Fantasy Baseball Today - Buehler's Spin Rates Plummet! Week 14 Sleepers & Two-Start Pitchers (6/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)
Episode Date: June 25, 2021Scott White's Prospect Report- https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/fantasy-baseball-prospects-report-jarren-duran-closes-in-on-a-promotion-while-bobby-witt-awaits-his-turn/ Walker Buehler...'s spin rates were way down on Thursday but does it matter (1:15)? Should you add Tony Santillan? What about Akil Baddoo? ... News and notes (20:36)! Lucas Sims went to the IL, Corey Seager will be back in July and more. ... Prospect Report (27:31)! When might we see Bobby Witt Jr.? What do you need to know about Edward Cabrera? ... Let's get ready for Week 14 (33:42)! Which two-start pitchers should you target? What about sleeper hitters for next week? ... Kyle Schwarber is on fire, the Astros lineup is ridiculous and the most underrated lineup duo in baseball is _____ (42:12). ... Are any of these pitchers good (49:27)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpens, streamers for the weekend, and Fantasy Justice For All (51:14)! ... Email us at fantasybaseball@cbsi.com. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts. CBS Sports and Westinghouse are teaming up to give away a 55" TV, portable power station and air purifier over the next month. Go to cbssports.com/homerun to enter. Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank, @AdamAizer Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Domino!
Welcome on Friday and welcome into fantasy baseball today,
presented by Lion and Coogles,
more on their great beverages later on in the podcast.
The band is back together.
Let's see if we make it through the entire podcast together.
Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers today on the podcast.
Week 14, sleepers, two-star pitchers, the prospect report.
Are these players good?
Zach Davies currently has a no-hitter through six innings against the Dodgers.
I repeat, Zach Davies.
No hitter, Dodgers.
But many Walker.
Yes.
Many walkers.
That's five walkers.
And Walker Bueller, we're going to talk a lot about him too.
Fantasy Justice and more.
No time to waste.
Let's jump right in.
Oh, my goodness gracious.
Shout out to everybody who left Apple Podcast, ratings, and reviews this week.
Supporting, oh, my goodness gracious.
I see all of you and I appreciate you.
Let's start with Chris.
How you doing, bud?
Chris, let's go.
Oh, my goodness gracious, standout from,
Thursday, who you got?
Well, I guess we're going to do this every day with some pitcher.
And today it's a Dodger again.
So Walker Bueller had a decent start today, six innings, three and runs, six strikeouts, two walks.
Kind of like Trevor Bowers yesterday, actually, a little better control.
But the biggest thing, he had maybe one of the most dramatic drops in spin rate that I've ever seen for a pitcher this season.
his fastball,
fourth team fastball spin rate was down 277 RPMs.
His cutter was down 327.
His knuckle curve was 339.
His slider was 289.
I mean,
we're talking like when we've talked about a lot of these spin rate changes,
we've been talking about like,
well,
his was down like 125 or his was down 150.
And, you know,
this is,
um,
this is like a 10% or more drop for,
for it's more than 10%
for all of his pitches
except for the slider.
So that is really,
really significant.
He also,
unlike Trevor Bauer last night,
was not throwing harder
to make up for it.
So, you know,
it's like he only had 10
whiffs in this start on 103 pitches.
Maybe those two things are related.
It's still a,
one start sample size and you can't take too much
out of it.
And he was, you know,
pitching very,
very well up until that sixth inning when he gave up a two-run Homer to Wilson Contreras
with two outs. If he had been able to get that out, we're probably talking about this game
a little differently. But, you know, Walker Bueller, I mean, there's a fine line between
success and something less than success in Major League Baseball for everyone. But in Walker
Bueller's case, there have been warning signs in his profile all season long. I mean,
he has the worst expected ERA of his career. And I think that's not including tonight's start.
He has the lowest strikeout rate of his career. He does also have one of the best walk
rates of his career entering this start. So it's not all been bad. But, you know, he's looked a lot
like the A's version of Walker Bueller that we've seen this season until you look under the hood.
and then it's just a little bit off.
And, you know, with a dip and spin rate and, you know,
maybe even fewer strikeouts,
it's something to keep an eye on.
As with all of this,
I hesitate to say anything definitive about what the impact will be
on Marker Bueller's performance moving forward.
But, you know, he was one of the biggest swing rate or spin rate gainers in baseball this
season.
So it's, you know, it's, well, maybe he's something to watch.
Maybe he's better off without.
the spent. How much had he gained? I didn't even think to look at that with Walker Bueller.
Actually, I guess it hadn't been as dramatic as I thought. It was earlier. It's only been about
60 RPM over the course of the season, but that's also, you know, his velocity is down a
mile and a half per hour from 2020. Yeah. Yeah. And it was down, I think, especially early.
But yeah, if he hadn't come out and pitch the sixth, it would have looked like a very typical
Walker Bueller start and as it was it was still
a quality start.
So I don't know.
I agree this is the most dramatic
drop in spin rate I've seen for a starting
pitcher so far. Tyler Matzick, a reliever for the Braves
was like 400 to 500 RPM.
He was lost on his business.
He's been one of those guys every time I look at a box score
tune into a Braves game and he's in. I'm just like
where the heck did Tyler Matzick start doing all this stuff?
Yeah. This is obviously still an evolving situation. We've seen several pitchers lose a lot of spin for several starts now. We're seeing another round of pitchers lose spin. And even some from that first round are losing even more spin. I would guess because they were weaning themselves off the hard stuff with something like Sun's Green and Rosen or, you know, as opposed to just quitting cold turkey. So we still don't have a huge sample for any pitchers.
of what this means performance-wise.
