Fantasy Baseball Today - Add Ben Brown or Tylor Megill? David Fry in One-Catcher Leagues? (5/29 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Scott hasn't had the chance to react to Ronald Acuña yet (2:20). ... Ben Brown just threw seven no-hit innings (5:43). ... Tylor Megill shut down the Dodgers (10:32). ... Is it time to consider David Fry in one-catcher leagues (13:03)? ... Jeremiah Estrada has recorded 13 consecutive outs via the strikeout (18:45). ... News (22:56): Francisco Lindor is day-to-day with a thumb injury. ... We had three big pitching duels on Tuesday (30:40). ... Hunter Brown and Matt Waldron did some interesting things (40:13)! ... Add Nolan Gorman or Davis Schneider (46:28)? ... There's been a power outage for Freddie Freeman, Nolan Arenado and George Springer (51:45). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (56:41). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." 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 lead. We're Fantasy! Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. What a fun night of baseball. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, May 29th. I am Frank Sample, joined by Scott White and Chris Tower.

Today on the show, we had three pitching duels and just really good. good pitching performances in general. The Guardians continue to crush three veteran hitters who've gone through a power outage so far this season and much more. But I would like to start by giving the floor to

one. Scotty Dubbs. The first time you've been on since the Ronald de Cunia injury. Sorry, bud. I mean, it sucks, but any quick thoughts here up at the top on Ronald de Cunia. And your brinks. I don't know how many shows in a row.

it's starting with Ronald de Cunia, but I guess this will be the last one for a while. And yeah, it sucks. You know, it's funny. I haven't had like a, I wasn't as, I didn't have like a big emotional reaction to it as a fan, I think,

because I was just preoccupied. You know, holiday weekend. I had taken an extra vacation day, so I'm not supposed to be even thinking about work. But I was just preoccupied with, oh gosh, the top player in fantasy, suffered a major injury.

How are we going to cover this? And I saw it. I was actually out to my family. We were having dinner at a shake shack. And that's when I saw it on the TVs. And just at the time it was being reported, he left with knee soreness. And I was thinking, oh, gosh, does it have to do

with like the meniscus? What's going on here? And then they showed the video of it happening. And I was like, oh, that doesn't look good. But, you know, Ronald de Cunia, he's always kind of dramatic boundaries. I had the same thought, yeah.

Yeah, maybe it's not a big deal. And I didn't think we'd find out anything until the next day, but of course we'd find out something within like four or five hours that he's out for the season. And I was just feeling the work stress of it.

I wasn't really feeling the fan feelings. And so I never had a chance to deal with those. And part of it too is like, okay, well, the last time he tore an ACL, the Braves won the World Series. So maybe that'll happen again. Maybe they don't actually need him. That's a dumb take.

But it's hard to be that upset about losing him when the team reached the highest level it's ever reached without him, you know? Gosh. So baseball is so weird in that way, my goodness. It's like how many years the Angels had Mike Trout and Otani together and like nothing? Nationals win the first year after Bryce Harper leaves. Yeah, that's weird.

Very true. Very true. Fun sport. Having good players overrated. Yeah, who would have thought? I mean, look, and it's the same team that, so like the number one pitcher and the number one hitter in fantasy coming into the year played for the same team. That team has lost them both.

That's true. And everybody still expects them to go to the playoffs. If I had to pick today who would win the division, I would say Phillies, but it's not like that's a guarantee either. So, yeah, I mean, very different from basketball, right? if a team loses its best player, much less its best offensive player and defensive player, they would just be dead in the water. But that's not how baseball works.

It sucks for fantasy, especially, of course, because the one league where I drafted Acuna, I celebrated getting the first pick like I had won the league already. But I can't even be that upset about that because that's the league where I'm doing the worst, partly because Ocuna had underachieved at this point. Yeah. So rough go at it. For you, Scottie, for the Braves, for fantasy, obviously. But let's get into the rest of Tuesday's action.

All right, Chris, you get the Olive Garden breadstick. Who is it? It is Ben Brown starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs who went seven no-hit innings today, struck out, I believe, nine as I try to pull up the box score. Struck out 10. Really, really, really impressive performance. from him.

I still don't quite know how I feel about Ben Brown. The curveball is amazing. It's not technically true that that's all he has, but it's not not true. His fastball has been pretty not great so far this season. And I just continue to wonder, despite really good overall numbers, how sustainable this all is.

I don't know. How do you guys feel about Ben Brown? Well, I mean, he's a young guy with a lot of swing and miss potential, which he showed throughout the minors. I think the biggest change for him since reaching the majors is suddenly he's not having a hard time throwing strikes through 69% strikes. And this one entered 65% strike rate, which is good. It's fine. 61% in the minors last year, which was not good.

Yeah, hasn't walked more than two in a start since May 2nd. this was now a lot of those starts were short obviously this was the second time he went even five innings much less seven um but i do think you know i do think he's a power pitcher who could get a lot of strikeouts his swinging strike rate looks good uh this i think was the first start that opens my mind to the possibility really ben brown could be a fantasy asset this year it's it's hard to get all breathless about a good pitching performance from an up-and-comer when I look at my teams and like there's no pitcher I can drop on any of these teams. Like that there's no urgency I feel like to pick up Ben Brown. If you have a crummy pitcher on your roster, by all means,

but I just don't have many teams like that. When I say a crummy pitcher, I don't mean an obvious underachiever like a Framber Valdez or Pablo Lopez. Of course not. But I mean an actual crummy pitcher who you just kept around for whatever reason and need to upgrade. Then I think Ben Brown's a fine choice. always to pick up. But I don't think most people playing fantasy right now find themselves in that

position. You know what it reminds me of a little bit? Early career Tyler Glass now, who threw hard with an amazing curveball but didn't really have a third pitch. And obviously that has changed over the years. But that curveball for Ben Brown is pretty damn good. Entering this start ahead of 138 batting average against a 200 slug and a 50% whiff rate. The fastball, while it's a very hard pitch. It does allow a lot of hard contact. So he's not a perfect pitcher. Do worry about the, will he maintain this level of control,

but he's a big pitcher. He gets that extension. It's a hard fastball, a really good curveball. So I like what we've seen so far. I mean, it's hard to argue against it based on seven no-hit innings with 10 strikeouts for Ben Brown. But he is up to, he's only 16%

rostered, widely available. One of the names we spoke a lot about yesterday was Braxton Garrett, who threw a complete game over the weekend. Would you guys rather have Ben Brown or Braxton Garrett? It'd be Garrett for me, especially in head-to-head points. I think maybe you can argue the strikeout potential for Ben Brown puts him over the edge in Rodo, but in head-to-head points, it's fairly easily Braxton Garrett for me. I'll take Ben Brown either way. I just don't think, particularly in this pitching environment, there's enough upside for Braxton Garrett to be an impact

pitcher. And I'm not saying Brown definitely will be, but I feel like he has a better chance of being that. Do you prefer Brown over the other waiver wire type pitchers who pitched tonight? Who pitched? Because this was a really good night for waiver wire pitchers. Hunter Brown had an incredible start. Matt Waldron was really good. Tyler McGill. Jake Irvin were all excellent.

