Fantasy Baseball Today - Big Names Returning & Pitchers Breaking Out (7/4 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

Charlie Morton, Cristian Javier and Spencer Strider were dominant again. How high are they moving in the rankings? (2:00) ... Mookie Betts is back. So was Ronald Acuña, and Max Scherzer will be back this week too (8:10) ... Is it time to drop Tarik Skubal and Mackenzie Gore? (28:30) ... Injuries, News, and Notes, with Frankie Montas leaving with a shoulder injury (44:00). Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get 20% off Fantasy Baseball Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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. With fantasy! Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hello, everyone. Welcome again to Fantasy Baseball Today.

I'm Scott White, joined by the aforementioned Chris Towers, whose birthday it is today. And, you know, it's a big weekend for everybody, a big weekend with the holiday and all. But it's the biggest weekend of all for the guy who isn't here. Our host, our host, Frank Stamphill. He entered into that strange and wonderful covenant known as marriage this weekend. And we're all very happy for him. Marriage is actually one of the things I enjoy talking about most.

Like I could do a whole podcast on marriage, probably. Chris, something that people may not know about you is you got married, like really young, right? Oh, I've been married forever. I've basically been married my whole life at this point. How old were you? I was 21, so it's coming up on 13. I think this year will be 13 years of marriage, which is wild. My marriage is an eighth grade. The 21 number, I mean, I'm sure it surprises a lot of people. I mean, like, that's kind of how I thought my life would go.

Like, oh, I'll meet somebody. If not in high school, then in college, get married right afterward. No, it didn't exactly go that way. I had to wait all the way until 26, which I'm sure sure sounds really young to some people. But anyway, finally happened. Let's get into the baseball here. Big weekend. We didn't talk about it beforehand, Chris, but oh, my goodness gracious.

You got somebody you want to highlight this weekend? Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to go with, and we've been riding this roller coaster all year, I'm going to go with Charlie Morton, who had one of his best starts of the season, I think arguably, you could say his best start of the season, seven shutout innings. Sorry, seven, wait, what am I? Yeah, yeah, he had seven innings. Seven strikeouts against Cincinnati. Sorry, I was, I pulled up his game log and it didn't show up. he was exceptional really really good he's been really good for really his past four starts now 9 11 5 and 10 strikeouts and even if you go back to the start of june 812 9 11 and 5 he had allowed 8 runs in the first two starts of june combined but overall charley morton has pretty much looked like himself and that's what we expected to happen right this was the the expectation was

amid all of his struggles for the first couple of months of the season, we thought Charlie Morton was going to figure it out. And I feel pretty confident in saying that he has. Yeah, double-digit strikeouts and three of five. The whiffs were down in his previous start. So it was nice to see him get right back on the horse with maybe his most dominant start on year. I mean, he was threatening to throw a no-hitter deep into that game. Unfortunately, the bullpen blew it for him.

So I didn't end up with a win. But yeah, I would say Charlie Morton, we're back to thinking of him as a must start, right? Yeah, I mean, I joked, I think right around the beginning of June that I moved Charlie Morton out of my top 40 finally. So congratulations on this run he's about to go on. And lo and behold, I think it like coincided exactly with that nine strikeout game too. So the timing was really, really stupendous there. And yeah, I'm viewing Charlie Morton as a top third. starting pitcher rest of season, I think, at least.

I'm not sure exactly where, but I think, you know, once we've seen him pitch like we thought he would, I mean, he was a top 20 guy for all of us coming into the season. So, yeah, I think he's right back to being a must-start guy again. All right, my, oh, my goodness, gracious player from the weekend is Christian Javier of the Astros who that was that was the uh what are we referring to it as the the the all right stick left over bread stick the left over breadstick yes I will take it because you know we we said Charlie Morton had seven one hit innings well so did

Christian Javier on Friday with 14 strikeouts in his previous start he allowed no hits and struck out 13 so that's about as good of a two start stretch as any pitcher has ever had. And, you know, if there was any doubt about Christian Javier keeping the rotation spot once Jake Oterizzi was ready to go, it's completely removed now. And in fact, the Astros actually addressed it over the weekend what their plans are for Odirzi. And they didn't say he's going to the bullpen, but they're saying they're going to use them as a sixth starter, at least to start out. So, you know, you don't have to worry about Javier getting bumped or Luis Garcia getting bumped or, you know, even...

Oh, that, Kiti. Yeah, even lately. Or Kiti's really taken off. So, yeah, everybody appears safe for now in Javier. I think, you know, it looks to me like he's emerging as, you know, a must-start guy himself. Like, he's really taken a step forward here. And it seems like he's just pounding with that fastball lately, which was, arguably the only pitch he had in the miners, which is why he didn't gain much prospect

traction, even though he was putting up ridiculous numbers down there. It's just a, it's just a great, great fastball. And he's using it to maximum effect right now. Yeah, he's been, I mean, you don't really, it's kind of one of those situations where there's not really much to say he's been so absurdly dominant. The thing is, it's not, I mean, he's very fastball heavy, 62% fastball. usage at this point is among the heavier fastball usage guys in baseball among starters, but he's also got that slider that he throws about 27% of the time. He's got a 38% whiff rate with it, and he's getting really good results on balls and play with it.

So yeah, he does a really good job of keeping the fastball up. He doesn't have like huge velocity. He averages 93.7, but it's a high spin rate pitch. He keeps it up in the zone. He gets a lot of whiffs. He gets a lot of weak contact with it. and he generates a decent amount of pop-ups with it. So, you know, if you're wondering how Christian Javier does it,

that goes a long way to explaining it. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with what he's doing right now. The fact that his role seems pretty locked in. I think he's a, I mean, a top 50 starting pitcher for sure. Now, we've gotten bit, you know, easily. burned a few times this season by Eric Lauer. Elevating guys too quickly.

I mean, I think it's different in Christian Javier's case because, I mean, we've seen him be nothing but impressive as a starter. Dominant might be going a little far because he's had consistency issues and walk issues. But, you know, if they ever stuck with him in the rotation, I felt really good about his chances. and he's going beyond those expectations. All right, it was a big weekend. I've got Terks Goebel. Oh, go ahead. It was a big weekend for returning players,

so we'll get into that now. Mookiee Betts was back in the lineup for the Dodgers on Sunday, and, you know, he only missed two and a half weeks with a cracked ribs. Seemed like a hurried return for him. But he went two for three with two doubles, two walks, sent his first game back, looked great. He was playing right field. It's normal positions, so they weren't they weren't babying him as far as that goes.