The broad view, though,
can you guys think of a pitcher who just looks broken because of this?
A starting pitcher anyway?
Like, they've lost a lot of spin,
and now they appear broken.
Trevor Bauer doesn't look as overpowering.
Derek Boll hasn't looked quite as overpowering.
Bauer's probably the one that I would say just because of what we've seen from him in his career,
I wouldn't say broken,
but I'm getting pre-2020 Bauer vibes from him.
Yeah, he's probably the one that I worry about the most,
though what you brought up the other day, Scott,
it was since the middle of May,
Garik-Col's swinging strike rate has been right around league average.
So that's obviously concerning.
And I'm not saying it has no effect,
but I don't know.
I'm kind of sticking with my original hunch
that it's going to be kind of like
when we see players busted for PED,
you swear,
you know,
it's not like they're,
they come back and they're a deflated beach ball,
you know?
Like,
it's not like they suddenly don't know how to hit a baseball anymore.
One thing I would say,
just like as a general rule,
if I had to like assign some kind of,
like my prior,
I guess,
my assumption of what this would mean would just,
I think the biggest thing is it will probably make
specifically fastballs less,
effective at generating swings and misses. And that's something that we've seen over the last
couple of seasons that, you know, spin rate on fastballs is highly correlated with whiff rate.
You know, a 25% whiff rate on a fastball is really, really good. If you can do that,
I mean, Brandon Woodruff is kind of the king of fastball whiff rate and he's usually in like the 28 to
30% range. But we see a lot of pitchers in that 25% range right now. And, you know, maybe we see
pitchers have to rely on their fastball
a little less. Maybe we see a few more
walks because to generate the swings
and misses, they have to throw their secondary
stuff more, which can still be very effective,
but obviously tougher to control.
It was a trend from a couple years ago.
Pitchers throwing way more breaking balls, and I still
think, like, from a historical sense,
you see a lot more breaking balls
than ever before.
For Walker Bueller
specifically, one reason I don't,
I'm not that concerned about,
the drop and spin here is like he followed such a conventional development path you know like
yeah a lead prospect he comes up and he's a good pitcher right away and he's been he's been like a
good pitcher ever since ever anybody heard his name yeah and you know it's not like he came out of
nowhere and like where to how does this guy doing this and and also the fact that you know the the
the spin rate you know who knows how whether it was making him more effective this season anyway
The underlying number is the concern for me is not as much the spin rate as it is.
Like if he's throwing 95 with his fastball now, if that's his average fastball velocity or 94,
which I think it was in this start.
For me, the concern is more, you know, what does it look like when that catches up to him?
You know, he's been, you know, if he's been able to get away with it so far,
diminished velocity with increased spin rate, now if he's looking at diminished velocity
and diminished spin rate, does that have kind of a duplicate double something effect?
Duplicative, I think is the word I was looking for.
That sounds about right.
Yeah, like maybe the increased spin rate was covering up for less fastball effectiveness because of the velocity.
That's the thing I want to see.
But I think the answer to all of these is we don't know, we need more data.
Yes.
So, you know, that's where we're at right now, I think.
Walker Bueller's fastball did average 95.1 miles per hour today,
a little bit down from where he's been at the season,
and overall it is down from where it was last year.
I think there's still just going to be natural regression,
and I don't know if people are going to point to the spin rates as a reason for it,
but all of his ERA indicators are in the mid-thr-thr,
and at this point he's got a 2.51 ERA,
so I think just looking at it, like natural regression was expected.
He's not getting as many whiffs this year or strikeouts just in general.
I think that's worth noting as well.
But Walker Bueller...
Although it's not...
Like, he actually had a higher X-FIP
last year than he has this year.
Yeah.
And the XERA is similar, so...
It's worth noting for...
Really, the swinging strike rate's not down that much.
He's never been like a huge swinging strike guy,
Walker Bueller.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Coming into the season, I would say
we probably had among pitchers being drafted in the first,
I guess, four rounds, four or five rounds.
We had the biggest concerns about Glass Now and Walker Bueller
in terms of what their workload was going to be.
Bueller has made 15 starts.
All 15 of them, he's gone six innings.
That is amazing.
Only happened once last year.
That's amazing, the fact that he's been that efficient,
and he's given you eight straight quality starts.
So even with all of this that's going on,
Walker Bueller has been really, really good.
So I'm not lowering him in my rankings.
It sounds like you guys aren't doing that either,
but obviously we will continue to monitor his spin rate.
Scott, your oh my goodness gracious player from Thursday.
All right, so I don't think we're going to spend 12 minutes on this one.
Tony Sentian of the Reds making his third career start.
It was by far his best one.
He allowed one run on three hits and six innings, struck out eight, walk three,
had 18 swinging strikes, including 13 on the slider.
Basically just two pitches.
He threw a few changeups too, but not that many.
You know, his first two starts were not anything that would,
raise anybody's interest
four walks in the first start
two home runs in the second start
in the minors
at AAA this year his numbers were good
12.5k per 9 the walk rate was
kind of high the walk rate's been kind of high throughout his
minor league career and even in
this start three walks and six innings
he's also
giving up a lot of fly balls
so far and the red's obviously playing a small ballpark
so I'm not
saying Tony Santeean
is about to break through as a stud here
but he showed some potential, obviously, with that many whiffs.
And if you're hurting for pitching, it might be worth a flyer.
Tony Santian is 6% rostered on CBS,
and it looks like he is in line for two starts next week,
at home for both against the Padres and the Cubs.
