Fantasy Baseball Today - Big Prospect Performances, Corbin Burnes Struggles & Buy-High Pitchers (4/6 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Jorge Soler looks locked in to start the season (3:45). ... Grayson Rodriguez had a successful debut (9:20)! ... Are we worried about Corbin Burnes (14:10)? ... What about Miles Mikolas (21:35)? ... Buy-high on these two pitchers (24:43)? ... We saw big games from Jordan Walker, Josh Jung and other prospects (34:30). ... News (43:12): we have an update on Liam Hendriks. ... Add Mitch Keller (48:45)? ... What about these pitchers in deeper leagues (53:50)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (57:00).  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.  Fantasy Baseball Today is a finalist in the Baseball Category for the Sports Podcast Awards! Quickly create an account and vote here: https://www.sportspodcastgroup.com/sports_category/best-baseball-podcast/ 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 lead. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. You know, it's funny how the universe works, and I'll explain why in just a bit. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, April 6th. Frank Stamphill joined by the Chrisies, Towers, and the Welsh.

Today on the show, we're going to recap all of Wednesday's action, Corby-Berns of the Struggles, two by high pitchers, and much more. Before we get going, make sure to 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. It really helps. So it's funny how the universe works because I talk with the Welsh early in the week, figure out when he's going to be here on the pod. It's pretty random.

Now that we were just talking, it's going to be Monday or Wednesday nights. but it just so happens that he joins us today when Grayson Rodriguez makes his debut and Jordan Walker hits his first career home run and we have all this awesome prospect stuff that's happening and you're here Welsh and it's fun and it's awesome the way that that worked out. Hey, look at that. I know. I was actually pretty excited

about the Grayson. I was actually really pessimistic about it too today with him going up against a gram. But yeah, Walker crushing the bomb and how about the Brewers guys? We had the whole lot of the rookie brewer's going on here. It's a, it's weird because it's not quite as like, it doesn't feel the huge major impact of like the Julio and the Bobby Witt of like, oh my God, these are the next superstars. But there's just a litany of great young players that are out there. I don't know what level they're all going to reach at this point, but there's just so many good ones that are putting up some really good performances that we can all benefit from. Yeah, I agree completely. Like,

maybe we don't have first round caliber guys. Who knows? Maybe Corbyn Carole, turns out to be that guy and it's still possible. If he ever walks, if he gets one walk under his belt at any point in the season, that will help. I'm hoping it's tomorrow, by the way, as I will be at Diamondbacks opening day. I'm there. The illustrious Scott Bogman is flying in from Texas as we speak. Me and him are going to be going.

And we are going to be going to opening day like we have done for, I don't know, 10 or 20 years or something like that, somewhere in between there. And I am hoping for two things, Corby and Carol leading off on a homestand. and a walk from Corby and Carol. That's all I need. That's all I need. One walk and a lead off or maybe hitting two,

and I will be happy, but I will report back. All right. Well, I'm pulling up the Diamondbacks game to see what pitching matchup. You'll see that's Dustin May at Merrill Kelly.

So, yep. I guess it could have been a little bit more fun for the Diamondbacks, but Dustin May is fun. So anyway, it's going to be a fun game for you. Let's jump into our,

oh my goodness gracious, players of the night. The impossible has happened. And that is the Mets's TV broadcast calling Bartolo Kolo's, Cologne's home run in San Diego, like a decade ago now at this point. If you want to hear a random call, a fun call, a historic baseball call, make sure to keep sending those in because we're going to mix it up.

Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com or just tweet it at me at Roto underscore Frank. Chris Towers, let's start with you. Oh my goodness gracious from Wednesday. I would like to make the suggestion for, I don't know, this might be a little before some of our listeners time, but his name is Dan Ugla. drop. I don't know if you guys remember every time Dan Ugler would hit a home run

his rookie season for the Marlins. They would scream. His name is Dan Uglin. We could do like, his name is. And then in this case, Jorge Soler. That's a really good call. Who, uh, yeah, he's off to a really good start to the season

hit his second and third home runs. I think he's had a hit in like all but one game so far, all but two games so far. He's hitting the ball really, really hard. as well, average exit velocity, 98.8 miles per hour, which is actually down from two days ago when he was averaging 100 miles per hour, average eggs of velocity,

55, 56% hard hit rate, strike out rate's about where you expected to be for Jorge Saler, but he is someone who I think is not universally rostered right now, and the way he's hitting, I mean, we know Jorge Saler goes on tears like this. And the way he's hitting right now, I think he's, probably should be rostered. It's not to say that I think he's going to continue to hit three home runs every, you know, seven games or whatever it is.

But he's a really good power hitter when he's locked in. He's locked in right now. He's hanging the ball really hard. And I've been pretty impressed by him. He's kind of a one-man offense for the Marlins right now. But, you know, at least they got that one guy doing well. I was just going to throw out what's interesting because I noticed I was watching the game

log a day or two ago. and he was hitting two. And of his six appearances, he has hit two, four of those. Yet he is really effective out of the five slide. He's only hitting 133-2, but he's hitting 375 when he's hitting five for this team. So it's kind of a weird. I actually kind of would love the idea of him hitting two and hitting more there, except he's thriving in that five spot.

Unfortunately, maybe he's going to move up one or two spots. I didn't see any of the news about jazz that's going on today. But I was a stinger. So hopefully not too concerning. But yeah, that was no fun to see jazz chisholm get hurt seven games into the season. But we're talking about positive things. And Jorge Salar has been a positive for the Marlins. So we'll stick with that.

And Chris, you can mark off April 5th on your calendar for the injury prone players to go out and get hurt because jazz chisholm and Elias already hurt. Who would have thunk you, right? I mean, cross your fingers. Put Byron Bucson in a bubble so that guy does not get hurt. I had a slight little thing where I was like, oh, it's not my guys that are getting hurt. Because I like attached my. So I see people on towers about injury prone guys. You and I both share Buxon.

So Buxon's got a mutual one. DeGrom is very attached to me in my, I don't know, semi-defense or whatever. So when it was like not guys that were mine, I was like, oh, yay, but also I hate singing. Did you also see, I think it was earlier in this year that Jazz had a little chirp in tweet very early on that's like, you know, all the haters are going to see when I, play 155 games and I was like, don't dig that tweet back up because it's not looking super good, jazz. Well,

hopefully, hopefully he's fine. It was a weird play where he, I don't know, this is one of those ones where it's just like, I don't know, people want to blame him and say, oh,

it's, you know, he plays too hard or whatever. He was just sliding into second base and the second baseman was standing in front of it. Like, yeah, I don't know.

Hopefully he's fine. The one thing I noticed on that play is that he slid too late. I feel like that was kind of his fault, but I mean, he was flying into second base. And he just slid too late. And that's what happened. A little... Maybe let's slide fee first, you know?

Yeah, collision at second base. I just want to go back to Solair for a second and look at some of the most added outfielder's on CBS. Adam Duval at the top, I think they're probably similar players if everything is going right. But I think I prefer Duval over Solair. What do you think, Chris? I think that's very close. But maybe the fact that Duval is so well suited for Fenway Park, we've already seen what, two home runs, a triple,

and then I think a single and a double off the green monster so far. So that's exactly what you hope to see with Adam Duval playing a Fenway. So I do think I would stick with him, although presumably they're going on the road for their next series. So maybe it'll be Jorge Saler.

James Outman is number two on this list. And I think in Categories leagues, I would rather have Outman. I think there's some power speed potential there. If you're playing points leagues where you just need volume and you need home runs and you need walks, you need someone that's going to play every day. I probably would take Solair.

