Fantasy Baseball Today - Bench Carlos Rodon? Add Kenta Maeda & Pete Alonso Trade Value (7/20 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Do we bench Carlos Rodon moving forward (2:00)? ... Kenta Maeda is a must-add starting pitcher (7:03). ... Beat the waiver wire by adding these potential two-start pitchers (9:22). ... Is now the time to trade Pete Alonso (22:05)? ... Nolan Gorman has bounced back in July (29:20). ... What is going on with Sandy Alcantara and Julio Urias (31:30)? ... News (40:16): Aaron Judge ran the bases Wednesday. ... Let's rank waiver wire outfielders and give Edouard Julien his due (46:32). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (56:47). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  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/ 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

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. What do we do with Carlos Rodon and Pete Alonzo? We'll talk about all that and much more.

Welcome in Tough Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, July 20th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by... Chris Towers, no Chris Welsh, today on the show. He'll be on tomorrow's podcast, Welsh and Scott White. It's been a while since those two guys have been together. Today on the show, however, more struggling pitchers, Rodan, San Diego Arreus, what do we do with all of those names? Kent and Maeda has been really good since returning from the IL.

Edwar Julian, looks like he is on fire. We'll talk about all of that. Before we get started, please like this video and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. And if you're listening on the audio side, download, follow,

and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. Let's jump in. Take a little whiff of that, big boy. Yeah, take a whiff of that. Chris, you're up. Well, first of all,

how you doing, Chris? How's life? Good. All right. Good. Everybody, I got, everybody got mad at me

on Twitter today because I said that Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson didn't hit baseball's 570 feet. And so I've been getting yelled at all day. in the comments are yelling at me about something.

I don't know. So, you know, I'm fine. I'm fine. We're going to talk about, Carla, the Marlins are also on a six game winning streak and their season is over. A six game winning streak. Sixthame losing streak.

Excuse me. The opposite of that. Their season is over. So I'm not feeling great about that. But we'll talk about something much more pleasant, Carlos Rotan. I mean, come on, Chris.

I'm sorry. I know. I was just trying to do one of those, like, professional transitions, you know, you know, keep people,

on their toes. Yeah, Carlos Redan, really bad today. He hadn't been like terrible before this, but he hadn't been great, obviously, but this was his worst start of the season, six earned runs and four and a third innings, five walks, three strikeouts, velocity down about one mile per hour on both the four seam fastball and the slider. Also through two curveballs, one of them was not a good one, and Taylor Ward hit it a really long way. So that wasn't a great sign. All in all, just has not looked right so far in coming back from, I mean, technically coming back from a forearm strain, but also the back injury was what kept him out as long as it did. And I don't really have too much concern. I think the velocity being down is a little concerning, given how much he relies on the fastball. But I tend to chalk it up mostly to just rust. But I wonder how you feel.

Yeah, I think I mostly feel the same. I was going to point out about Joe Must. He got a slow start to his season. Also was a little bit behind because of injury. And you look at Musgrove's first five starts the season, a 675 ERA and a 158 whip. You look at those numbers now, and they're really, really good. So sometimes when pitchers get these delayed starts into the season, it takes them some time to kind of build up.

The problem here is that it's already really late in the season. So we don't really have that much time left, I guess, or patience to wait for Carlos Rodon to get going. You mentioned the velocity down a little bit in the start entering this start. His fastball velocity was basically on par with what it was last year. So I don't think there's much concern. Obviously this is a really bad start. Five walks, two homers allowed. No pitcher is going to overcome that in a single start. But yeah, I kind of just chalk it up to it's his first three starts and he's kind of rusty. So I don't. That's generally my sense. And look, I'm also the guy who still believes Sandy Alcantra is going to be good. And, you know, still believes there's another guy that that I was talking about earlier today that I think is still going to be good. But, you know, the point is that, oh, Julio or, yeah, Julio Arias, the point is that when guys have multiple years worth of track records of high level performance,

it's going to take certainly more than three starts and probably more than 18 in Sandy's case, I think is what he's up to and 14 in Eureas' case. So, yeah, I'm definitely not. giving up on them. I haven't really changed my opinion about Rodon. It's just, you know, I'm a little less sure that he's going to be a high level pitcher moving forward just because, you know, he is coming back from the injury. Would you start him next week against the Mets who are 24th in Wobah against left-handed pitching? So that's probably a two-star week, right? I don't, that feels like that would make sense, but on CBS, he's not listed as a two-starter, at least not yet. Definitely in

points leagues. I think in Roto, I would lean towards using him, but I certainly understand why you would want to bench him. So it depends. If my options are like Dane Dunning or Graham Ashcraft or something, I'm just going to roll the dice on Carlos Rodon, you know? The Yankees only have five games next week. So it will not be a two-star week for Carlos Rodon. I was going to say in a shallow format, like a 12-teen points league, I think you probably have better options, right? You could probably find an interesting two-star pitcher or just someone who's performing better right now. I think I'd actually like to take a wait-and-see approach with Carlos Rodan, but it just sucks because you waited so long to get him on your team and active, and this is how he's pitching right now.

By the way, Chris, did you see there was a clip going around of Carlos Rodan blowing a kiss towards Yankee fans in Anaheim that were actually heckling him, his third start of his Yankee career? Good. I mean, I... Good. I like it because the Yankee fans. Yankees facial hair policy makes Carlos Rodon look like every dude who I see in Bushwick when I like walk my dog. Like every dude has the same body type and wears the same tight pants and has the same mustache.

And so yeah, I feel like ironically blowing a kiss of someone who's heckling you is what a Bushwick dude would do. I think you were going to say he looks like a villain with that mustache. And I was going to say he kind of does. So I like it. I like the heel turn for Carlos Rodon. Last point on the Yankees and the Marlins, I guess, while we're at. at it because you mentioned they're on a six game losing streak. When was the last time this late in the season, the Marlins had a better record than the Yankees? It's kind of crazy to think about.

Do they have a better record? Oh, they do. The Yankees are 50 and 47. Oh, wow. Yeah. Marlins are a half games up. Yeah. Well, there you go. That's, it's probably been a while. This is like the third best record the Marlins have ever had deep into the season. So not a lot of opportunities to have a better record than any teams, really. That is fair. Oh my goodness. It's gracious for me. I'm going to talk about Kentemaita. I know there was a comment that was yelling at you for liking Kentemayda so much.

I don't know. I have him 77th. I don't know why I'm catching strays. I guess like, I don't know, man. I think there's a lot to be excited about. And I know we've kind of been duped and there's been a lot of inconsistencies.