I have waivers that run tonight on Thursday night
when we're recording this in a 15-team league,
and I currently have a $3 bid in a $100 fab on Tony Santine.
again, 15 team rotos.
So I think those are probably leagues where you should be looking at him.
Chris, any interest in starting him with those matchups next week versus the Padres and the Cubs at home?
Probably not with a guy who's giving up a lot of fly balls, you know, especially against the Padres.
That's a team that can really hurt you.
And, you know, you look at the profile and it's kind of like a Wasker-I-N-O-Light right now.
Basically all sliders, all fastballs, but he doesn't throw quite as hard as Inoa.
And, you know, I know it was basically doing the Denalsa Lament thing.
And one thing that all those pitchers have in common is lots of swings and miss, lots of strikeouts.
But if he commands that can bleed into poor control and also a lot of home runs and certainly a lot of risk of home runs.
So, you know, Santian is a lesser version of those guys.
I think he's, you know, probably pretty fringy for fantasy.
Oh my goodness gracious for me.
Akeel Badoo, we've talked about quite a bit recently,
but he went three for five with two doubles,
now has 12 hits over his last seven games,
and he's batting 282 on the season
with a 13% walk rate
and has led off back-to-back games for the Detroit Tigers.
He is 29% rostered.
The biggest issue I see,
he's awful against lefties.
He's gone three for 26 against them so far this season,
and he probably won't play against them moving forward,
but I kind of feel like,
like in maybe not 12 team leagues with five outfielders,
but anything deeper,
I would make sure that Akeel Badoo is rostered.
Yeah, I think even in a 12 team five outfielder league,
he's worth having on your team.
You know, basically you look at what he's done this season.
He got off to a really good start,
and he was kind of one of the early season surprises.
He went through a five-for-50 slump from about mid-April.
to mid-May, where he struck out 52% of the time.
Oh my gosh.
But since May 11th, he is now hitting 367 with 22 walks, 21 walks, and 19 strikeouts.
Wow.
The vast majority of those played appearances have come against right-handed pitchers.
He's got a 954 OPS against them.
And he's got six steals in his last 31 games in that span too.
So, you know, you add it all up and he's not playing every day.
but that still sounds like a pretty valuable player for a Roto league,
where stolen bases are so scarce that I think he is worth having in a 12-team,
five-out-out-fielder league as someone who you can slide into your line.
And it might be one of those situations, Chris,
where it's better off that he doesn't play against lefties.
He won't give you as much volume,
but his batting average is going to be better if he only plays against righties.
Yeah, I mean, that's based on what we've seen right now so far in the majors, he's
he's looking like an absolute righty masher.
And if he can settle in as a 20% strikeout rate guy against righties, like he has been,
you know, for the last month and a half, there's a lot of value in that if he can also be a,
you know, a 25 to 30 stolen base pace guy.
I wanted to bring up Dad's Cameron as well, his teammate, and we've talked about him recently,
former top prospect, top-ish.
He's a former prospect, we'll call him that.
He had two more hits with a walk in RBI and a run scored on Thursday.
He's 4% rostered.
The Tigers have six games next week.
He has started four of the last five games for Detroit.
And in those four games, he has seven hits.
So he's been pretty hot.
Scott, any interest in Das Cameron in deeper leagues?
I have 15 team, five outfielder leagues.
I know you do too.
I kind of feel like he should be rostered there.
Yeah, I mean, he might be getting to that.
He's pretty undisciplined hitter.
And even in the minor leagues, his production had dropped off a lot leading up to the promotion.
Pretty good this year in 18 games.
So, you know, maybe he's figured something out.
There's obviously some speed there, son of Mike Cameron, very athletic player, played a long time.
It was known mostly for his defense, but very fast had some power.
Underrated player, Mike Cameron.
I think Dad's Cameron is a, I mean, I don't think he's,
it would be hard to rate as good as defensively as his dad,
but I think offensively he profiles pretty similarly,
which isn't useless, but, you know, not going to be high end either.
The Cubs have removed Zach Davies from a game with a no-hitter intact,
and they still have a no-hitter through seven innings.
Ryan Saperra came in in the seven,
so we'll update you on that throughout the course of the podcast.
And someone else that was pulled in the middle of a no-hitter
was Nick Povetta,
who just give him a shout out here
at the top, part of the standouts from Thursday,
at the Tampa Bay Reyes,
6 and 2 thirds, no-hit endings, 2-walk,
eight strikeouts, 14 swinging strikes
on 100 pitches.
But even after this,
his ERA is 4.00 on the season.
Two starts next week versus the Royals
at the Oakland A's.
I'm not going to poo-poo it
because it was a great performance,
but Nick Povetta is just kind of me.
One thing I will point out is he did have,
He's been throwing his slider less in the month of June because the results have been really bad on it.
His best pitch today was the curveball, but the slider was very good today as well.
And so, you know, if he can have the feel for both of those pitches as, you know, both swing and miss and a strike throwing pitch, which he, you know, in spurts, has been able to do, especially early this season.
Yeah, maybe there's something there.
81% rostered. Scott, a little sneak peek. Is he one of the two-star pitchers you like for next?
week? I missed the name, Frank. Nick Pavetta? Nick Pavetta. He wasn't, but that was before this start. His previous
three starts were pretty awful. So I'm probably going to have to adjust my two-star pitcher rankings for next year after this start for next week after this start, especially given that this first matchup is against the Royals.