That's the biggest thing. Solair's going to play every day. Outman may not. Probably won't. It's the, it's the Dodgers. Also, Soler is going to hit higher in the lineup. Outman doesn't look like he's going to be able to crack too too far up in that lineup unless there's major injury.

So that's going to hold him back a little bit. The last group here, well, so I'll ask you about this one. Would you rather have Solair or the twins, Joey Gallo, Trevor Larnick? Ooh, uh, Soler. Definitely over. I like, I've kind of been saying this. The Joey Gallo stuff. is cool and fun.

Hey, he's hitting homers. Hey, he's hitting 250. Hey, he's got a 35 plus percent K percentage. Like, he can go and hit 40, 50, 60 homers. And like the whole way through, I'll be like, nah, it's not going to stay. It's not going to stick. Like, sell, get rid of it. I'm not, I'll just be wrong.

Like, I'm not going to do it. Like, it's crazy, crazy high strikeout numbers. And I don't think the batting average will stick. And just nah. So I'm not going to go down that road. Definitely Deval, definitely Solair. Lernick's a little bit interesting because I think. I think he can hit higher in the lineup as well, but I'm going to stick with Solair on this one.

And I thought it was interesting. Today was the first time, Wednesday was the first time that the twins faced a left-handed starter and Trevor Larnick was still in the lineup. Joey Gallo was not. So it looks like Larnick is higher up on that pecking order as of now. Well, so let's get into your, oh my goodness, gracious player of the night. Oh, my goodness. And gracious, we got the number one pitching prospect and all the land to come up.

Could have been argued, but the Andrew Painter stuff went out. And he was dueling maybe the best pitcher in the world. And the only thing that overshadowed, by the way, not to make this about DeGrom, that Grayson Rodriguez had 14 swing and whiff, swinging misses. The only reason it got overshadowed is because Jacob DeGrom had a season high 25.

So that kind of overshadowed that a little bit. That's a ridiculous number. On 92 pitches. And he had a perfect game going through like five innings or something like that. It got broken up by, I was watching. I can't even remember who it was now. But Gratian was pretty impressive. He was a little.

little bit wonky in the beginning of it. But what I thought was so impressive about him is he held and kept his composure and got better as the game went on. And that's like such a critical young pitching development thing. He only gave up two earned runs across this matchup with DeGrom and they came early. He ended up, and this is something I've been kind of looking at, you look at an apology so anybody has heard me kind of do this, but like, you know, you go and look at some of these pitchers, like let's say a Kolesanga or a Drey James.

And you don't see the fastball super effective. You see a lot of the secondary stuff effective. Yet in this case, 36% whiff rate on his fastball, 39 CSW percentage. I thought that was impressive. Eight whiffs on the fastball. The slider had a 50% whiff rate, a little bit lower CSW. And he also had a double digit percentage on the changeup, which didn't do much, but it was a good kind of table setter.

And I just thought overall that he got better. He commanded those pitches late. he was able to mix against a really tough Texas Rangers lineup, striking out, I believe Corey Seeger was one of those. I thought it was a testament to like the composure of all the nonsense of a bad spring, his manager kind of rudely and weirdly calling him out. This was not the, you know, Grasian Rodriguez we thought we'd have, whatever that weirdness was.

He came in in this circumstance and he, I really think he dominated for all things considered. And I think that's an oh my goodness, oh my gracious type of a situation. and I know he's in for Braddish, but if he follows this trend, I don't know what the justification will be for him to be sent down. Oh, yeah. If he pitches well, he's here for good.

I don't think there's any question. Like you said, I think the thing that I was most impressed with as I was watching him was, he looked pretty bad early on. He had a rough first inning, and he gave up two runs in the first inning, didn't really seem to have command of the slider,

especially. He only threw the slider in the zone, 21% of the time. So it was clearly trying to get whiffs with it. But he really settled in. And watching the first inning, I was like, uh-oh, maybe the Orioles were right. Maybe he's not ready. But the way he settled down, the way he was able to battle through it, I thought was very

impressive. And I think also having Adley Rutchman, you know, a guy that they grew up together in the system is such a key point. Like Adley knows how to tap into him and they were able to do it. So I don't know. I go back and look like I'm a little indifferent sometimes about especially pitching prospects into redraft, but I thought it was everything and more that you could have wanted. And I'm kind of buying a little bit back in, not to make it about this, but I'm buying a little

bit back into McKinsey Gore. I really liked his performance the other day, even though maybe the stats weren't quite there. But it was his fastball. His fastball was getting people and was setting things up. And I kind of think Grace Rodriguez had that where I think so many other pitchers are having to get into spaces where the second day or the fastball is setting up all the secondaries, if you've got a dominant fastball and you're able to get whiffs on it and you're able to punch it around, you're going to make magic and you're going to be able to stick

into a starting rotation where a guy like, maybe like Dre Jameson's not going to or like I mentioned Kodai Sanko was so, like, he was great, but he was so reliant on that, that ghost fork getting all the whiffs and stuff like that. And he had some pretty bad fastball command. I walked out of this feeling really good. And if he is in that the rest of season, I think like at this point, then you got to look at him as like a top 40 SP. And I know it might feel a little bit aggressive right now. But I think there's room to grow and it's a little overreact the off of the first start. But I think it's everything that you wanted. Yep. Nice little debut there for Grayson Rodriguez settling down. He's 80% rostered. Well, so you think that number should be 100%. He needs to be

rostered in every league. Yeah, I would say. So I don't see any format why you wouldn't speculate on it at this point. And then, you know, if he gets, if he does get, if the Orioles were to have the audacity for Bradish to come back and Roder and him to be sent down, okay, you just get out of it. but there's a lot of good stuff there, and hopefully it's going to maintain it. Hopefully they'll be able to manage him, whatever their issue is going to be with his innings this year. Hopefully they're going to stretch it out and make it work the whole year.

All right. Oh my goodness gracious for me. Of course, in Frank fashion, I've got to go the negative route, and I'm going to talk about Corbyn Burns, who was hit hard by the New York Mets. He gave up six earned runs over four in a third innings. Only three strikeouts. Gave up two homers in this game,

both to Pete Alonzo. So, I mean, look, it's one of the best power hitters in all the game. It's not like you're giving them up to some bum, but only five swinging strikes on 93 pitches, the cutter velocity down 1.5 miles per hour. And I looked at Corbyn's last 12 starts dating back to last year, including this start.

So this is from, I think it was mid-August on, 502 ERA, 1.17 whip, just over a strikeout per inning, compared to 10.8K per 9, which was his overall for last year, 12.6 in 2021. Something is going on right now with Corbyn Burns. I don't know what it is,

but it's dating back to last year where the swinging misses down, the swinging strikes are down, the strikeouts overall are down. He's just kind of getting hit around a little bit harder. Maybe, I don't know. It's just like he's living in the zone

a little bit too much, something like that, and he's getting pounded right now. So I know it's only two starts and the Mets lineup is a pretty good lineup. But Towers, we'll start with you. You know, people were asking me already, fire up the Woriometer.

Yeah, why not? Let's do it. One to 10. 10 is you are freaking out, extremely worried about Corbyn Burns. One, you're not worried at all. Where are you at on Corbyn Burns? I would say a one.

Oh, come on. He has enough of a track. We're talking about three seasons of him being arguably the best pitcher in baseball, non-Jacob de Grom division. So yeah, I'm going to need more than two starts to be worried about Corbyn Burns.

