Springer who, you know, George Springer's almost in that injury prone versus injury-plagged conversation that I know, me and PZAPIA, Joe Pizapia, I'll have it all the time of differentiating is he injury-prone or is he injury-plagued? And it feels like he's injury-plagued, where prone would be like coming back up

with the same type of injuries. He just keeps having things happen. Yeah, no, I'd classify. It is that. And that's always a tricky thing, the injury-prone label. I mean... The Jean-Carrlo Stanton, if you will? Yeah, I mean, I think there was a time when you could have said

Jean-Carlo Stanton was injury-played because it was wildly different things. It wasn't always muscle pulls. Like, if a guy's pulling hamstrings, pulling obliques over and over, like that's where I really think of him in terms of injury-prone. But if, you know, he gets hit in the pitch, hit by... the face by a pitch. I had to be careful how I said that. I think he got out of it okay.

You got out of it unscathed, unlike George Springer. Yeah, if those things, then, yeah, I can understand injury plagued. And look, it may have been a case where George Springer happened to be injury plagued now, and he's kind of ascended to injury prone, but I don't think anybody's counting on good health from Giancarlo Stanton next year, maybe not at any point in his career now that he's going to be in his 30s, although even that can change. I mean, J.D. Martinez, and especially Nelson Cruz, they both used to be considered injury prone, and then they got moved to a DH, and they never get hurt anymore. That's very true. Well, everybody, keep your eyes on Kyle Tucker now.

Opportunity rising, so as should the ads. Maybe a guy plagued or prone. Chris Bryant was scratched from the Cubs lineup on Tuesday due to right knee soreness. He's going to be ready to go, they say, on Friday with a mandatory day off. That'll be in Milwaukee. Edwin, and Conachian returned. 93% owned, but only 19% start for E5. He went two for four with his 31st home run return game. That was clearly people just not on the up and up on what was going with E5, because he was still owned 93% of the time.

Or is. Yeah, and, you know, obviously first base is a deep position. You consider the standard head-to-head lineup with only nine hitter spots to fill. I think an abundance of caution is warranted, usually when a player is returning from a lengthy I.L. And, you know, I mean, the Yankees, I think Mike Ford has made himself into a pretty good option. They also just got Luke Voight back. Voight seems to be playing every day, so nothing has changed there for him. But, you know, I wonder if they're just going to completely phase out Mike Ford

or if he's going to interfere at times with one of Voigt in Carnacian or maybe both. Mitch Keller, he went one and two thirds, but he was hit today, and he was out of the game, hit on the wrist, I believe it was. We're going to have to monitor where that goes. And then on a comeback, Ramon Laryano said that he's been running at full speed in some of his most recent workouts, and he took live batting practice on Tuesday, and he went to reporters and said he's ready to go and return to the A's active roster. So some optimism for you with Ramon Lariano. He's a guy you get right back out there when he returns. Yeah, probably.

I just mentioned that Anthony Centendere has outscored him on a per game basis in points leagues. So maybe a three outfielder points league, you know, maybe he's kind of fringy at that format. He was so hot before he got hurt, though. I don't know if he's just going to pick up where he left off, if that was a new standard he was setting or if it was just a hot streak. I think it was mostly a hot streak, but, I mean, there's obviously some skills there for, Luriano. All right, let's hit a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about a bunch of hitting, some more

pitching, more pitching and hitting options. We might get to some emails. And I'm really curious if we'll get to this. Scott White's been teasing some 20, 20, first round conversation on the Twitters. And he had some really good take. So if we have time, maybe we'll hit that. But a little break here, and we will be right back. Some not-so-great starts on Tuesday.

two of them, it's not that they're not so great. It's maybe the person that's not so great, at least from our expectations. Max Scherzer's a very fine person. Hopefully that didn't come across wrong. Max Scher went six. He gave up four. I've met him. I met him a couple times. He's an incredibly nice guy. And I was like, oh, these guys are messed up. No. Our expectations are higher. So it's not so great when Max gives up four earned run. And he does strike out seven, which was nice. But four earned, no quality start as well. Jacob de Grom. Seven gave up eight hits, four and runs. three and struck out six. So that is in the not so great department for pitchers that you have high expectations for.