Is Ben Brown top of that list? If they're all available? Yeah, I think so. Because again, I consider, okay, what does it take to make an impact as a pitcher right now in fantasy? Tyler McGill might have that potential. We'll get into what happened with his start. But obviously, we've seen McGill fall short of that standard many times before. Certainly Hunter Brown the same way.

He might have that potential, but he's got a 650 ERA also. So, yeah, I think if I'm picking up any one of those pitchers you just mentioned, it would be Brown. I think I agree. but I think Ben Brown, Matt Waldron, Hunter Brown, Tyler McGill are all very, very close to one another. Well, let's talk about Tyler McGill, who threw a great start against the Dodgers, seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts. He had 14 whiffs on 98 pitches. And he's doing things a little bit different so far this year.

He's only made three starts, so it's a pretty small sample. But he's throwing a new cutter around 13% of the time. He's also throwing a splitter a little bit more. and that splitter looks pretty nasty. The problem is in this start, he only threw it, he only threw five of them. So I would like to see him mix that splitter in a little bit more. The velocity was down a little bit across the board

for Tyler McGill in this start, but through three starts so far, it's a 169 ERA, it's a one whip and 11.3K per 9. He's more of a flyball pitcher this year so far too, which I guess if there's a year to be a fly ball pitcher, it is this one because obviously home runs are not, happening as often. So, Scott, what were your takeaways here from the start overall from Tyler McGill?

So my biggest takeaway is that our enthusiasm for him had to do with the splitter that was supposedly modeled after Kodi Sankas's Ghost Fork. They've called it the American Sport. Yeah, I don't know why you just keep going on a splitter. It's an American spork. Yeah, the American spork for Tyler McGill. It's classified as a splitter on the Stackass. But anyway, he threw it only five times.

in this one. So it was mostly going with the old arsenal against the Dodgers here, obviously a juggernaut lineup, and turned in an amazing start. And I just, I don't really know what to make of it. I was intrigued by Tyler McGill, but again, mostly for that new pitch that he didn't even really use in this one. So, uh, uh, I see him as somebody who, like, if I have a, if I have a spot to play with in a deeper league. I've kind of picked them up at times, dropped them when somebody more interesting came along. And I might pick them up in those leagues again, but you texted me actually after the start

saying before today, would you have wanted Ryan Weathers or Tyler McGillmore in NL only? I think you were specifying. And I said Weathers. And actually, after the start, I moved Tyler McGill just behind Weathers. So if you're not looking to pick up Ryan Weill. others in your league, then I don't know that you need to look to pick up Tyler Miguel after this start either. All right.

Well, Chris, nope, we already went to you. Let's go back to Scott for your player of the night. I'm going to be talking a lot here. Okay, David Frye is my player of the night. I feel like we've talked about him a lot lately, but never that enthusiastically. I think we might need to talk about him a little more enthusiastically now. He went three for five with a home run and a stolen base, sock and a shoe for a catcher eligible

players. It was his seventh home run. It was his fourth stolen base. Remember, this is for a guy who hasn't gotten a ton of playing time, been in the lineup very sporadically overall.

But now he started four of the last five games for the Guardians. And, you know, I had hoped to this would happen since he doesn't just play catcher. He plays first base.

He plays outfield. There are plenty of ways to work him into the lineup. And it seems like the Guardians are buying into that now. before Chris comes in and plays the naysayer here. I'm not saying David Fry's going to win a batting title

or that he's going to sustain an OBP of 492, I believe it is now, almost getting on base almost half the time. I don't think he's Barry Bonds in that way. But I do think he's a catcher eligible player who is hitting really well. And he were very few players at any position are hitting well. And so I think I'm ready to say

that rather than just being a nice, second catcher in a two catcher league. David Frye is probably, he's probably going to move into my top 15 now at the position, which still doesn't mean he needs to be added everywhere, but any two catcher league, he would be getting picked up or should be getting picked up now. And even some deeper one catcher leagues, I don't think he's a bad pickup.

And Chris, your retort to David Frye. I don't know why I'm being like hard and feather. here. Chris, why do you hate David Fry? You tipped your hand. You're playing naysayer. You guys, you guys have spent months telling everyone who will listen how Jerkson ProFar is the worst player in baseball history

and anybody who thinks he has any value is an idiot and all of a sudden David Frye has 120 good plate appearances and he's the best. He's a lot changed in a month. He's Roy Campanella. Jerkson ProFar is a top 40 outfielder for me now. No, look, I, I, I, my main thought about David Frye is if Jurexon ProFar was catcher eligible, he'd be a lot more interesting too.

And that's, like, I don't, I don't think David Fry's particularly good, right? Like, he's a 28-year-old who has put up decent numbers in his late 20s in the minors. But like, last year, he had a 238 average and a 734 OPS and was on like a 14. Homer, eight stolen base, over 400 plate appearances. And like, that's enough to matter at catcher. So I think David Fry probably matters at catcher, especially if he's going to be playing more. You know, you said four of the last five games he started.

Well, it's 14 of the last 25, I think now. So before that, he was playing extremely sporadically. If that sticks and he continues to hit the ball well. and the other unlikely things that would need to have. Like, yeah, I think David Fry, I'm not going to move him in my top 15, but certainly top 24. I think he's a very nice number two catcher.

I think rest of season, I'd still rather have Bo Nailer. I think there's more upside there, but obviously I'd rather be starting David Frye right now, certainly. And I've actually dropped Bo Nailer to 25th in my catcher rankings. Yeah. He's been bad. It's not happening.

No, he's been dreadful. So I guess to get David Frye in my top 15, I'd have to move him ahead of Shea Langaleers. It might be more like 16. I don't know that I'm going to move him ahead of Langleyers. Last thing I'll add on David Frye is that he pulls the ball a lot. It's a 47% pull rate, and he hits a good amount of fly balls. So it could be one of those profiles where he's just maximizing his fly balls right now

by pulling a lot of them. And so far that's- High line drive rate, too. low ground ball rate, which is always good. But even if he hits to his expected stats to this point, 263XBA 414 XLug, again, that's still someone that should be rostered in two catcher leagues. And, you know, in a one catcher league,

if you drafted a Gabriel Moreno or a Mitch Garver or someone like that, it's, I think it's totally fine to drop them for like David Fry and just ride the hot hand for now. We had someone on Twitter say that, like, he should be in the Ronald Acunaecoonier replacement discussion. That's ridiculous. No, no.

