Fantasy Baseball Today - 09/12: Awesome Shortstops, New Closers, #1 Catcher Debate (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: September 12, 2018

Josh Donaldson is back (3:50), hooray! We've got that and more MLB news (5:00) plus new closers emerging (14:03) that could help you get saves ... Looking ahead to 2019 we discuss First Base (22:22) and Shortstop (24:35) and wonder which position is better. We also get into next year's Catcher rankings as we debate J.T. Realmuto vs. Gary Sanchez ... Hitters (27:50) and plenty of SPs (31:22) to add, plus a look at today's and tomorrow's matchups (47:05) ... Your emails at [e-mail] This episode is sponsored by www. ZipRecruiter.com 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

Tomidore And pick your milk for breakfast cereal Mount Rushmore They'll be there for a afternoon A little bit later than normal Sorry everybody But we are here

Adam and Scott scamming you right now On September 12th It's Wednesday We're going to have a Friday show as well And we welcome you How you doing Scott White? I'm doing good Adam

How are you? This fine afternoon. How are your fantasy football teams doing? How was week one for you? I only have two fantasy football teams this year. Since I'm not around the daytime, I wasn't asked to do a lot of the office league, which is fine. Just fine. Yeah.

One of one. Good for you. Good start. I don't want to tell you how I did in week one. It's not important. It's not important. What's important is what happened on Monday and Tuesday in baseball, including the return of Josh Donaldson and some new closers. I'm picking up relievers left and right right now.

I need to win saves in the Categories League, and there are some saves out there. So we will update you on all of that. We will talk about first base in 2019. We will talk about shortstop in 2019. I would just give you the stat now. The number 12 shortstop in points leagues is currently outscoring the number 12 first baseman. And that is crazy.

And later on we'll discuss just how crazy it is. Scott, you know, it's weird to talk about something like this and a fantasy angle, but have you studied the impact that the hurricane may have on baseball and fantasy? Because a lot of people were sort of planning on postponements this weekend and, you know, adjusting their rosters accordingly on Monday with the storm about to hit the Carolinas. Yeah, and it's supposed to continue. in a northwesternly fashion, right? Which I imagine would mean the Washington-Baltimore area. The Philadelphia area is up that way too, right?

Yep, yep. So pulling up the schedules of those teams now. Yeah, well, the Orioles are hosting the White Sox this weekend. And so I know like some people had some reservations about Lucas Gialito making his second start. Yeah. No, I mean, honestly, it isn't something I considered. I probably should have. But yeah, there are definitely going to be some canceled games.

It's fair to say. Washington doesn't look like, it looks like they're going to be away except for today. They have an isolated home game, but actually on Thursday. Yeah, they have a makeup of a postponement, yeah. Yeah. I don't know about that game. back on the road. Because I don't know what the weather's going to be like there on Thursday, but yeah, it's possible there are going to be some rainouts.

I think that Nationals game on Thursday does have a chance to get rained out. Is it against the Cubs? It is against the Cubs. They were talking about how it might get rained out, as I recall. But we'll see what happens. I know some adjustments were made, and look, the most important thing is we hope it doesn't really do too much damage. We wish everybody the best of luck. Josh Donaldson is back.

He went 0 for 4 on Tuesday. and he batted fifth. He played third base at Tampa Bay. He's going to sit today. He's already sitting today. That game is underway. And Donaldson will be back in the lineup on Friday. I was trying to tweet a little bit and help people out and how I'm viewing Josh Donaldson.

I have Travis Shaw on a team. It's a daily lineup league. I don't think you're – like, you've got to see what happens over the weekend before we start Donaldson in a weekly lineup league. But a daily lineup league, Travis Shaw has an OPS, I believe, under 600 against lefties. So I did sit Shaw for Donaldson yesterday. and it didn't work out. Shaw, at least drew a walk.

Donaldson went over for it, but whatever. Yeah, I don't think he's... Like, he's not a must start, right? Shaw? No, Donaldson. Donaldson, no, no. He has to show something first. After as much time as he's missed,

I expect him to be rusty. I'm not totally sure he's healthy. You know, he's activated now because they want to get something out of him and they want to make sure he's up to speed by the time the postseason gets here. But he's had plenty of setbacks along the way in his recovery. So I really don't know what to expect for him. Worth owning, but not somebody I'm counting on.

I'm not even, you know, we already gave him the welcome back music. I'm not giving it to him again. You don't get it twice in a week. You have it, he hasn't earned it. You know, maybe any homers, we'll give him one. News and notes, Shamaniah, out for the year. He's having shoulder surgery and he could miss all of 2019. That surprised me because it was arthroscopic shoulder surgery.

I didn't realize it was going to be like that. Yeah, that is a serious absence. That is like somebody had Tommy John's surgery this time of year. That's how much time being expected him to this. So at least we don't have to debate whether or not his BAP is going to normalize next year. I guess. I guess not, yeah. Rather have him available to draft, though.

Corey Kluber Wow So my friend My friend He's like Oh man I need Kluber to get rained out this weekend I'm playing against him

He's got two starts He gets crushed on Monday Four runs in an inning in two-third And now he's getting his start skipped This weekend So Kluber should be a two-star pitcher Next week But that's a tough break

If you own Corey Kluber You got nothing from him this week You got worse than nothing unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was my number one two-star pitcher for the week, obviously. He's Cory Klobber.

Yeah. And this has been just a disaster scenario for his owners. So, yeah, that's tough. That's tough. And it looked like he had turned it around. Not that he was ever so bad, but he's been pitching, he had been pitching through a knee injury. Well, he's probably the AL-Sy Young Frontrunner, right?