Maybe two that you don't have eye expectations for. Rick Porcelo, I don't know, you guys own them 78%. Went four, gave up six, struck out five. And Vince Velasquez, who's 42% owned, went three, struck out five. But it was actually the only going three, which was the problem. He went five innings and at least four of his previous five. So Rick Porcelo, last three were solid starts. he's got the Yankees up next.

Vince Velasquez had been doing okay, but the inning things was weird. Any interest, or are both of these guys maybe overowned? Porcelo at 78 and Vasquez at 42? Are people fishing in the wrong pond? Velasquez. You said Vasquez. Oh, yeah, Velasquez. Just left out of syllable. Yeah, they're both overowned, I would say.

Porcelo easily. I don't want anything to do with Porcelo anymore. I was the high guy on him coming into the season. I've been the high guy on him for a couple years now. The reasons I was defending him are now moot. He was an underrated strikeout pitcher before, and now he's just a bad strikeout pitcher, and he gives up more home runs than he used to. He's just gone bad in every possible way, and it's reflected in the ERA, and it's time to move on, folks.

Probably it's that high because people have just, you know, the people who owned Rick Porcelo have turned their attention to football, but if you're not among those, then you need to let them go. There were some really good performances that you would expect James Paxton, When 7 gave up one hit, walked one, and struck out 12. Very, very positive start. I feel like we talked about him in a wishy-washy standpoint over the last couple weeks. I mean, I don't know if this changes much for you, but Paxon's a guy that you're just flinging out there at any time,

like the Ryu conversation, right? Nothing too much to worry? No, I don't think we've approached him that way for much of this season. I mean, his season-long numbers are pretty yucky still. Pretty yucky. ERA over four WIP over You know near one four

So it's it's pretty bad But Seems to have straightened things out here 12 strikeouts in a one hit effort today 11 strikeouts two starts ago Five of seven quality starts Stuff wise You know he's always looked fine

So I think I think I'd be fine rolling with them right now And just because the season long numbers have gotten so warped, I think. I think Paxton's going to be pretty nice value next year. Some other good performances. John Lester went six, didn't give up any runs, did walk four, struck out nine on Tuesday. Mike Clevenger went seven, two earned runs, four walks, but nine strikeouts making good. Flaherty went eight, no earn runs, walked one, struck out eight. Granky went six, went six, gave up four and runs and struck out four and kind of still

the wishy-washyness he's been with Houston, but your guy, Mike Fultenevich, seven, 73% owned, went five, gave up no earned runs, three walks, two strikeouts, lesser owned than Rick Porcelo. Fultenevich and Porcelo shouldn't be in the same stratosphere of owned, correct? Correct. I have much more hope for Fultenevich. I'm not sure exactly where my hope for Fultenevich where exactly it falls, because, like, I don't think he's as good as he was last year.

I didn't, you know, even coming into the year. I thought he was going to take a step back. He was initially in my bust column before he got hurt, and that pushed his value to a point where suddenly I was fine taking him. So, you know, he hasn't been great. I think he's been better than the numbers since he returned from the minors, but he hasn't been great. And, you know, I'm not going to say everybody needs to be owned in every league.

Do the matchups worry you enough off? He's got Washington or Philly, you know, maybe, comparable, maybe on Washington a little bit more of a problem, but Washington, Philly, would that scare you off? There are some deeper leagues where I'm going to have to start him, but I'd rather not have to start him. I'm thinking him, like, he's good enough to have on a roster for a playoff team to mix in when he has favorable matchups when he has two start weeks. But you don't want to have to rely on him. Now, you may, you know, he may be your best option. I think you could do worse than him, certainly.

but he's not he's you shouldn't count on him for like high end production as you should you probably know because he hasn't really been giving high end starts since he returned is he i don't know i feel like i'm taking a negative spin on fulton evidence you kind of did you turned a little bit you turned away from him yeah when it's it's probably you know i feel like most of the time my job is to to help calibrate things appropriately which means talking up a guy who maybe people are naturally going to be skeptical of. Again, I think he's been better since he returned from the miners than the numbers actually show.