David Frye only matters because he has a C next to his name among other letters. Only use him as a catcher. He has the C next to his name, and that's enough. Yes. Just wanted to mention the rest of the Guardians offense because they enjoyed their Tuesday night in Corys Field. They put up 13 runs on 13 hits. Jose Ramirez continues his massive May,

two for three with two walks and his 16th home run in the month. 2.96 batting average, 11 homers, 32 RBI. You heard that right, 32 RBI in a month, and it's not over yet. Four steals and a 1079 OPS. Josh Naler, 2 for 4 with a double dong, 5 RBI. Actually really needed this game because he had slowed down recently, the last 12 games before this.

Josh Nailer was batting 0.87 with a 406 OPS, and a Kyle Manzardo citing 3 for 5 with two doubles, and he has a hit in eight of his last nine games. Progress from a rookie. That's what we like to see. I want to give an honorable mention to a reliever who is not the closer on his seam. Jeremiah Estrada of the Padres has now struck out 13 straight across his last three appearances, which is a major league record.

So he has been awesome. He's got a 0.55 ERA, a 0.55 whip, 28 strikeouts over 16 and a third. It's like a 17% swinging strike rate. He throws hard. He's got a nasty slider and splitter. 11% rostered. I think Estrada needs to be rostered in all saves plus

holds leagues, any leagues that have holds as a category. And you know, it's gotten like 15 team roto leagues. If you just need a reliever to plug in for ratios, I think Estrada's totally fine. I mean, it looks like the best one now. I guess he's up there with Garrett Reed as far as that

goes. Read Garrett. Reed. Carrot. Thank you. Two first names. No, I agree with Jeremiah. Estrada looks good. Baseball's so weird. Like, it's just like, I'll admit,

I've never heard the name, Jeremiah Estrada, before this recent run. Because he's, he has a 436 ERA at AAA. Yeah. You must have some kind of breakthrough because it was unhittable there this year. It looks like the splitter, which is a new pitch for him.

And it's been like a 60% whiff rate this season. But yeah, I mean, that that's your, that's your next man. up seemingly for the Padres if anything happens. So that's something to keep an eye on too. I mean, I hadn't heard of get,

what's his name? Reed Garrett. I hadn't heard of him before this year either. Yeah. And you know what? Chris saying that about Robert Suarez, if I have Robert Swares in a deeper league, I might want to make sure I have Estrada on my team as well,

just in case there is some kind of crazy fluke injury or whatever it might be. Big thanks to everybody watching us live. Make sure to hit that like button and subscribe to the channel. If you have it already, that's YouTube.com slash fantasy. baseball today. And as always, if you enjoy the pod, make sure leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We really appreciate it. Let's take our first break. And when we return, we'll get to the news and notes right after this. News and notes, Francisco Lindor is dealing with a left index finger contusion. He suffered on a bunt attempt and x-rays came back negative.

So day-to-day, we'll see if Lindor is out there on Wednesday. Kodi Isanga may not be ready to return until the all-star break. He's had multiple setbacks in his recovery. and got a cortisone injection in his triceps last week. And as somebody who has Kodi Senga in an NFBC league with no IL spots, is it okay to drop Senga? Are we about at that point? If he's not going to be back by the All-Star break? Yeah, I mean, I've got him and Gavin Williams in one league.

And if I have to drop one of them, it's got to be Kodi Senga at this point, right? Yeah, Gavin Williams supposed to start up a rehab assignment. week so yeah could be back in a few weeks i have more confidence in how sang it will perform so it's i guess if if if we are talking iL spots i'd rather invest the iL spot in sang it than williams but if it's a league without iL spots which i you know what i'm not sure i want to play in those leagues anymore to be honest like as many injuries as there have been this year like it never goes well for me and my whole bench is full of injured guys who i can't drop and it's just not fun it's It's not a fun way to play fantasy baseball.

You don't want to have to drop a good player just because you have no other way to fill your lineup spot. I think I'm done with it. I'm calling it now. I hate it. I hate like not playing with IL spots. I want more IL spots.

The IL is... I'm thinking of adding an IL spot to every league that already has one and not playing in any more leagues. The IL is a part of baseball. It has been for millennia at this point. Like, put IEL spots. It's fine.

You don't get extra cool guy points because you play in a league with no IL spots. It's more difficult. Cool. Who cares? It's more difficult. It's more random is what it is. It is more difficult. It leads to more decision making. And it has been especially hard this season with all the injuries that we have been dealt. Evan Carter was placed in the aisle with lower back tightness. Travis Jankowski was in left field.

And Wyatt Langford made his return as the team's DH. Langford went 0 for 3 with a strikeout in his return. Max Scherzer will throw a full bullpen session Wednesday, his first time throwing off a mound since being shut down in early May. He's been dealing with a nerve problem in his throwing arm. Trevor McGill was removed Tuesday after getting hit in the right arm by a line drive. It was a pretty scary scene. He couldn't even pick up the ball to try and make a play on it.

He just literally walked off the field. And I'm seeing now that their manager, Pat Murphy, said Tyler McGill did not suffer a fracture. and yeah, I guess we'll find out if he has to go on the IL, but if he does, everybody else who they've tried in that close roll for the brewers has not really worked out very well. So we'll see what happens. Vinnie Pass Guantino. But you'll be clear, X-rays were negative.

He still may go on the IL, Trevor McGill, but X-rays were negative. Vinny Pass Quantino left Tuesday after he collided with Byron Buckson, X-rays on Vinnie P's lower left leg came back negative. Tyler O'Neill has been sent back to Boston to receive imaging on his sore right knee. He's missed three stray games. Bobby Miller will make his next minor league rehab start Friday or Saturday and is scheduled to throw about four innings in that one. Evan Phillips is on track to be activated from the IL on Friday. Francisco Alvarez, some good news here will begin a rehab assignment at AA on Thursday. He's five weeks removed from undergoing surgery to repair a torn

UCL in his left thumb and the original timeline was eight weeks. So sounds like Francisco Alvarez might be able to beat that, assuming no setbacks. Nolan Jones took batting practice and could be nearing a second rehab stint in the minors. Reese Hoskins ran on the field and could return early next week. He's been on the IL since May 14th with a strained right hamstring. Nathan Avaldi was reinstated and started Tuesday against the D-backs. He went three innings, two runs, two strikeouts. The velocity was up across the board, so that's the good news for Avaldi.