And that makes me feel really confident about getting him back in my lineup. Aaron Ashby returned on Saturday from that strained forearm that nobody seemed particularly worried about. And it didn't go so well. He was facing the pirates. He allowed four runs in three and two thirds. innings, four earned runs in three and two-thirds innings. Did strike out six, but also allowed two home runs. He had eight swinging

strikes on 62 pitches. It was a pretty good raid. Velocity was fine. But he did get hit hard, 92.4 mile per hour average exit velocity. Again, to the pirates, a team you would normally expect him to carve up, and the team he's facing this upcoming week for

a second straight start. How do you feel about using Aaron Ashby for that start? I think he's fine, but probably, I don't know, more like a top 60-ish pitcher than someone who's a must-start. So, yeah, I think, you know, the RP eligibility certainly helps in your points leagues, but there are a few, like, two-starred RPs who might be ahead of him. But for the most part, I think he's fine, but definitely not a must-start. Yeah, so I had to keep him in my top 10 sleeper pitchers for this upcoming week just because there aren't that many to get excited about.

But, you know, this kind of puts that list in perspective. I think I'd avoid Ashby, if I could, coming off this starts, because, you know, I do think the profile itself is dominant. Elite ground ball rate, elite swing and miss rate. And maybe he was just rusty, or maybe that forearm injury is first than anybody. is worse than anybody's letting on, and he's going to continue to struggle with that. So I just, I need more assurances from Aaron Ashby

before I start him again, at least in an optimal world. Drew Rasmussen also came off the aisle this weekend. He had a pretty good start at Toronto. He only went four and two thirds innings, one run allowed, two strikeouts. There was a time when we were pretty excited about him,

but are we viewing him as more of a fringy guy now? I added him to the sleeper pitchers list for this week, had to take a couple others out, but not not with a lot of gusto. Yeah, I think he's pretty fringy. And I think part of it is one, it's the raise. So you never know how much of like the 68 pitches that he threw in this start were just the result of it being his first start or whether they're going to, you know, limit his usage moving forward. I think both are possible explanations. He was fine in this start.

nine swinging strikes, 25% CSW, I think that's okay, but, you know, there's definitely a capped ceiling to how useful Drew Rasmussen can be, unless he's just really, really good. You know, you can still be really, really good for fantasy if you are throwing 85 to 90 pitches every start, but you have to, the bar is higher for that kind of profile. And I think Rasmussen's more like just a good pitcher and not a difference maker necessarily. Aaron Duran of the Red Sox was back Friday. Remember he missed that series in Toronto because of his vaccination status. First game back Friday, two for five hit his first home run since coming up from the minors this year.

And got another two hits on Saturday batting 333 overall, four stolen bases already. continues to hit leadoff for the Red Sox. And I'm finding it pretty hard to, you know, forget it at or whether we should add him or not. He's only about 50% rostered. But I'm finding it pretty difficult to sit him in those five outfielder rotissory leagues, knowing potential as a leadoff hitter and for stolen bases. Yeah, I'm viewing him as pretty much a must-start guy in a five-outfielder league. So, you know, I mean, what that means is in a.

Qual of Team League. That's probably at least the top 50 outfielder, maybe top 45. But yeah, I don't know how much of an impact power hitter he's going to be, but I think the speed is going to be legitimate. I think he's got enough pop that Jaron Duran is certainly someone I want in my lineup in a five outfielder league. All right. He's not back yet, but he's coming back Tuesday.

Max Scherzer set to go against the Reds. for 90 pitches and six innings, and it just so happens. He lines up for two starts in his first week back. So, you know, I don't know that anybody is high-end as Scher. We'd be wanting to give that one-start buffer back from the injury to just make sure everything looks solid. I mean, he's Max Scherzer, so probably just throw him in there. But especially, given that there's another start on the docket.

Nicodolo might be a different case. He's, you know, he had a long-term average. absence for a back injury. He's also expected at Tuesday, which would also line him up for two starts. That return had been delayed a few times already, and he's obviously not Max Scherzer. So where do you stand on Nicolodolo? Yeah, so with Scherzer, I was just trying to look up his minor league rehab assignment. Like, he allowed four run runs in eight innings, but he struck out 14.

So I think you feel pretty confident in him. and I like the idea of like Max Scherzer being 88 at 87 pitches with five and a third innings finished and the manager trying to go take him out of the game I'd like to see how that's going to go for the manager so I'm going to say Max Scherzer 90 innings seems like a pretty good bet or 90 pitches yeah Lodolo I really I think he's interesting but he's not so much of a difference maker at least yet that that I'm willing to throw. The potential remains intriguing.

He's someone that I want, you know, I think in, in like your 12-team or deeper roto leagues, I think he's worth having on your roster. But like, he wasn't pitching so well before the injury that I'm willing to just throw him out there, maybe in a two-star week as a head-to-head points league. He might be, but I think I would probably give him a start. before but to see how he looks he did have 18 strikeouts in 12 and two thirds in his uh minor league rehab

assignment which is a good sign i just i think the biggest thing is i wonder how the you know whether the fastball is good enough yet um you know he actually does remind me a decent amount of redetmers in a lot of ways really good curveball the fastball command not so much there yet so um definitely someone i want to see before i throw my my line yeah and he had 19 strikeouts over before 14, two-thirds innings and when he was up earlier this year. It's just, you know, we haven't seen enough from Nick Lodolo and certainly not coming off this injury. I was happy to pick him up and I think he was available in one of my 15 team leagues and I

put in a claim for him. But I think most people listening can probably sit back and see how Nick Lodolo's return goes. Jacob de Grom made a return. And at the minor league levels, it was Class A. but he looked like Jacob de Grom. He struck out, what was it?

Five of the, six of the seven batters he faced. Five of the six batters he faced. Five of the six batters he faced. Seven pitches recorded him 100 miles per hour higher for Jacob de Grom. So that's exciting. And gives me some hope he'll be back sooner than later. I almost would prefer him not throwing 100 miles per hour.

Because we certainly know he's capable of... As we saw in spring, it's not, it's not so much the is Jacob de Grom currently healthy. That's not the biggest question for me. It's what are the chances of him staying healthy? And as we saw in the spring, it's not him currently being healthy. And I feel like he probably is. He was starting 100 miles an hour today. First pitch he threw was 100 plus miles an hour.

You know, it's a question of how likely is he to stay healthy moving forward. And that remains a big question. But obviously at this point, you don't have to make the choice of whether to draft him in the first round. So it's much less of an urgent, pressing question. It's just when he's out there, I think he's going to be dominant. Yep. All right. We also got Ronald de Cunia back after missing a few games with a foot injury.