So maybe that should be the takeaway than all my dismissing of him. What if you paired him up against the guys we talked about at the top of the show, Liles, Montgomery, C. Sandy, I mean, where would you go? Better than all of them? So, yeah, that's, well, who'd he be worse then? Max Fried. I'd rather have Max Fried. than Fultenevich.

Okay. I'd rather have Zach Gallen than Fultenevich. Agreed. On all fronts. Agreed on all fronts. All right. Let's hit into some more, some ads here,

and we're going to go into some deep hitting ads. Three players on Tuesday, who are pretty solid. Adam Frazier, who's only, and these are under 25% own players, so this is really deep leagues. But performances have been high. Adam Frazier, we talked about last week,

went two for three, three RBIs, hit his ninth homer, currently on a six-game hitting streak, and he's got two-strives. games with a home run with the pirates. John Birdie, who's 23% owned. He was only one for five, but he got his ninth stolen base of the season on Tuesday.

And coming in through August, 278 average with four homers and seven stolen bases. So, I mean, a power speed guy who continues to get his opportunity. And I just wanted to throw this in, this guy in, even though he's lesser owned. And maybe it's more in the speculate. You know what? I'm going to save him for the speculate because those guys are like under 15% owned. So Bertie or Frazier pit them up against each other. would you want to add? I would prefer to add. Um, I think I'd prefer to add birdie. He's been,

he's actually been at pretty decent. It's getting called up. And I, like, in a way beyond what Frazier's ever been. Uh, particularly, particularly, I think at a points league context, but, you know, they're both deep options. And you play for the stolen bases if you guys are in your playoff runs and you've got, you know, deeper options like this. Play for the stolen base option, probably more than the power. Bertie's shown some ability for power, but seven stolen bases in August. Yeah, little encouraging. I mean, neither of these are power guys.

Adam Frazier, John Bertie. Yeah, no, I mean, Fraser is just showing a little bit of power right now, but Bertie's more of a complete package. Pure speculation adds, whether it's due to injuries or whether it's getting a cold bat off of your bench. The one guy I was talking about who's only 13% owned since he's been back is Joey Wendell, one for three, he got his seventh stolen base, and he's got hits in five of his six games since returning, but there's only one homer batting, batting average. Compared to some other

speculation ads who are under 10% owned, Abraham Toro, who we talked about, 8%, hits in six of his last seven, two homers, he got a triple on Tuesday. Ben Zobrist, who's six percent owned, he's got a three-game hit street going on, and Jake Cave, one for four, hits in two of his last five games, and he's been a little bit more popular than probably the entire group. So if you're in deep, deep, deep speculation, do any of those guys not only fit the mold of like, all right, here's the guy in super deep I'm going with, but does somebody, do you view any of these as massively underowned? I think so, yeah, they might all be, considering they're less than 10% owned.

I understand the regular 12-team mixed league player may not have use for any of them, but I think they all have a chance to be decent. I mean, Jake Cave was in my top 10 sleeper hitters for this week. So was Abraham Toro, for that matter, and he's been getting regular starts for the Astros. I don't see that changing since Carlos Correa's return isn't in the forecast. I've been Zobrist. I mean, the Cubs have had difficulty finding a lead-off man all season.