But this was an abbreviated start and it was planned to be that way. coming into Tuesday night. Merrill Kelly is expected to begin a throwing program next week. He's been out since mid-April with a right shoulder strain. Lars Neupar returned to the Cardinals lineup after missing two games with a tweaked hamstring. Lamont Wade was placed on the IL with a grade two left hamstring strain. The Giants started a gentleman named Trenton Brooks at first base on Tuesday. The pirates placed both Martin Perez and Joey Bart on the IL retroactive to May 27th.

K. Brian Hayes was activated, but that game, unfortunately, was rained out. So worth pointing out, Henry Davis has been very good at AAA for the most part, but that's now two different injuries, two catchers that have not coincided with him getting called up for the pirates. Grundaul didn't end up going on the aisle when he got hurt, but they, they seem to want him to really work on things. And so I don't know if a call-up is necessarily looming yet. Yes, Henry Davis in 18 games of AAA, 297 batting average, six homers, 1116 OPS, and yeah, 88.1 average XIVL obviously could be better, but yeah, those numbers do look really good.

Some prospect updates, the Nationals top prospect James Wood was placed on the AAAIL with right hamstring tightness, and the Braves are expected to call up pitching prospect Spencer Schwellenbach to make his MLB debut on Wednesday against the nationals. 23 years old, second round pick in 2021. Eight starts at AA, I mean, pretty damn nasty. 180 ERA. 0.91 whip, 51 strikeouts, just 10 walks over 45 innings,

and a near 18% swinging strike rate. Scott, anything to see here with Spencer Schwellenbach of your Atlanta Braves. Well, most of those starts were actually at high age. Just the last two were at double A. So he's being pushed up pretty quickly here, as often happens with Braves pitching prospects. But yeah, the numbers have been really good. He missed, so he was drafted in 2021, missed the first two years recovering from Tommy John surgery.

He only made his professional debut last year. But he is an elite strike thrower, 70% strike rate across his starts this year. That's George Kirby-like. the swinging strike rate has been impressive too. He throws hard, but it's not, you know, it's not like the optimal shape to get whiffs on the fastball. It's more that he has like a hard breaking ball and a slower curve ball, and they play well off each other.

And that's how Spencer Schwellenbach gets most of his whiffs. But mostly I'm encouraged by the control, and I think if he's going to be a success, that'll be the main reason why the stat line. reminds me a lot of Christian Scott, though I do think Christian Scott's fastball is better than Shwellenbox. We'll see how it goes. It's obviously not a rush out in Atham situation, except in very deep leagues given the depth at pitching this year. And this last piece of news, not fantasy related, but pretty massive just for the game of baseball, the history of baseball.

Major League Baseball will officially incorporate Negro League statistics into MLB's historical records on Wednesday. Josh Gibson will now become the all-time leader in career batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS, and will become the new single-season leader in each of those categories. Let's get back into Tuesday night's action, and we will take a look at three pitching duels, and we had Ben Brown up against Freddie Peralta, Cubs against the Brewers. We already spoke about Ben Brown. On the other side, Peralta, five and two-thirds innings, one run, 11 strikeouts,

had 23 whiffs on 111 pitches, which that pitch count was a career high for Freddie Pralta. Back to being fastball Freddie. I mean, that fastball was nasty. 15 of his 23 whiffs. The velocity was up a little bit on that pitch as well. And overall, it's, yeah, it's been a little bit of an up and down season. But Chris, any thoughts on on Freddie Pralta here? He's pretty much exactly what you should have expected. He's not an ace. He doesn't pitch consistently deep enough in the games. He tends to have somewhat inflated ERAs, but on the whole, I think you're very happy to have him around. All right, let's move on to the next one. We had Tyler Glassnow up against Tyler McGill. We spoke about McGill. Glass now, seven innings, two runs, eight strikeouts with 15

whiffs on 92 pitches. And notice that he faded his curveball in this start, which had been his best pitch on the season. He only threw four of them. Instead, it was a lot more sliders and sinkers. But that slider was great, and it has been for quite some time now for for Tyler Glass now and he is going consistently very deep. He's getting lots of strikeouts. He actually leads baseball in both innings pitched and strikeouts so far the season. That is Tyler McGill. Scott, anything to add on Tyler Glass now. That's not Tyler McGill. Tyler Glass now. Anything to add, Scott. Worth keeping in mind he's started kind of two more games than everyone else now, right? It's it's basically one more. I looked at it. Logan

Webb is right behind him. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, One more start for Tyler Glass Now. I mean, I had the same observation you did, Frank, about how he pretty much didn't throw his best pitch, the curveball in this start and still was dominant. Not that we'd expect anything less from a healthy Glass Now. I was doing my rankings update today, my big rankings update for the week. And I really debated dropping Glass Now behind Chris Sale because I was thinking, well, who, they're both injuries. risk, but who do I think is more likely to get hurt? And I think it's Glass Now. But I decided to keep Glass Now ahead in this start. For now, makes me glad that I did. It's a close call between

those two, though. Yeah, I still have Glass Now. I think right around 5th, I think, top 5, but yeah, Chris Sale has moved into the top 10. Obviously, both have been awesome. The last pitching duel here was Jake Irvin at Max Fried. The Nationals up against the Braves. And Irvin, six shot out innings, two hits, two walks, ten. strikeouts, a career high, 13 whiffs on 90 pitches in this one. Did a great job. Limiting hard contact. He threw more fastballs and curveballs in this start.

And each had five whiffs. That curveball, I know it's listed as a curveball. It looks a lot like a sweeper. And it looks like a pretty damn good pitch. It's a great pit. I mean, look, against both of those pitches off, Jake Irvin last year, when he wasn't even that good, batters hit about 200. each of them, the fastball and the curveball.

So leaning on them more, I think, is a good plan of attack for Jake Irvin. And now he has a 343 ERA and 103 whip on the year. And yet it's still easy to brush him off with a 103 whip because it's 2024 and there's so many good pitchers. And Jake Irvin still doesn't quite make the cut except as a streaming option. Well, and a big part of that is just, I don't know about you guys. I don't buy it. Yeah, I mean, not, he doesn't,

those do look like good pitches, but not in terms of missing bats at a particularly high rate. And yeah, by all the conventional, by all the ways I would typically evaluate a pitcher, Jay Gervin wouldn't make the cut either, which is a big reason why he doesn't make the cut now. It's just, that's true for so many pitchers right now.