But what does it cost you to add Kentemite off the waiver wire at this point, right? It's not like I'm telling you to draft Kentemite in the fifth round or anything like that. You're picking him up as a waiver wire pitcher and likely a two-star pitcher for next week. So let's talk about what he did.

Six and a third innings, two runs allowed, nine strikeouts to zero walks at the Seattle Mariners, 14 swinging strikes on 80 pitches. That splitter was on fire in this start. 12 of his 14 swinging strikes. The Velocci on that pitch was up 1.5 miles per hour on this one. And in five starts since coming off the IL, Ketsamayeta has a 273 ERA, a 1.03 whip,

36 strikeouts, over 27. and a third innings, and he's only 61% rostered, projects for a two-star pitcher next week, against the Mariners and at the Royals. Chris, it does not get much better than that as a two-star. Not just the matchups, but with how well Kentomai is pitching right now, I think he's absolutely a must-add starting pitcher.

Yeah, particularly in points leagues where there's, look, there's risk of ratio blow up. We've seen it with Kenta-Mai-a-a-this season, although clearly I think the early season numbers were colored by the fact that he just wasn't healthy at the time. And he's looked a lot better and he's had the feel for that splitter and cutter, which are his two most important and two most highly thrown pitches. So yeah, I mean, look, it's the royal. The royals, I'm at the point where I'll basically start anybody against them, especially a right-handed pitcher. They're just so bad against righties.

They've shown very little sign of life. We don't know if Salvador Perez will be back by that point. But yeah, I think he's someone who probably needs to be in your lineup next week. And I would start him ahead of Carlos Rodon. Yeah, I would agree with that as well. Obviously, wouldn't drop Rodon for Kenta Maeda, but if you have an empty roster spot and you can add Kenta Maeda. I agree I would start him over close to Rodon. Not dropping Rodon.

Right. Beat the Waver Wire, by the way, talking about potential two-star pitchers for next week. Kenta Maeda is not the only one out there. Aaron Savali had a solid start. At the Pirates, five and a third innings, two runs allowed, three strikeouts in this one, 13 swinging strikes on 88 pitches. However, his velocity was way down. We're talking between three and four miles per hour on all of his pitches,

and I could not find a reason why. Search Twitter, I really couldn't find anything. But Savali has pitched well. He's 76% rostered, so it would probably have to be like a 10-team league or a shallow points league where he's available. But good matchups as well. and at the White Sox next week for Savali. And the next name up is Kyle Hendricks,

who had a quality start up against the Nationals, six innings of one-run ball with five strikeouts to zero walks. And his last two starts before this were pretty rough. But overall, very good season so far. 338 ERA, a 106 whip for Kyle Hendricks. He is 59% rostered at the White Sox and at the Cardinals next week. Chris, how would you rank this group of potential two starters? Maeda, Aaron Savali, and Kyle Hendricks.

I remember incorrectly. Savali had like a nine strikeout game against the Royals last week. Yeah, seven shutout innings, nine strikeouts, no walks against the Royals. I mean, that that's kind of the example of I would start anyone against the Royals. Is Aaron Savale having a nine strikeout game against him? They're just, they're really bad. So yeah, I feel pretty good about Aaron Savale. I think I like Kenta Maeda better for the two-start week.

I just, I don't have much faith in what Aaron Savali. is doing. I don't see much explanation for why he's been much better. His quality of contact suppression has been better, but certainly not great strikeout numbers still, even with the nine strikeout effort. He's below 20%. So I don't have a ton of confidence him. Hendrix, I did notice one interesting thing in this start, which was his in zone pitch rate was down to 39%. it was 28% with his change up. And for the season, he's down to about 39%, which is he's never been a super high. He's not George Kirby, you know, pounding zone.

It's interesting because the walk rates have been elite for Kyle Hendricks when he's been at his best, you know, including three seasons below 6%, and one below 3% in 2020. It was a short in season. But the interesting thing is he's not a guy who pounds the zone necessarily. He's a guy who lives on the edges. It's more Zach Grinke, you know, getting a ton of called strikes. He's taking that even more to an extreme. He's down to around a 39, 40% in zone rate, but the walk rate hasn't gone up.

And so that's kind of how he's gotten away with the strikeout rate being even lower than it was at his peak. He used to be roughly an average strikeout pitcher. Now he's well below average. However, he's gotten back to suppressing quality of contact, back to generating a lot of weak contact. And I think pitching outside of the zone has helped, you know, because he's able to generate swing, on those pitches. And I think Hendricks is good. I don't think he's going to be great.

I don't even think he's a must roster or a must start player. But certainly two matchups next week at the White Sox at St. Louis. I don't love the matchups, but they're not bad. You know, I would guess both of those teams are in the bottom 15, certainly the bottom half against right-handed pitchers this season. So yeah, I think, Kyle Hendricks. I think specifically for the two-start week,

I might rank Savali ahead, but I think I like Hendricks more rest of season. I think that makes sense too. By the way, you are correct about the White Sox. They're 27th in Wobah against Ritees. The Cardinals, however, the Cardinals are sixth in Wobah against Rites.

Actually, yeah, because they've got multiple good hitters, plus Nolan Gorman has crushed Ritees. So, yeah, that's surprising, given how disappointing their offense has been as a whole, but that's, yeah, that makes sense. By the way, last point on Kyle Hendrix, I was watching this start, and the broadcast was talking about his change up. It looks like he's throwing a whiffle ball. It is nasty so far this

season. And the numbers bear that out, too. A 159 batting average against 29% whiff rate, which for most pitchers, that's not great. But for Kyle Hendricks, that's pretty good. It's just, it's a pitch that I think for most of the time that it's coming at you, it looks like it's going to be the strike zone and then it just dives out. And you know, I'm seeing folks in the comments saying like, would you rather watch paint dry or Kyle Hendricks pitch? Watching Kyle Hendricks pitch is fun. It's fun to watch the one guy who doesn't throw 97.

That's true. You know, he's got to figure out. Like, it's really interesting and fun to watch this guy be successful while doing it in a completely different way than anyone else. I think it's one, I think. sustainable in a like he probably has a 3-8 ERA the rest of the way. But I think what he's done has been really impressive coming back from shoulder surgery. He had shoulder surgery this off season.

I'm going to give you one of my like get off my lawn old man kind of takes here. But I guess they never watched Greg Maddox pitch, huh Chris? Yeah. I mean, that's, Kyle Hendricks would be the closest thing to a modern day Greg Maddox. Screamax, just a teeny tiny little bit better. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't saying they're the same.