Who else would be? Verlander? People are on the Snell train, who, by the way, is absolutely cruising right now. As we speak, Snell is outpitching a guy who he's much, much better than Carlos Carrasco. Six hitless innings, two walks, eight strikeouts for Blake Snell thus far. He might throw a no hitter while we're on the air, Scott. Get excited. Yeah.

I mean, he does lead the majors and wins and does have a 206 ERA. No, not anymore. Right now it's $199. Oh, okay, because he's in the middle pitching now, yeah. I think he's going to win the Sa Young. He might not even get to 180 innings, though. I'm not sure anybody's ever won a Sai Young, at least in a season that wasn't strike-shortened with, well, and obviously there were some relievers who won. But a starting pitcher, I'm not sure one's ever won with less than 180 innings.

I wonder where Kluber, going back to Kluber, is he, going to be part of the big whatever next year, however many bigs there are, big four this year. DeGrom might move into that next year. Snell might move into that. Kirchal might move out for all. I know. I don't think so. But is Kluber going to be part of that group?

So I just published my latest and most definitive. Look at the first two rounds for 2019. Oh, nice. All right. Something to dive into next week. I like it. Yeah, absolutely. Max Scherzer is the only pitcher going in the first round. The second round includes Chris Sale. It includes Jacob de Grom and it includes Cory Klooper. So he's fourth for me. Justin Verlander's fifth. He's right there too. And then Clayton Kershaw is back in the first two rounds after looking like he might fall out of that group for a while.

So those are the only pitchers I'm looking at in the first two rounds, six of them in all. So Klobors made 30 starts this year. His last 16 starts, he has a 387 ERA. He has just under a strikeout per inning, a very okay 12% swinging strike rate. So I don't know. People might see this as a warning sign, or people might say, well, he's been pitching through a knee injury, he's going to be just fine. We'll see. We have an offseason to talk about that.

Aaron Judge is making progress, but he's not pain free yet. Marcus Stroman unlikely to return this year. I just want you to know that the best matchup in baseball, it's probably the White Sox. They strike out a ton. But the Giants are really, really up there. Going into Wednesday. Oh, actually, going into Tuesday, I got to check what they did on Tuesday.

But going into Tuesday, the Giants had scored three or fewer runs in six straight games. And then they got shut down yesterday by someone. How many runs did they score yesterday? They scored one! Fultenevich with a complete game! That's right. So the Giants look like, honestly, arguably the best matchup in fantasy right now. So Tyler Anderson faces them this week.

I don't know if you're going to trust them, but they are at San Diego and at St. Louis next week. There might be some pitchers, maybe like a Joey Luckees who's pitching today or is pitching soon. He might have a great start against the Giants. Keep an eye on it. Joey Vado was rested on Tuesday, but he just, just missed a home run on Monday, so he stayed hot. Scott, okay, I might embarrass myself. I might embarrass myself.

Yeah, nothing new. Hey, I take that abuse on the football podcast, not here. What? I don't know. I can't figure it out. What happened to Sergio Romo? Where is Sergio Romo? He never pitches anymore.

Did he go on vacation? Not that I'm aware of. He never pitches. I don't understand what's going on. It's like they've moved on from him. You're right. He's only made one September appearance. I've Google searched this so many times.

I'm going to try a Twitter search for Surgeon. But I just don't know what the heck is happening. I wish I had an answer for you. But this is something that hadn't even been on my radar. They haven't had any save opportunities. Jose Alvarado might be their. They're closer. Yeah.

I just don't know. He seems to be sometimes against tougher left-handers. That's been a thing. But yeah, I'm not seeing any suggestion that Sergio Romo isn't available. Yeah. Very out. Yeah, it's more than a week ago. Okay, good.

I guess we're both embarrassed now. Johan Camargo sat today on Wednesday. He has groin tightness. If you still own Nate Avaldi, he's in the bullpen. now you can cut him. George Springer's day-to-day. Cody Bellinger is sitting against lefties. The Dodgers have been a real fantasy headache.

Michael Franco has a shoulder contusion, and Jacob de Grom set a single-season record with 26 straight starts of three or fewer earn runs. If that man does not win the Siong in both leagues, I'm going to be pretty upset about it. Yeah, I'm to that point, too. For a while, I was stumping for Max Scherzer. but it was kind of under the assumption that de Grom's ERA would normalize a bit before the season's end and we're running out of starts for that to happen obviously I mean he still has three left maybe he gives up seven earn runs in one of those starts

but as things stand now I think you've got to give him the hardware which is I mean a 171 ERA that's like in my time following baseball which is coming up on 25 years. That's the fourth lowest ERA, I think, for a pitcher who would have a qualifying number of innings. There were the two Maddox years. There was Granky a couple years ago. Pedro, maybe?

I don't think he ever had one that low. Kershaw, no? He's had sub-2 ERAs before, but I don't think this low. Wow. And yet he's eight and nine. Sub-500 records. What is his ERA? 171.

Oh, Pedro had a 174 in 2000. Oof. Yeah, pretty good year. Pretty close. Pretty close. Wow, that's amazing what DeGrom's done, for sure. Yeah, yeah. And a sub-500 records never won the Siong before.

but like it's it's really weird and I know some people are just like oh those kill the win this is a good reason why you kill the win I mean I don't know why you have to approach it that way like why you can't just say wow this is really weird but it's obvious he's pitched well yeah um you know you don't necessarily have to kill the win you can just value it appropriately right right no there's no need for that yeah I agree leave the win alone leave the hashtag that leave the win alone All right, into the bullpen we go. Sean Doolittle got a save. Greg Holland also got a save. They won two games of a double header. Holland pitched twice. He set up Doolittle in the early game and then got to say they're not going to pitch Doolittle twice in one day. So I think that's what happened, right?