Like, all reason is almost out the window with pitcher evaluations to a degree when you're talking about guys on the fringes anyway. It just seems like performance has been untethered from the usual performance indicators. Last couple points on Jake Irvin, he's done a great job fixing the control so far this season. The walks went from four per nine last season down to 1.6 so far this year. The problem is he's still allowing a lot of hard contact, not in this start in particular, but he entered this outing with a 91.3 average exit velocity against and a 473 expected ERA. And I think you kind of see an action here. He was awesome today. Didn't have a chance to get a win because his team scored zero runs. Yeah. I mean, they were going against Freed who's basically been a shutout every start for a month and a half.

or something close to it. He's lowered his ERA to 297, and it was, what was it? It was 771 before that stretch, and he's now 297. So, I mean, the nationals have been surprisingly solid this year, not like a playoff team, but are they still in third place in the east, or have they dropped behind the Mets? Yeah, but the, well, last I checked at least, but the Mets and Marlins are extremely,

bad. Yeah. Yeah. So the nationals are ahead of the Mets. They're 24 and 29. The Mets are, wow. When did that happen? 22 and 32.

My goodness. Dave, the last like 25 games or something, they've won like seven of them. It's been really bad. Yeah. Just quickly mention what Max Free did, although we kind of talked about it. But eight shot out innings,

six strikeouts, only nine wifts on 103 pitches. He's doing it a little bit differently this year. He's not getting as many swinging strikes, as many strikeouts, but getting tons of ground balls, a 63% ground ball rate is a career high for Max Fried, and he's doing a great job limiting hard contact.

His average exit velocity, entering the start was 84.1 miles per hour, 98th percentile in baseball. Max Fried has been great. And I just want to add, like, people get frustrated when we talk about their struggling stars, and we don't have like a, either here's what's wrong and how to fix it,

or a, they're broken forever, which I think sometimes people want us to say. And Max Fried is a good example of like, there was nothing in the first five starts to be optimistic about. His strikeout rate was way down. His walk rate was way up. He was getting hit hard. Like, it was terrible. And then on a dime, he threw that complete game shutout right at the end of April. And he's been like one of the five best pitchers in baseball for a month and a half.

which is just to say that like when you have a five-year sample size of Max Fried being a sub three ERA pitcher, that should supersede anything you see in a five-game sample size. And that is not just true for Max Fried. It's true for Blake Snell and it's true for Pablo Lopez. And it's true for most of the guys that you are freaking out about. For Ambrosell Des. It's still weird the way he's doing it though, because he's not missing. nearly as many bats as he used to, and he's just dominating on suppressing hard contact.

He's kind of pitching to the environment right now is Max Frieden. So I do wonder how long that'll work, but it's working really well right now, and it's hard to complain about it too much. Let's take our final break, and when we return, a couple of their waiver wire pitchers. We've got Hunter Brown, Matt Waldron. We'll talk about those right after this. Welcome back in, and some other waiver wire pitchers. from Tuesday's action. Hunter Brown turned in his best start of the season at the Mariners,

six innings, one run, nine strikeouts, zero walks. He had 14 whiffs on 87 pitches. Completely changed the pitch mix in this start. He more than cut his fastball usage in half. He doubled his slider usage. It was his most used pitch, and the velocity was up. Just looked like a really good slider in general, something we haven't really seen from Hunter Brown. So obviously a great start from him, Matt Waldron has turned in four strong starts in a row. He was up against the Marlins. He threw seven shutout with eight strikeouts, had 15 whiffs on 85 pitches. 11 of those came on the knuckleball.

And he threw a ton of knuckle balls in the start. And it was really good. It's easier said than done, right? From my like comfy computer chair, it's easy for me to say, hey, why doesn't Matt Waldron just throw his knuckle ball all the time? But why doesn't Matt Waldron just throw his knuckle ball all the time? It's by far his best pitch. It's the only one of his pitches, I think, that's any good at all.

And it's unique. Nobody sees that pitch. So I just, he threw it 55% of the time. I believe that was a season high today. I don't see why he shouldn't be following the R.Dick, R.A. Dickey approach and just throwing it like 75, 80% of the time. I can't see a good argument against it unless he just can't come manned it well. Maybe he's

increasing the, like Matt Waldron was a bad minor league pitcher and you wonder how minor leaguers were hitting that knuckleball and maybe I could pull up the data and see if he's throwing the knuckleball more than he was in those days. But Matt Waldron is interesting among knuckleballers as rare as they are in a couple of ways because remember R.A. Dickey, the whole thing with him was it's a power knuckleball. He throws that knuckleballer harder than knuckleballers typically do.

Well, Matt Waldron throws it just as hard, high 70s. It's the same velocities R.A. Dickey was throwing it at. And he's his fastball. Now, I agree. We don't want Waldron throwing his fastball a lot. But as a change of pace offering, it's going to catch hitters off guard more than the typical knuckleball. Because he actually gets it over 90 miles per hour. Yeah. His whiff rate on it is okay.

Yeah. R.A. Dickies was 84. Yeah. You never see a knuckleball or throw. I shouldn't say never. but it's rare for a knuckleballer to throw a fastball as hard as Waldron throws it. So there may be something here. How hard was David Fletcher's fastball?

David Fletcher. I don't know if you guys saw he was throwing knuckleballs before his, you know. Yeah, yeah. Four straight starts, two and runs are fewer now for Matt Waldron. Like I've been saying, I'll show. It's hard to get, it's hard to find yourself in a place where you want to gamble. on a starting pitcher right now, and Waldron feels like a big gamble. But don't be surprised if Matt Waldron is the name we're talking about for the next few years.

The last four starts, by the way, for Waldron. It's a 196-ERA 109 whip, 31 strikeouts over 23 innings. Last name I wanted to mention was Kyle Gibson, who turned in a strong start at the red, six innings, one run, six strikeouts. He had 15 whiffs and actually made the sweeper his most used pitch in the start. It's actually a pretty damn good sweeper. Surprise he doesn't try and use it a little bit more. I think we kind of know what Kyle Gibson is,

but how would you guys rank of all the names that we've talked about today, the Ben Brown, Tyler McGill, Matt Waldron, Hunter Brown. Throw Kyle Gibson in that mix if you want. I would take Waldron over all of them except Ben Brown. I would take Hunter Brown over Jake Irvin and Tyler McGill, I think. Okay, I would go Ben Brown one, Tyler McGill, two, Waldron three, Hunter Brown four, maybe Irvin four. I don't know, it depends how urgently you need to use them. Hunter Brown's obviously been a disaster this year.

Obviously, this start was great. And maybe, so he actually did make a big arsenal change here. He threw his fastball just 24% of the time. And he's thrown his cutter in the garbage where it belonged because that pitch was a disaster for him early in the same. Normally his fastball's 44%. So he threw it 20 percentage points less. And so maybe that's the key to unlocking Hunter Brown's potential,

but it's just one start of it. But he did have a very good May. He had a 341 ERA, 29 strikeouts, and 26 innings, for what it's worth. That is Hunter Brown, right? It wasn't worth noticing until this start. But yeah, it was better than his April for sure. Yeah. He last point on Hunter Brown, he threw more splitters in this start as well.