But no, it's, it's a lot of backdoor sinkers and low changeups and inducing week on. Like that's, yeah, that's those pitchers. Every pitcher can't get away doing that. Very few of them can. It's fun to watch. Yep. Let's move on to two starting pitchers who have relief pitcher eligibility.

Two sparps that project as two star pitchers next week. Brandon Belak pitched well in Corse Field five and two third shutout innings. Only one hit allowed with four strike. in that one. And Christopher Sanchez, another solid start up against the Brewers, five innings, three runs, but only one of those was earned. And he currently sits at a 306 ERA and a 105 whip. Both of these are under 30% rostered. Chris, would you be interested in picking up in streaming either Sanchez or Belak in a points league as a spark? A lot more interested in Sanchez than Belak, first of all, because Sanchez doesn't face the Rangers next week.

He has the raise as well, which at one point was a very tough matchup, but not so much lately. Sanchez has Baltimore at home. Don't love that one. And then at Pittsburgh, that's a great match of Pittsburgh's offense seems pretty lost right now. So I like what Sanchez has done this season. The ground ball rate, 54%. The walk rate has been minuscule 1.5 per 9. That's a huge outlier for his career.

And I'm skeptical he can keep it up. He's been even in the minor, more like a four walks. per nine, but, you know, his, his changeup seems to have made a leap so far this season. And I like what we've seen from Christopher Sanchez so far. I think he's, uh, again, not an ace, but can probably keep the ERA below four. I think that's reasonable. He's kind of a little like Ranger Suarez. Yeah, I think that's, that's pretty fair comp there. Much less exciting options. Anything to see here, Graham Ashcraft has now made it for quality starts in a row. And Ryan Nelson had an impressive start at the Braves, seven innings of two-run ball.

And he has three seven-inning quality starts in his last five outings. Not really sure how or where this is coming from. But Chris, anything on Graham Ashcraft or Ryan Nelson. So the thing with Graham Ashcraft in this start is he actually did limit hard contact. We know that for all the, for all of how the stuff looks, how impressive the stuff is. he's just not going to get strikeouts. He pitches to contact. He doesn't get as many whiffs as he,

as it seems like he should. His arsenal just isn't maximized. And so usually he gives up a lot of hard contact as well, which has always been a little weird because you see how much the stuff moves. And it feels like it should be like Sandy Alcantra, where even when he's not getting strikeouts, he should be generating weak contact. And generally speaking, he doesn't do that.

This start he did. I think it's just a one-start thing, because I think even his previous start was pretty bad in that regard. But that would be like he's got to figure out something, you know, some way to pitch better. And, you know, we're going on two seasons now of the strikeout rate being very, very low and the walk rate's gone up this season. So you look to the quality of contact. I don't think even with that, it's likely to make him sustain what he's done the last. was it five starts now, four starts in a row quality starts. Yeah.

But it's at least a positive sign. But I'm not particularly interested in either of these guys. Certainly, Ryan Nelson especially. The matchups two are not great. Graham Ashcraft at the Brewers at the Dodgers next week. Ryan Nelson versus the Cardinals and versus the Mariners. Mariners is okay, but obviously the Cardinals are not so great. This last pitcher does not project for two starts.

And this is just a name for very deep leagues. But it was an interesting start for Chase Silseth, who dominated the Yankees in his return to the Angels, five and two-thirds innings of one-run ball with 10 strikeouts and 14 swinging strikes. 10 of those swinging strikes came on the slider. And he was a completely different pitcher in this start than what we saw earlier in the season.

His slider was down nearly four miles per hour, yet it was his most used pitch. So it seems almost intentional that he took his velocity off. And it obviously worked very well for him. Chris, I guess any interest, this would probably be AL only or, you know, deep roto leagues in T. Silseth. Yeah, definitely seems intentional on the change in his slider, uh, movement profile and velocity. Like you said, down two miles an hour, almost four miles an hour, but also eight inches more vertical break, two inches more horizontal break.

So more to plain movement with that pitch, making it, you know, less of a sweeper. I guess, and more of a traditional slider, I guess would be the way that I would say. And that's, you know, he came into this start only throwing his slider 14% of the time before this. So the fact that he went up to 46% of the time, that's a significant change and seems like a, like you said,

a conscious decision. So, yeah, he went very heavy slider sinker through those pitches 77% of the time. Entering today's start, very small sample size, but had only thrown them around 22% of the time. And last year it was 28% of the time.

So I do think there's a conscious decision there with Chase Silseth to, you know, go after more whiffs and go after more soft contact with that sinker. I think there might be a pitcher here. I think there's a pretty good pitcher somewhere in there too, because you look at the minor leagues so far for Chase Silseth. It's, you know, he hasn't pitched that much, 27 games, 26 starts so far in his minor league career, but 276 ERA, a 1.0 whip, 161 strikeouts over 130 in a third inning. So he's pitched well. He has,

I don't know if he has prospect pedigree, but he was a high round pick, right? No, he was 11th round. Yeah, so he's young. I don't know. I think he's a name to watch for now. If you play in a deeper league, I might just pick him up and see where it goes there. Very deep leagues with Chase Silseth. Let's take our first. I'd rather add him than Ryan. Allison. Yeah, I think that's fine. Let's take our first break when we return. Let's talk about Pete Alonzo, who has been terrible since coming off the aisle. What do we do? Find out next on Fantasy Baseball today. Welcome back and the attacking third started out in the CBS Sports Podcast family and this week became a full-fledged show on the CBS Sports Galo Network. If you want all the latest

in women's soccer, including comprehensive coverage of the U.S. women's national team in the World Cup, Tune into attacking third, three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern time on the Galazzo Network. And if you miss that, don't worry, the show is still distributed to all of your favorite podcasting platforms. Let's talk about Pete Alonzo, who went 0 for 3 with a walk and a run scored here on Wednesday. And since returning from the IL, 25 games, he is batting 132 with four homers in 86.5. for average exit velocity and a 6.5% barrel rate. Chris, I know normally in fantasy, it doesn't make sense to sell an asset

that is trending downward. But I think there are times where it might make sense to do because Pete Alonzo dealing with this, I have to imagine he's still dealing with this wrist injury, right? He got hit on his wrist, he went on the IL. They said it was gonna take three to four weeks. He was back in the minimum time. 10 days. So it sounds like he came back too soon. I just kind of wonder if this is something that's

going to hinder him all season. And the Mets are kind of out of it too. Like do they even shut him down at some point? I think that's possible. You might be able to sell Ptollonzo based on his name value now and still get a pretty good return. Is it something that you would look to do? I understand the thought process, right? Like you look at it and like you mentioned, the 86 mile per hour average exit velocity in the 25 games since he's been back. This is a guy who last season, 90 miles per hour before that, 91 miles per hour the year before.