He went two for three with a double in his return Friday and then stole two bases on Sunday. So I would venture to say he's absolutely fine. Amazing starts from amazing pitchers. We've already talked about Christian Javier and Charlie Morton's starts. Tony Gonsolent had a great one himself Friday, one-earned run in seven and two-thirds innings against the Padres, eight strikeouts. What was most notable about this start for Gonsalind, though,

is his previous high for innings was only six and a third, and he went seven and two-thirds, as I said. I believe only half of his starts were six innings or more prior to this start. So my my the biggest thing holding me back from ranking Gonsolin like an ace or or a near ace was just that he wasn't taking on that kind of workload. Well, maybe this is the start of it. Yeah, the the one thing I would push back on there is he only threw 92 pitches. So it wasn't like there was this dramatic change in the way the Dodgers used him.

That's actually still only the that's tied for the second most pitches he's thrown in the start. He had 94 in the previous start. So I guess if you want to be optimistic, you could say there's an upward trend there, although he did have a stretch of three straight with 90 plus pitches at the end of May before not throwing 90 plus and four straight. So I think it's still the case that Tony Gonson is likely to be handled fairly carefully moving forward. And it's like what we're seeing right now is kind of like the Blake Snell,

Cy Young's season, where he was able to pitch pretty deep into games, but it was mostly because he was pitching so outrageously effectively. Tony Gonselin has gone six plus innings in, what is it, seven of his last nine starts. But like I said, during that stretch, he's thrown 90 plus pitches five out of those nine starts, including no more than 94 in a start. So I think despite the fact that he is going to deep into games right now,

you know, he's averaging six innings per start over the last nine. it's mostly because he's got a 165 ERA and a 172 Babbitt during that stretch. And like, I think Tony Gonson's really good. But I still think like once he gets a little, you know, once the luck balances out a little, and I don't, I'm not saying it's all luck because like I said, I think he's really good. But I think he's probably going to be someone who is more like six innings than seven

innings, most times out. Yeah, which is not, you know, not terribly uncommon. But I could see, I have them at my last rankings update, I have Tony Gonsland 25th, particularly given the injury we saw from Frankie Montas on Sunday. We'll get into that in a bit. I could see getting Gonslyn into my top 20, like rounding out the top 20 rest of season. Yeah, I think that's reasonable. Yeah.

But, you know, like I look at the guys, I'm moving them up. right now and I look at the guys ahead of him and like you Darvish I think that one's fine Tony Gonson ahead of him but like Charlie Morton that's an interesting question Charlie Morton versus Tony Gonselin because if we mostly think Charlie Morton's back to being the guy he was preseason I don't have the innings concerns about him that I do not the inning's concerns but the the depth concern that I have about him and I think in terms of which one's a better pitcher I think it's really close you know Morton probably a better strikeout guy at the very least so you know then i've got like lucas gilito clayton kershaw pablo

lopez louis severino like it is hard for gonslyn i think to to break through that crowd especially when you look at his peripherals and they suggest you know he's the phip is more like low to mid threes and which it's not surprising the guy with a one five four er a is outperforming his peripherals and i think he profiles as someone who probably will he has for for his entire major league career over 200 innings now. Yeah. But yeah, I think, you know, when you're talking about the razor thin margins

that exist at this level, that's a tiebreaker in his, you know, that works against him, perhaps. All right. Spencer Strider, man, a bad weekend for the Reds hitters and their strikeout totals. Because, you know, Charlie Morton had that 10 strikeout game Sunday.

The day before Spencer Strider got 11 strikeouts allowed just one hit himself over six innings. 24 swinging strikes on 93 pitches. His fastball was the best we've ever seen. It peaked at 102.4. The hardest thrown fastball by a starting pitcher this season, I believe. Wow. Perhaps ever in the stat cast there, I'm not sure, but definitely this season was what I saw. And the slider was up 1.6 miles per hour on average, too.

So I know it started out kind of bumpy. This is transition for Strider, the rotation. But now, you know, four of his last five starts have been just amazing. Amazing. A lot 211 strikeout efforts in there. A combined three and runs in the four of five that were good. And one, he gave up six runs. But, like, I mean, Spencer Strider, I think, is verging on, I don't care who he's facing.

He's in my lineup status himself. Yeah, here's an interesting one from a, you know, comparing him to a guy who had a very good start himself this week and who has, I think it's, you know, a similar four out of five stretch now of really good starts. Shane Boss versus Spencer Strider. Shane Boss is my number 36 starting pitcher. Obviously, he has more of a pedigree, more of a track record. Who do you have ranked higher between Boz and Strider? I have, let's see, as of now, I have Boz six. spots ahead of Strider, which, you know, that far down the pitching rankings were in the 35 to 40 range. I, you know, that's, that could go either way. I was, I was expecting to say Strider.

And I might after the, but yeah, they both look like, they both look like crazy efficiency guys, like in terms of, okay, the ratios are going to be awesome. But there is the threat of them, you know, potentially. coming up short in the innings both start by start and over the course of the rest of the season. Yeah, Strutter has thrown at least 92 pitches in four of his last five. The one outlier was that start against the Giants where he gave up six runs in three and two-thirds innings. And it wasn't, he didn't get pulled from that because he was at some kind of pitch limit. He just got hit hard.

So he's actually thrown 106 pitches in an outing in that stretch, plus 92. 95 93. So pretty good pitch totals from a young pitcher. All right, I'm going to rattle off three more big pitching performances from the weekends. And you can tell me what's most notable about them, if you'd like. Luis Castillo of the Reds, he went up against Charlie Morton, allowed just one run in seven innings, six strikeouts. He got 10 swinging strikes just on his four-scene fast.

I'm sorry, he got eight on just his four-scene fastball. Again, 51. thrown 51% of the time leaning on that more than his sinker, and it looks like it's a pretty good swing and miss pitch on its own. Fromber Valdez had a 13 strikeout effort against the Angels. Now, he did also walk five, but only two earned runs in six innings. That makes 13 straight quality starts now for Framber Valdez. And Robbie Ray struck out 12 against the athletics on Sunday,

one and runs one and run in six and two-thirds innings he had 27 swing strikes on 107 pitches including 11 on the fast on the slider which he threw 48% of the time more than usual for for Robbie Ray it seemed to be seemed to be a good plan against the a's on Sunday anything to point out with those three I think Castia is probably the most noteworthy there just because Ray like he's been trending up and I feel pretty good about him I think he's back I'm at top 25 now. But obviously, matchup against the A's also makes the, makes things look a little better.

The angels just were terrible this weekend. The Astros made them look ridiculous, but Frambervaldaz is just really good. I don't think he's a swing and miss pitcher all of a sudden, but we know who he is. And what he is is a very convincing Dallas Keiko impersonator at this point. He gets better strikeouts than Keiko. He's not a huge swing of this guy.