And his splitter has actually been his best pitch this season, 192 batting average against with a 40% whiff rate. So we'll see where it goes. But I think I would put Ben Brown at the top. I agree. I think McGill and then Matt Waldron. I think those are probably the three most interesting ones of that group. Would you, if you picked up Andrew Abbott for the two-star week,

he had a pretty rough start here against the Cardinals, You know, we've kind of been saying, like, we thought regression would hit Andrew Abbott eventually. And, you know, he gave up six runs over six innings. He allowed two home runs. He does give up a lot of fly balls and he pitches in Cincinnati. Would you drop Andrew Abbott for any of the names we've mentioned? I think literally any of the names that we've mentioned. I think definitely the top three, Brown, McGill, and Waldron.

Yeah, I mean, I don't have a lot of faith in Abbott. I guess that's fine. I have no love for Andrew Abbott, really, but it probably goes against my rankings to say I'd drop them for anyone we just mentioned. So that's why I'm being cautious about it. By the way, I had the number wrong. It was actually 18% fastballs for Hunter Brown versus the normal 44%. So even a bigger change.

Let's talk some waiver wire hitters. And we had two middle infielders who had some big games here. Nolan, one for four with his ninth home run to RBI. has actually turned things around a little bit here in May. 246 batting average, five homers, a 921 OPS. Quality of contact is way down from last year. He's 57% rostered.

And Davis Schneider continues to rack up the hits, three for four with two doubles, three RBI. He had four hard hits in this game. Getting on base at a 361 clip and has now let off 10 straight for the Toronto Blue Jays. Who would you guys rather have between Schneider and Nolan Gorman? This might go against my rankings. also, but Schneider, the cover boy of the sleeper hitters for this week, I will point out,

because nobody else will. Chris, you good with that? Gorman versus Schneider? I'd still go Gorman, but I like Schneider. The fact that he's a multi-eligible help. So, yeah, I think he's worth adding, even if I'd rather have Gorman. What it is is like, there's no reason to be rostering Nolan Gorman in a 12-te-year-old. head-to-head league.

None at all. And there may be a reason to have Schneider rostered in that league as a fill in, a shallow league. In a deep league, would there be somebody else I'd drop for Schneider rather than Gorman? Probably, because I think in the long run, Gorman's going to be among the second base leaders in home runs still.

It'll get hot at some point and hit like eight home runs in the span of two weeks and make up a lot of ground. But obviously, in those shallow league Schneider well in any league Schneider's much more startable right now someone asked me this on twitter earlier uh would you if you have davis schneider and ozialbies like would you sit albys as cold as he's been for schneider just in the meantime obviously not dropping but i don't i don't do that yeah i don't do that okay let's talk about jesse winker he uh continues to run which is kind of this odd thing that he's doing.

You know, the Washington... Very slow. Yeah. The nationals, I mean, as a team, are running crazy this year, but he picked up his eight stolen base. Jesse Winker had three steals total in his career entering this season. He now has eight steals to this point, which has been crazy. He is 33% rostered. But the thing you have to keep in mind, his sprint speed is way, way up to 18.

percentile in the entire leak. What was it usually? He was first percentile last year. He was 14th percentile the year before. I mean, maybe it's an indication of just how much better he's feeling this year after all the all the injuries with Seattle and Milwaukee. But you know, you mentioned he's had the eighth stolen base. He also got picked off in this game.

So he was he was trying to go for a steal then too. and that came before the stolen base. So even after getting picked off, he wasn't afraid to then take off and steal another base. So I guess this is just part of who Jesse Winker is now. And we're all better for it. He's must roster in five outfielder leagues. Yeah, that's exactly where I was going. And I brought these names up to Chris yesterday.

Eddie Rosario, J.J. Bladay, Leodi Tavaris, Alec Berluson, Adam Duval, Tyler Freeman. I think those are some names that could be out there. five outfielder leagues, would you take Winker over any or all of them? Again, it was Freeman, Duval, Burlinson, Liottaveris, Bleday, and Eddie Rosario. Yeah, I have them ranked. I have Winker ranked ahead of all those guys. Let's talk about two names in much deeper leagues. 15-team, Roto League, stuff like that.

Miguel Anduhar, that's right. That Miguel Andueharr, one for four with a three-run homer. He also had three hits in his first game on Friday. He has started three of four. and obviously plays on a bad team. I think he's going to get some opportunity to play. Was having a really big spring training before he got hurt as well. That's Miguel And Duhar.

And Kevin Pilar, yeah, that Kevin Pilar, he is on a tear right now with the Angels. He's, you know, getting a chance to play. Went three for four with his sixth home run. And he's batting 3.49. He's got six steals. He's got a 1041 OPS. I don't know how, but anything to see here with either one,

Andi Har or Kevin Pilar? The Angels are the island of misfit mid-2000s former prospects. And I guess everybody's going to get a chance to have a good week on the Angels roster. But no, I'm not particularly interested in Miguel Andueharr for obvious reasons. He hasn't been good at all since 2018. But he has continued to hit at AAA and he is the Oakland Athletics cleanup hitter right now. So I'd rather roster him than Kevin Pilar. Yeah, I mean, Pilar's not playing every day even.

Yeah, he's only started six of the past nine games. So let's talk about three veteran bats who have had a power outage to this point in the season. And oddly enough, I mean, Freddie Freeman and Nolan Aronado did Homer here on Tuesday. Freeman went three for five with a sixth home run in game one of their doubleheader. He added two more hits in game two. I mean, there are some things under the hood. The quality of contact is down a little bit for Freddie Freeman. And with all three of these guys, I mean, they're all 33 years old or older.

So it could just be like, all right, you know, it's getting a little bit harder to hit for power. Nolan Aronado is the next name, one for four, with a walk and his fourth home run. And he has just a 677 OPS. Average X velocity is way down year over year. The barrel rate, way down. infield fly ball rate is a career high 20%. So it's been pretty messy for Aeronado. And same thing could be said for George Springer,

who home run on a Monday. That was his first since April 24th. He added two more hits and three walks on Tuesday. But he is batting 204. He's only got four home runs. A 304 slug. And like Aeronado, the quality of contact is way down for Springer. Anything that stands out in particular

with any of these three names or are you just like pretty confident? confident they're all going to get back on track. I'm not particularly confident in Aronado and Springer, probably more confident in Aronado. He sounds pretty frustrated right now. He was talking about, you know, the kind of hitter I am, I haven't been that guy in like a year is basically what he said. And, you know, he talked about how he's, he's usually pulling everything and hitting for power to the pull side. He just hasn't been able to do it.

given that we've seen him succeed with middling or frankly worse quality of contact metrics I think Nolan Aronado can get going the one that stands out to me and this was something that I remember seeing get talked about a little bit very early in the season is Freddie Freeman has been not very good against fastballs this season looking at baseballs savant's run values by pitch type. He has been negative four. He's been worth negative four runs against four seamers, negative three against sinkers.

