Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Anthony Rizzo Traded to the Yankees! Bullpen Moves! - Emergency Podcast (7/29 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

In two days the Yankees have added two great left-handed bats in Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo. What does this do for Rizzo's value? What might the Yankees projected lineup look like? We also had Brad Hand traded to the Blue Jays. Who closes in Toronto and Washington? Diego Castillo was just traded to the Mariners. Who closes in Seattle and in Tampa Bay? 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  CBS Sports and Westinghouse are teaming up to give away a 55" TV, portable power station and air purifier over the next month. Go to cbssports.com/homerun to enter. Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank, @AdamAizer 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/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 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

Now here's Frank Scott, Chris and Adam. Over the last two days, the Yankees have added two big lefty bets. It's about time. Welcome into an emergency edition of fantasy baseball today on Thursday, July 29th. Frank Stanfield joined by Scott White. Here to talk Anthony Rizzo and some bullpins. There's a lot of stuff going out right now. I actually just got an update on my phone that the Angels are a mystery team trying to acquire Max Scherzer.

So let's see what happens there as well. Anthony Rizzo to the New York Yankees. dramatic things I've ever seen. Wines up going to the Bronx in exchange for two prospects, 24-year-old pitcher Alexander Vizcayano throws extremely hard. He's been hurt. Bounce between the rotation,

the bullpen, and 19-year-old outfielder Kevin Alcansara, who has big upside, some power, and some speed. It's a very curious move. Scott, just from like a pure baseball perspective. The Yankees are nine games out in the division. They're three games out in the wild card, so they're going for something. I don't know what

that something is. But for Anthony Rizzo. It's been a downseason. He's been coming around recently. It is a 308 batting average with three homers over his last seven games. What does this do for his value? Well, in theory, it improves it. I mean, if there was ever a venue that was going to help him regain his former power output and being a left-handed hitter, it was its Yankee Stadium with the short porch in right field. having said that, you know, 2017 was the last time Anthony Rizzo hit 30 homers in a season

that capped off a four-year stretch of 30-plus homers for him, but that was the last time you did it. I think I said on the fantasy baseball today podcast recently that I kind of view Anthony Rizzo as just a guy now, really, really nothing more than mid-grade. Maybe that wasn't entirely fair. I mean, in terms of hard hit rate and average exit velocity,

those are both higher than they've ever been this year, which I know that owes something to the new baseball, but by considerable margin, especially that hard hit rate. And, you know, he's never been a guy who's struck out much. That's always true. I mean, that's still true at this stage of his career. He's not 15.7% strikeout rate is what Anthony, Rizzo's working with this year.

And just looking at his fly balls, he tends to pull his fly balls a lot, a third of the time. Fly balls generally are hit to the opposite field more often than not. And his fly ball left center, right distribution is fairly balanced. So it seems like he's well positioned to take advantage of that short porch and right field,

looking at, as I figured out how to do this now, on baseball savant. Baseball savant's breakdown expected home runs by Park. But I'm looking at this live now for the first time. Oh my goodness. No.

Oh, my goodness. Goodness gracious. Am I looking at the right player page? Yeah, this is Anthony Rizzo. What does it say, Scott? So remember when we did this with Joey Gallo yesterday, it was expected home runs by park

if you played for the Yankees instead of the Rangers, that you would have gotten four more home runs, right? Sure. Yeah, not a bad increase. Expected home runs by Park for Anthony Rizzo. Yankee Stadium. 23. What?

23. He currently has 14. Yeah. Wow. Wow. That is massive. Maybe they were pulling up his baseball savant page before making this acquisition.

This could turn out to be a huge upgrade for him. well yeah i mean it's it's all in theory but that's that's true anytime you're talking about future production so um all right yeah i guess uh i guess there's reason to be excited if you've been holding on to anthony rizzo or maybe if you feel like you can buy him for dirt cheap because somebody heard me last week say he's just a guy now uh it might be something to look into no promises or anything, but it looks like this venue change could be a significant one for him. Yeah, and I mentioned he's been better recently. Rizzo was battling a back injury earlier in the season off and on past couple of years, really, and it seems like he's getting healthier as the season's

going along, or at least that's my takeaway from it, the fact that he's been performing better as of late. Really good plate discipline still, 9.6% walk rate, right around a 16% strikeout rate, So that adds some balance to that Yankee lineup going out and acquiring Joey Gallo yesterday. The distribution of his batted balls, he's not an extreme flyball hitter by any means. It's pretty equal distribution between. Yeah, I mean, it's about the same as it's always been. Yeah. Part of my pessimism about Anthony Rizzo recently is that, you know, it's how bad he was last year, too.