Now, that being said, that's not to say there aren't worrying signs. There are the trends going back to the end of last year. There are, you know, the velocity trends early on fast or cutters down 1.7 miles per hour. It's possible that there's some kind of mechanical issue or maybe he just won't be right all season and we'll take a big out on Corbin Burns. But I don't know. One thing I will say is there was nobody who was out on Corbyn Burns coming into the season, at least not that I know of.

If you were, you know, take your two-star victory lap, I guess. but he's been so utterly overwhelmingly dominant over the past three seasons that I just, I need a lot more than two starts to change my mind about him. Like there are the movement profile on the cutter is a little different. It's getting more vertical. It's getting more drop right now, which is not necessarily what you want to see because he uses that pitch as his fastball. And it might be more difficult to command the pitch.

If it's moving more, if it's not, you know, coming in as hard. That's his primary pitch. both the swing and miss pitch, and it's the pitch that sets up everything else. And so maybe there's something wrong that won't be fixed, but I have too much faith that he'll figure it out. I know you keep saying two starts, Chris, but you know, I gave you 12 starts dating back to last year, and this is an ERA over five now.

So I still had them ranked as my SP2 coming into the year, SP2 overall. But you're right. It was 10 starts, and you had Corbyn burns as your number one or two starting pitcher, right? Correct, yeah. So now it's 12 starts and we're supposed to be worried. Yeah. Well, I'm not worried, but I'm not not worried,

if that makes sense. I just, I don't think the difference between 10 and 12 starts is enough for it to move me. And look, this is just my philosophy. I am a person who I need a lot of data to change my mind. I'm going to sound hypocritical in, in two fronts here.

Okay, one thing, I'm kind of with Frank, and you're right that it's like in 10 starts. We didn't change it. then we come in. What I don't like is the continuation. I don't like you had 10 bad starts. You didn't fix stuff in season. You got a whole off season. You had a spring training. And then we come back and we're doing this again. That's a warning sign to me.

So when you said one, I was like, oh, one really? Because I'm like, I'm getting into a three or four. I was going to say four. But here's my hypocritical side. I am also the type of person in my philosophy. I would love to buy elite players for cheaper in the first three weeks. So am I, I know, I know, know if I'm afraid to buy him. I wouldn't buy him at cost, but I would be interested if someone is really terrified. But the warning signs are a little bit out there. V-Lo dip I don't like. Maybe the craziest thing of all, Matt Bush only had one less swing and miss in this entire game than him. He had five. I'm saying Corbyn Burns had five. And Matt Bush, I believe, had four going through this. That's not good. And you had a actually, yeah, I'm looking here now.

I was looking at the wrong even person before, almost a two mile an hour dip on the cutter. no buono slider over two miles an hour no bueno and five total whiffs a 14% whiff rate that is worrisome yet at the same time i'm still kind of like with you i haven't decided exactly where i'm at my worry my worryometer is moving up but i'm like if someone wanted to move out cheap i think i'm listening on it because there is a big longer track record so i'm i'm a little indifferent here but frank are you more sternly terrified no no like i'm a three or four as well where i'm not look i'm not completely out on Corbyn Burns. I agree with you that you can get them on the cheap. You know, the key phrase there is on the cheap. If you still have to give up, you know,

a first round caliber player to get him, what's the point? I mean, you're not getting him on the cheap, right? So I would say, I would say pass on something like that. Towers, I'm going to give you five more starts here to work with. And maybe this is something we should have thought more about. Spring training. 4.74 ERA. A, 1.47 whip, 311 batting average against 16 strikeouts and 19 innings pitch. That's less than a strikeout per inning. I'm not worried about, I'm not going to bring in spring training. And then especially because this is the thing with like, these are arbitrary endpoints.

It's like 10 starts. Oh, 10 starts. It's so scary. You're almost in half the season. His final six starts last season. He averaged six and two thirds, 43 strikeouts and 38 innings, two six one year. Right. He wasn't quite as dominant as we've gotten used to seeing, but it was one bad start in that stretch. And so it's like, again, I'm not going to say it's impossible that Corbyn Burns is not as good as he was last year, in the year before, and the year before that. I'm just saying, I'm not moved yet. Let me ask this.

Fair enough. Frank, you have Corbin. You don't have Corbin Burns. An offer comes in for that you can receive Corbyn Burns. You have to move Jeffrey Springs. Jeffrey, I was basically, Jeffrey Springs Jr. Think of Jeffrey Wilson Jr. Then I was Jeffrey Springs and Masataka Yoshida.

What side do you want? You can acquire Burns. Burns. But you have to trade Springs and Yoshita. Yep. Burns. Yeah, I would take burns. Okay. But I was just wondering what side that would go because I heard some other responses on that

exact one. So maybe that's something that's floating out. Admittedly, I was less in on Springs than the consensus coming in. And so I also need more than the one really, really good start to move my priors on that one. And maybe I'm just wrong. You know, that's always possible. But I wouldn't do that one yet. Yeah. And I love Springs too. And I wouldn't even do that one either. I want to bring up another name quickly on Worryometer. Miles Michaelis. He gave you the length in this start, but he got hit hard. Again, he was up against the Braves. He gave up five runs over six innings pitched, nine hits, one walk.

Still did have six strikeouts in this one. A 93.4 mile per hour average exit velocity against. And Michaelis was, he was one of the pitchers that kind of profiled in my mind. And I said this on the podcast before the season. As the kind of pitcher that would be hurt most by the shift restriction. Someone who does not miss bats, yes, he has an elite defense behind him, but we're talking like 6, 7K per 9. relies on soft contact, getting ground ball outs and all that stuff. He was someone in my mind that, all right, he might actually suffer this year without the shift.

So what do you guys think on him in terms of Wuriometer and would you look to buy low? I'm worried. I would say I'm worried. Like he had a bad WBC as well. I agree. You and I remember having this conversation about some other pitchers as well, just like where the shift is going to start adjusting these less than strikeout guys have a little bit more work to do. I actually would throw like Merrill Kelly in here. I think Merrill Kelly's got some of these same exact worries.

But yeah, I'm worried about Michaelis in a, I don't know if he's rosterable moving forward type of place, even though it's only two starts. I don't know. The most redeeming factors I think you throw on to him are not about him. It's about his defense. It's about his offense. And that's not a good sign for a pitcher.

Yeah, I mean, I had him ranked like 225 coming into the season. So there's like, that's one that it doesn't take much. to go from ranking 225 to ranking 290 or whatever. You know, so I definitely could see Miles Michaelis. I probably wouldn't drop him yet, but like I had Jack Flaherty ranked two spots behind him coming into the season. And after Jack Flaherty's first start,

I said drop, I would be fine dropping Jack Flaherty. So consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Like would you drop Michaelis for Grayson Rodriguez or Graham Ashcraft if he were available? Absolutely. Yeah, number two stuff plus and all the baseball Graham Ashcraft. I would drop Michaelis without hesitating for both of those guys, for sure. All right, well, let's take our first break.

And when we get back, I'll give you two pitchers. You might want to buy high on here on Fantasy Baseball Today. Fantasy Baseball today is a finalist in the baseball category for the Sports Podcast Awards. We're going up against some big names, and we need your help. You can scan the QR code in the top right corner if you're watching on video or find the link in the podcast or YouTube. you'll need to quickly create an account on their site. Yes, it's annoying, but it takes less than a minute. And then vote for FBT.

Voting ends today when you're listening, or tomorrow if you're watching us live. April 6th, so please, if you haven't voted yet, help us out, and it would be really awesome for us to win this award and, you know, show it to my bosses. They give me a raise, they give Chris a raise, everyone gets a raise. I don't know if that actually...