Last year it was 20 and 12 respectively. And, you know, I saw someone point out that, you know, he said something about like, I hope Shohei Otani steals 80 bases ahead of me or something. And he said, you know, I'll pass on fastballs if he wants to run.

And I wonder if there's something there that he's like passing on some hitable pitches in order to give Otani opportunities to run. I don't know. That's the one thing that I could see, but my actual level of concern for Freddie Freeman is

basically zero. He's got such a long track record that I am very confident he's going to figure out. So to give some other numbers against the fastball, his average exit velocity and max exit velocity against the fastball are

basically exactly the same as last year. His swinging strike rate is the highest in five years, but he pretty regularly had higher swinging strike rates against the fastball before then. So I don't think it's like a Paul Goldschmidt situation with Freeman, and I've had no inclination to move him down from first in the first base rankings.

Yeah, same. Actually, the one of these three who I've kind of given up on his Aeronado. I just, I keep moving third baseman ahead of him. And third base hasn't even been that great of a position. But he just, like, he has one trick. He's basically Isok Perides. And it's certainly since Colorado, he's been Esauk Peridaz.

And that trick, if that trick isn't playing anymore, then there really isn't much there. Springer at least walks and he steals bases. And I wouldn't rule out either of them bouncing back. I just don't know that bouncing back. in Nolan Aronado's case is enough to get excited about. Last thing I'll add on George Springer, and this seems to be some kind of clear Blue Jays team philosophy, the poll rate is down for all of them.

And George Springer, when he was at his best, you know, two years ago, it was a 48% pull rate last year, 39 and a half percent. This year it's down to 35%. So that poll rate, like Boba Chet, like Vlad, it's been down for George Springer. And the ground balls, a career high. So those two things in conjunction, it is going to lead to less home runs

and this could be the start of like all right, maybe Springers of 15 to 20 home run hitter moving forward type thing unless he can get back to pulling the ball and doing so in the air. Some pitching leftovers and we had some big names on the mound. Kevin Gosman, a quality start at the White Sox six innings, one run,

three strikeouts there. Zach Wheeler threw a gem at the Giants, six shot out innings, two hits, two walks, nine strikeouts had 13 whiffs on 101 pitches, velocity up across the board for Zach Wheeler, and Luis Castillo turned in a quality start against the Astros, six innings, two runs, six strikeouts, 15 whiffs on 95 pitches. And actually, through his change-up a little bit more in this start, a pitch. We've kind of seen Luis Castillo fade the past couple of years, and it was pretty good for him,

at least in this start. Scott, anything to add on Castillo, Wheeler, and Gosman. were you guys able to find pitch selection data for Kevin Gossman like for the entire season? Because remember it was corrupted in his previous start when he dominated

and I think that's kind of messed up his stat cast page altogether because I can't I can't look and see if his pitch selection was different or if his velocity was improved in his previous start because it was improved in this one it was up not

not in a huge way. But given that reduced velocity has been an issue for Kevin Gosman this year, any amount of increase there is encouraging. It was up. Fastball was up. Point six splitter was up a full mile per hour. Yeah, weird if they haven't gone back. And that's usually something you'll see is they'll go back and fix the data.

But this appears to be an actual data outage on Kevin Gosman's last start. That's frustrating because that was his best start of the year. I'd like to see more than three walks. I'm sorry, strikeouts and 10 swinging strikes against the white socks. So it's not like Kevin, it's not like Kevin Gosman is in the clear here. I need to speak a little more clearly.

But, you know, appears to be trending up. Yeah, I feel mostly okay about him. He finishes May with 33 strikeouts, eight walks, and 26 and the third innings. Really only one bad. start in his last, was that eight? Now, yeah, he had the one start where he gave up six runs. Other than that, it's been pretty good.

Maybe he's not an ace. There are signs that his fastball and splitter have been less effective this season, but on the whole, I'm not panicking about Kevin Gosman. Three other pitching leftovers, Grayson Rodriguez got off to a rough start, gave up four runs in the first two innings, and then settled down. He finished six innings, four runs, 10 strikeouts, which was a season high.

18 whiffs on 90 pitches for Grayson Rodriguez. Zach Lattel, a strong start against the Oakland A's. Seven innings, three unearned runs, nine strikeouts to one walk. And Gavin Stone looked great in game two at the Mets. Seven shutout, seven strikeouts, 10 wiffs on 87 pitches. Surprisingly for Gavin Stone, faded his best pitch to change up, and he just threw a lot more sinkers. Sinker does do a good job of limiting hard contact, but as you often say, Chris, I mean, it takes a long time for batted ball metrics to kind of stabilize here.

Any thoughts on Stone, Zach Lattel, and Grace and Rodriguez? Pretty much think Lattel is someone I just want to start moving forward. He's kind of what we hoped Aaron Savale would be. Really, really good command, enough strikeouts and not getting hit so hard. I struggle with Gavin Stone. I want to believe in the good starts. I just, he's a weird one. I just don't know if the stuff is good enough to be more than just a guy.

Right? Like I think he's decent and obviously decent on the Dodgers is a lot more valuable than decent on the nationals for one thing. But like, I'm not sure how much better Gavin Stone is than. Jake Irvin. I think he's better, but I'm not confident. I wish I was, but like 6.5K per 9,

a third of the way through the season, he really only has the one pitch and the change-up that gets a lot of whiffs. I just... It's hard to care about him right now because it's like... The strikeouts are bad, but six innings,

one run or less in five of his last six starts. Yeah, but even so. He's doing something. He's doing something like that. Jake Irvin is doing things like that. I will point out, Zach Lattel, cover boy of the sleeper pitchers this week. Well, that was going to be my last point, Scott. You just didn't let me get to it.

I'll also point out for Zach Lattel. He leaned on his best pitch more in this start. 29% splitters. It's normally like 20%. This is his best pitch. It got nine of his 15 whiffs. More of that, Zach Lattel would be great. He's good.

Yeah. Yeah. And R be eligible for head to head points. As good as he's been, he wasn't rostered in enough leagues. that I could exclude him from the sleeper pitchers list, but he probably should be, I agree. And then we've said it a million times. I just don't know why Grayson Rodriguez isn't better.