So I don't think this is a, it's not a bad luck stretch. This isn't like, oh, he's hitting the ball hard, but right at people. This isn't one of those where it's not even necessarily like Mani Machado early in the season, where it was like,

I don't really care about the expected stats because it's Mani Machado. And we know what the track rate it is and we know what kind of player he is. This is, there is a specific thing that seems to be bothering P. DeLonzo, or at least is a good explanation for why Pto Lanzo would be struggling. We don't know that his wrist is, it's entirely possible that he goes through stretches like this every season. And we just,

because they're not precipitated by a wrist injury, we don't take notice of it. You know, like last season in June, Pellonzo, average egg's velocity was 86.9 miles per hour. His slugging percentage was actually still awesome. He had nine home runs. So that's not a great example. So maybe that's a, you know,

maybe we talk about a different example. But, you know, the point is there is a desire to find patterns, right? To say, well, he hurt his wrist. He came back much quicker than we expected and he has been bad since then.

Ergo, that is why Pete Alonza has been bad. And we can't prove that that's the case, but it's a pretty compelling argument, I think. And so, yeah, I can't say with a ton of certainty that I think Pete Alonzo is going to turn it around. I think it's, I think it's likelier than not, but not a certainty. So, yeah, I think there's room to trade him. And yeah, like, I think you mentioned the possibility that he might get shut down. I think that's a concern, too.

You know, if the, the Mets are kind of starting to put it together. They've got three wins in a row or just two? They've got a couple. They've got three wins in a row. Three wins in a row. That is a, to quote Major League two, it's a winning streak. It has happened before. And so, you know, all of a sudden they win like six more games in a row.

They're right in it. They're probably ahead of the Marlins by that point. And so then it complicates things. But yeah, I think there's a case to be made. I can't say for sure I would sell Pete Alonzo, but it's an aggressive move that potentially has a lot of upside. The Babbitt, by the way, just pointing out, I mean, he's been, even with this stretch,

he's been incredibly unlucky. A 180 Babbup now on the season. It's 261 for his career. It was 279 last year, and it's not like his batted ball profile has changed tremendously. The line drive rate is down a little bit this year. but before this recent stretch, he was still hitting the ball really hard.

And the expected numbers still look really good. I think a lot of that is from before this injury. Absolutely, yeah, because in June, his XBA is 223. Yeah, it's the first two months. It was 272. In July, his XBA is 143. His expected slugging is 248. It's bad.

So it's an interesting dilemma because what do you trade P. Alonzo for, right? We know that there's typically this top five group of what are supposed to be elite names, right? Freddie Freeman, Matt Olson, Paul Goldschmidt, Pitalanzo, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. I don't think that you could turn Pita Lanzo straight up into any of those players. You can certainly try. Maybe Vlad. You might be able to, and that's the one.

That's something I would try to do. But let's say you can't do that. Do you maybe try and flip Pita Lanzo for a Christian Walker and another piece? You know, Christian Walker and a top 40 star. Pitcher or something like that. So looking at the rest of the first base rank, because for me, I have Christian Walker 6th, and then I think there's a gap.

And so I looked at it and I thought, yeah, I think I'd do it for Christian Walker. Just straight up. And then I looked at it at, no, I think I'd have to get something else. Okay. Then I looked at everyone else and it's like, I don't know if I feel confident in Nate Lowe or Anthony Santander or Yandi Dia.

Like, they're all nice players, but I think Pete Alonzo's chances of figuring it out are still good enough that I'd rather bet on the upside unless the second player was a significant piece. If it was Spencer Steer plus, I don't know what the... Sandy Alcantra, you know, something like that. That was the name that I was thinking, but that seemed a little unlikely. Although I have had multiple people reach out on Twitter saying, can I drop Sandy Alcantra?

And I'm sure we'll talk about him later, but yes, you can drop him. I wouldn't. You should not, but you can. That's misleading advice, Chris. Let's just say, do not drop Sandy Alcantz. Well, no, like, unless you play in one of those leagues where you have a do not drop list,

you can drop Sandy Alcantra if you want to. You should not. You should not do that, but you can. Correct. Like, that's one of like, if you want to, If you're really that frustrated, go with God. You know, but like, that's, that's not my advice.

Last point on Pete Alonzo, before we get into Sandy Alcansara, frankly, I don't even know if you can trade Pete Alonzo straight up for Christian Walker, because if people are just looking, if you look at overall value this year, Christian Walker is the 29th overall player. Petalanzo's 55th. Now, I know you missed some time, but, I mean, that's pretty significant. I think the further you go down the first base, rankings to replace Pete Alonzo, the better the second piece has to be. So just keep that in mind

if you are trying to trade him, which I don't think it's a crazy thing to do right now. Before we get to Sandy Alconcester, let's talk about someone who actually crushed Sandy on Wednesday. And that was Nolan Gorman, who is turning it back on two for four with a sock and a shoe, his 19th home run, his fifth steel of the season. And if you look at his numbers in July, he's batting 278 with four homers, a 932 OPS. Chris, you look at his month-by-month numbers. He really just had that awful June. Nolan Gorman has had an 872 OPS or better

in three of four months total. Yeah, and he's played, I think, 12 or 13 to 16 games now in the month of July or started 13 of 16. He's entered the other ones as pinch hitters. So, you know, there is still a limitation on how valuable he can be because he doesn't play every day. But if he's going to be an 870 OPS while playing half the time against lefties, yeah, I think that that's probably a guy who's worth starting.

So it's been good to see him. That's the thing that I always want to see. You know, when we talked about like him and Jared Kelnick and Nolan Jones being another example of these guys who we once had high expectations for, they flopped hard, but then they got off to good starts is, yeah, it's okay. it's great to see that because that establishes, okay, this guy's still got it to at least some degree. But once you've made the adjustments, pitchers are going to adjust to you.

And that's what you need to see to prove it's real. Is perversely, I want to see Nolan, Gorman, Jared Kelnick, those guys, I want to see them struggle again. Because I want to see how they react to that. Because it's the adjustments that to the adjustments, it's the mental aspect. That's what I think proves that you have staying power. You can have a good month,

but it's when you've struggled and then come back from it like Nolan Gorman has. I think that's a very good thing to see. Yeah, I think that's what separates the studs from maybe just not average players, but, you know, maybe your strong side platoon players or something like that, right? It's just someone that can establish himself every day and, and obviously continue to perform.