And doesn't have as good of control. So, you know, not quite the same thing, but, you know, the end result is, I think, fairly similar to Pete Keikle. But Castillo is really interesting because that's two starts in a row, I believe, where he's gone really heavy with the four-seem fastball. That's not typically the fastball that he relies on most. Yeah, he had 46% usage with that in the previous start. And that is a much better swing and miss pitch for him. I don't know necessarily if I, you know, if you want to say, it's a better pitch than his sinker, but the whiff rate on the four-seem fastball has been

really, really good trying to pull it up. So far this season, 45% with the four-seem fastball. It's actually interesting. His change-up hasn't been nearly as effective in terms of swings and misses for him this season, 27. I think he only had one of them with the change-up today, maybe two. But, yeah, the four-seem fastball was the primary swing-and-miss pitch. It's an interesting question whether, you know, he should continue doing this or whether he will.

But Luis Castillo, he got off to a bit of a bumpy start to this season. I think there was a lot of, oh, here we go again. Luis Castillo is overrated, blah, blah, blah. He's got like a 2.5 ERA since the start of June or since actually his last start in May. May 31st, he had a 10 strikeout, six shutout inning start against Boston. Seven starts since then. He's allowed 12 earned runs. He's had 48 strikeouts with, I believe,

18 walks. So I'm feeling pretty good about Luis Castillo. He's in that top 36 discussion for me. So those are some good pitching performances from this weekend. We've got to get into the bad ones now. And talk about whether it's time to move on from some pitchers that we've been excited about at one point in time. And unfortunately, the most notable of these is Tarek Scouble, who was awful again

against the Royals, no less. Five earned runs in four and two-thirds innings. Three walks versus one strikeout, out a couple homers. His velocity was down more than a mile per hour on everything, which is, you know, velocity hasn't been so much the issue with him during these struggles. But now five bad starts in a row, 90 R.A., 1.91 whip, 5.5 walks per nine and two home runs per nine. And that's, as we talked about the last time Scoobble had a bad start, that's where I see the clearest difference is that, you know, he was, his control was pristine early on.

And he probably had some good home run luck. And now both of those have turned dramatically and just everything is going horribly for him. So what did you see here, Chris? Yeah, I mean, when you look at, like, I think it's a, like, command thing with Terrick Scoble. you look at like the heat charts for his pitches. He throws a lot of sliders in the middle of the zone and the fastball. He gets a lot of those in the middle of the zone as well. And, you know, I think the velocity being down in this one probably exacerbated the issues.

But I think it's probably just true that, you know, what we saw last season was when he's not perfect, he gets hit really hard, especially with his fastball. And that was not so much an issue early on in the season. and I think it was probably a case where he was simply, you know, locating his pitches really well. Right. But since the start of June, if you count, you know, not even before this start, which was a bad start, he had a 340 expected Wobah allowed overall. Last season, that was 357. So a little better than the last season.

But, yeah, you can see he's starting to fall back on or fall back into some of the habits from last season getting hit really hard, giving up too much loud contact. And yeah, if the control's not there, you know, I don't, I don't see what makes him stand out. So it's frustrating. Well, I wonder a specific thing I can point to and say that's why. It's just he's kind of pitching worse. Yeah, I mean, I wondered with the velocity being down this start, okay, maybe there's something health-wise going on. Of course, an injury is the only reason velocity might be down. It could be something mechanical, which would also impact his control. But obviously there's, well, fortunately, I should say, when we, our last show,

Friday, we talked about scuba was a risky, but you kind of have to do it two-star pitcher. Well, he started on Sunday, so now he's not a two-star pitcher next week, and you could just sit him and be the better for it. I don't think we're at the point, though, we're, even in like a 12-team league we consider dropping scoobble, are we? I would prefer not to, but he's definitely more, like he'd been in the top 40 and moving into the top like 30-ish range. I'm probably dropping him back closer to 50 now. I did, this next pitcher, McKinsey Gore, I did give a thought in one of those 12 team

head-to-head points leagues with only 21 roster spots. I wanted to add an extra hitter, and I did give a thought to dropping McKinsey Gore. I ultimately didn't do it, but I at least thought about it. His latest start at the Dodgers on Sunday. Actually, kind of a gutty performance. He ended up only allowing one and run in five and two-thirds innings. But four walks versus three strikeouts, that gives him 15 walks versus 11 strikeouts in his past four starts.

His velocity was again down in Sunday's start 1.4 miles per hour. It's been down throughout that four-start stretch. And I just, I just think some of those problems he was having, you know, he kind of lost his mechanics in the miners last year. You saw velocity go down. You saw control get worse. And maybe it's happening again to a guy who relies on a big leg kick and some complicated mechanics. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that we've seen from McKenzie Gore so far this season is just that the, um, the secondaries aren't quite there consistently enough. like he gets decent swing and miss rates on uh you know the curve the the change up especially but he

doesn't throw it to lefties um so it's really like a specialty pitch for him and so i just think like right now he's just kind of a not a fastball only guy but the fastball is the only pitch that he seems to have a lot of confidence in and it's hard to pitch like that at the professional level at this point so i think he's still mackenzie gore still has some uh i think he's still still got some seasoning left is the the way I would put it like he's still figuring it out and there's still obviously a lot of talent if we saw the fastball I mean for the for the fact that he's so fastball heavy the results on the fastball are actually pretty good you know expected wobin low 300s whiff rate

around 20% none of that's elite but well I'm giving his hard about struggles he started out gangbusters so for that pitch yeah I mean I don't know how much of that is carrying over he's still I think searching for you know, that second and third pitch to feel comfortable with. I think he's still developing those pitches and I think he's gotten figured out a little bit. I think a sign he might, his fastball might not be right is that to have that gutty performance against the Dodgers Sunday, he actually, he threw it only 50% of the time, 50% of the time is a lot for most pitchers, but usually he's up over 60s.

So he relied on the secondaries more and this Dodgers start and managed to get through it okay in a real world sense, but certainly not in a way that inspires much confidence in fantasy. Okay, other pitchers who, let's do the dropometer for these guys. So Corey Klobber, his numbers have been decent this year, particularly in the eight starts prior to Friday start 270, a 0.92 whip 8.1K per 9. But on Friday at Toronto, he allowed five run runs in three innings, struck out only one through 49 pitches. didn't last very long and, you know, where to think stand on Cory Klooper? How likely would you be to drop him on a scale one to 10?