This is his first game today since, and when I say today, I mean Tuesday, which I guess everybody, it's yesterday, actually, what I should be saying. but it's the first game since early May and always been a good on base guy so if he's batting leadoff in front of Castiano's Rizzo and Bryant I mean he's going to be halfway useful another guy who I think is right around 10% owned and that we need to take a second look at is Josh Rojas

who all of a sudden Diamondbacks are playing him again he had four hits on Monday with a double and a homer is second homer in four games. Then Tuesday, the game's not over, but he has two hits batting seconds. So he's getting consistent playing time. He's finally starting to deliver on some of that potential. You know, I think he's worth a look again.

And five outfielder leagues also eligible at third base. Is Rojas over all those guys? Did you say that? Would you go Rojas over Toro? I think those two are an interesting pair against each other. they're interesting because I mean the minor league numbers were terrific and they

should be in line for regular bats uh yeah I mean it's kind of a we know I think we're well aware of what Zobris and caves limitations are like they're not going to be studs they might be useful but they're not going to be studs Toro and Rojas we don't know that they're not going to be studs I don't think we could rule it out.

So, yeah, if I'm speculating on a scarcely owned player, I'm going with Rojas or Toro for Zobrist or Cave. A couple pitching performances I wanted to bring up that are currently going on as we're recording this. We've now hit over the midnight on the East Coast. The Diamondbacks game is in the top of the eighth, and you've got Merrill Kelly, who went seven, struck out nine, nowhere in runs in two walks.

And you had Ronald Bolanos. He had a 36 ERA in the minors, 142 strikeouts, 130 innings. And he in this game went six, struck out four with two earned runs in a pretty solid matchup that not one human being would have streamed out there. Any comments on Kelly or Bolanos? I don't know a lot about Bolanos, who didn't make an appearance at AAA, so he avoided the juiced ball.

Helped keep that ERA below four. I don't know a lot. You may know more about him than I do. I've actually seen him twice, but I've only ever seen him in like relief situations. Or they might have started him. I believe this was, this was in spring training,

extended spring training where he'd come in and pitch a couple innings. Not a, I never saw multi pitches, just kind of a two pitch guy. Like I would never would have guessed this type of result. Like he, if you're looking at the Padres, which, you know,

where do they go with who, you know, out there with starts. I'm surprised it was Bolanos because you've got still Adrian Morione. You've got Mitchell Baez. You've got guys like Ryan Weathers. They've got so many of them. This isn't a guy that they featured in like a starting pitching role. So it's one of those performances I look at and I move on, just like Chi Chi-Chi Gonzalez, who as we are going, has gone six with nowhere and runs and two strikeouts against the Dodgers, Scott. So I mean, Chi-Chi and Bolanos, I'll just do hard passes on. Yeah, I was thinking that too.

And Merrill Kelly, great start. He's had great starts at times this year. I'm not letting myself get faked out by Merrill Kelly with my season on the line. Pull me once. Yeah, it's been more than once. Yeah, like every other time I make the wrong decisions on Merrill Kelly. He's one of those guys. We have got, we've got a couple emails I want to hit.

But real quick, I just wanted to know where, you know, you tell me where you want to take this. we don't have a ton of time in the pod, but you know, earlier today you were tweeting about trying to figure out what the first round looks like. And you said you kind of had to do a self like four or five round mock draft. Yeah. Do you want to take a minute or two and just have a little quick primer to what you did and like the results of what came out of it for you? Yeah. So this is going to be a column in the next couple days where I just project the first two rounds for next year.

And normally it's a pretty straightforward process because, there are players who stand out above the others and it's just finding the right order for them. But I was having so much trouble narrowing down the candidates that I had to go four rounds deep to kind of, to figure out how all those candidates would fit together on a roster to actually simulate a scenario where somebody's having to balance their team to figure out an order for these guys. And if it made sense to have somebody in the first round versus somebody else, particularly with regard to starting pitchers versus hitters. Like, does it make sense to pass up this high-in starting pitcher here