That is Nolan Gorman, who again has turned it back on. How do we handle these early round pitchers who are still struggling? We just mentioned Sandy Alcansara with another bleh start at the Cardinals. Six innings, eight hits, four runs allowed, seven strikeouts with 17 swinging strikes on 103 pitches. Eight hard hits allowed in this one. He got crushed in the first inning. He gave up a three-run homer to Nolan Gorman, and then he settled down after that.

We're looking at five shutout innings after that. And if you followed Sandy Al-Conser this year, if you have them on your fantasy team, I'm sure you're well aware of this already, but he usually has one inning where he just kind of falls apart and everything else still looks really good. It looks like Sandy Alcansra. And this is going to sound like I'm making excuses for him,

but there could be entire seasons where pitchers are unlucky. It just happens. And he clearly is not as good as he was last year. I'm not saying that. But I think that he probably should be pitching to a mid-to-high-3s year. rather than a 4.70 ERA that San Diego Concer has so far this season.

It's very reminiscent of Jose Barrios last year. Or even Aeronova a couple of years ago, right? Everything went wrong and he could just never get back on track. Yeah, and it's, you know, I actually did think like in just following it. I thought like, man, he's just been really bad in the first inning. He actually hasn't. He's been awesome in the first inning before this start. He had allowed four runs in the first inning the whole season.

before today. And then he gave up four today. He's been good in the second inning, disastrous in the third, good in the fourth, bad in the fifth and sixth, awesome in the seventh when he gets there. So it's,

I don't know. I don't have a grand unified theory of Sandy Alcantra. Like I said, it reminds me of Jose Barrios. And the way I want to put it is, I am extremely confident that Sandy Alcounter is going to be a top 10, 15, 20 starting pitcher at some point again,

whatever number you want to put it at. If you want to be skeptical, 20. That's still much better than he's been. I'm very, very confident that's going to happen at some point. I can't tell you with any confidence that's going to happen in 20203. I like to think it is, but it's hard to, I can't make an affirmative case for it.

I think there are small things wrong. I think like that's the thing is when I look at the underlying numbers, I don't really see anything that stands out too much. I think he's probably throwing his sinker too much. It's gone from his third most used pitch to his most, but it's 25% to 29%. I don't think that's like, aha, if he just throws it four fewer times per game,

Sandy Alcantor will be fixed. His change-ups has been, has gone from one of the best pitches in baseball last season to just a pretty good pitch. you know, his extension, his release point is a little bit different, but it's not, it's not, nothing drastic. It's all just slightly off. And it's, and it's one of those things where succeeding in the majors is really tough. And if you're slightly off, you can, the sum can be greater than the parts in terms of where things are going wrong. And I think that's what we're seeing with Sandy Alcantra. I don't want to say it's bad luck.

You know, like you said, it's probably. that he should be pitching more like a mid to high 3 ZRA guy. And last year he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball. So he's pitching worse. But yeah, I think it's also just one of those years. And I don't know. I guess what I can say right now is I'm looking forward to Sandy Alcantra being on my teams next year because he will come at a great discount.

Just to be clear, I did use the term bad luck when talking about Sandy Alcantara. So look, some of it is deserved. He's given up more hard contact this year, but something that's interesting is he's getting more whiffs. He has a higher swinging strike rate this year than he did last year when he was the Cy Young. It's just maybe it's sequencing, just very minute detail, something that's off. He has talked about the pitch clock,

maybe affecting him this year as well. So maybe that's something that he has to kind of train more for. He's clearly not in bad shape, but maybe it's like a mental thing with the pitch clock being there that kind of, you know, just throws him off. Maybe it's something he needs to train with more next off season, and that will get him back on track for next year. But again, we really can't say for certain that he will get back on track this season. That is Sandy Alcansara at Tampa Bay next week, Chris. Are you starting him there? Probably. Yeah. They have struggled recently. Last 30 days,

Tampa Bay is 24th in weighted on base average. Julio Arias also got crushed. He was at the Orioles on Wednesday. Five innings, eight runs allowed. Only had four. Swinging Strikes on 93 pitches. Fastball was down between 1 and 1.5 miles per hour on all of his pitches in this one. And his previous two starts were very good before this one. But we look at it, the grand, you know, at a macro view, 502 ERA, obviously not going to get it done for a pitcher. You probably took in the, you know, third or fourth round this past season. Some things that I noticed that are different this year, the swinging strike rate is down slightly.

he's giving up more barrels and more home runs. I mean, that's been the biggest thing. He's always been a fly ball pitcher, but now for some reason, those are flying out at a much higher rate than they have in years past. Yeah, I think when you look at him, that's the thing that stands out is, one, I think the Dodgers defense isn't as good

as it has been in years past. And that's, you know, that's not unexpected. You know, given the changes that they made, the fact that, look, Mookie Betz has been unbelievably good at the middle infield. But the fact that they've been forced to play their right fielder at both middle infield spots for significant time this year when he hasn't played them in a dozen years,

that kind of tells you the whole story about how the Dodgers infield defense has gone this season. And just the bad luck that they've had with injuries and even Miguel Rojas, who they brought in, who was supposed to be a stabilizing force defensively, has been injured and has struggled. So I think there's some of that. And then I think the underlying numbers suggest that he just hasn't been as good at limiting hard contact, which is something that Julio Reyes has always been exemplary at. I mean, that's the one thing with him is relative to the other aces, his strikeout rates have never been great.

You know, 26% in 2021. That's very good. 24% the last two seasons. It's good, but it's within a couple of points of average. where he has stood out has been 334 expected Wobah on contact for his career. Lee average is 368. This season is up to 379. So there has been some regression there.

But again, it's not like you can point to, well, his fastball is just, he's lost, you know, his fastball velocity is way down. It's down 0.2 miles per hour. It was down about a mile per hour in this one. So maybe he's not healthy from that hamstring injury also. You know, maybe he's just not 100%. but it's another situation where there's not an obvious explanation for why he's struggling. And I don't know.

The interesting thing when you look at the profile, he's introduced this cutter this year. And it's been an awesome pitch for him. He's only throwing it about 10% of the time. But 29% whiff rate, 154 expected Wobon contact. It's been far and away the best pitch for Hullioreas this season. He only threw it 10% of the time in this one, got two batted balls with an average exit velocity of 74 miles per hour.