Didn't Holland get to save on Tuesday night? Let me double check on that. I'm pretty sure that's what happened. They each got a save in a double header. Yeah, Holland got to save the day before with Doolittle setting him up. But it was reversed in the first game at the doubleheader yesterday. Holland set up too little. And then Holland got to save in the second game, I assume, because do little wasn't available.

I think they're back to do little closing. Yeah, that's how I interpret it as well. Yoshihis Hirano. That's who I picked up, Scott. I do own Boxburger. I now own both of them. I will start both of them in my daily categories league and hope that one of them gets to save. and I expect it would be Herano.

Now, they started out with Deekman in the ninth inning. They brought him in to face two lefties. He gave up a double and a blunt single. They brought in Herano, and he got out of the jam, and he got the safe. And he's just having a really good year. He's got a 180-a-R-A, man. Like, Horano forever. Yeah, I think it's probably him.

Archie Bradley has stumbled lately, too. They've already said Boxburger's out, and they're going by committee. But who else is going to be part of that committee? Brad Ziegler. Right. But I thought maybe Boxburger could also be part of that committee. It's possible, but you know how this goes. I do, yes.

If somebody gets the job done, a manager is inclined to stick with him, as I think I would be too. I mean, you can make a case that... No, you're right. You're right. You're right. You can make a case that, like, you shouldn't be reactive in that sort of way and trust in the larger sample of numbers to play out over the course of time. But I just think the emotional aspect of being a human being makes that very difficult to do.

And Brad Hand and Cody Allen appear to be trading save opportunities. Hand blew a save on Monday. Cody Allen got the save on Tuesday. It's been a lot more hand lately, though. It has been. Yes. Yeah. He did set up Alan yesterday, but yeah, I can't imagine he blows the save on Monday,

and all of a sudden he's done being a saves guy for them. He is the preferred option, I think, an Indian bullpen, one I'd rather own. And Ty Butry, B-U-T-R-E-Y, yep, 2% owned. He is an Angels closer, and he has gotten two saves in his last three appearances. And he might be their closer. He might be, because... uh parker blake parker worked in the eighth inning yesterday and then buttree and he blew there no hitter by the way in the eighth inning uh that jerk i know bullpen game and they're throwing a no

hitter there's got to be you know there's going to be a weak link in that chain i like the name buttry though it sounds like how you would say buttery if you were michael cane yeah yeah who did we come up who did we come up with that that's funny by the way who did we come up with uh phil Who was it? We decided to combine his first and last name. Was it the guy on the Reds? Phil Irvin? Yeah, Flirvin.

Flurvan? Yeah, that's right. Flurvin? Butry. Buttery. That's good, Mastewa. Yeah, I like it. I made you scone Mast Wayne.

It's buttery. Dude, nice. All right, so that's your closer update from your friends here at Fantasy Baseball today. Why are we your friends? Because we give you money. We literally come to your house and hand you money. Sort of, figuratively speaking. That's through the Seekek app.

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your first Seekkeek purchase. Fantasy is the code. Seek geek, life's an event. We have the tickets. Email of the day, number one, is from Mitchell. We got a lot of your emails coming up later, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Is Armand Marquez for real? Do you think Marquez will go in the first five rounds of a 12-te-to-head draft next year? For seven rounds.

Scott, we seem to talk about this every time, but he keeps on getting better and better. Arm-Marquez, 11 strikeouts. That's three straight starts with double-digit strikeouts. Is he a top seven round? I don't know about top five round, but seven round pick next year. I think that's possible. Five rounds, people would have to go pretty aggressively after starting pitching, I think for that to happen.

But my hunch right now, unless something changes in his performance between now and the end of the season, if he, you know, has three awful starts in the season, maybe you rethink it. But my guess is right now, he'll be a top of the season. top 25 pitcher for me going into next year, which would probably get them in the top seven rounds. I'll actually be ranking starting pitchers in a few weeks. I'm beginning, actually today I'll be writing the catcher. I'll be ranking catchers for next season and writing a column based on that. And I'll be going position by position here, probably two a week, at least until the season's over.

and then maybe a little more. There will probably be some positions left over after that that I could crank out a little faster. Top seven rounds, by the way, is top 84 picks. Go ahead. But we'll find out for sure then if I'm ranking Marquez in the top 25. Who's going to be your number two catcher? Gary Sanchez.

Who's going to be your number one catcher? J.T. Realmuto. What did you just say? J.T. Real Muto? Over Gary Sanchez? Yeah. Is that a... Is that...

Is that a controversial take? I think very controversial, yeah. I mean, Real Muto's been a distant first among catchers this year. I thought it was more controversial to rank Sanchez second. Oh, my, oh my. Let's do a Twitter poll. Let's see what people were thinking. Okay.

I mean, there was a 10-round difference between them, I'd say, this year. Well, Real Muto was heard at the beginning of year, wasn't he? Well, of course. And Rio Muto's proven to be even better than we thought he was coming in. of the year. While Sanchez has a lot of questions surrounding him, I don't think as many questions as it appears to the

average baseball fan, I think there's still a lot of reason to believe he's a great hitter. But the fact is, he hasn't hit 200 this year, and now we're not even sure if he's going to be a catcher in the long run. We'll still be eligible there next year, regardless, but they'll have to find another position for him to get at bat's at. I think that would only help him get it bad, so he'd probably be a DH for them. In theory, but don't they like having Stanton and Judge?