based on the hitting options I'm going to have to choose from in the next round? And I'm still not sure, I'm still not confident I landed in a good spot with that. It still kind of feels like I just arbitrarily scattered pitchers throughout the first four rounds of this mock draft. like basically so four rounds of a 12 team league that's like 50 players right 48 to be specific but top 50

let's say it's just like it just feels it doesn't it doesn't feel like there's a clear order for the top 50 which is insane

like I mean I was saying it on ITL like the top this is the first year I can recall, and I don't know how long, where there's not a consensus number one overall pick. There's actually not a two. It's similar to the running back situation of fantasy football where, I mean, I guess people would argue against that. Maybe it's the running back two overall, second overall pick in fantasy football, which could be for them, you know, three different running backs.

The number one overall in baseball, there's an argument to be had that it could be Ronald Acuna or it could be Mike Trout or it could be Christian Yelich. I'm doing Justin Mason's too early mock right now. I had the second pick and I had Mike Trout sitting there. for me. So there's no consensus at the top. The word I was looking for was parsing. So much parsing to come up with four, like to come up with the quote unquote right order for the first four rounds. And I'm still not confident.

It's very good. I'm not sure. Like, here's a couple of examples. Jose Altuve, I have him two rounds ahead of Pete Alonzo. Does he deserve to go two rounds ahead of Pete Alonzo? I mean. It is 44th. Three for five?

Is it his 44th on Tuesday? I think they both have similar value. Juan Soto, I have two rounds ahead of Anthony Rizzo, who, you know, has been a fixture in the second and third rounds. So how is he going two rounds behind anybody? I don't know. Like, I could give you this thin justification for why I have him behind Juan Soto, but should it make two rounds difference in an actual draft? And if hitters, if such similarly valued hitters are having, are still available that far apart.

Why are we going with hitters at all? Should we just be drafting high-end pitchers until they're all gone? I think there's a case to be made that we should. But I don't know if it's really, I don't know. This is something I'm going to have to put more thought into, but I'm not sure if it's really a case of me looking at what is the most impact you can get from this draft spot? or if I'm being held back by tradition and precedent that you could only take this many pitchers this high versus hitters. I don't know.

That's something to figure out. And I think a lot of it might depend on the behavior of the people you're drafting, which is obviously not something I can account for when I'm putting together rankings. Was there something just real quick that was besides this in the starting pitching conversation? Was there a physical player, whether it be your shot? that you had them in the first just by looking at it or you were shocked that you kicked somebody out of the first that shouldn't have been. Nolan Aronado is not in the first round for me.

And I have always been one of the most vocal Aeronado supporters because I feel like he gets unfairly pushed down to like seventh or eighth overall. You know, this year I had him fifth and I'm, you know, it was resolute in my argument for why he had to go fifth. And he's done nothing wrong this year. He's been Nolan Aeronado, and now I can't even fit him in my first round. Part of that is because Anthony Rendon, I mean, he has completely overtaken him in every other third baseman with the production he's had this year. I mean, he's been better on a per game basis than Cody Bellinger in a points league.

I mean, probably a little different at Roto, but he's hitting almost 340 in a way that's fairly believable. And then there's, you know, Bregman and Freeman round out my first round. So I guess you could make a case for Aeronado over any of those three Rendon, Bregman or Freeman. But I wouldn't. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I choose not to. So he's kicking off round two for me. And just really throughout the whole thing.

I'm shocked at how low certain players are. I couldn't fit. Aaron Judge is a late third rounder for me, which I mean, I get you could defend it based on the way his performance is gone this year. And yet we know he has first round upside. Ed Alonzo, Anthony Rizzo, Chris Bryant, Bryce Harper. They're all fourth rounders for me. So, I mean, I talked about how Harper wouldn't be a first or second rounder anymore. And he barely made the cut for the fourth round.