Maybe he needs to throw more of the cutter and fewer of the four-seem fastballs. You know, that's something to consider. But again, when we're talking multiple years of success at the level that Sandy Alcantra and Julio Reyes have, I'm still going to believe they're going to figure it out. That's, I might be wrong, but I'm going to be consistent, you know. Are you starting

Julio Rias next week at home against the Toronto Blue Jays? Yeah, I will. For what it's worth, the Blue Jays have struggled against Lefties this season there, 20th in Wobah against Lefties. I did want to quickly pull up his splits

to see how he does, home and road. Wow, he has been much better at home this season. 215 ERA at home, 788 ERA on the road. All right, let's start Julio Rias next week at home. Let's quickly run through the news and notes before we get to our final break. And Aaron Judge ran the bases Wednesday for the first time since suffering that injury to his

right big toe. And there has been chatter that he could be activated as soon as next week. Seems a little soon, a little aggressive, just based on him not really doing much. But we'll see. It sounds like good news overall for Aaron Judge. Framber Valdez has been cleared to start Friday in Oakland. He left his previous start with a cramp in his left calf. Kevin Gosman threw a bullpen session Wednesday and is on track to make a start this weekend in Seattle. Max Fried is slated to pitch five innings in his next rehab start Thursday and could rejoin the Braves next week. Cedric Mullins was placed on the aisle with a right adductor strain and obviously it's unfortunate news for a player that's been very valuable when healthy this season,

but it looks like that will help guys like Aaron Hicks and Colton Couser remain in the lineup consistently. At the same injury he went on the aisle with earlier in the season? I think it was a groin. He recently was dealing with like a quad, but then I think they did some imaging and it turned out it's still kind of the groin injury. Okay. Yeah. Because that that's a little concerning that it seems to still be, uh, bothering him.

Yeah, it was a straight, right groin the same. Yep. That's one of those injuries that like some teams call it a groin. Some teams call it a ductor, but they're in the same area. So yeah, they definitely definitely could be related. Adelis Garcia was removed after getting hit by a pitch on his forearm. X-rays came back negative, thankfully. Raphael Devers was back in the lineup after missing two straight with tightness in his right calf.

Chris Sale will throw another bullpen session this weekend and is tracking toward a return in early August. John Gray was removed from his start after getting hit on the leg by a comebacker. X-rays came back negative for him. Chris Bryant left early after getting hit by a pitch on his forearm. X-rays also came. back negative. Trevor Story will begin a rehab assignment Friday at AA, and he is 59% rostered if you're looking for a second basement to stash. Chris, do you have any enthusiasm for Trevor Story? Looking at my rankings, when he's healthy, I think I would probably slot him in

probably around 24 at second base, which is pretty low, but that's, you know, Andres Jimenez, Nolan Gorman have been in that range. Brandon Drury is there right now because he's not healthy. So it's not, I'm not super excited, but it's, you know, I think he's worth rostering. Ryan Helsley threw a bullpen session Tuesday and has been out since mid June due to a forearm strain. No guarantee he gets the closers roll back upon return unless, of course, the Cardinals trade Jordan Hicks, which is a possibility. Salvador Perez returned to the Royals lineup after missing the past few days

with a left hamstring strain. Stali Marte has missed two straight with migraines and will undergo tests with a specialist. Nestor Cortez will begin a rehab assignment Sunday. He's been out since late May with a strained rotator cuff. Kyle Wright is not expected to be an option

for the Braves until early September. He's been out the past few months with a right shoulder strain. Angels manager Phil Nevin said Logan Ohopi is trending toward a return before the end of the season. Ohopi had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder back in April. Ryan Noda was placed in the aisle with a fractured jaw he suffered pregame during fielding practice.

That's just, what's going on during fielding practice, guys? Brutal injury, man. Yeah. There's the. Rowdy to Les. Rowdy to Les. Yeah. Let's be careful, guys.

He had his what, his fingernail ripped off. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gross. Brandon Crawford was placed in the aisle with left knee inflammation. Retroactive to July 17th, Dustin May is expected to be sidelined 12 months after undergoing Wright Flexor Tendon and UCL reconstruction surgery this week. Was that Tommy John or did he have the internal brace procedure? Did you see?

I didn't see any details. I grabbed these notes from the website and they didn't specify if it was Tommy John or not. Okay. If you find anything, let me know. The A's traded Shintaro Fujinani to the Orioles in exchange for a minor league pitcher Easton Lucas and some prospect updates. The Phillies announced Andrew Painter has been recommended for Tommy John surgery. The 20 year old pitching prospect suffered a partially torn UCL in his right elbow back in early March. And it always kind of felt like this would be the likely course of action for Andrew Painter. And frankly, I'm a I'm pretty surprised they waited this long. I know it's a 20 year old prospect.

and if you can avoid surgery, that's best. But normally when you see the partially torn UCL, I mean, this early in a career, it just kind of makes sense to go down that route. The Mariners promoted pitching prospect pre-lander Baroa from AA, 23-year-old with lots of strikeouts in the minors, a 293 ERA.

I think he's most likely to pitch out of the bullpen for them. 13.5K per 9, 6 walks per 9 for pre-lander Baroa. So don't know that there's much fantasy value, but he's a lot of, name that has some prospect pedigree. Chris, did you find anything on Dustin May? No, I don't know. I saw the same thing that, you know, UCL reconstruction, but I haven't seen any specifics. So I don't know if that was just like a miscommunication or or what. Because there was I was reading about it yesterday. You haven't, there aren't a ton of pitchers who've done the

internal brace procedure, which is, we don't have to get into the specifics, but it's different than Tommy John surgery and has a shorter timetable. And I, I think Jake Ader or one of the Marlins pitching prospects had the internal brace procedure. So I was interested in seeing how that goes. But I think from what I understand, it's the flexor tendon repair for Dustin May. But that's still, you know, that's what Terrick Scoobel had last year. And it sounds like this might be even more serious. Yep.

Let's take our final break. And when we return, I have a bunch of waiver wire hitters. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back. and let's talk about some waiver wire hitters. I've got four outfielders that could be out there in very shallow leagues. We're talking 10 teamers, 12-team points leagues.

These names could be out there. Riley Green went 3-4-with-a-run scored, and on the season now has the batting average up to 300. The expected numbers look very good for Riley-Green. Leoti Tavaris, 2-4, with a sock and a shoe. Just keeps getting it done.

He's batting 288 with 11 home runs, 10 steals, and an 802 OPS. Brian Dela Cruz went two for four with his 12th home run. Still hitting the ball hard this year. Power a little bit down, I think, compared to what we were expecting. He's, you know, ground balls have been a little bit of an issue for Brian Dela Cruz. And Taylor Ward went two for four with his 11th home run. And he has turned it on here in July.