Yeah. One of them in the DH5? Yeah, yes, they do. All right, well, we'll see. So far, Rayamuto, in the lead with eight of 11 votes. So we'll see what happens. All right, email the day number two is from Josh. You're Paul and Ringo.

That's me and you, Scott. First base is deep, but I'm looking over options for next year. I see a bunch of aging. 30-plus-year-olds I don't want anything to do with, at least at their ADP. Encarnacion, Santana, Vado, Smoke, Bore, Guriel, Pujol, Zimmerman, Davis, Morland, Mower, heck, even Goldie and Rizzo. It's high picks, don't excite me. Who are three to five first baggers to get excited about next year?

So three I'm watching closely based on, I'm watching the off-season developments. I will be. Let's use the right verb tense here. The offseason is coming. There are three first basemen in particular who could see their value change a lot during the off season based on what their teams do. And those three are Tyler White,

Max Muncie, and Jose Martinez. I think all three have the potential to be drafted in the top 15 next year if it looks like they're going to have a job all to themselves. and I think there's a good chance all three of them do. I think the one with the longest odds for that is Jose Martinez because he would have to get traded away. But the Dodgers are going to lose Machado and Dozier, presumably, this offseason, which should free up every day of Bats for Muncie again. And, I mean, the Astros have been using White as an everyday player for the last six weeks.

So unless he does something to convince him he doesn't deserve that anymore, you know, gathers. is a free agent. Marwin Gonzalez is a free agent. They've kind of been using Yuli Guriel in a more versatile Marwin-Gonzalez-like role this season. So I'm hopeful that White's just going to be their regular first baseman next year. I'm going to be excited about Cody Bellinger. This is how the soft...

This is textbook sophomore slump. Now, if they are so loaded that we expect him to sit against lefties, that would be another thing. But assuming that doesn't happen, I think he will get back on track and offer you good value. It is interesting, though, and then this kind of transitions into our next category, which is shortstop. Trevor's story became the first shortstop with 30 homers, 40 doubles, and 25 steals in a season.

Now, it's either the first shortstop in, like, decade to the first shortstop ever. But 30 homers, 40 doubles, and 25 steals in a season. Wow, that's amazing. He must be the number one shortstop. Well, he isn't. He's fourth in points. He's second in Roto. And there are two other shortstops that could join that group.

I don't know if Hobby Baez will be considered that because he's not like a true shortstop, but he's eligible there. He's four steals and four doubles away. I don't know if he gets there. But Lindor is two steals away from being 30 homers, 40 doubles, and 25 steals. Shortstop is better than first base this year. The number 12 shortstop is better. And look at this trend, Scott. The last three years, how much?

better was the number 12 first baseman than the number 12 shortstop. Little deceiving because it's based on this current pool of players and who's eligible where. But 2015, the number 12 first baseman was 132 fantasy points better than the number 12 shortstop, 132. 2016, 89 points better. 2017, 61 points better. And this year, now shortstop is overtaken first base. So, yeah, I mean, these elite first basemen, they are getting older.

And baseball has changed, certainly. But I never thought I'd see the day, Scott, where shortstop was better than first base. I still think it's an oversimplification to say shortstop is better than first base. There's definitely been over the past couple years sort of a leveling out around the infield where, certainly in shower leagues, it doesn't. paid to play the position scarcity game because they're all kind of equal scarcity one through 12 you know you can make a pretty strong case as you have that shortstop has been better than first base one through 12 it's just once you get past 12 and certainly once you get

past 15 that the pendulum swings back toward first base in a pretty dramatic way you know first base still has an excess of useful hitters in fantasy. It's just on the high end, it's beginning to deteriorate. And it could still bounce back. I mean, it's looked better since Paul Goldschmidt has gotten back on track. Apart from the stolen bases, Paul Goldschmidt has ended up having a pretty typical season. There's still a lot of reason to believe Joey Votto has elite performance in him. Anthony Rizzo's bounced back in a big way.

I don't, I don't, I'm not going to be writing off any of those guys personally next year. I think you could probably get Votto as late as like round four, which would make him a nice bargain. But they're all still, they all still have first round potential, I feel like. Freeman being the other one, obviously. Yeah. Okay, let's focus a little bit more on what's happened the last couple days and help people win some leagues.

I think you need a really, I picked up Michael Conforto. I think it's time. If you don't have him, he's 70% own. Tyler White is 69% own. It's just too easy now. You got to own him. He's slugging 620. Scott Shebler, Scott.

He's homered in three of his last five games. Scott Shebler. Yeah, he was in the top 10 sleeper hitters for this week because even though he bats left-handed, it's been a two-year trend now. It's better against left-handed pitchers. and he's taken advantage of it this week. I think he's undervalued. He had some playing time issues early on

back when they had Winker and Duval still. But he's clearly playing every day now and he's healthy. Probably deserves to be more owned than he is. Yeah, and I mean, it's kind of the usual suspects looking at who the best hitters have been over the last few weeks. Stephen Piscotti is up there.

You could definitely give him a shot. He has five home runs in his last 14 days. Yohan Camargo, we hope he gets healthy, but he's been great, but we talk about him all the time. Same with Tyler White. Tommy Fam, like, I don't know, he's 89% Oh, and so unlikely to be available, but he's certainly turned things around. Ryan O'Hern was in your sleeper hitters column, and I believe he homered this week. He did. He homered on Monday.