Yeah, they hire me full. Yeah, that's the whole thing, that's the whole thing. I'm like, hey guys, look, you won an award when I was here. There's no coincidence. It's only one. once a week, but that's the award-winning show, right? Vote. Go vote. Yes, help us out. Two pitchers to potentially buy high on. I know it's early on in the season. We only have two games worth of data, but man, these pitchers look awesome. Pablo Lopez in the revenge game at the Marlins,

seven innings, one run, eight strikeouts to one walk, 15 swinging strikes, and once again, throwing this new sweeper, it was actually his most used pitch on Wednesday. Fastball velocity remains up 2.3 miles per hour. He only used his change up 13% of the time. And that was his best pitch coming into the season. Now that I'm talking it out and thinking about it, maybe there's a little gamesmanship there because he was on the Marlins and obviously they were familiar with his repertoire. So maybe he threw the change up less. I'm like really just going out on a limb and talking about it. Well, actually, you're actually on to something, Frank. I didn't mean to jump in, but I was listening to the broadcast, not just because I had a K-Prop bet on

Pablo Lopez. That was one of my big bets of the day that hit. But I was listening to the broadcast and they actually said this exact thing. What they were saying is he was purposely early on in the game also not going to the sweeper because it was a big thing that everybody knew about. Like Pablo Lopez is super gamesmanship. He was he was very methodically using his sweeper in this game even though it ended up being the highest usage pitch because he used it. I would love, I should go back and look at the exact pitch breakdown by inning. But I believe it was the second half of this game where he went really heavy sweeper. And like they had talked about, he wasn't even going with the changeup.

He was completely keeping them off kilter on that. And I'm completely with this one. I'm completely with this one. I buy in wholeheartedly the V-la. I mean, what are two check marks of things we want to buy in on pitchers? We want Velo changes and we want a positive new approach or a new pitch. And he's doing both of those. I mean, this sweeper was, I think, 22 or 24% in his last start, and this now dominated.

So now what he's also doing is he's saying, you guys don't know what I'm going to do. Not only do I have a new pitch that's dominant, I might go fastball this game, and I might go sweeper this game. And then guess what? Don't be shocked when the change-up is his number one pitch in the next one. And I think that's that unique. It's actually a gamesmanship I like about Jesus Lazzardo and how he kind of adjust how he pitches. He'll slow pitch, he'll fast pitch a guy. This is kind of a different approach to it.

But he does two big major check marks for me in that the VLO has gone up and he's added a new dominant pitch that is over a previous dominant pitch. And I think it makes him uniquely crazy. And he's my number one target as far as trades go right now. And he's one of those guys. I'll pay market value on right now because I believe it's still buying low. I don't think everyone has caught up to where he's going to end up going. And maybe it's a little nuttiness because it's early on in the season and the sample size really is too small. but I'm completely buying in on him.

I want to say when he was with the Marlins, I read a story that his nickname in the clubhouse was El Professor. His parents were doctors. He got accepted into med school. He's a smart cookie, Pablo Lopez. So everything you said, right on board with that. No, I think he's awesome. I'm moving him up.

Hey man, he uses Azardo up to working on trade values for tomorrow. and I still keep a top 300-ish list. And I'm moving both of them up right next to Hunter Green. So that's kind of tells you. I think they've got, I don't know, man, Hunter Green's got a lot of upside because he throws so hard. But like, Pablo Lopez and Hazel, Lizardo are showing the kind of upside where, you know, we're hoping Hunter Green's going to start showing after an iffy first start.

But, yeah, I think Pablo Lopez. has been really, really impressive. Obviously, there are still, I think, concerns about the shoulder, concerns about the way he kind of fell apart in the second half last season, but everything we've seen so far is incredibly promising. He was a little won't eveny in the beginning of the start. He had this weird rough, I want to say it was like the second or third inning, and he wasn't really striking out guys,

and he was pitching to a lot of contact. And then he had a, I believe it was five straight strikeouts or four straight strikeouts on the first half. And that's just, I don't know, man. Those are just things that, like, you want across the board on pitchers. And it was actually a little bit different, Frank, than like how Jesus Lazzardo was, how Jesus was just absolutely attack mode, the whole game. There wasn't really a need for gamesmanship.

He was just striking guys out, left and right. Yeah, I would see the only thing against Pablo Lopez that I noticed so far is the schedule. He's faced the Royals and the Marlins. I mean, obviously those are two fantastic matchups. Next week, he's in line for two. starts against the White Sox and the Yankees. So that's a tougher test. And I think if he passes against both of those teams,

then we're talking about a top 30 starting pitcher, maybe top 24. I think the ceiling for both of these guys, if they're healthy, and they continue to show what they've shown so far, is we're talking about top 24 starting pitchers, SP2s for both of these guys, Pablo Lopez and Jesus Lazzardo.

And that's something I would just throw out real quick, is that like, you have to make a decision right now. Because if he goes out and he's good against the White Sox and he dominates against the Yankees, we're not talking about a guy that you can get at SP 35 cost anymore. You're talking about a guy that no one will be willing to trade. And no one's going to, you're not going to match up the trade values. You might preferably swing and miss on this one if you do trade for him now.

But I think this is one that you've just got to take a stab at. Maybe he does get like crushed versus the Yankees and he's decent against a White Sox. This is going to happen throughout it. But I think you just kind of have to make your move on a guy like this now because if you get two or three more, we're not going to be able to help ourselves and talk about it. If you keep striking out seven or eight, we're going to talk about them nonstop. And then, Frank, you're right. You're going to be sitting on here saying, guess what? Pavel Lopez, top 20 SP.

And then what does the price look like? It's just not going to be acquireable. Like Jeffrey Springs is like the most unacquirable pitcher right now because I don't think the person trading four would want to pay the price that the trader is going to require. and Pablo could kind of go into that same territory if you get a couple more really good starts under his belt. We didn't actually mention what Lazardo did, but he was amazing. Seven innings, one run,

10 strikeouts to one walk, 20 swinging strikes on 99 pitches, at least six swinging strikes on each of the fastball change-up and slider. So we're talking about everything working. The fastball velocity remains up one mile per hour compared to last year. So, I mean, routinely hitting upper 90s with that fastball. 41% CSW overall is,

just insane for Jesus Lozardo in this game. And when I made the breakout case for him, I said a bunch of his metrics last year were top 20. Lazzardo was not being valued as the top 20 starter. And the reason is injuries. And that remains to be seen. Like with both of these guys, they have dealt with a lot of stuff in the past.

I'm not going to dispute that. But on a per inning basis, if these guys can give you 150 plus, I think they're top 24 starters. These are tough players to value because you have to balance what their value is right now, I think you could make a case

that Pablo Lopez and Hazel Zazzardo are top 24 starting pitchers right now. I think I feel more confident in them than Hunter Green, who has basically just like a five-start stretch at the end of last season where he's been even all that useful for fantasy and we're just projecting a lot on him. I feel more calm, but I think both Lopez and Lazzardo

have lengthy enough injury track records that I think it's fair to be a little skeptical, but I think they're going to be really good when they pitch. Well, so let me give you a trade situation, since you gave me one earlier. Someone approaches you with their Pablo Lopez, and they say, I'll give you Pablo's trade up for Zach Gallen,

for your Zach Allen. What would you say? I would say, you are a very funny individual. I'm going to pass, but let's see if we can work something else out. I'm not a seller on Zach Allen right now. If I remember correctly, I want to say this was a little bit,

similar ish. I'm going back, I was looking at Max Scherger's numbers, but I, Gallen had a little stretch early on in the year that he had some of this. Did you have a stat for it? No, no, no. He got off to a slow start last year though. You're right about that. Yeah, and he finds him, so, he's done this a couple of years. He finds himself in the summer and he just starts rattling off these seven inning games. Quality starts left and right.