I've been pretty skeptical of Cory Kluber throughout. I don't know if I've ever moved him inside of my top 70 starting pitchers, even when the results have been pretty good. So I have no trouble dropping him. I think even a 12-team rodeo league, he's not at all a must-raster player. So I would say a seven or eight. I did drop him in the, or at least I put in a bid to drop him. hasn't gone through yet necessarily, but in the 12-team points league podcast league,

I'm okay cutting bait on Corey Kluber. Specifically, would you drop him for Jose Orkitti, who we talked about earlier? He had his third stray quality start on Saturday, gave up one run in six innings against the Angels. Loud two hits, struck out eight. Angels lineup really struggling right now. We saw what Javier and Framber Valdez did to them, but Erkini was. was great against them as well 17 swinging strikes on 104 pitches including 10 on the fastball combined three run runs in 19 innings over those past three starts are we are we on board with

erkidi in general and will we draw cluber for him i think it's fair to be skeptical that erkeety is going to be a a starting caliber player moving forward or a must start player if you want to frame it that way but he's got the athletics in his next start so i feel more confident starting him than i do cori cluber in the next start. So that is enough to make me drop Corey Glover. He is among my sleeper pitchers for next week is Erkiti. It's not clear. Let's see. I think I haven't going against the Royals, but it may be, you know, maybe it'll one way or the other. It's going to be a good matchup for Akiti. Okay. Next up on the dropometer, Ruanzi Contreras. We loved his potential when he got a spot in the

Pirates rotation against the Brewers on Friday though seven runs in one and two-thirds innings just an out-and-out disaster allowed three home runs and that was after having five walks in his previous start you know 276 ERA prior to this blow up against the Brewers so you could you could argue he was pitching pretty well overall but he'd been getting hit pretty hard what do you think of Rowanzi Contreras you time to be ready to move on yeah he hasn't gone a full six innings I think in any start this season he hasn't really had a good start since June 4th, so almost a full month now, since that eight strikeout game against the Diamondbacks.

So, yeah, I think it's five, drop Contreras. I think he's probably close to a 10 on the drop o meter. Would you drop Roanzi Contreras for David Peterson of the Mets, who wasn't facing the Marlins this time? Remember, we're giving him a hard time in his previous two starts when his whiff rate way up night shot way up 19 whiffs in each of his previous two starts but both were against the marlins phasing the rangers on friday struck out 10 walked none in six innings three runs allowed two home runs so it was barely a quality star but the the strikeouts the whiffs they remain high for for peterson

and you know it seems to coincide with increased slider usage a pitch that gets a lot of wist for him in general is are you more excited about the potential of david peterson now now than Rwanzi Contreras and is he somebody just looking to add in general? I so I'll probably take a similar tack to the one I did with regards to cluber versus orquite that Peterson gets the Marlins in his next start and so if nothing else I would rather start Peterson than Contreras for that start but yeah I think what we're seeing right now is the the development of that slider and the increased usage of it makes Peterson look a little more interesting. I don't know if I trust him to be, even in like a 12-team Roto sense, a starting

caliber player, but I think he's a fine streamer the way he's pitched against Miami the past two starts, how much they've struggled against lefties. There's always a little bit of a concern when a pitcher faces the same team like three times and four starts just because hitters do tend to perform better the more they see a pitcher. So it's possible that the, you know, he turns back into a pumpkin. here, but I feel pretty good about him right now. So at least in the short term, Peterson seems like a pretty useful player. Okay, drop a meter from Michael Lorenzen, who allowed Atern runs in three innings at Houston

on Friday. So the Angels didn't have it going, hitting wise, or pitching. It's been a struggle for Lorenzen lately. I originally had him in my 10 sleeper pitchers for this upcoming week because he's going against the Orioles, but after this start, I just couldn't. I had to take him out. We done with I think I think that's the right call he's someone that when you look under the hood you can talk yourself into Michael Lorenzen being a pretty good pitcher like he's got

Pretty good decent whiff rates on his fastball Well's with good straight. He's got good whiff rates on the cider and change up But then you add it all up and it's it's kind of a the And the hole is just not as good as the sum or whatever the The sum is not as good as the parts whatever the the the the the the saying would be, I think at this point he's probably just an RP, you know, a spark for head-to-head points leagues. He's not someone outside of a head-to-head points context that I have much interest in. And even then in the 12-team league, like there are enough sparks right now that

I think Lorenzen is pretty fringy. So I don't see Lorenzen as very exciting, but we haven't seen Marco Gonzalez as very exciting either. And yet, he had his sixth quality. start and seven chances Friday against Oakland to earn runs in six innings struck out only two loud eight hits in that seven start stretchway as six quality starts a 284 ERA a 115 whip and also four point five K for nine so yeah I mean good for him I guess for stringing together all these quality starts but like he can't trust somebody who strikes out so few people batters, can you? No, I don't think trust would be the word that you would use there.

I mean, but Marco Gonzalez does have these stretches. I mean, he's going on now five years in a row with an ERA of 4.00 or better. Now, the problem is three of those five years, it's been 4.0-399-396. And those are useful numbers. I don't want to make it seem like you can't get value out of a 396 ERA. problem is he's kind of a one and a half category pitcher he usually doesn't have great whip even last season when he had a one a 396 a r a he had a 117 whip which is good but not elite this year it's one three two he doesn't get any strikeouts as we talked about and he's a decent

wins pitcher i mean he won 10 in 25 starts last season so that's like a 13 win pace over a full season this year he's got four in 16 so that puts him on an eight win pace roughly. So I think he's probably like, even when the ERA is good, that's probably all you're getting out of Marco Gonzalez, which means he's a decent streamer and a guy to keep around. But if you find someone exciting on waivers, you drop him. You know, it just depends on, like, I don't know if David Peterson is that guy.

You know, he might be. But I'm not sure I would drop Gonzalez for Peterson. So it's more situation. I think he's situational useful. Okay, so you don't know. Okay, well, we'll follow up with that in a second. But another bad outing from this week,

and Ross Stripling allowed three earn runs and four and two-thirds innings against the raise on Sunday, seven hits. He had looked decent in previous starts, his overall numbers were pretty good, but I don't think we were ever buying into him that hard. So this is all the excuse you need to move on from Ross Stripling. So of these pitchers good and bad, do we drop, do we add?

Go through the whole list here again. Corey Kluber, Rolanzi, Contreras, Michael Lorenzen, Ross Stripling, David Peterson, Marco Gonzalez, Jose Orchiti. If you could only have one, who would you pick? Of that whole group. That whole chunk of seven names. Hmm. I would go David Peterson. I would want to take a chance.