Wonderful. And he scored a run yesterday, and he's walking a lot lately, actually. So is Ryan O'Hern just going to take advantage of good matchups this week, or is he someone one that he's 15% owned that fantasy owner should get to know. He probably deserves to be more owned than that, right? There are enough deep leagues that

you've got to take advantage of a hitter who's doing what he's doing now in some of those. I don't have a lot of faith in him. The minor league track record is pretty underwhelming. We're talking like a less than

450 OPS for his entire time. there, not OPS slugging. And a sub 400 OPS at slugging, a sub 400 slugging at AAA this year, and that's in the PCL. So I'm not exactly sure where this power came from. We've certainly seen plenty of hitters over the years come to the majors and turn into much better power hitters

than they ever were on the miners. Maybe he follows suit, but I need to see a lot more. Okay, here's a trivia question. going into Wednesday's games, Ryan O'Hern has 29 at bats against left-handed pitchers, and he is a leftie. How many hits in those 29 at-bats does Ryan O'Hern have? One?

One hit. Oh. One hit, no walks, 14 strikeouts. So if there are lefties on the schedule, avoid Ryan O'Hern. And now you've heard. I've earned that. You heard me. So I think streaming pitchers is an easier thing to do right now than picking up hitters.

But we mentioned Jonathan V.R. As someone you could get, Conforto has been great. Nico Goodrum, he's actually, he left today's game. But in a deep league, he might be able to help you. He's been pretty good lately. Nico Gooderum is pretty interesting to me. He's first, second, third, shortstop, and outfield eligible. So I think he might.

He's interesting in a deep league sense. But you got to check the injury. All right. So that gets us to the pitchers now. And let's talk about some studs. Studs being studs. This is all from the last two days. J. Hap.

J. Hap has a 270 ERA with the Yankees. He's been really, really good. He might start their wild card game, Scott White. Wouldn't you know it? J.Hap. That would be surprising. Tanaka. Why wouldn't it be Tanaka?

I think it, I don't know, it could be. Could be, yeah. I hope it would be Severino, but, you know, T. Severino. Jose Cantana, are you getting more confident in Jose Cantana? His last three starts have been excellent. Yeah, I'm trying not to, because I don't feel like there's a clear enough reason why those last three starts have been good. And it's only three starts. I mean, it's not like there's been a huge,

spike in strikeouts or anything. So I'm trying to just stick to the approach I've had for Kintana for the last few months now, which is that he's pretty fringy. Well, he has thrown more than 100 pitches in two straight starts, which is great, because Kantana was barely ever going six, or at least more than six. So that's good to see for him. We'll see, I believe he's starting this weekend against the Reds. Sean Newcomb.

It was that matchup at the Giants, but, you know, in Newcomb's last nine, starts. He has five really, really good ones and four terrible ones. So I just can't really trust Sean Newcomb. You? I can't either.

Obviously this was what you want to see from him. Eight strikeouts, no walks. That's the best he's done in those areas for a long time. That's really where he's gone wrong is the strikeout-to-walk ratio.

So more of this, please. But am I going to expect it? No, like you said, the Giants are a really good match-up right now. Yolishas-Sin, Mike Fires. Do you just start these guys? Do you play the match-ups? Yolish-Sene and Mike Fires. I'd be more likely to start fires now, regardless of a match-up than Shas-Sha-Sin.

She-San's definitely been a match-up type for me all year. and still doesn't make sense to me why he's been as effective as he is, but we're in our second season of that now. So it's kind of hard to just write him off. Fires, as we've talked about every time he's pitched, he has had stretches like this in his career where he looks flat out dominant, and then it eventually runs out. He can't remain this fine with his command for long enough to,

to sustain this sort of pace. And so just keep that in mind. I mean, there's only, what, three starts left for any of these pitchers the rest of season. So there's a chance. Nothing goes wrong the rest of this year. But eventually it will. Man, if you hear me, I sound a little deflated.

I'm playing against Blake Snell in the podcast league playoffs. He lost the no-hitter, but great start for him. So, yeah, I'm deflated. I really want to win. I got my butt kick last week. It's a two-week playoff, and I was off to such a great start going into today. I was up by, like, 90 points. So I was getting back in the game.

But now I just got snelled. Meanwhile, Heath, who also got crushed last week, is facing an opponent who has 28 points. 28 fantasy points so far, just having a dreadful week. So he's lucky SOB might make it to the finals All right, Studs being duds Are you done with any of these guys? Zach Godley

Alex Wood Trevor Williams is tough to be done with him He gave up four runs on Monday That matches the amount he gave up Over his combined over his previous nine starts Junjun Ryu, Tanner Roark I don't think we should be done with all these guys But maybe some Godley Wood

Trevor Williams Ryu Rew Rew Rew I would not be done with any of them. The one I'd come closest to is Roark, just because when things are bad for him, they're really bad. And I'm not sure the way it's gone for him to the past three starts, I'm not sure anything he could do to close out the season with the three starts he has remaining would be enough for me to be willing to put him in my lineup again. All right, we'll talk about some pitchers that you could,

And I'm not going to start Godby at Houston, by the way. Just want to say that this weekend. Yeah, that scares me. Talk about some pictures that you might actually be able to pick up and start and win. After, we talk about ZipRecruiter. We've got to talk about the smart things to do. There are jobs sites that send tons of the wrong resumes to sort through, okay? That's not smart.