Well, I highly suggest everybody be on the lookout for that article because it should be a doozy. And you can follow Scott on Twitter at CBS Scott White if you want to see some of the musings of it. I got to see your brain in action as you were working through the process of it and you were tweeting about it. so it's definitely good stuff. A couple quick, quick ones here on the emails. We gave you the email before, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. I don't know the history behind this,

but Matt wants to know, Will Scott Eat Crow, Lindor has secured a 2020 season. Were you pooping on Lindor? Yeah, with the nature of his calf injury and the severity of it, I felt like steals were a big part of what was driving, what at the time was he was going forth overall,

but I was knocking him down to the second round because if he took steals out of the equation, yeah, I wasn't expecting him to run much. Clearly he has, and, you know, I guess I'll eat grow. I don't think the process was wrong. I think if the same thing happened to a similar player, I'd make a similar argument. But it just didn't happen to play out that way this time.

Three-way battle for first, where stolen base runs an average are the most relevant categories rest of the way. This person, they didn't give their name, felt confident. in their Kyle Tucker pickup until Hinch implied that he'd be a complimentary player. Well, something transcribed tonight. For the rest of the season, Roto, which one should be dropped?

Should I be going for playing time volume? Sincel is up and down in the order. Would you expect Luriano to be activated? Well, he didn't give the person. So he said for rest of season, which one should be dropped? Kyle Tucker or Sincel. How about that? Or Luriano.

Those are the three, because Luriano's going to be activated. Probably Tucker. I don't have hopes for a huge impact from Senzel the rest of this year. So, you know, if you want to, if it was for a bench bot, I'm not sure he makes that clear in this argument that I can see going Tucker over him, but I'm

ranking Senzel over Tucker rest of season, just pure ranking standpoint. So Tucker would be the odd man out here. Definitely not Luriano. Patrick had a similar question where someone like, they screwed up and they had an legal roster so Kyle Tucker was available. Should he pick up Kyle Tucker over Tommy Edmund or

Danny Santana. This is probably Tucker over Edmund, though. Yes. Edmund is scrubby. If it came to it, I want to drop Danny Santana for Tucker. I would not. But, you know, you got Edmund, you could drop instead, so that's good. Brian says, Dear Jim, Darius, Mark, and Dean. The only thing I can think is this is hoody and the blowfish because Darius. Darius, yeah. Could that be it?

I don't know who any of the blowfish are, so. Okay. That's the only thing that jumped on my own. mind. We'll have to look here. I'm currently batting or battling, he means, to stay in the money in his 13-team 5-5-Roto League. He has Brendan McKay and Annable Sanchez left for his last pitcher spot. Sanchez looks like a two-start guy, but they're against Atlanta and Minnesota. He says, I'm in need of wins. Who do you start? Well, you start the guy that's up, Annable Sanchez. Well, no, McKay got called up again. You get back up, but I didn't even see it. Yeah, he got called up today. And by the way,

you know, I would start Sanchez, too. But by the way, we got some conference. about players who aren't coming up. Do we mention Robert, Luis Roberts? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that, yeah, you are right about that.

I was always down on that one, but they're officially not calling him up. Yeah, they've made that official. It sounds like Carter Kibum, unless there is a need, like in the case of, you know,

their second basement breaking his wrist or something. It sounds like he's not going to be up. And, uh, Dahlbach. Bobby Dahlbach, right? Bobby Dahlbach with the,

with the Red Sox. Yeah, power hitting third basement or first baseman. He's not getting called up either. He's going to be with the team, but he's not getting added to the roster. Which is unfortunate. By the way, I absolutely nailed that. Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Dean Felber, and Jim Sonafield. Jim Sonafield are the members of Hootie and the Blowfish that everybody wanted to know.

So congratulations. You win, I win. We all win. That is what we got for you, everybody. Follow, like I said, Scott on Twitter at CBS Scott White. you can follow myself at Is It the Welsh. Worryometer Wednesday, we're all good, not just dialing down. Let's get through the rest of this fantasy playoff run here,

and we have got you back on the next episode for Scott White. I am Chris Welsh. Thank you for tuning in, and we will talk to you tomorrow.