Are we including Arcidi? We're including Arcidi. I think Arcidi would be my favorite of that group. And then Gonzalez and Peterson and some of it. order. I think they're pretty close. Okay. All right, let's go on to news and notes here. First, I meant to say this at the top, a little programming note, just in case you're

feeling bad that we're working on major holiday. Don't worry. We're not actually going to be working on the day. And because of that, right after this show, Chris and I are going to record a mailbag show to air Tuesday so that we don't have to record one Monday night for you. And it should be a lot of fun. And then Frank will be back for once. Wednesday's podcast and it'll be a joyous occasion for all. Okay, news and notes here. Frankie Montas

left Sunday start at Seattle with tightness in the back of his shoulder. He lasted only one inning, velocity was way down. Tightness in the back of the shoulder. It sounds like one of those not where you want tightness. Not, it sounds like one of those lat issues for Molentas. That's not an official diagnosis but obviously don't plan on using them this week because i am expecting an i frankly i mean we're a little over four weeks from the trade deadline i think the trade deadline's actually in august this year i think it's august second uh the way the calendar lines up uh if i'm not mistaken yeah the july 31st is on a sunday so it's either the first or the second this year i'm pretty sure um but yeah this is one that

you know, Frankie Motas seemed like a prime trade candidate, and all of a sudden now it looks like Frankie Montas probably, there's at least a chance that they won't be able to trade him because of this injury. So that's a concern. You know, obviously I don't want to get too far ahead of it, but definitely concerning the way that went down. Yes, 6 p.m. August 2nd is the trade deadline this year.

Another concerning injury here, Juan Soto was removed Sunday with calf tightness. He'll be re-evaluated Monday. That's not necessarily. a bad injury, but without any updates heading into the new week, you know, in those shallower leagues, I'd give some thought to plane it's safe. Yeah, I would hope that you don't have to sit him, but, you know, obviously, unless we get some kind of update, it's a risk.

Zander Bogart's was spiked on a steel attempt Sunday and removed with a thigh laceration. I don't think that one's going to be so bad to keep him out, but it's possible. I would, without hearing anything more, I'd lean towards starting Bogart's. Ranger Suarez was placed on the aisle with back spasms, moving him from the two-star pitchers for this week. So you don't have to think about using him.

Kevin Gosman was, this was a scary one, left when he was hit by a comebacker in the ankle Saturday, but x-rays were negative. They haven't verified that'll make his next. next start yet so maybe play it safe with that one jack flaredy won't throw for two to three weeks which i think on an aggressive timetable mid-august is about the best we're going to get from from flarity when we see him again i i dropped him outside of my top 80 for the rest of the season i think he's droppable if you don't have the i l spots for him i believe i did as well he looked

Yeah, he looked bad in his return. I have questions about his performance anyway. So, yeah, I'm not particularly optimistic about Jack Flaherty rest of season. Anthony Descliffeani is back on the aisle with ankle inflammation. Anthony Desclavani's done for the season, I saw. He's having ankle surgery, and then, yeah, his season's done. Tyler Stevenson, who's been out since June 9th with a fractured thumb, We'll begin a rehab assignment Monday, and the catcher position could use him.

Chris Bassett was scratched Friday and placed on the IA with no injury designation. So probably said him this week, but maybe he'll be back after that. Jorge Solair was placed on the IA with a back issue. He's been nursing for a while. Chris Sale. Good news for John Bertie, who I believe started at left field in the first game after Solair's injury. and he gets Noah Cinderguard this week. So if he gets on base against Noah Cindergarde,

he's stealing two bases, at least. Okay, on one pitch. Stealing two bases on one pitch. Yeah, just don't hit a double. Chris Sale will start for AAA on Wednesday, and what could be his final rehab outing at long last, we might get a Chris Sale payoff. He has to go five, I think, for that to be.

be the case, but I'm going to bet he will. So hopefully next week we'll be able to use him in fantasy, not this upcoming week. Chris Taylor fouled the ball of his foot Saturday, X-rays negative, but he sat Sunday. Kyle Farmer, hit in the hand by a Spencer Strider pitch on Saturday, out of the line of Sunday, but X-rays negative. Adam Duvall, hit by pitch on the hand, X-rays negative, but out of the line of Sunday. You know, they're three pretty fringy players. It could go either way, how much they play this week if they end up.

You know, obviously it's good that x-rays are negative. But if you have alternatives for Chris Taylor, Kyle Farmer, and Adam Duvall, I would recommend playing it safe with them. Oloi Jimenez, possibly back this week after that long absence for a hamstring injury, could serve as the DH at first. Would you risk putting Eloy Jimenez back in your lineup, Chris? No, I think I'm okay giving him a week, just because I wouldn't be surprised. even if he does return this week,

they play it safe. He doesn't play every day. You know, especially in a points league, he's not such an impact player because he doesn't walk very much that you're going to miss out on too much, hopefully.

So, yeah, I would, I would sit him. Let him prove he's healthy. I would also sit Jesse Winker, who he had his suspension reduced from seven games to six. I don't know what the difference is.

But he was in the lineup both Saturday and Sunday, which I thought was on. So yeah, well, the difference is one. But like what? Oh, well, you know what? It wasn't, it wasn't as bad as we originally thought. Let's give you another game. I don't know.

I don't know exactly how that works. But I don't know why he kept playing. Like, if the appeal's been heard, I don't know. But he's, presumably he's going to start serving him this way. Yeah. Okay. A couple quick notes here. Fernando Tatis, looks like he could return an outfell.

field rather than shortstop. I think he's eligible at both places, anywhere you'd play fantasy baseball. And he's still a couple weeks away from swinging. But that's the latest on Tatis. Okay, let's get into some hitters. We are quickly running at a time. And so let's try and do this quickly.

Let me just highlight a few big performances worth highlighting from the weekend. Nolan Aeronado was the hitting star of the weekend. He hit for the cycle on Friday and then hit two home runs on Saturday. So big weekend for Nolan Aeronado, and he's a stud. Jeremy Pena, four for five with two home runs on Sunday. It was his sixth game since returning, and he struck out a lot in the games leading up to it. But hopefully he's shaking off the rust now. I think a big performance like this is all the encouragement you need to keep him active in those shallower leagues.

C.J. C. C.C. C. C. C.C. C. C. C. C. C.R.R.B. He keeps on keeping on. Reese Hoskins, two for three with a home run and the double on Sunday. And what's worth noting there is, you know, we haven't talked about it much. But last 26 games, Reese Hoskins betting 3.48 with nine homers, 17 walks versus 21 strikeouts. I don't think he's discovered this new potential or anything. I think he's just hot. But it's nice to see his numbers get back to where we expected them to be all along. How are you feeling about Marcelo Zuna these days, Chris?

He homered twice on Sunday, gives him 16 for the year. It's just, you know, 30 plus homer pace. But he's only batting 215 since April. The batting average hasn't gotten better since that awful month. It's only gotten worse. Is Marcel Ozuna, do you think he's going to be must-start rest of season? He's string. His career has really been defined by these really, really impressive expected Wobostats.

You know, and this season's no different. He's at 366. League average is 316. He's been really good. If you go by that metric, unfortunately, two years in a row were massively underperformed his expected stats. He's still not striking out all that much. He's still hitting the ball hard. So I do think Marcelo Zune is going to be better moving forward than he has been so far. But, you know, for what it's worth, he has underperformed his expected Wobah for his career. 239 is his Wobah to 362, sorry, 339 is his Wobah for his career, 362 is his expected Wobah. So he is one of the more consistent underperformers in that regard.