Somebody who felt the wrath of Nick Pavetta most in this start was Wander Franco, who went over four with three strikeouts. So his first
really bad performance. However, it did come with his first stolen base of the season. So
nice to see Wanderfranco running, but the strikeouts, not so nice. Before we get to the news
and notes, reminder that you can subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you're watching us, that's
YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today, and we have some programming updates. On Thursday,
we dropped a 20-minute video highlighting the top prospects in the MLB draft for those in Dynasty
leagues that are already thinking about first year player drafts for if you do it later this year,
if you do it in the beginning of 2022.
And when I say we, it was the Welsh, Chris Welsh and myself who did those videos.
Obviously, you know Welsh used to host this podcast, super knowledgeable about all of baseball,
but in particular prospects, he knows quite a bit there.
And on Friday, we'll have a longer video that will come out with current top prospects,
Wander Franco, Jaron, Vidal Bruhan, and more.
again, that one was with the Welsh,
and I'll drop the audio in the podcast feed as well.
We have an awesome giveaway for you.
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a 55-inch TV, portable power station,
and an air purifier over the next month.
Go to CBSSports.com slash home run.
That's H-O-M-E-R-U-N.
To enter, we'll put the link in the episode description as well.
Contest ends July 31st.
that's cbsports.com slash home run.
No purchase necessary.
18 or over must be located in the United States.
News and notes from Thursday, Lucas Sims.
Might explain why he was so bad the other day,
was placed on the I.L with a right elbow sprain
and is expected to miss the next three to four weeks.
Is it T.J. Anton?
Is it Amir Garrett?
No, no, no, no.
It's Brad Brock, who picked up his first save since 2018.
He's got a 2.0.
2.63 ERA and a 1.17 WIT, 0% rostered on CBS.
Any interest in Brad Brock?
If you're in like a 15 team league and you need saves and you're, you know,
that's the kind of thing where if you're in a league where waver's run every night,
put in a claim on him and see just because Garrett,
Garrett has done nothing this season to deserve a high leverage role, frankly.
I mean, his ERA is still over eight.
Anton's been awesome, but they don't seem to want to use him as a closer.
You know, they seem to value him in a multi-inning role.
And he did give up a run in this one to make it a two-run game.
So there's at least, I mean, at the very least, Brad Brock got the most recent save.
I don't know if that means he'll get the next one.
That hasn't really been a reliable indicator for the Reds this season.
But they had settled on.
rolls before Sims injury, so maybe they'll just slot Brock in there.
Yeah, we'll see. Again, David Bell and the Reds, they've kind of been all over the place all season long.
Recently, it looked like it was going to be Lucas Sims, but if there are three lefties coming up in the ninth,
can I tell you for certain that Amir Garrett's not going to be in there for the save?
I can't, unless he was, unless he pitched earlier in the game.
So keep that in mind, Brad Brock, widely available, actually available in every single CBS league.
Corey Seeger remains on track to return in early July.
John Means will likely be sidelined until after the All-Star break with that shoulder injury.
Sunny Gray on the IL with a groin injury will now make his rehab start on Saturday after he woke up with a stiff back.
He's dealt with back injuries over the past few seasons as well.
Baseball players, they're just like us.
Yeah, who would have thought?
Aaron Savali was officially placed in the IL.
He'll miss the next four to five weeks with that sprained middle finger.
His teammate, Zach Plessack, through a 40-pitch ballpen session on Thursday
and could start a rehab assignment soon.
Max Fried should return from the aisle next Thursday.
He's dealing with a blister on his left index finger.
There's a good chance Brandon Belt lands on the IL with this knee injury.
And I was going to say, maybe go out and add Joey Bart and two catcher leagues in case he gets called up.
But I did not realize that neither him nor Buster Posey have played a single game at first base this year.
not one
who was playing first base
when belt was on the aisle earlier this season
oh I think it was a combination of
Darren Ruff
and Wilmer Flores
was he part of that rotation
I don't I couldn't tell you
it was blanking on the name
oh I know it was Lamont Way Jr.
former twins guy
was it Lamont
way Jr.
Yeah yeah
yeah so
Lamont Wade that's it
I mean
those all sound like, I guess Darren Ruff could also play first.
I don't know, those all sound like pretty terrible names, but
given the way the last two seasons have gone for the Giants,
they'll probably have like an 840 OPS.
Yeah, Mark Kana exited Thursday with a left hip strain.
He'll undergo an MRI on Friday.
Kana was replaced by our boy, your boy, Scott, Tony Kemp.
And if anything happens to Kana, might mean more playing time for
Kemp. Josh Johnleton returned to the lineup after missing five straight games. Josh Bell was scratched
because of side soreness. Ryan Zimmerman has an 820 OPS the season for anybody in NL only leagues.
The race placed Taylor Walls on the IL with right wrist tendonitis. Christian Arroyo was placed on the
IL with a right knee contusion retroactive to June 21st. Michael Chavis started and was leading off on
Thursday. And Scott, it sounds like a good time to shift Kiki
Hernandez back to second base and call up Jaron Duran.
So I guess my question with Duran is would they call him up before the Olympics?
Because he's on the Olympic roster.
He was away from the AAA team to play in the Olympic qualifiers.
Would they be willing to call him up and say, hey, you're not playing in the Olympics?
Why wouldn't that?
I don't know.
I mean, I could just see if that's something Jaron Duran really wants to do.
Yeah. I think, I don't know.
I don't know.
When he was on the Olympic qualifier team, the Red Sox beatwriters, I saw several Red Sox beatwriters say something to the effect of, you know, this probably won't change the timeline if him getting called up at some point in June.
So they weren't even granting the possibility that he might play in the Olympics.
Okay.
But I don't know.
I haven't seen anything from Duran specifically.
Look, maybe.
If you've been,
if you've been,
yeah,
maybe.