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So our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free. At this exclusive web address, it is ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. ZipRecruiter.com slash strike one more time. ZipRecruiter.com slash strike. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. All right, the fringy starting pitchers, part one. They're 65 to 79% owned. Shane Bieber.

Looks like he's got the white socks and red socks next week. Great start at Tampa Bay. You know how that's going to come out? How? Pink socks. Oh, nice. I like that. No, you don't.

No, it's not bad. No, it's not bad. No, it's dumb. Shouldn't have gone there. You know, Bieber in his previous five starts at a 553 ERA, but no more than four runs in any start. You know, it was kind of like what you were saying, that Jack Flaherty had that stretch.

retch earlier where like the ERA wasn't great but none of the starts themselves were that bad he was just like just missing a good one I kind of feel like Bieber had been doing that he just gives up so many damn hits yeah he does and he gets the hard contact rate is high uh but I still think the BAPIP is too high to last and he's better than his ERA would suggest so you're going to start him control pitch a really efficient pitcher you'd start him in a two-star week yeah absolutely All right, who else do you like? Jake Junis, Nick Povetta, Marco Gonzalez, Kyle Gibson.

I'll read a few more after that or some good ones. Junis, Povetta, Marco Gonzalez, Kyle Gibson. Yeah, I like the next names you're going to read more, at least two of them. But of the ones you just named Jake Junice, I think, is the one I actually trust the most right now. Yeah, Luis Castillo, baby. This guy's starting to pitch pretty well. Two or fewer runs at four of his last five starts. Now, in one of them, there were four.

five total runs, even though he allowed just two earned runs, and he gave up three home runs in it. So that's one of those. What's really an earned run? Well, if you're giving up home runs, it's not a good thing. But even so, strikeouts have been way up. It's been getting a ton of swings and misses on the change up. He's hardly been walking anybody. It seems like it could potentially be him turning the corner.

and what he did yesterday he did against Cleveland, right? Yes. No, no, the Dodgers. The Dodgers. It was a tough match. Two starts next week, one of them's Miami. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to pick him up.

You got to start him. Luis Castillo. Also, Mike Minor and Joe Musgrove. Musgrove had St. Louis. And Musgrove, if you look at his past six starts, the ERA's high, he's giving up some home runs. But his swinging strike rate in those six starts is over 14%. It would put him in the top 10 among qualifiers. It would put him right there with Justin Purlander.

He has been missing a ton of bats lately with elite level control. He throws a ton of strikes. It may be kind of a Bieber thing going on where it's a few too many strikes, but I'm going to trust in the strikeout to walk ratio as good as the one. He's shown over his past six starts. I think he's worth using regardless of matchups. Certainly, the fact he's in line for two starts next week makes him must own. All right, and I know you don't love Mike Miner, but it is a 270 ERA in his last eight starts.

Yeah. And I think he's at San Diego this weekend. If that's the case, I'm starting him. The strikeout rate really isn't bad. He hasn't been getting a lot of swinging strikes, but that's not the end-all, be-all. And, yeah, the match-up's so good. He's worth using. Okay, dokey.

French starting pitchers part two. Lucas G. Alito, hopefully at Baltimore this weekend. And Tyler Glass now. Only five swinging strikes, so that was strange. That was strange, but he threw 73% of his pitches for strikes, which is a bigger deal, I think, coming from him. I mean, I think these guys would be very highly, owned if it were July

right now. Probably. But at the same time, Hermann Marquez, we were saying the same thing about him a couple weeks ago and now he's up to like 90% owned. So people, there's still enough people playing to get the ownership up that high. So Geolito

and Glass Now are available. How much do you trust them? I don't think there's going to be another opportunity to start Geolito. Maybe if he loses the second start, This week and becomes a two-star pitcher next week. We'll see if that happens.

Glass now is the one I'm more interested in owning, and he's the more available of the two. Okay. Frangis starting pitchers part three. 30 to 49% own. We got Brad Keller and Jose Arania. These are two guys who pitched recently, and Keller, he's got a sub-2ERA in his last six starts,

and he's either got Minnesota this weekend, or he could be two starts next week at Pittsburgh, going to at Detroit, Keller. Yeah, I like him about as much as I can like any pitcher who doesn't have a good strikeout rate, just because he's elite in terms of getting ground balls. And that's how you can make up for a low strikeout rate in today's game. Obviously, it's been going well for him over the past couple months. His next matchup, as you said, probably going to be at Detroit.

Either that or he's a two-star pitcher next week. It's either Minnesota this weekend or two starts next week and Detroit would be part of that. Well, even if he's a one-star pitcher next week, it would be. Oh, I got you. I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So either way, he's somebody who could justify starting again next week. Yeah, for sure.

All right, and your Iranian, I'm guessing, not that interested. Not as interested as Keller now. Probably. He's not unusable, but I don't think the matchups favor him as well. A couple of deep league pictures. Do you have pictures? Do you have any interest in Eric Fetty of the Nationals? And are you up all night to Barucke?

They've both been pitching surprisingly well of late. Fetty has... Could become a really good... Could prove to be a ground ball pitcher on the level of a Brad Keller, in which case I would be interested in him. But it's too early to say that. Just a couple decent starts. And, man, two really good matchups next week.

is that right Miami and the Mets? I don't know. I mean, it was a doubleheader. Is he officially, is Fetty in the Nationals rotation? I think so. I think he took Gio Gonzalez's a spot. Then I think he's a two-star pitcher at Miami and home against the Mets. That would make him an interesting sleeper.