So you can't just point to the 366 and say, well, he's going to do that, even without the caveats about, you know, that's that not having as much predictive value this season because the ball is not traveling as far. But I still think like something like what he did in 2019 when he was a disappointment, but hit 241 with 29 homers. Like, I still think that's well within the realm of possibility. Okay.

Isak Paredes. This was, this is a hitter who's still out there in quite a few leagues. And he was somebody with his triple eligibility, who I was tempted to add over McKenzie Gore in that shallow points league. I wanted a versatile bat for my bench. I'm starting to buy into him just a little bit.

He homered in both games of double hatter, double header Saturday that brings him to 13 and 127 at bats had another two hits Sunday. He has more points per game. I was just looking at second base where he'd probably need him the most.

Or you know what? Probably need him the most at third. But just comparing him to other second baseman, he has more head to add points per game than Trevor's story, DJ LaMayhew, Luis Arias, certainly somebody like could tell Marte. And what I've noticed about Issoc Perret is, you know, we've mentioned he makes a lot of contact,

but the contact on average is, particularly hard. He pulls the ball in the air, or at least in these 127 at bats. He has pulled the ball in the air a ton. His pull rate on fly balls is 48.9% which is ridiculous.

And that is a way that a hitter who doesn't impact the ball very hard can hit for a lot of power, as we've seen from Perretta's. I'm not saying he can sustain his pace. But I think he can remain, you know, depending how much the race stick with them.

That's always the question for anyone who plays for them. I think he can remain useful if that is part of his hitting profile. Yeah, I mean, here's an amazing stat about Isaac Pretis. He has a 209 Babbat this season, which is unbelievably low. And that's the kind of thing where you think, well, wow, okay, he has a little bad luck there. His expected batting average is actually 27 points lower than his actual batting average, despite that. So. Well, because the contact's not very hard.

Yeah, like the quality of contact. It's not very hard. He hits very few line drives. He hits a ton of pop-ups. Like, he almost has as many infield fly balls as line drives this season, which is really, really bad. So, yeah, I think, like, the profile,

because he's a lot of contact and a lot of pull-side air contact, he can continue to hit for some decent pop. I think that's probably all he saw Paredes is going to do. And so it might be a situation where he ends up with 25 home runs by the end of the season. But I think he's probably going to hurt you everywhere else. So I'm not particularly excited about it, but I'm not going to say he's without utility. Routy Telez hit another home run over the weekend after a couple two homer games last week.

is he back to must roster in your eyes routing to les i think i think for me in the categories leased yeah it's it's it's tough to call him must roster just because i think what he really is is just streaky yes you know i think he's going to someone who is good for power yeah so i i don't think he's going to be someone that you feel good about every week production but like at the end of the season he's going to hit 30 home runs probably or is someone more close to that with decent batting averages. And so, you know, if you're going to set it and forget it kind of situation, yeah. The RBI totals remained very high too, or at least it just started out so high that it hasn't had a

chance to normal. So when you just look at the raw home runs at RBI, you're like, how can anybody not have Rowdy-Tiles? But, of course, the experience has been more up and down than that. Eduardo Escobar has homered in three straight, all three games this weekend, up to nine for the season. He's still batting just 228 with the 694 OPS. But this is a guy who had 28 home runs last year.

He had 35 and 2019. And you look at the stack cast data, not a lot of differences from the 28 homer season last year where he was borderline most start, I would say, Eduardo Escobar. K rates up a little, but not enough to think, you know, he can't

rebound from it. I don't know. I've been waiting for Eduardo Escobar to come roaring back. Maybe this is the start of it. But I've been reluctant to drop them in some rotissory leagues. Let's see here. Yeah, I mean, I think he's. Go ahead. Let's go to Fron Mill Reyes, who has two home runs in his last three games,

but he also has 21 strikeouts in 11 games since returning. That's a 49% rate. So, like, it's just getting worse, right? All the strikeouts for Fran Mill Reyes, I don't know. I think he's probably going to be a pretty good source of power, but man, if you can't get those strikeouts under control, he's going to be a disaster for your batting average and probably lose playing time.

Yeah, I mean, he's hitting 268 with three homers in 11 games since coming off the IL, which is pretty good. It's just the 268 is very inflated given the high strikeout rates. Yeah, it's hard to trust him too much. But I do think he'll continue to hit for power, and I don't think he'll strike out 49% of the time moving forward. forward, but he's above 40% for the season, right?

I mean, it's been really bad all year. It's been awful and like I said, getting worse. So, you know, even in some five outfielder roto, a five outfielder roto leagues, I don't know that, I don't know that you have to stick with them. And, you know, it kind of reminds me of Joey Gallo a little. Gallo started to lose a lot of playing time, so it's even worse than his situation.

But Brownville-Race could end up going the same way. Definitely something to keep an eye on. We have a lot of bullpen happenings this weekend. We're going to have to go through them quickly, unfortunately. Aroldus Chapman was activated Friday, and he worked the seventh inning of game one of a double header over the weekend, allowed two and runs walk three without getting an out. Clay Holmes then got a two-out save in game two of that double header.

The plan for now is Chapman to work at some point in the last three innings of the game, which means the plan isn't for him to be a closer, at least not strictly. So definitely hang on to Holmes. Try to hang on to Chapman, too, because I think in the long run, it's unclear how this is going to play out. For the Phillies, on Friday, Brad Hand worked the ninth for the save with Sir Anthony Dominguez working the eighth. Now, Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Aeronado, and Juan Yuppez were due up in the eighth.

So they used Dominguez against the middle of the Cardinals lineup. It may have been a leverage issue there, hand getting the save instead. On Saturday, Dominguez was the one who worked the ninth, but he allowed a home run for the loss. It was in a tie, so it wasn't a save situation, but Hand had worked the previous inning. So the Phillies flip right back on Saturday after going Dominguez beforehand on Friday. I still think Dominguez is the guy to have there,

but maybe in some 15-team league's hand might be worth picking up for saves. Emilio Pagan, this is for the twins, Emilio Paghan has officially been moved to a lower leverage role. Manager Rocco Baldelli said, yeah, he's going to pitch earlier in the game and potentially when we don't have the lead and things like that. So he got a win over the weekend, looked pretty good in the inning he did pitch.