Yeah,
I don't know that that's going to come into play with the decision here.
And he's been so hot.
Jaron Duran has been over the past week plus.
He's got his batting average up near 300 now when it was down around 250.
When he first came back from the,
the qualifier,
Olympic qualifier event.
Yeah.
He had eight home runs in his first hundred and ninety-nine games.
He has 13 and 32 this season.
Yeah.
That's not counting how high he wasn't spring training.
Yeah.
We saw him in spring too.
I mean, he looks bulked up, right?
So he used to be known for mainly his hit tool, his speed.
He had over 40 steals back in 2019.
Comes back to spring training.
Guys looking pretty jacked up.
So he worked on his body, developed some power.
And it's a-
Change the swing.
Change the swing.
Work with one of those famous.
hitting gurus. I can't remember which one of those guys that's been cited is turning some
other player around in the past. It sounds like he's hungry like the wolf. Oh, bad. One of the things
Scott said was he's so hot right now. I think the hitting coach's name is Rio. All right, you can
listen to our prospect updates with the Welsh where he goes in depth talking about Jaron's
ankles, if that's something that interests you as well. So yeah, check that out. Stephen Matt's
through about 60 pitches in a live batting practice on Thursday and is expected to start
next week. Tucker Davidson was transferred to the 60-day IL with that left forearm injury.
Scott White's prospect report came out on Thursday. You could find it on the site right now.
I'll throw it in the podcast description so you can follow along.
And Scott, you started your prospect report talking about Bobby Witt Jr., who is Enfuego.
The guy is red hot right now at AA, but in particular, you mentioned,
that Dayton Moore, the general manager of the Kansas City Royals, says that
Adelberto Mondesies injury will not impact Bobby Witt Jr.'s timeline.
Which is the obvious line to say.
So, you know, it needs to be presented that this is the official stance from the Royals.
We talked about it when Adalberto Mondece got hurt, I suspect.
Witt at age 21, with the Royals being eight or nine games back in the AL Central.
recently turned 21, by the way, just earlier this month.
I doubt he's going to skip AAA.
I think he's very close as hot as he's been in June,
and it hasn't just been the fact that he's batting about 350.
His strikeout rate is way down too.
So I think he's on the verge of a promotion to AAA,
and it may only be a short stay at AAA before he gets called to the majors.
I did leave him out of my top five to stash.
It might be the last week.
leave him out of my top five to stash. I just, I thought there were five who were more like any
day status than, than, uh, than Bobby Witt was. Um, but yeah, I mean, he's, he's certainly making a push
now. And, uh, it's really, really shown a lot of improvement in just two months time.
Bobby Witt, Jr., currently 50% rostered on CBS and the five that are on the verge of getting the call
according to Scott White, Jared Kelnick, Jaron, Vidal Bruhan,
Joe Adele, and Cal Raleigh, the catcher prospect for the Seattle Mariners,
who we spoke about in-depth last week.
Joe Adele, the guy's hitting for a ton of power.
He's got 16 home runs.
He's batting 271, but he still has a 32% strikeout rate.
Even if you look at it month over month, he's not improving.
It's still, it's been over 30% each month so far.
So I don't know if they're technically working on his swing with him in the
or they're just like, hey, go figure it out.
But whatever they're trying, it's not really working because you call them up with a 30%
strikeout rate in AAA.
What's going to happen in the majors?
35%, 40%.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's a good point.
I can't imagine they leave Joe Adele in the minors all season long after he got called up last year.
And I think he's still currently leading the miners in home runs.
So it may just be that he's going to be a guy who strikes out.
ton and there's no way around it.
I do think there's going to be
less urgency here to call them up soon
because Taylor Ward's already started
you know, actually producing
at the plate a little bit in June and Mike
Trout is inching ever closer
to a return and
then what will the incentive be to call
Adele up? I don't know.
I may be
close to moving Bobby Witt ahead
of Adele in terms of
how I prioritize
them in
in redraft leagues.
But I'm not quite there yet.
I still wouldn't be terribly surprised
if we found out tomorrow
that Joe Adele is coming up.
The five prospects on the periphery.
Edward Cabrera,
a starting pitcher with the Marlins.
Reed Detmer's,
a starting pitcher with the Angels.
Gabriel Moreno, a catcher for the Blue Jays.
Ethan Small, a pitcher for the Brewers.
And Kevin Smith, a shortstop for the Blue Jays.
Chris, real quick on Edward Cabrera,
obviously prospect for the Marlins.
And I saw last year heading into 2020 within Marlin's circles that some people thought Edward Cabrera could be better than Sixtho Sanchez.
What do you think?
Yeah, it wasn't necessarily the consensus viewpoint, but it wasn't a super unpopular one.
And one thing that I looked up was some reports of what he was doing at the alternate site.
And there were some indications that he had really taken a step forward with his change up at the alternate.
site and he was already, you know, a guy who throws in the high 90s with a very good slider.
So if he's got a change up now that he can throw consistently, you know, that could make him
a very, very viable starting pitcher.
He's probably the Marlins second, I guess third best starting pitching prospect,
depending on how you view 6-0 Max Meyer, their first round pick last year, is considered the top
one.
But Cabrera, I mean, you know, the Marlins, as good as the top three has been, they've been
kind of rotating some guys through the last two spots.
So it wouldn't surprise me if Edward Cabrera got called up in a few weeks.
You know, he's only thrown 10 innings so far this season because he was dealing with a nerve issue.
So that's, you know, that's the bigger issue right now.
You know, he's not somewhat a stash yet.
We are going to take a quick break.