Yeah. That small sample, he hit 222 with a 755. PS, but he had a really high infield fly ball rate last year, which of course are just automatic outs. And that's normalized this year. That's a little less than half of what it was last year. So that problem hasn't been a longstanding one. And so maybe we shouldn't be putting much stock on the 2020 season at all, even though it

seems like he's underperforming this year. I don't know. Suddenly, I'm standing up for Anthony Rizzo here. and I guess the Yankees are too. You mentioned, by the way, you don't know what the Yankees are doing because they're nine games out of first place. They are nine games out of first place, three games out of the wildcard, like you said.

They're ahead of the Blue Jays in the standings, and nobody's acting like the Blue Jays are out of it. So I don't know, I don't know why there's this feeling that the Yankees should just pack it in. I mean, with the Gallo trade, of course they'll have him for next year. That's not true with this Rizzo trade. They won't have him for next year. But I don't know.

I think the prospects they gave up are so high variance. Like I like the prospect hall the Rangers got back for Gallo much more than I like what the Cubs got back for Rizzo, understandably, because Rizzo's controlled for only two more months. Yep. But Kevin Alcantara, he's a teenager who has, there are reports that contact will be an issue for him as he makes his way up the ladder. But he's so young. like there's just no telling what he turns into. And usually that's going to be a miss.

And usually that's not going to turn into something significant. And yeah, as we talked about yesterday, I really like Ezekiel Doran and especially Glenn Otto, who the Rangers got in that Joey Gallo deal. The latest projected lineup that I've seen for the Yankees, DJ LaMayhew, Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo batting third, John Carlos Stanton, Joey Gallo. It sounds weird that Gallo would be batting fifth,

but I think they want someone with better contact in the middle there. So that makes some sense. Gary Sanchez, Glaber Torres, Gio Orchella, Brett Gardner. So line up. A lot more balance, obviously, very stacked. Let's talk about a few bullpens. Four in particular there. There were some reliever trades that went down earlier in the day.

Brad Hand was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays, and we've talked about him recently. Swinging strike rate way down, chase rate, way down. Let's start with the Blue Jays first. Scott. Who do you think will close, or is this just a closer by committee situation? Yeah, it started out as a closer by committee, and remember they seemed really reluctant to move Romano into that role. First, they were going with Julian Meriwether and then with Rafael Delis.

So now that they're given in on Romano and he's been kind of in that role for a while now, I think if it's going to go to just one of those guys, Romano or hand, it would be Romano because hands. because hands struggled recently and because some of his underlying numbers don't look great and because he's left-handed, which is those guys are typically better employed situationally. It's why left-handers have a higher hurdle to clear for becoming closers. So if it is any one guy, I would guess it would be a Romano,

but I wouldn't surprise me at all if they played matchups and it turned into a Jake Deekman-Lutrovina situation. For the Washington Nationals, obviously Brad Hand, is shipped out. Daniel Hudson, who I suspected would be the next man in line here for the job. He went to the COVID I.L. We know that the Nationals are dealing with a COVID breakout right now. And thrown right into the fire. First opportunity, game one of their doubleheader. Kyle Finnegan comes in. Clean inning, two strikeouts, picks up his first save of the season. So, Scott, do you think it's

Finnegan? If Daniel Hudson returns, does he work his way in? What do you think happens with Washington. I mean, Daniel Hudson is only controlled through this year, so it would make sense for Washington to move him either way. If for some reason they don't, you know, the fact he's on the COVID aisle now, I'm, I don't think Kyle Finnegan's really going to get a chance to claim that job all to himself. He's 29 years old. He has a whip near 1-5. Daniel Hudson has been their set of man. He's been their best reliever this year. He would be the guy whenever. he's back.