Obviously, on the deeper end, somebody who a lot of people just aren't going to be able to justify using. And understandably, I mean, it could, it could, it could blow up in your face if you do. They're going to have a spot starter Saturday, it looks like, so it may not even happen. We'll see as the weekend gets closer, certainly on Sunday when I do the two-star picture update, if Betty's part of that.

Yeah, you know, you know what's exciting? What's exciting? The rays have a 3-1 lead in the 8th right now, so we should get to see who they bring in for the save. Update on the Twitter poll. Who would you take first next year at Catcher? Gary Sanchez or J.T. Reamuto. J.T. Realmuto in the lead, 53% to 47%.

I'm very surprised by this. I really look forward to talking about this next week because I'm very surprised. I'm surprised it's that close, to be honest. I thought there would be a groundswell of antagonism toward Gary Sanchez, based on all the bad press he's been getting. this season. And the fact he burned a lot of people this past year. So you have some followers who have nuanced takes at him. They're not just emotionally driven. Well, the thing I'd say about

Ray Omuto is that up until this year, he was a really, I would say, bad hitter at Marlins Park. And he's been great at home this year. But if he reverts back to being, you know, really bad at home. And I mean, has he been great at home? Okay, maybe not great, but much better than normal. He's been amazing on the road. But if he were like, 2017, at home, he had a 227, 292, 341 slash line. 2016 at home, I have to get that.

I don't have that in front of me, but 250, 284, 359. So if Rayamuto goes back to being really bad at home, then I think it's an easy call go with Gary Sanchez. Well, you're assuming Real Mutu it's going to be a Marlon next year. I am. I mean, you can't assume anything with them, but it does seem like they want to build around him.

Maybe. Or else I feel like they would have traded him now, but you're right. I mean, you definitely can't assume that. All right, we got a lot of emails to read. Let's take a look at today's matchups. I'm going to start with the night games. Joey Lucchasey, he is pitching tonight.

At Wade LeBlanc. Tough call. They are both tough calls. I could see calling Wade LeBlanc a sleeper with that matchup. It's certainly not something I've got to go out of my way to do, though.

So LeCasey has been pitching better lately. Been pitching a little deeper into games, two straight, I don't know, three of his last five, six innings. So he would line up to face the Giants next week. So you can think about picking him up. He's 56% owed.

Nationals at Philly, Strasbourg at Nola. We're going to start them both, right? Yep. I'm going to skip around here. Just do the difficult ones. Chase Anderson at Kyle Hendricks. I'd start Hendricks. I don't think I'd start Anderson.

Luis Severino at Jake Odorezi. I would start Severino. Carlos Rodon at Eric Skogland. Just Rodon. Patrick Corbyn at John Gray in Colorado Both Yvani Gallardo and Felix Pena Rangers at Angels

I don't hate Pena there I don't hate him I thought about it I thought about streaming him I went against it but I thought long and hard about it and it's too late now All right we got Thursday's games Let's give everybody a peek at Thursday's games

Clay Buckelts at Kyle Freeland Clay Buckelts at Kyle Freeland. Kyle Freeland is flirting with the best ERA in Rocky's history. Yeah, he is. And what I like seeing is that the strikeouts have really picked up over the past month or so. If he can be a guy who gets one of those every inning, average one per inning, he could be a real asset in fantasy and maybe isn't due for as major of a correction as we're thinking. I definitely think he's worth starting as is...

I'd be more likely to start him than Buckholtz, frankly. I don't know that obviously Freeland has a good record of success at Coorsfield. Buckholz might be a little shaky there. Mike Montgomery at Joe Ross. Neither. Yeah, I think that's going to get rained out anyway. Brett Anderson at Dylan Bundy. Also probably got to get rained out, but let's just play the game.

Brett Anderson and Dylan Bundy? Neither. Sandy Alcantara at Stephen Matt's. I'd go with Matt's there. Not sure I'm ready to do that for Alcantara. Sam Gavillio at Eduardo Rodriguez. E. Rod is fine. Clayton Kershaw at Austin Gomber.

Obviously, Kershaw and I'm going to say no to Gomber. Stephen Gonzalez at Heath Fillmeier. No. Mike Leak at Matt Shoemaker. No. It is time for emails. Fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. All right, Greg in Kalamazoo.

12-team Dynasty League with 12 keepers. It's a points league. I just won my third straight title. I can only keep three outfielders. I have Trout, J.D. Martinez, Blackman, and Soto. So he's going to have to give up one of Trout, Blackman, Martinez, and Soto. I need a catcher. I need a third baseman.

Let's see. Which outfielder would you trade? I've been offered Kershaw, Kluber, and Anthony Rendoen for Blackman in three separate deals. Oh, three separate, okay. But whoever you get back in the deal, you're not going to be able to keep either, or is it just you're limited in the number of the outfielders you can keep? Yeah, exactly. He'll be able to keep whoever he gets back. Okay.

I think I would. Which one would you take? I like the Blackman would be the one I'd prefer to get rid of in this format. I think I won't cluber the most. Clover's the one I draft first next year. All right. I thought you might say that. He's also the oldest, so that kind of makes me second guess it.

But I think Cluber I'd go with. Oh, yeah. And then I'd probably try to flip Glover for a better third baseman than Rendon. It's like, you know, if you're going to lose Blackman and you get Rendon, you can keep Rendon. That makes sense in a keeper context, but you are downgrading a little bit too much. Bill Byron from Palm Desert, California wants to know if the Dodgers are going to pull Walker Bueller from the rotation. He then emailed back and he said he saw a graphic that said the Dodgers are going to start Walker Bueller on Friday.