But when we return, we're going to help you get ready for next week next here on fantasy baseball today.
The week 14 pitcher and hitter planners presented by.
line and coogles, and in terms of scheduling,
it's a very busy week next week.
17 teams have seven games,
12 teams have six games,
and one lonely team has five games next week.
That is the Tampa Bay Rays,
and I think you can bench guys like Brandon Lowe
and Joey Wendell, who are kind of fringy at this point.
I would keep Randy a Rosarena in the lineup,
and Wander Franco.
The one that I'm kind of on the fence here,
Chris, what do you think about Austin Meadows,
five games, three against lefties,
who he has been awful against this year.
Yeah, I think you probably want to sit him.
I think if you were going to rank all the outfielders,
Austin Meadows with five games,
three against lefties probably doesn't make it inside the top 50 for next week.
Yeah, yeah,
it's a pretty rough week there for Austin Meadows and the Tampa Bay race.
Wonder Franco did strike out three times Thursday.
Yeah.
I think he also stole a base.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I don't know.
We got another weekend to see if he deserves to be started in this five game week.
Let's jump into the two-star pitchers, Scott, who are you looking at for week 14?
Okay, so two-star pitchers, Jameson, who just turned in one of his best starts.
Was it his best start of the season?
It was only his second quality start of the season.
Yeah, I know it had been a while since he had one of those.
It was against the Royals.
He went six in a third inning, allowed one earned run, struck out six.
his spin rates have been fine for what it's worth.
His performance hasn't been fine this season,
but I don't know.
I think there's a chance he starts to get in a groove here
because the pure stuff still looks pretty good.
And two start week, Angels and Mets.
So he's pretty high on the list here.
Chris Flexen, who we mentioned is on a nice run.
The last two starts this wingy strikes have been way up too.
Not totally trusting in him in a long-term sense,
but two-start week, one of them is against the Rangers.
So he's kind of interesting.
Danny Duffy's in line for two stars.
I don't know that it might be a three-inning start and a four-inning start,
but certainly stuff-wise, he looked awesome in his return Wednesday.
And, you know, if you can live without getting a win from him,
just the fact he lines up for two starts,
might not be a bad play.
Caleb Smith
at St. Louis
that's a good matchup versus San Francisco
that one. Not so much
but he
he has good numbers
he's he's been
putting at
quality delivering quality
starts or at least like an inning shy of quality
starts since moving into the rotation
I don't trust it much at all
frankly because his he
doesn't look as overpowering as he did
in his most
the days of his
of pink
peak interest for Caleb Smith with the Marlins.
He hasn't looked like that.
So I'm skeptical, but two-star week, one good matchup.
I think he deserves to be on the list here.
Some one-star pitchers.
We got Ross Stripling, who I'm starting to come around on Ross Stripling.
I was reading an article from earlier this month about how the Blue Jays discovered he was tipping his pitches earlier this year.
And if you look at the swinging strike rate over the entire, I think it's five, six,
appearance stretch, you know, over which the turnaround has taken place.
The swinging strike rate for that whole span is similar to his good years with the Dodgers.
One start has a lot to do with that.
I think he had like 18 swinging strikes in one start, and if you take that out, okay, it doesn't look so great.
But you combine that with the pitch tipping story, and maybe Ross Stripling is figuring it out.
He goes against the race.
Logan Gilbert against the Rangers
Jake Oterizzie at Cleveland
coming off a nine strikeout effort
He looks like he's coming around
J.T. Brewbaker, he's always on this list
And he's going against the Brewers
And he had nine strikeouts last time.
Yeah, I think that
Those would be my favorite one start guys.
J.T. Brewbaker is like the CJ Crone
of your sleeper pitchers.
Oh, yeah.
You've always got to have them on the list.
I assume my number one sleeper hitter is this week.
Oh, seven games for the Rockies next week at home.
I can only guess. Chris, James and Tyone, who we spoke about coming off his best start of the season on Thursday against the Royals.
He's 61% rostered. Scott mentioned the matchups, Angels and Mets at home.
Surprisingly enough, Tyone has a 3.29 ERA at home. Do you consider Jameson Tion a must add if he was dropped in your league?
No, certainly not a must add. I have enough questions about both how effective he'll be in the short term and how high the upside really is that he's.
not someone that if he's on the waiver wire, I'm making a huge effort to go gab.
But he's fine to add.
I don't think he's a must-start guy with two starts either.
Scott, some sleeper hitters for next week.
You already kind of alluded to one, which I assume is Jonathan Dazza, of course.
No, C.J. Corone, who really heated up last week when the Rockies were at home.
And Zomwe splits, look about what you'd expect for a rock.
Rockies header.
So not only are the Rockies at home,
but I think the toughest pitcher they're facing
in those seven games at home.
Next week is Adam Wainwright.
The second toughest is like, I don't know,
Carlos Martinez, who's been pretty awful this year.
So really good matchups for the Rockies.
That's why I also like Brendan Rogers.
He's my number two sleeper hitter for this upcoming week.
His June numbers look great, by the way,
and he's been playing close to every day.
I think he might be having a
It might be sneaking under the rate
Because it hasn't been like this
Wow, Brendan Rogers hit six home runs and 12 games
But you know, he's just he's just
Contributing in a steady way there
Abraham Toro has been
Solid as a replacement for Alex Breggman
And the Astros have the third best hitter matchups this week
Hunter Renfro
You look at his lefty right he splits
The Red Sox are facing four lefties in seven games this week.
So it seems like he might be a decent play.
I like the Brewers matchups this week.
They're the fifth best hitter matchups.