I just don't know what it is. Like the constituent parts all seem pretty good. The approach mostly, like there's not like, it's not like there's one easy trick that I can look at with Grayson Rodriguez and say, ah, if he just does this, it's just like,

he just needs to, pitch better. And that's a hard one because he might. It feels like on the job learning. Yeah. You know, this is his second season basically. But I've been tempted to move him down in my rankings since the

whip is so high and the walk rate is so high and he's not exactly dominating. So I have him right now just ahead of Justin Steele, Garrett Crochet, Tanner Halk, Jack Flaherty. Okay, so I think where do you have him over on? I've got him at 30. Okay, so I'm a little low.

And, yeah, I mean, I've got like Bailey Ober, Hazelis Lazzardo, Carlos Rodan, Nick Ladolo, I think those guys might all just be better than him. I mean, and the guys you mentioned, I have even lower than the ones I mentioned. So part of it is just how do you sort out those pictures? Right, yeah. Who all have very exciting upside,

but question marks of one kind or another. Yeah, like on a per inning basis, McKenzie Gore might be better than him right now. the difference is, I think when Grayson Rodriguez is good, he's going to go six, seven innings every time out. And he's got the Orioles. Not. He's got the Orioles offense backing. Yeah. Yeah. That certainly helps. Let's talk about three hitting leftovers. Corey Seeger continues his power binge. He is now seven home runs in his past seven games, a massive May 287, 10 home runs, a 1032 OPS for him. Tied his career high for home runs in a month. There you go. And like you said,

Chris, things can flip just like that for players that we know are really, really good. Oh, but the quality of contact wasn't that good. Who cares? It doesn't matter. Well, the quality of contact is still really bad compared to last year, Chris. Take that. Jorxon ProFar continues to hit 2-4 with his eighth home run, 3 RBI.

He entered Tuesday as a top six outfielder in both Roto and Head-Ted Points Leagues, and his May has basically been identical to his June in terms of batting average, power, and OPS. He's he's just doing it right now. And Juan Soto is going to get paid so much money.

Two for five with his 15th home run. And notice some things that he's doing differently this year, like career highs in quality of contact, barrel rate, pull rate, Yankee Stadium type thing there. I mean, obviously it's working for him right now. Expected stats are ridiculous. I mean, he is so, so good. So good.

He knows what he's doing. Yeah. ProFar. so his expected batting average is 302 now. So it's kind of different from David Frye, where it's like he's... Not that Fry's expected stats are bad, but his actual stats are well outpacing them.

Not so much in ProFar's case, and that doesn't mean I'm buying into ProFar, but just given the state of things, he's a hitter who's performing. And I think most people with ProFar, you just ride it for however long at last, Sure. Maybe it lasts all year. Probably not. But if there's a chance, you know, if you could trade ProFar for a struggling stud, if you could trade him for Austin Riley, then definitely do that. But I don't think most people could pull that off. I think in three years, we're going to be like, how the heck did Jerks and ProFar make an All-Star game? That is my official prediction.

Yeah. Tune in in 2027. Some bullpen updates for the Mets in game one. They just cannot figure out how to close games right now. Obviously, Edwin-Diaz has been really bad. Adam Arunvino got the ninth inning with a one-run lead. He gave up one run on three hits, took his second blown save. The Mets lost in extras because on the other side,

it was Blake Trinan who got the 10th inning with a three-run lead. He struck out two for his first save. And then in game two, it was lefty Alex Vescia, who entered in the eighth with a three-run lead. He threw two no-hit innings for his second save of the season. For the Oakland A's, Mason Miller gave up a hit and a walk, but he struck out two for his 11th save. For the Braves, Reisel Oglacius picked up his 13th.

For the twins, Yohan Duran, got the ninth with a two-run lead, gave up two hits but picked up his eighth save. I'll point out that each of Yohan's last five appearances has been in the ninth inning for a save. So he's back to being, I think, a surefire closer. And I was lucky to be able to pick him back up in the podcast league after dropping him. So thank you for that. Everyone who plays in the podcast league.

He hasn't been lights out. All his outings have been a little shaky. Velocci's still a teeny bit down from last year. But I think in the long run, Yohan Duran is not somebody we're going to be worried about. For the Rangers, Kirby Yates got the ninth with a two-run lead. He gave up a hit and a walk. struck out two for his eighth save. For the Cubs,

Hector Nairus got the ninth with a one-run lead. He gave up one run on a walk and a hit. He took his second blown save, but picked up his fifth win of the season. For the Yankees, Clay Holmes entered with two outs in the eighth inning. Runners on first and second, with a one-run lead,

he gave up a two-run double to Taylor Ward, took his third blown save. For the Angels, Carlos Estevez pitched a clean ninth for his eighth save. And for the Mariners, Adress Munoz was unavailable. Ryan Stannick struck out three, for his third save of the season.

To stream or not to stream on Wednesday. And I think, who do we say? Braxton Garrett at the Padres. Alec Manoa at the White Sox. And we were kind of scared of anybody else as a third. I think Motas against the Cardinals could be fine. Okay. I think I mentioned Tyler Anderson against the Yankees,

but I mean, there's no way I can do that. That could blow badly. Like, Bryce Wilson has been pretty useful for a, like a month now. You love Bryce Wilson, man. He's been good. I don't think he's good, but he has been good. And then it would not surprise me if Spencer Schwellenbach had like six strikeouts over five good innings.

Yeah. It's probably the third name I would choose here, honestly. But I agree with the broader take that Alecman Noah and Braxton Garrett are the only two. You might really consider streaming unless you're desperate. On Thursday, I think Christian Scott's still under 70% rostered up against the debacks. I think that's fine. Chris Paddock against the Royals. You know, Paddock, he's had some blowup starts.

He's obviously had some really good ones too. Like, I don't know. I feel like that one could go either way. It's frustrating to see him go away from the slider in the most recent start because that had been a big deal for him so far in May. And I think he only threw it like four times. I think I would go with Scott, Paddock and Tyone. Trevor Williams says pitch well, but he's at the best. Braves.

Doesn't mean what it used to mean. True. Yeah. But I think I like Wednesday's options more than Thursdays. Would you guys take Trevor Williams over Tyone or Paddock on Thursday? I'd take him over Tyone. I'd take him over Tyone, not Paddock. Scott Paddock, Trevor Williams are the top three for Thursday.

But I wouldn't say I'm excited about either. Scott, that's a tough matchup. He's just, we just think he's a good pitcher. I wouldn't be surprised if Spencer Arrogati had a good start against the Mariners. They've been really bad. Strikeout rate is super high. He's had flashes. All right.

We're going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.