And, you know, the Diamondbacks are playing at a little bit better level. Josh Rojas is stepping up. They're winning some games. Corby and Carroll, like I said, if he ever walks, that'll be good. The bullpen, I think. it's actually a really interesting space right now, even though Scott McGuff isn't going. What if Drey Jameson does kind of get into there? Miguel Castro looks good.

All I'm pointing to is like, Zach Allen's another one of those great buy opportunities. It's so weird that there's all these like middle post-25 SPs that were like, oh my gosh, this is great. And then all these top guys were like, what do we do? Max Scher, the homers and Gallen is stinking and Burns is blowing up. Like this is April baseball.

So you got to pick your spots. There's no chance. And maybe I'm being, again, hypocritical of like having a warning of four to Corbyn Burns and I have very little warning about Zach Allen but I have also seen this story with Zach Allen before. Yeah, I only brought up Gallen because he's my SP 23 so he's right there on that cutoff where you know, if we're moving Lopez and Lazardo up to that point then you know they're probably in a similar conversation. It's a lot closer for me because I had Gallin as a bus coming into the year. But I think that's

a name where you can you could say I'll give you Gallin but I want Lazardo plus. Like even if it's a you know, a low-end hitter or a reliever or something like that. I think you can get Lopez and another name for Zach Allen right now. So I wouldn't do it straight up. Yeah. Let's talk about some of those prospect performances. We mentioned Grayson Rodriguez earlier. Jordan Walker, two for four with his first career home run.

Three hard hit balls in that game. And the home run came on a breaking ball, which I love to see for a young hitter. Only three strikeouts in 25 played appearances so far. Towers, we'll start with you this time. What have you seen so far from Jordan Walker? He's hitting the ball really, really hard, which is what we, we expected. That was the thing we knew about Jordan Walker coming in is that even as a 20 year old in the minors, he posted elite major league exit velocities. The problem before today, I don't think

he had had a barreled ball before today, despite having, I'm trying to remember the stat. Someone posted it. He had like either the most or the second most 100 mile per hour bat at balls in the major. he's been hitting a ton of hard hit balls. It's just they'd all been on the ground. Have you looked at his launch angle? He's a negative 5.9 launch angle. I saw one of his hits yesterday or a highlight from one of his hits. And it was like 108 mile per hours, six feet in front of the plate.

And so it's like we're seeing the physical tools. Yeah, he hadn't had a barreled ball before today despite having 10 batted balls over 95 miles per hour. I assume the home run was barreled. I guess I don't know for sure. But yeah, I don't think this, by the way, we're all looking at baseballs a lot right now. I don't know if it's updated to today

because it doesn't register any barrels. And I went and looked, he had a double today that was 109, and I think it was off the wall. And then the Homer was 104.7. And I believe both of those should have improved the launch angle and were barreled. So I just don't think baseball savant has updated to that,

just to add to your point. And so, I think what we're seeing is the physical tools are everything that they were cracked up to be. It's just they need refinement, which is he's, is he 21 yet? I think he turns 21 in like April or May. So he's, yeah, I don't know. He's 20 years old.

He turns 21, May 22nd. Yeah. So like, it's not unreasonable to think that like this incredibly gifted talent needs a little more seasoning. And he's getting it at the major league level with major league coaching against major league pitching. And so the fact that we're seeing the tools in play is very exciting. And I think is a good sign that he will figure it out at some point.

You know, it doesn't always happen. Nomar Mazarra would routinely hit the ball incredibly hard right in front of the plate. I'm not saying that's who Jordan Walker is. Please don't come after me. That's just an example of a guy who didn't figure it out. but I do think Jordan Walker, you have to be pretty pleased with what he's done so far. Well, three names that could,

three prospects that could be available in redraft leagues. Josh Young went two for four with his second home run. He's batting 348 early on. He's 65% rostered. Logan O'Hoppy went one for four with a two-run homer. That was the second. He has started five of six games for the Angels so far. He's 44% rostered.

And then Joey Weimer also hit his first career home run, a three-run shot off David Peter. He also made an awesome diving catch in the center field that I saw when watching that game. 22% rostered. So even more widely available, what do you think about those three? Do you consider any of them must add? Young, Oh, Hopi, Weemer. You had Young in there, right?

Yeah, yeah, because Young, I think so. Absolutely. I think the power he's already displaying some of it. I talked about, you know, the check off your CBS Fancy Bellsville today drinking card because I'm going to mention the backfields. but that 30-minute home-run session of, you know, him working one-on-one of the coach and just trying to launch the ball. And it's like, I'm seeing some of that fruition right into games.

I think he's a must-ad. I don't know if Logan O'Hoppy is a 12-team, but I think he's a 15-team ad. And, you know, I would say I'm not as crazy about Joey Weamer as everybody else. I think it's a little bit tougher on that team. There's a little bit more volatility as far as, like, if you struggle, South Freelik is just, like, chomping at the bit to come up.

And, you know, once at some point when, you know, Luis Urius is healthy, you got Brian Anderson kind of moving around. But I think we're in a stage where every young prospect that is performing at a solid level, I would want to dump off bench bats, even if they're like, I've used this example, like Tommy Fam. Like, would you rather hold on to Tommy Fan for the season of knowing what you have or would you rather dump him for Joey Weamer? And maybe it doesn't work out and you come out the.

the wrong end. But I would rather take that risk right now. I would throw Bryce Terang in that as well. Bryce Trang, I think, is played well. He's going to have that second base job locked for the season. He's going to steal bases. He's showing a little bit of power. There's contact in there.

He's not going anywhere. Weemer might. I actually would probably prioritize Terang over Weemer. But that's my point is like those bench bats, you're really holding on to any of those so firmly that you wouldn't want to take the risk. So I could argue to say that 12 team and up, these are all must ads. 10 teams. it's pretty hard to say.

Maybe Bryce Trang, maybe not in like a points league or something like that. But yeah, I think they're all that. Well, you know what? He doesn't strike out. So maybe I think they're all in the onage territory. I will say like, I think Logan O'Hoppe, even in a 12 team league, you can make a pretty good case that he's just a must roster player. Because like, I look at the top 12 catchers and like, okay, I would definitely rather have

Sean Murphy, William Contreras, M.J. Melendez, and Tyler Stevenson. Those are like my bottom five in the top. Gabriel Moreno, I really like, but he hasn't really done anything yet. So we kind of have this standing policy where if you're a young catcher and you show any promise, that kind of just makes you a default top 12 guy. And maybe this year because there's Cal Raleigh and then Gabriel Moreno and even Travis Starr knows off to a very good start with some interesting playing time notes. Maybe you can say it's more like just every interesting young catcher who gets called

up and makes it to a major league roster is a top 15 catcher. Maybe that's the difference. But even then, that's a must roster player in a two catcher league. You know, two things on that. By the way, Francisco Alvarez is going to be called up on Friday. Or at least he's going to be hanging with the team because Omar Navarra's got hurt and he might get in there, just throwing that out there. But I think he qualifies at U-Till in a lot of spots.

But we're talking catcher and he may start that up. So just throwing it out to you guys. This would be so upsetting if both Grayson Rodriguez and Francisco Alvarez. got called up in the same week when I had to drop both of them. Yeah, everybody's like, I'm done. It would be unbelievable. The only thing I wanted to push back on you on is, are you sure Sean Murphy is a must?