And I have Luis Arias, who's come around in June.
I have him on this list, Willie Adama's, Colton Wong.
I couldn't quite fit him in, but Avis Sal Garcia.
I don't think is a bad play with these matchups.
He has gone back to slumping in June after a very strong May.
So I'm not as high on him, but, you know, not a bad play if you need an extra outfielder.
Nice to see Chris's boy, Willie Adomis, on that list.
We spoke about him quite a bit on yesterday's podcast.
And just to round out those five teams with the best hitter matchups,
that includes the Rockies, the Cardinals, the Astros, the Angels, and the Brewers,
and the five teams with the worst hitter matchups, the rays, the Cubs, the twins, the Dodgers,
and the Nationals.
So there you have it.
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I realize that we are about 40 minutes in here,
and we have not mentioned Kyle Swarber, who is just...
I mean, we're reaching the point where Kyle Schwaber hitting a home run
is a dog bites man story.
Let me know when Kyle Schwaber doesn't hit a home run.
Seriously, right?
The guy is on a tear right now, a double dong on Thursday.
He's now up to 21 home runs for the season.
He has eight home runs over his last five games.
And since May 1st, Schwerber has a 92 mile per hour exit velocity
with a 19% barrel rate.
That was entering Thursday.
I assume it only went up after hitting two more home runs.
The league average, if I'm reading this correctly,
if one of you guys want to confirm,
the league average barrel rate is 6.5%?
Does that sound right?
It sounds low.
That sounds low.
It sounded low when I saw it.
two, but I might be reading it wrong. Either way,
let me look into that. Kyle Schwerber is destroying baseballs right now.
The reason why we didn't talk about him earlier, I mean, it's not really much else to say, right?
It's like, he's already owned in your league, I assume, rostered in your league.
He has 12 home runs in his last 13 games.
It's ridiculous. He did nine homers in his first 51.
And now he's, what, fourth in baseball?
That sounds right. I know Vlad hit another one on Thursday. He's up to 24.
that's his league leading,
but Schwerber's 87% rostered.
He might be out there
in some 10-team league,
so if he is,
as long as he's this,
that needs to be universally rostered.
There are a lot of hitters
having ridiculous months of June.
Yeah.
The entire Astros lineup,
we could start there.
And I know I said that in May, too.
Like, oh, wow, look at all these hitters
having a great May.
And, you know,
obviously it's not a universal thing.
there are some hitters having a bad month of June 2.
That's just always the way it is.
But it's stunning when you look at,
when you look at isolate certain players' numbers just to June.
Like you can tell we're playing in a very different environment right now
because they just look positively loopy,
especially compared to the numbers we were seeing in April.
Yeah, I mean, the league-wide OPS in April was like 690-ish,
like 694 maybe so far in June.
this was entering yesterday.
It was 731.
So that's a pretty significant difference.
Gary Sanchez is betting over 300 in June.
Gary Sanchez looks great right now.
His friend looks completely fixed.
Yeah, someone pointed out to me on Twitter that he's lessened his leg kick,
which if you've ever watched Gary Sanchez,
he has one of the biggest leg kicks in baseball,
and it constantly messes with his timing.
So, you know, if he lessens that,
makes it kind of like a toe tap thing instead.
Helps with his timing and yeah,
he's just absolutely destroying balls.
His line drive rate and fly ball rate
are both way up for the month of June.
Strikeout rate's still around like 29%.
So I think that's expected with Gary Sanchez,
but he is crushing the ball right now.
Let's talk a little bit more about those Astros.
Yes?
8.1% is the league average barrel rate.
8.1%.
Yeah, so 19% barrel rate for Kyle Schwerber
since May 1st.
It's real good.
Ridiculous.
The Cubs, by the way, still have a no-hitter through nine innings.
A combined no-hitter, Zach Davies, Ryan Saperra, and Andrew Chaffin.
I assume Craig Kimberl will be in the ninth.
So let's see what happens there.
The Astros just wanted to get back to them real quick.
I know that they faced the Orioles and the Tigers this week, but like,
after a down season last year, their lineup is back in full force.
No doubt in my mind.
They lead MLB with 5.74 runs per game, and it's not close.
The Dodgers are second, 5.14.
So that is like a huge discrepancy.
They had seven hitters with multiple hits on Thursday,
including Yerdon Alvarez, who is heating up.
He had a grand slam, his third home run in the last four games.
And this is the second time that I'm going to bring up Miles Straw this week.
But I think in Categories leagues, the guy just went four for six,
picked up his 10th steel of the season.
He's betting 329 in June now.
He's 23% rostered.
They have amazing matchups last week, as you highlighted, Scott.
They're going up against the Orioles and the Cleveland beat-up pitching staff.
I think in five outfielder leagues or even shallower category leagues, if you need steals,
I like Miles Straw.
He's started 11 straight games, cheap exposure to the best lineup in baseball.
Yeah, I can see it.
I hate starting the powerless guy.
Even in a five outfielder league, it just seems like you really need to make up ground with a bunch of other hitters.
And that's hard to do.
It's especially hard to make that change in mid-season.
but he doesn't look
he doesn't look totally useless.
Yeah,
the lineup's been ridiculous.
I mean,
we talked about it.
Jose Al Tuve's back to being
my number one second baseman.
There's no second baseman
I want more than Jose Altuvei.
Carlos Correa's back to being a stud shortstop.
Michael Brantley
just had his sixth straight multi-hit game.
He's batting over 500 in June,
over 500.
Oh, my gosh.
And I think a couple weeks ago,
I pointed out how ridiculous
is expected batting averages.
is it's like, I don't know, maybe even higher now.