Chris, how would you rank this group, Riley Green, Lioti Tavaris, Brian Dela Cruz, and Taylor Ward? I think I rank it the way you have that ordered. Riley Green, Laudea Tavares, Brian Dela Cruz, Taylor Ward. I think Ward and Dela Cruz, I think you could pretty easily flip, and I wouldn't complain too much about it because I think Dela Cruz probably is what he is. And that's, you know, he might get to 20 home runs at the end of the season. He might drive in 80 something runs, but I don't think it's going to be production that you'll miss if you want to take a flyer on Taylor Ward,

who the results have been better. The underlying numbers don't necessarily back that up entirely. But that's also because he was underperforming before this. You know, in June, he had a 355 expected Wobah. His average X velocity was 92 miles per hour. His actual Wobba is 318. So we might just be seeing a little bit of regression for Ward. I don't think he's going to be as good as he was last season, certainly.

But, you know, seems like a viable outfielder right now. Two young, exciting middle infielder's, Edwar Julian. Stop me if you heard this before. I might have been wrong about this player because he is on fire. Two for two with two walks and his ninth home run on Wednesday over his last 10 games.

He has 17 hits, four homers and a stolen base. The strikeouts are way down during that time. 91.5 average exit velocity. He is crushing the ball. There are still limitations, though, here, Chris. I don't know that he's going to play against left. of pitching. It might not matter though. If he's hitting the ball this well against righties, you know, he might just, he might just be really good whenever he plays.

Edward Julian, 23% rostered. It feels like that number should be higher. Yeah, I think what it comes down to is like when you're talking about the spot Nolan Gorman got to towards the end of April where he was universally rostered. And it wasn't a question of, hey, do you think Nolan Gorman can be useful for fantasy? It was, should you trade Nolan Gorman for X player that was a top 150 player that we drafted. That's when, yeah, but he's probably not going to play every day. That becomes an issue. When you're talking about Edward Julian being 26% rostered, that's like, should I add

this guy in a 12th team head or roto league? Yeah, you should because that's a useful player when they have six games against Ritees or, you know, next week, I think they've got seven games, five against Ritees. Is that right? I have six games written. down at least two lefties. So that's a little, that's where it gets a little ifier, right?

That, that's one where it's like, you know, if you've got Jeremy Pena or him, who do you play at the middle infield? I think you lean towards Jeremy Pena getting the couple extra games. But that's not to say you shouldn't add Edward Gillian. He's 23% rostered in CBS Fantasy leagues. That's,

I think in harder to justify in points leagues, but anything that's not a points league, I think Edward Gillian's worth that. Yeah. And I just feel like I didn't give them enough credit. I kind of sold them short the other day. I mean, this is a prospect that many people were excited about coming into the season. He had a big spring, perform well in the WBC, huge season in the minors last year,

kind of established himself as not a top top prospect, but like a top 50, top 100 prospect coming into the season, just based on what he did last year. He performed well in the Arizona Fall League. I saw him out there. He was, you know, great plate discipline, crushing the ball to all. Fields too. I think that's an interesting approach thing there for Edward Julian as well. The other day, Chris, I said I would take Oswald Parraza over Julian and that was the game where Paraza went, you know, he had a hit, he had four

walks, he had a stolen base. He has been leading off. What do you think about Paraza versus Julian? I think I would take Julian. I think he's shown the high level skills at the Major League level that Parasa has. So I'm fine with that. Yeah, I think that's right. I probably jumped the gun a little bit the other day. The other name here is CJ Abrams who went two for four with his 18th stolen base and in the month of July 14 games he's hitting 364 with one homer nine steals and a nine 62 OPS he is much more rostered so I don't think it's a conversation of Julian versus Abrams it's okay we're getting to the point where do we add Abrams in the shallowest of leagues like you know 12 team points leagues or

you know 12 team had dead category leagues anything like that your thoughts on Abrams yeah I don't know how well suited the profile is to a points league. Yeah. You know, the plate discipline I think is probably going to still be pretty bad. He makes a decent amount of contact, but not elite. He doesn't walk.

And you see it, even in the month of July, like 364 batting average. Like, that's going to play in any format. He's not going to hit 364. You know, if he hits 264 the rest of the way,

I think you'd be pretty happy with it, if he can give you a bunch of stolen bases. And that's the thing that I'm looking at is the nine steals, the move to the top of the lineup. the counting stats that come with that, I think you feel pretty good about that. But I think it's going to be pretty hard for CJIbrams to matter much in a points league.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Two young corner infielders that have turned it on recently as well, Alex Kirillov went one for five with his seventh homer, and he is now homered in three of his last four games, and all of a sudden he's up to a 285 batting average, 833 OPS, and Brett Beatty went one for three with his seventh home run, back-to-back games with a home run for him. We know the deal with Beatty.

He hits the ball hard. A lot of it is into the ground, which has kind of suppressed that power potential so far to this season. Let's say, you know, corner infielder types here, Chris, Alex Kerloff or Brett Beatty? Who do you like more?

I would go with Beatty. We've just, I don't know. I want to believe that Alex Keroloff can still be able to become something. And it's tough because we actually haven't seen all that much of him. At the major league level, we're talking to 610 plate appearances,

and he's mostly been fine. You know, 743 OPS overall. Better this season, but quality of contact metrics are still pretty mediocre. 35th percentile average exit velocity, 33rd percentile max exit Velo. So I think I'd give Beatty the edge just because he is younger and a little less proven,

and I think there's an element of mystery to him that I'd want to bet on. corner infielers that Scott and I were pretty excited about last night were Joey Votto and Torkelson. Would you take Bady over either of those names? I think I'd probably take Votto and Torkelson over Bady, but it's close enough, especially with Votto, just because the track record the past few seasons has been very up and down. Coming back from the injury, we don't know how he's going to hold up. But I did tweet the the gif of the bride from Kill Bill coming out of the grave during Kill Bill too.

Have you seen Kill Bill, Frank? You haven't seen like any movies. No, this won't surprise you. I haven't seen Kill Bill. But I was in a bar maybe a month ago and they were playing Kill Bill. And I loved it. I was like, I got to go home and watches. Both parts are terrific.

The first one's better, but they're both very, very good. And yeah, I'm enjoying zombie Joey Votto. I'm enjoying his like third different career. Renaissance quite a bit because he's one of my favorite players ever. Let's talk about Chas McCormick because apparently the chat has been clamoring for us to talk. The streets are ablaze with Chas McCormick. McCormick talk. He went two for four with his 12th home run and there's no denying.