And we don't know how long it's going to be, obviously. It may be, it hasn't been confirmed that he has tested positive, right? It may just be a contact tracing situation or whatever. Yeah, I just saw he was placed in the COVID aisle. Yeah, I assume he won't be gone for that long, whether it measures in weeks or days. I don't know. But, yeah, more than anything, I just assume he's going to be traded. So would I be making an investment in Kyle Finnegan?

now in a deep league where anybody within a remote chance of saves has value? I don't know. I can't really see Kyle Finnegan just being the guy. I suspect he'll be one among many if Daniel Hudson isn't around.

Kyle Finnegan is 3% rostered on CBS. It came in. First opportunity, perform very well. So if they give him another opportunity and he converts that, then maybe they just stick with him for now, but we'll see what happens in Washington. The other trade that went down, you were Mariners fans.

You guys were freaking out. They traded away Kendall Graveman. Well, there's a reason why, because they just acquired Diego Castillo from the Tampa Bay raise for reliever J.T. Chagua and third base prospect, Austin Shenton.

He is 23 years old, batting 300 with 12 homers between high A and AA. All right, Scott. So who's the closer in Seattle? Diego Castillo, Paul Steewald. Well, let me just first say, if I'm a Mariners fan, I don't think this is justification

for trading Graveman. I think Graveman is better than Castillo. I think you could argue Chargouis is as good as Castillo. So, no, I hope if I'm a Mariners fan that Jerry Depoto has some other reason

that he said this trade will make sense soon enough. Who closes for the Mariners, you asked? I mean, Paul Seawald is still their best reliever. Obviously, he doesn't have the history of closing that Castillo does. So I feel like Scott's surface has been not somebody who's been so beholden to roles. You know, even when Raphael Montero was the closer, Graveman was sneaking in and grabbing some saves,

even when Graveman was the closer Seawald was sneaking in and grabbing some saves, as well as Drew Steck and Ryder. It seems like there has been a clear leading bullpen guy, but he hasn't always been held back till the ninth, usually, but not always. So I suspect Castillo and Seawald will both get saves. One will get more than the other. I'd want to put my money on Seawald right now just because he's better. That K-per-9 rate is unbelievable.

It's among the best in baseball. So that's where I'd want to put my money now. But it could be Castillo. You'll see, Scott, when Abraham Toro turns into a stud, that will be the reason why Kendall Graven was traded to the Houston Astro. On the other side in Tampa, a closer has no name. We know that. But if we're trying to figure this out, trying to handicap this situation.

Nick Anderson is on the men. He's upgraded his rehab to AAA recently. They still have Andrew Kittridge. They receive J.T. Chagua. Do you have any lean here, Scott, or is it just Tampa? By the way, Chagua is about to become a bullpen ace just because the race set their sights on him. How does this trade make sense for the raise,

them being supposedly in the thick of things. Obviously, they are in the thick of things themselves. They're in possession of a wild card spot right now. Yeah, I mean, did, because Peter Fairbanks was getting some saves, but he's hurting out too, right? He just went on the I.O. Yeah. What's something, do you know, what are you going on the IO with?

I'll figure it out for you. So, I mean, he would be my first guess if he was still around since he's not. I don't know, because fire ice is hurt too, right? Yep. I mean, maybe Chardua, maybe he gets a shot right away. Yeah, Nick Anderson obviously could come in and get saved chances really quickly. Matt Whizzler's been great since coming over from the Giants. shoulder inflammation for Pete Fairbanks.

That's very unspecific. And then, of course, somebody like Andrew Kittridge has been great, but they generally like to, they like having him in like a multi-inning role, it seems like. So it's going to be, I don't know. Who should you target first in that group? Kittridge. That's why I'm going with Scott.

Well, I mean, good ratios, if nothing else. That seems reasonable to me, but I would not, I would not count on a big save total. Like if you get five saves from anyone in the raised bullpen right now, I think that's more than you should expect. Kittridge is my guess for their next save. My guess for them to lead them in saves rest of season. I'm going to go with Nick Anderson on that one.

And he's 19% rostered, 12% rostered. So yeah, widely available. Again, it's Tampa. We're just making guesses here. But I'm going to go with Nick Anderson. It's all over the place. for Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again a little bit later on. Bye-bye.