Like, we all love Sean Murphy. It is very early, but he is hitting 100. Playing time seems to be weird. Travis Arnaud's getting, I don't want to make a big thing about it because I would never cut Sean Murphy at this point. But like,

when you said it was definitive over O'Hoppy, I know. Because I'm playing in deeper keeper leagues is why I wouldn't cut Murphy. But is it for sure? My thought with Murphy is the Braves know what they have with him. You know, they gave him the six-year contract extension or whatever. He's the long-term guy there. They don't know what they have with Marcello Zuna as a DH option or some of their other DH options.

So I would imagine that it's more just like early in the season, the games don't, the stress isn't as high. Let's take an opportunity to see, you know, if Marcello Zerner. can rediscover his old form or, you know, whatever the case may be. So I think that's what it is and that Sean Murphy's playing time will be fine. But Darnow has played every game, I think. Yes, he has started. And Murphy has sat two of five. No, no, no, hold on a second. Travis Darno has started all six games for the Braves. Six games. Sean Murphy has started three. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that the Braves are doing this just to troll me because Sean Murphy is one of my most rostered players across all of my leagues. And I was all in this year. And I'm

kind of freaking out. But I'm just trying to tell myself that it's the first week of the season. Everything's going to be our right. They traded a lot to get this guy. They gave him a contract extension. And we know that he's a good player. I think we know definitively that Sean Murphy is a good player. And I think eventually we're going to realize that. And so will the Atlanta braves. But 1-143 Babbat probably going to adjust. Yeah. Yeah. I would hope so. Let's take our second break. We'll get to some news and notes. some other waiver wire talk here on fantasy baseball today. All right, boys, we got a lot left.

So let's pick up the pace here over the final 15 minutes or so. Let's hit some news and notes. Truly awesome news as Liam Hendricks rang the victory bell following his final round of chemotherapy. He was not placed on the 60-day IL, which gave us optimism that he can return sometime in May, late May. I think that's a possibility. He's 60% rostered.

If you have an IEL spot, please, please pick up Liam Hendricks. Justin Verlander underwent a follow-up MRI on Wednesday, which showed reduced inflammation in his shoulder. O'Neill Cruz left early with a facial injury after colliding with Rafael Devers at third base. The pirates are off Thursday, so we should learn more by then. I mentioned this earlier, but April 5th is the day that the injury-prone players got hurt.

Eloy Jimenez placed on the IL with a left hamstring train. The team is hopeful that he'll only miss two weeks. Right, we believe you. Gavin Sheets started at DH as a result and could be worth a look in deeper leagues. he went two for four with three RBI on Wednesday. Lars Neupar, who's on the aisle with a thumb injury, might not require a rehab assignment before being activated.

The earliest he can return is April 10th. Tyro Estrada was scratched from the lineup Wednesday. After fouling a ball off his leg on Monday, the team expects him to be back in the lineup on Thursday. Luis Severino has built up his throwing progression to 90 feet and could throw a bullpen in Baltimore this weekend. He's on the IL with a low-grade latch train, something that he has dealt with in the past.

Josh Donaldson left early due to right hamstring tightness. He'll undergo an MRI, but the team has already expressed that they don't think it's serious. They have other names, obviously, to fill in with DJ LaMayhew, they go play Glaber at second, and they have Anthony Volpe. But the first thing that went off of my head

is Oswald Parazzo. Let's get him back on the team, but obviously I think a few more things seem to happen before we get there. Kyle Bradish was officially placed on the IL with a right foot contusion. Aaron Ashby needs arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder that could knock him out for the entire season. It's just one brutal blow after another right now for Aaron Ashby.

Derek Hall, one of my bold predictions. Looks great. Could be placed on the IL due to a right thumb injury. He suffered while sliding, and if that happens, we will likely see Alec Boeim slide over to first with Edmundo Sosa playing more third base. Kyle Isbell was placed on the paternity list, and Nick Prado was recalled from AAA.

Welsh, is there anything here? Any hope for Nick Prado? I would tell you, I wish. He is one of my favorites. I have, uh, baby boy. He's my baby boy at his pro debut and love the swing and the potential goal glove defense. And now he's a left fielder who can't really hit. No, I don't think so.

Unfortunately, the bat has just never progressed. He's got raw skills, but unfortunately they're just raw. He's more of a defensive player now. And like I said, he can't even, you know, he got moved out of his spot and left field. Left field looks a little bit rough if you watched him. And I think he did make a play, but it looks a little bit rough, so I don't think so. And he has a noodle arm, too, because I saw him try to throw someone out of the plate, and it like bounced to the cutoff guy, to the pitcher. I was like, oh, man, this is a good old Luis Gonzalez arm in the field.

Not great. Brandon Marsh was scratched Wednesday due to a mild left ankle sprain. Christian Patche started in center field. We already talked about the Braves catcher playing time. Four games already postponed for Thursday due to inclement weather around the country. so we only have, I wrote four games on the schedule. I think it's six. I think I meant to write six.

A few prospect updates. Brett Beatty is expected to return to game action on Friday down in the minors. He injured his right thumb earlier in the week, but all tests came back negative. Thankfully, Welsh, I know you wanted to talk about your boy, Brandon Fott, who got rocked in his first start at AAA. Three and two-thirds innings, five earned runs, four homers allowed, but he did have seven strikeouts. I don't know if you got to watch the start or read or hear anything about it, but what are your thoughts? Yeah, watch some of it and like there's a lot of not good stuff in there. I could be a little bit like PCL, and it is a little bit PCL.

There were a few encouraging things, and one thing I like immediately honed in on that I hope changes. So the encouraging was that he still had a 41% K percentage like overall. CSW percentage was still up there as well. The thing that was uniquely interesting about it, 73% percent. fastball usage in that game. That's not Brandon Fott. That's not any really successful, but 73% fastball.

That seems different. And that seems like maybe a couple of things. Was the team wanting him to pump fastballs? Was he not comfortable? Was there a catching situation? And what happened, especially let's say he just wasn't comfortable and he was throwing those fastballs.

There was a 113.5 max EV from Tyler Sotom off of him. They were just teeing up on the fastball. So I'm speculating we are going to see a different Brandon fought in the next start. And he's not going to throw you throw 73% fastballs, guys are probably going to sit on it and they're going to crush a few in that PCL environment that I'm hoping, and that's something I'm watching for in the next start, that that tanks and ticks down. And if we see that, I think that's going to, we're kind of get back right.

And also seeing Dre Jameson in that side of the bullpen with a save really opens up an opportunity for Brandon fought. you know, if this is righted and maybe they really like Dre Jameson in that back part of the bullpen, maybe Fott is the first guy up hopefully soon, you know, because we're going to see Bumgarner on Friday, and we all know how that's going to go. All right. Let's talk some waiver wire stragglers. Bad job by me, because we should have talked about Mitch Keller earlier. He was really great on Wednesday.

Seven innings, one run, seven strikeouts at the Boston Red Sox, 10 swinging strikes on 107 pitches. That's, eh, that's okay. That's mediocre. But the overall line was fantastic. 34% CSW. That was very good. He used six different pitches between 7 and 21% in this start. So, you know, he's basically U.

Darvish. I made that joke recently. I'll go back to it. 36% rostered, the problem. Looks like he's in line for two starts next week. The Astros and the Cardinals. Do not love those matchups. Towers, I know, like,

I feel like every year you and I are the ones that wind up talking about Mitch Keller and do we want to do this? Do we want to do it again? He has made a change. You know, he's throwing a new cutter and he's at 31% in this start. So I don't know. Maybe he's better. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, we saw last season, he, he's constantly tinkering. And we saw the second half of last season. He was better. It's still not the kind of pitcher we want him to be. Not a lot of strikeouts, not a lot of swings and misses in particular, but a better job with weak contact. And that might be the path forward for him. If hitters can't sit on any one pitch,

you can give them a ton of different looks. Maybe he can be, you know, an above average pitcher who, you know, I don't think we're going to get a strikeout per inning, but maybe he can be useful. If in my Tout Wars League, the way that league works is if you add someone, you have to start them that week.