I don't know that he's out completely, but certainly if Yohan Duran is out there in your leagues, like he's been far in a way, the better pitcher for the twins. And hopefully this is his opening finally. For the Dodgers, Craig Kimbrel was terrible again on Sunday, allowed three-runs and point-one innings, got hit by a comebacker, left the game. Scans on his back were negative,

so it doesn't sound like he's going to miss a lot of time with that. And Dave Roberts also said he's not even considering removing Kimball from the closer roll, even though he has a 478 ERA. Not sure we'd go with anyway, because Daniel Hudson's out for the year. For the Braves, of course, Kenley Jansen's still out with that irregular heartbeat. Will Smith worked a scoreless ninth for the save on Saturday with AJ Mentor working the eighth. So they both came in and Smith was the one who got the save.

Mentor did come in on Sunday to handle a tie in the ninth inning. A spot a closer would typically be used in. And he ended up blowing the game, about four brace runners without recording it out. Didn't get much help from the defense. It's worth pointing out. But still unclear how the Braves are handling those two. but I think if you're just looking for saves,

advantage is Will Smith right now. Liam Hendricks should have mentioned this at the top of the show. He's due back Monday, so you can ignore the two saves Kendall Graveman got this weekend for the White Sox. Paul Seawald for the Mariners. He threw a perfect ninth inning for his ninth save now Sunday, and he has five of the teams past six in a span of 102 weeks. So I kind of feel like Paul Zewald's just the guy.

We've gotten burned. pinning that to anybody in the Mariners bullpen the past two years, but this is, this is some consistent usage for Seawalt. For the Reds, Hunter Strickland. Really good time for, uh, for the Scott White Dynasty League for me. So happy about that. Yeah. Yeah. Hunter Strickland for the Reds. He blew a save Sunday allowing two home runs.

He had converted the previous three saves, but he has a four, five 40 ERA. Lucas Sims has been rolled out for the year, so he's not coming back, but Alexis Diaz could be back by the end of next week. And I still think he's the preferred option there in fantasy, even if Strickland has been seeing more consistent save chances recently. And then finally for the raise, Jason Adam got a save on Sunday. He struck out the only two batters he faced.

There was a four-run lead. He entered after a run had already been let in in the ninth inning. So it wasn't like a traditional save situation. And so I don't know that Jason Adam is the front runner there for Seas, but with a 144 ERA, 0.7 whip, 10.1K per 9. I kind of feel like Jason Adam should be. And in those deeper leagues, I remain interested in him. All right.

Let me see if I could spotlight just a couple other things real quickly that we had to pass over here. Let's see here. So one pitching performance worth mentioning is, let's see here. George Kirby struck out nine in seven innings against the athletics, allowed only one run on three hits. 15 swinging strikes, but 10 of them were on the fastball,

so that remains the go-to pitch for him. Tyler Anderson, remember we were worried about him and the change-up usage going down and it becoming less effective. Well, that completely reversed on Saturday against the Padres. He got seven whiffs on the change. changeup also seven on the cutter so he was missing plenty of bats than only one run in six and a third innings you got something chris uh no i think it was a very good sign from from anderson that he

got that change up and cutter working and i think those are probably the two most important pitches for him obviously the change up has been incredibly important for him this season so good to see i remain skeptical moving forward you know i had moved him up pretty aggressively he's more in like the 50 range starting pitcher now. And I think that's probably where I'll stick with him moving forward. Lance Lynn had his best start since returning, and it was at San Francisco. No-earn runs in six innings, only three hits allowed, 15 strikeouts, only eight whiffs on 104 pitches, but remember he had 23 whiffs in his previous start.

So I think Lance Lynn continues to trend the right direction. Carlos Carrasco had a good start Sunday against the Rangers, eight strikeouts in five and two-thirds innings, only one earned run allowed, 20 swinging strikes on 100. two pitches for him. I'm finding Carlos Carrasco pretty baffling this year and frustrating and like never sure when I can use them. But it's nice to see this is still in there. And he might be worth holding on to for that. I guess I could say the same for Blake Snell completely. He struck out 12 at the Dodgers Friday. Of course, lasted only five innings, four walks. But overall, it was a good start. I have, I know I can't trust Blake Snell, but it's still.

Start like, starts like these that make you think, you know, maybe, maybe he's not completely dropable. I don't know. Where are you on Carasco and Snell, Chris? I wouldn't drop either of them. I think both have shown enough upside this season that I just, I definitely can't bring myself to drop them. But obviously, look, it's, it's frustrating going for either of them. And I don't feel confident starting either of them. Like Blake's now, the one league that I have him in is Tout Wars.

I haven't started him. Honestly, I'm not sure I've started him all season in that league with the way that team's gone. And Carrasco, I'm going to need to see a few more. I mean, the thing with Carasco specifically is, like, there hasn't been much in the underlying data to suggest one way or the other. Like, when things are going well or when things are going poorly, there hasn't really been a lot to point to and say, well, that's why it's happening. and so that that kind of like randomness of it just makes it even more frustrating because it'd be one thing if I could look at it and say all right his change-ups not working or his fastball velocity's down or something there but it just hasn't really been the case with Keraski. It's just been kind of the underlying under the hood stuff has been fairly consistent and the results just have been all over the place. So I don't know.

To stream or not to stream Monday we got Patrick Corbyn coming on. that 12 strikeout effort. He's going against those Marlins who strike out a lot against left-handers, right? Dane Dunning is at Baltimore, Zach Plesack at Detroit, Hunter Green against the Mets, Chris Flexen at the Padres, and Dylan Bundy at the White Sox. I think my favorite here, and it's always dangerous to say it, is Zach Plesack. Got a nice quality start streak going, he's got the worst lineup in baseball. I feel okay about that one. The others, it's a real stretch.

Maybe it was good against the Marns. Corbin did have eight strikeouts in six innings with two and runs allowed the first time he faced the Marlins this season. They've been bad against lefties this season. So it wouldn't stun me if he was good. It wouldn't stun me if Dane Dunning was good. It's a good matchup in a good park.

But I think Hunter Green's the most interesting of this group for long term, but not using your nine strikeouts. potentially or he could get rocked by the Mets lineup. So yeah, I'm okay with Pleas, acting the best streamer there. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, Tuesday, we got Nick Lodolo returning from injury against the Mets, Jose Cantana against the Yankees. Good luck with that. Jeffrey Springs at Boston. So remember, he missed his last start because of a family medical emergency, but he's coming back to face the Red Sox on Tuesday. Alex Wood at Arizona and Yusei Kukuchi at Oakland.

I think even with that tough matchup against the Red Sox, Springs is still the pitcher I'd most likely trust of this group, but there are some good matchups for some of those others. Who do you got, Chris? I do say Kukuchi in this one. All right. He did have a good start last time. Let's see if he can keep it going.

I don't think Chris and I can keep this going. We're looking forward to Frank being back on Wednesday. And we hope you all have great 4th of July. We will be celebrating as well. and we will catch you next time on fantasy baseball today.