So that is helpful to know. Thank you. I've been anticipating them removing him for a while now because he's already set a career high in innings and the assumption is he's going to pick up more in the playoffs too, assuming they're there. But, yeah, I haven't seen any strong indications, any reports of that happening yet. That's a tough assumption to make. They've got to get there first, you know? They do.

I think they're out right now, right? I mean, stripling, giving stripling starts would make more sense from a development standpoint at this point, I think. So stripling started today, and he went like three in a third. I hope nobody started him. I did tweet that, that he was not going to get enough innings. Right now, the Dodgers are out of the playoffs. They're a game and a half out of their division. There's three games back of the second wild card, which is St. Louis.

And I really like, like, if this were earlier in the year and I didn't have all these obligations, there's just no way I'm going to watch baseball on Friday night. But I would watch Walker Bueller versus Jack Flaherty. That's awesome. From Josh. Yeah, Stripling or Shoemaker? Who do I keep for the playoffs? Stripling or Shoemaker?

Stripling. From Blake, first-based playoff dilemma. I have a Breu, Tyler. Tyler White and Jesus Aguilar, who should I drop of those three? Hmm. I think it's Aguilar. I probably, yeah. He hasn't been as productive in the second half.

I'd rather not drop him, but I think that's the one to drop of these three. Holly from Cali. Hey, Mac, Frank, Dennis, and D. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Head to Head Points League, first place. I have a buy this week. I have two ads left, and I'm trying to line up my two-star pitchers. I'm thinking of adding Felix Pena and Brad Keller,

as it appears they have pretty good matchups next week. I can easily drop Dylan Bundy and Edwin Jackson. So, yeah, definitely drop those guys. I'll take a look at the two-star pitcher list and see if we have Pena on there. Yeah, we have him at Oakland and at Houston. That is dicey. And then Keller, we only have us a one-star pitcher. But he might make two starts, but he'll have Detroit.

He'll have Detroit. Yeah. We'll see how things play out this weekend for Keller. I like the both, though. I think Pena and Keller are pitchers you can consider even when they're making one-start. I don't know that the matchups could be much worse for Pena. At Oakland and at Houston. They're not great, but I still think it's worth doing.

I think he's that good. From Robbie. Robbie says, Dear, Umber, Neiman, and Townsend. Remember them? Umber and Neiman were both high draft picks. I think Townsend was too. He says this is the 2004 draft. Okay.

Yeah. Humber was met, Neiman was raised. I don't remember Townsend. He may not have done as much in the majors. Okay. Can I drop Brian Dozier? Oh, no, no, no. That's not the question.

The question is, due to Dozier's recent decline, would you keep him in a 14,000, 14-team Roto League where you keep seven players. Probably, probably. Yeah. It's borderline, though. It would depend, like, it would depend, like, it would depend if you're giving up a draft pick, which she doesn't share. I assume not. But, yeah, you probably drafted Dozier in the third round this past year.

You don't want to keep them there. Right, right. Hey, Garfunkel and Oates. That's not nice. That's not nice. You know why that's not nice? Why is that not nice? Because that's the second guy in the Simon and Garfunkel Hall and Oates second billing.

Wow. Well, we probably deserve it. Is Carlos Martinez going to be your number one relief pitcher next year? I don't know. How many? What does he need 20? No, he only need 10. Oh, he needs 10.

He's got like seven right now. He's got seven, okay. Something like that. I mean, if things play out, I would expect he's going to get three more. before the season's over. And if things play out like I suspect until Pete returns to starting next year, then yeah, I think it'd have to be.

Wow, that's cool. Yeah, I like that. Certainly in a points league, maybe not in a Categories league. Maybe some of the elite closers would still rank ahead of them. But it'd be close. From Matt in Illinois.

Dear Peter White and Patches. Well, Patches, O'Hulahan. It's from Dodgeball. The other's from Dodgeball? They sure are. Peter LeFleur. What is White's name? I almost said White Everett, but that's Scott's son's name, Everett White.

White Goodman or something? What the hell is his name? First round of our fantasy playoffs, Carlos Correa, stinks worse than Greg Bird somehow. He's done nothing since returning from the DL. We can't continue to take negative points from Carlos Correa. Here are some available names. Marcus Simeon, Paul DeYoung, Dansby Swanson, Brandon Lowe, Chris Taylor. Would you swap any of them in instead of Correa?

Marcus Simeon, Paul DeYoung, Dansby, Swanson, Brandon, Lau, Chris Taylor. No, I mean, though that group hasn't offered enough for me to feel confident it would be a true upgrade. I think I'd just cross my fingers and hope Carlos Correa snaps out of it. White Goodman, I was right. I win. And finally from Andrew, who would you start in a points league? Gialito against Baltimore, Beber against Detroit, or Fires against Tampa Bay? Gialito against Baltimore, Bieber against Detroit, fires against Tampa Bay.

I would start. That's a tough one. I think the Bebes. The Bebees? Because the Rays aren't really that favorable of a matchup. Yeah, they're not. Regardless, it's hard to sit fires right now. Yeah.

I think I'd go to the beams. I'm going to read one more. Two-star pitcher need for Antoine. Barucky Roark, Glass Now. Glass now. Is he set up for two-star? At Texas and at Toronto for Glass now. Roark.

Roark, I think, is only a one-star pitcher. Glass now it is. Scott White, thank you very much. Thank you, Adam. Sorry for the delay today, everybody. It's all my fault. Talk to you. No.

We'll talk to you on Friday. We'll talk to you on Friday. Have a good one, people. We'll talk to them.