I don't know if he's available in that league. I would guess he is. It's a 12-team league. There's no way. way I would use any amount of fab on him with a game a week versus Houston and at St. Louis. But I wouldn't mind having him on my team. I just wouldn't start him next week. Yeah, I had to do the same thing in Tout Wars this week. I picked up Rwanzi Kutreras. I was like, uh, at Boston. Don't really love it. But, you know, I kind of like the pitcher.

So I picked him up and actually worked out well. So I got a surprisingly good start out of Zach cranky after adding him in Towers. And yeah, he looked good. Yeah, it was a little, a little wary about that one, but it worked out. It was surprisingly good, by the way. Well, we'll get to him in just a little bit. I want to compare Mitch Keller

to some of the most added. I assume we're all taking Graham Ashcraft over him, right? Yes. Yeah. How about Mitch Keller versus Mike Clevenger? Ooh.

I think I would go with Clevenger, but I could see the case for Keller. I go Keller, actually. A better team for Clevenger, but I don't, I'm not with that. What about Keller versus Savali? I would go with Keller.

I have no faith in Aaron Savali. Yeah, I go with Kelly too. Ah, I like Savali. Team context is better too. That one's close. I think I would take Savali, though. How about Mitch Keller versus Justin Steele? Steel.

I would go to steal. Last one here. Dylan Dodd. I think that one's kind of interesting, too. Keller. I think I would go Keller, yeah. All right. Let's talk about Garrett Mitchell,

who hit a walk-off home run, his third homer in two days. He actually did not start the game against a left-handed pitcher. That's the only downside to some of these Brewers players right now. It actually seems like Joe. He's got a lot of guys. Yeah.

Joey Weemers, actually the one who's playing every day, playing against both lefties and righties, but Mitchell hasn't been starting against lefties. Same thing with Bryce Terrang. Jesse Winker hadn't started against a lefty until Wednesday, so, you know, the day that we're recording this. But yeah, Mitchell looks good,

and frankly, what we drafted him for is speed. I don't think he has a steal yet. He actually has three homers, so it's interesting. He's 56% rostered, seven games on the schedule for next week. Looks like two lefties as of now. Obviously, things can change. Well, so what are your thoughts on Garrett Mitchell? would you take him over his teammate, Joey Weimer?

Yeah, I would. Surprisingly, I've never been a big Garrett Mitchell guy. The thing I hated about him so much was he would hit across his body. And he was really just, it's kind of like Luis Garcia with the Nationals, a good contact hitter he could run. But he would hit across his body, a lot of ground balls, not get the ball in the air. And all of a sudden, you know, hey, shocker, that the developmental process was a process and that it took some time and it had to, you know, find its way.

He's hitting the ball harder. Max EV last year, 109.9.12 this year. His launch angle went from 9.5 up to 14 and a half. His hard hit is up. These are all the things you want from a young hitter like this. He's got some raw power. He's got really great speed that he hasn't even tapped into. So yeah, Garrett Mitchell's a guy.

It's kind of hard to ignore. Shout out to his wife who is no longer allowed to come to games, though, if you saw that fun thing. Did you see that? What happened? He said, it's a really funny exchange. His wife is a, I think a USA softball player. And he said, well, you know, when my wife doesn't come to games,

good things happen. So I thought we would mess around. And his wife has taken to Twitter to blast him. And she hit it like, next time I come to the game, I'll have a hoodie on. And she announced she'll no longer be coming to games for Brewers fans. Oh, man.

That is funny, man. But yeah, interesting things with the launch angle that you mentioned there with Garrett Mitchell. I think I would take him over Joey Weimer as well. But both are very interesting. How about some deep league pitcher thoughts? I've got five names here. Maybe give me your top two.

two favorites of this group. Zach Granky, we mentioned another solid start. Up against the Blue Jays, you know, it's a tough matchup. Six innings, one run, four strikeouts in that one. Bryce Elder, his return to the rotation, at the Cardinals, six shutout with six strikeouts. He looked really good, went slider-heavy, threw it 43% of the time in that start.

Kyle Muller had another solid outing up against the Guardians, five and two-thirds, two runs, five strikeouts. Hunter Gaddis on the other side, he looked great. At the Oakland A's, obviously it's a pretty good matchup, but six shutout, one hit allowed, two walks, four strikeouts for him. And Chris Flexen has, he pitched well. Five innings, two runs, four strikeouts.

He will fill in the Mariners rotation as long as Robbie Ray is out. He had 15 swinging strikes. No, no, no, he had 14 swinging strikes in this start. He had 15 in his relief outing last week. I don't know what's going on with Chris Flexon. I don't see really anything that's changed for him in the pitch mix or velocity, but all of a sudden he's getting swinging strikes. a lot of them. I'm like

halfway interested on Chris Flexen. What do you guys think? Flexen, Gaddis, Mueller, Elder, Granky. Towers, give me your top two. I think it would be Granky and Elder, but it's definitely Granky a little bit ahead of anyone else. And then I think the rest of them are all

varying levels of not all that interesting. But I like what we've seen from Zach Granky so far. His velocity was up in spring. It's held true so far in the regular season. And, you know, we've seen him be a very good pitcher averaging 91-ish with his fastball, which is right around where he's at. I think he's at 90.7 or right around there.

So, yeah, I think what we're seeing from Granky is interesting. And again, these are more so deep league plays, 15-teamers, stuff like that. Granky's in line for two stars next week. The problem, the Braves and As well. at the Rangers. So don't love those matchups for him. Bryce Elder, by the way, if he stays in the rotation for bold starts, we don't know. I mean, I guess there's a chance Max Fried could be back. But if Elders in there, the Reds and the Royals, that's awesome.

Those are great matchups. Welles, what do you think? Your top two of this group. Yeah, actually, I want to say Elder, because I watched that game. I felt so good about team total runs for the cards today of two and a half over in five. And he just diced up the Cardinals. it was crazy. Goldsmith wasn't able to get anything. But I just don't think he stays in the rotation. Also, Soroka's working his way back. Kyle Wright is doing a rehab assignment right now. I just don't see him sticking around.

So I'm going to go with Granky because I completely agree with you said. I think I'll go with Kyle Muller just because I think he's going to be able to maintain. It's a bad offense, of course, but he's going to just be able to maintain the whole season where I'm not sold on Flexon. And yeah, it's not an easy sell on the second one, but I'm going to go with Mueller. Okay. Flexon, one thing I'll mention with him, Spark eligible. So if you play in a deeper points league, you can use him as a relief pitcher. Let's talk about some aces that were on the mound. The two that looked amazing.

We mentioned earlier, Jacob de Grom, huge bounce back performance against the Orioles. Six innings, two runs. One of those earned 11 strikeouts with 25 swinging strikes. It's just ridiculous stuff. Garrett Cole, dominant once again, up against the Philly,

six and a third, one run, eight strikeouts in that one. He's actually been very fastball heavy in his first two starts, but that fastball has looked amazing. Towers, I don't know. Any thoughts? These guys are awesome. No thoughts, just vibes. Fair enough. These five look very good, but dot, dot, dot. There was a little something off. Christian Javier, solid bounce back against the Tigers.