He has performed well. The surface level numbers are very good. 285 batting average, 12 home runs, nine steals, a 904 OPS. Plate discipline, I think leads a little bit to be desired. 26% strikeout rate. that is a little bit high. The quality of contact, and maybe I'm just making too much about this, but it's just not good.

87.7 average exit velocity. The expected numbers are not great. Maybe he could take advantage of playing in Houston, and he's got that short porch in left field, and maybe that's just how he kind of overcomes this. We've seen other players in Houston do that before. Chris, do you think Chas McCormick needs to be much higher than 28% rostered? Yeah, the funny thing is,

if you actually look at a spray chart, He's got two Crawford box home runs. He's actually got the majority of his home runs have been hit to the opposite field. No, I don't think you're making too much of it because it's not just about the stat cast numbers. We're also talking about a 28-year-old who received fairly significant time the previous two seasons and was fine. You know, a 766 OPS in 2021, a 739 in 2022. That's not to say that players can improve. Players improve all the time.

But given that the underlying metrics do not. back up what he's doing currently. I think it's fair to assume that Chas McCormick will probably regress to the player he has been in the past, which is a player that we didn't really have all that much interest in for fantasy. So it's a nice run. I'm not going to dismiss it entirely. The skill set has some use. You know, the 12 homers and nine steals like that'll play. But yeah, I don't think it's it's an overly exciting skill set. I would like to take this time to apologize to Justin Verlander for not getting to him earlier in this show because he had his best start of the season. So just some leftovers here, some strong veteran pitching performances.

Justin Verlander went eight innings of one run ball, seven strikeouts with 17 swinging strikes up against the White Sox. And his velocity was actually down a little bit in this start. 93.7 miles per hour was the average on the fastball. That was his lowest in a single start this season. But it didn't matter because this was his best start of the year. You Darvish, a strong start at the Blue Jays, six shutout innings with seven strikeouts for him. Jose Barrios on the other side also pitched well, six innings, two runs, nine strikeouts there.

His velocity has been up four starts in a row now, like considerably, up one mile per hour on all of his pitches, so that's kind of interesting. And then Eduardo Rodriguez, strong start at the Royals, seven innings, two runs, seven strikeouts for him. Chris anything on Erod, Berrios, Darvish, and Verlander. you are muted sir the weird thing about it's funny I did a on the FFT draftathon

oh I watched Tiny URL.com slash FFT donate if you want you have an opportunity to buy Zoom calls with all of the FFT team Frank will be on there at some point I don't think he is right now

but I did one today and I pulled the old having the mute button on while talking to someone So that was fun. I didn't think that's what you were going to say, by the way, because I was watching an FFT from, I think, yesterday that you were on. And you did the thing where you...

Oh, it's a classic movie. And now I forgot what we were talking about. Justin Verlander. Okay, the thing with Justin Verlander is the one thing he has been consistently good at all season, has been the quality of contact suppression. That has been, obviously, he's one of the best pitchers of all time. So he's good at lots of things. But that's one of the things he's always been good at.

last season, his expected woe bond contact was 326. This season has been 331. The issue has been that Justin Verlender just hasn't been getting strikeouts. The walk rate's been higher as well, but the drop from 33% in 2020, 28% or sorry, 35% in 2019, 20, he barely pitched, 28% last year, then 20% this year. That was the alarming thing, just the strikeouts disappearing. Well, 17 swinging strikes in this one, I believe. seven strikeouts and eight innings.

That's not great, but it's not terrible. But the whiffs, you know, the 17 whiffs on 100 pitches, that's what we want to see. That's what's going to lead to strikeouts moving forward.

I've been looking at Justin Verlander as a buy for a while because the floor is going to be pretty high. Because of that, the quality of contact, I feel like the mid-3 ZRA, I feel good about that. And there's a chance that he figures the strikeouts out and takes off. Let's wrap up with the call.

the bullpen, some updates here for the Pirates. David Bednar picked up his 18th save for the Orioles. Felix Bautista picked up his 26th. For the Cardinals, Jordan Hicks was unavailable. Chris Dratton picked up his first save of the season. For the A's, Trevor May struck out one for his eighth save. That is back-to-back games with a save for him. 11% rostered. You know, lower end closer, saves option. Could get traded. Who knows? We'll see what Trevor May. For the Brewers, Devin Williams allowed two hits. but picked up his 24th save. For the Reds, Alexis Diaz, struck out two for his 27th.

For the Diamondbacks, what will they do on Wednesday? Kevin Ginkle, he's in there again. He entered in the ninth with a three-run lead. He gave up one run but picked up his second save, and that is saves on back-to-back days. For Kevin Ginkle, a name that you could add in NL-only, deeper leagues if you need saves. I'm sure he's out there.

For the Padres, Josh Hader struck out two for his 23rd. for the Tigers, Alex Lang, allowed two base runners but picked up his 16th save. And for the twins, Yuan Duran struck out two for his 16th save of the year. To stream or not to stream on Thursday. Yesterday, I think we said J.P. France at Oakland and Michael Lorenzen at the Royals.

Yeah, Lorenzen for sure. I don't love France, but I think that's fine. On Friday, thanks. Seth Lugo at the time. Tigers looks pretty good. Yeah, I think that one's okay. Clark Schmidt against the Royals, I think that's a very good one.

I don't think we trust Alec Marsh, but if what he showed in his last start was at all real, the Yankees are a good matchup right now. We saw it today. We saw it the entire series against the Angels. Basically, ever since Aaron Judge has been out, they've been really bad.

They made Patrick Sandoval look good yesterday. 17 swinging strikes for Patrick Sandeval. Who pitched the other, oh, it was Griffin Canning. He had 12 strikeouts. Yeah, so. Yeah, it's, it's not crazy. If you're gonna roll the dice on Alec Marsh, like if you added him, and the Yankees are, I'm not gonna say they're about as good as it gets right now in terms of matchups, but they're not a matchup to avoid.

Gosh, how many runs are gonna be scored in that series? Yankees and Royals. Gosh. Doesn't seem great. And then. I don't really like anyone else. Yon Oviedo's had a couple of boom starts, but for the most part, he's been pretty mediocre. So I don't really have much faith in that one.

Yeah, I think the three are Lugo, Seth Lugo at the Tigers, Clark Schmidt versus the Royals, Alec Marsh at the Yankees. I like Reese Olson, but up against the Padres, I don't really love it. We're going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating.

on Apple or Spotify. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.