Six innings, one run, five strikeouts. His fastball v. Lo, down 1.5 miles per hour. Something to watch. Dylan Sees was solid. Five innings, one run, eight strikeouts, but five walks, and his velocity was down. Apparently, he was battling an illness, so that might explain it. Shohei Otani, another strong outing, six innings, one run, eight strikeouts. The problem here, seven walks in his first two starts, and his sweeper velocity was down 1.5 miles per hour. His sinker down 2.7 compared to last year. So we'll have to watch that for Otani. Alec Manoa, a strong bounceback for him as well, seven innings, seven shutout with five strikeouts.

His velocity was down. It was really cold out there in Kansas City. I think it was sub 50 degrees, so that might... His velocity was down in the spring. It's worth noting, like two-ish miles an hour, and it was not cold in Florida. And then Shane O. Mac, Shane McClanhan. Here comes the money. Here we go.

Money talk. Here comes the money. Six innings, two runs, six strikeouts, but he did have four walks. And, you know, the velocity has been good you like to see coming off the shoulder injury last year. He's been using his fastball a lot, which I don't want to read too much into that yet, but it's, it's something that I want to watch. Well, one of it's an early season thing.

Maybe. Maybe the Velo's been up. So it's probably not a bad thing. You know, he's averaging like 98 with his fastball and hit 100 today. So. Not going to argue too much with that. Welles,

was there anything that stood out with these five, like maybe a quick note on one or two of them? Biggest one was I just, you know, I didn't get all the tweets at me about Dylan Cs and his five walks today. I got them all the last start when he was awesome. It's just so interesting that I didn't get all. the tweets today about Dillen C's. So that was my biggest takeaway. I think the illness probably

explains why he wasn't super sharp today. But it's also like, yeah, Dylan C's has starts like this. It wasn't all in all, it wasn't a terrible start. This is all the point. It's always the point about him. Yeah, Minowa too is like, hmm, manoa's a little bit on that fringe, Frank, of what you talked about with like the guys with the strikeouts and maybe say like he was efficient today. But, you know, there's a lot of stuff that's down that doesn't make me feel confident. I, One of my bold predictions was that ERA is going to inflate this year, and I think it's coming. Yeah. Alec Mnanoa was a bus for me, too.

And I don't think he's going to pot him out. I just, like you, I think he's going to regress this year. And then there was Aranoa, which he's just in his own category because he's Aranoa. And he was fine, six innings, three runs, five strikeouts. And you're going to get starts like this because he is a quote unquote ace, but he doesn't have a ace stuff. You know, he's not pumping 97, 98 miles per hour. He's going to have some bad starts. He's going to have some good starts.

by the end of the year, it's probably going to give you SP1 numbers, but the road to get there, it's going to be kind of annoying. I'll admit that for Aaronola. A few hitting leftovers, back-to-back days with a home run for Kyle Schwaber. Just imagine if he played in Yankee Stadium, because, I mean, the home run he hit, I think, was 365 feet, and like, he would just be so perfect in Yankee Stadium if he played there. Glaber Torres, speaking of Yankees, off to a blistering start,

three for four, with two more steals. He now leads baseball with five stolen bases. I mean, who had that one week? of the season. And I have been incorrectly saying that he is in a contract year. That is not true. It's, you know,

I don't know where I got that from. I thought it was. I must have looked at his, like, spot track page, and it looks like they're just missing a year there, but yeah, he's arbitration eligible next year as well. Matt Olson went three for five with a home run and two doubles,

a three RBI, two runs scored, Monster game. He's also a great start. He's got three home runs. The middle of the order for the Mets finally woke up. Pete Alonzo had a double dong. Francisco Lendor went three for four

with two doubles. in that game. Riley Green went two for four with a triple and his first steal of the season. He's betting 348 early on. And what did we want to see coming into the season? Launch angle. His ground ball rate entering Wednesday was 38.5% last year that was 56%. His average launch angle is 13.8 compared to 2.8 last year. Perfect. I don't know that we're going to get some kind of big home run output, but 20 home runs with a lot of doubles and a good batting average, I think that's pretty realistic for Riley Green. Kyle Tucker's ankle looks just fine. He went two for four, hit his third home run, and Yoham Moncada, two more hits, batting 440 early on in the season. You'll love to see it.

Let's get some bullpen update, some quick ones here. For the Marlins, Dylan Floro pitching the eighth inning with the game tied. A.J. Puck then got the ninth with a four-run lead. He did give up a run in that inning. For the Braves, Colin McHugh got the ninth with a four-run lead. He gave up a run, was replaced by Jesse Chavez, who got the final out and the save. For the Pirates, David Bednar was unavailable. Dwayne Underwood Jr. converted his first save of the season. For the Mets, David Robertson pitched in the eighth inning with the game tied. Adam Madovino then got the ninth and promptly gave up a walk-off home run to Garrett Mitchell.

For the White Sox, with a 4-1 lead in the seventh inning, Ronaldo Lopez entered with runners on first and third. He walked one and then struck out Jock Peterson. But I thought it was interesting usage. That's kind of closer-ish. Seventh inning? It's early. like, that's a situation that you got to get out of.

Mariners did that with Andres Munoz tonight, I think, too, in the seventh, the top of the somewhere in the bottom of the seventh or something like that. They brought in Munoz in like a really hardcore like two guy on situation. So I kind of agree. I think that's the team telling you that's the dude that we need in the highest leverage situation. And he is throwing gas. I didn't see the velocity in this outing, but the previous one,

and Renato Lopez was averaging 100 miles an hour with his fastball. He was pretty good out of the bullpen last year. I admit, I've been skeptical. He was averaging 98 with this one in this outing. I've been skeptical, but he might work in the out of the bullpen, at least for, you know, hopefully for only like the next four or five weeks. And then Liam Hendricks is back. Again, that was Ronaldo Lopez for the Angels.

Jimmy Herget entered with a three-run lead and a runner on first. In the seventh, he gave up two hits, two runs. and also pitched in the 8th. It was Jose Kihada who pitched the 9th and converted the save in a one-run game. Phil Nevin said after the game that he wanted Carlos Estevez to have another day off since he pitched on Sunday and Monday.

That's why Jose Quijada closed. And that kind of makes me feel like Estevez is actually the closer for this team, but we'll see for their next save opportunity. The regulars, Clay Holmes, struck out the side for his first save, much better than his first outing. For the Guardians,

Emmanuel Class A walked one but picked up his second save for the Blue Jays. Jordan Romano picked up his third save of the year. And I think Class A's velocity was up in this one. I think entering today he had been down like close to two miles per hour with his cutter. And today it was, you know, closer to where he's been in the past. If I'm yeah, I got Class A right here. And yeah, average 98.6 last year he was 99.5 before that. I think in the previous two outings, he was like 97.5 or something.

So that's a positive sign. All right. Let's wrap up with to stream or not to stream Welsh. The way this works is I list off pictures for tomorrow. And you say whether or not you'd be willing to stream them in a daily lineup league. My guess is you probably will not say that for most of these names. On Thursday, Spencer Turnbull versus the Red Sox. Nope. Nope.

Jordan Lyles versus the Blue Jays. Nope. Pass. Alex Wood at the White Sox. Probably not No thanks I don't think so either And then Josiah Gray

versus Kyle Freeland In Coorsfield Nope don't do it Not even gonna ask Friday Tyler McGill versus the Marlins Eh Yes

Yeah I like it I get behind it Clark Schmidt at the Orioles Yes At Baltimore Makes it a little more interesting Dean Kramer versus the Yankees

No Nope Aaron Savali versus The Mariners I wouldn't Pass Zach Eflin versus the A's.

Yes. Big yes. Nick Martinez at the Braves. Nah. Nope. All right. We're going to wrap there for Towers and the Welsh.

I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.