I think it was 360 at the time.
Kyle Tucker, you look at his number since April.
He was terrible in April, but since then he's been, you know, like a first round caliber
bat.
And since coming back from the IEL, remember he lost 10 pounds because of that stomach bug,
two multi-hit games back to back since returning.
So he seems to be fine.
Yeah.
And one of my predictions coming into the season, I guess,
bold, bolder predictions was that
Carlos Correa would be this year's
Corey Seeger. And I don't know
that he's been that good, but man,
he's been really, really good. And
I don't know how I really liked Altuve
and Correa, and I don't
have many of them, like many shares of
either. So I don't know how that happened, but
I did like the value on both of them coming into
the season. Real quick, the most underrated
lineup duo in baseball
is from the Pirates.
Adam Frazier and Brian Reynolds
each had three more hits and a home run on Thursday.
Frazier is batting 3.30 while Brian Reynolds is batting 313.
I think two of the biggest steals this season,
who you might have added.
You could have added each of the,
I think they were both widely available well into April,
maybe even May, and I think they've been one of the most
underrated duos in baseball.
And I was trying to think of a nickname.
I spent way too much time trying to figure this out.
But I got two pretty cool,
missions on Twitter.
One came from at FF. Danny Doinks.
And he said,
Bradham Razor,
which is our former host,
Adam Azer. That was pretty good.
Bradham Razor.
And then this one from
at Pitt Fan 1852.
The Babbit Bandits.
That is great.
I mean, as the pirates,
these two are top 12 in baseball
in batting average on balls and play.
So, moving forward,
Adam Frazier and Brian Reynolds,
The Babbit Bandits.
I love it.
Are any of these guys good?
We'll start with Joe Ross.
He was at the Marlins, seven shutout with eight strikeouts.
He does have a quality start in three of his last four starts.
He is 34% rostered.
Chad Kuhl was at the Cardinals, six innings, one run, only two strikeouts.
He has a quality start in three of his last four.
J.C. Mejia, for Cleveland, he was at the twins, six innings, one run, six strikeouts.
He is five percent rostered.
Chris, are any of those names good?
Joe Ross, Chad Kool, J.C. Mejia.
I think
Ross is probably the most interesting
of the group.
But you won't say... You won't say good.
You'll say interesting. Yeah, I don't think...
I mean, I think he can be, but maybe
that's me sticking to
the fact that I thought he was really good
back in, like, 2016.
But yeah, no, he's been good recently.
Quality starts in three of the last four.
He's allowed, I think, four runs in that time.
26 strikeouts, four are
walks.
So, you know, about as two-faced as Andrew Heaney, I feel like Joe Ross has.
Like, he either, he either throws at a gym or he gives up eight earned runs.
And that's why his ERA is over four for the year, even though it seems like he keeps churning
out these kinds of starts.
One thing that I do think is promising is I think he had 108 pitch start, two starts
ago.
And then they way limited him at the next start out.
But, you know, he's consistently been throwing.
decent pitch totals.
And given the fact that he's dealt with a ton of injuries,
that that seems like a pretty good sign that, you know,
they trust him right now.
Yeah, he threw over 100 pitches in this start as well.
And during that four-star stretch where he had three quality starts,
26 strikeouts to just four walks.
So he really is limiting the walks,
something that hurt him earlier in the season.
Some hitter leftovers from Thursday,
Whitmerryfield went one for three and his 21st steel of the season.
He's now 21 for 22 on the base paths.
Aaron Judge has been a little bit cold, but he went three for three with his 16th home run.
Gary Sanchez, we mentioned, has an 11-06 OPS in June.
Went two-for-five with his 13th homer.
Luke Voigt has homered in two of three games since coming off the aisle.
It actually could have been three straight games.
He just missed a home run, which turned out to be a walk-off single on Wednesday.
Matt Olson had two more hits against the lefty.
He's batting over 300 against lefties this season.
Matt Olson, guys were digging.
Lordis Gouriel went one for four with a grand slam, his eighth home run of the season.
Jazz Chisholm went two for four with his ninth homer, and since he returned from the IL back in mid-May,
he is betting 231 with a 31% strikeout rate, a 60% ground ball rate, and a 20% infield flyball rate.
Chris, should we be benching Jazz Chisham for now?
I think benching him is fine.
I had someone ask if they should drop him for Brandon Rogers.
That'd be a tough call.
I don't think I would do it.
I would hope I have a player with less potential than jazz.
Because I mean, even with his struggles,
he's still on close to a 30-home or 25 steel pace for the season.
But the strikeout rate has been a concern.
I think the play discipline is going to be an issue moving forward.
I had hoped he had kind of figured that out a little bit early on.
But, you know, it does look like it's going to be something he battles.
Freddie Freeman went two for five with his 17th home run.
He has six hits over his last two games.
So, all right, Freddie Freeman.
Let's turn it on.
Same thing with Juan Soto, who we spoke about yesterday.
Jonathan India went two for four with two doubles, a walk, and three runs scored.
Ho-hum.
Jonathan India, we talk about him every day.
He's batting 302 over his last 37 games.
Scott, I don't know why, but he's still just 65% rostered.
I'm trying, Frank.
I'm trying to get that.
There's nobody I've hyped harder over the past three weeks than Jonathan India.
and he keeps
justifying it.
Yeah, I see no reason why the Reds
want to have him continue to hit leadoff
as good a job as he's done getting on base.
He looks like a good player.
A good player, that Jonathan India,
the captain, Jonathan India.
I wonder if he still walks out
to the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song.
He has not a curly mustache,
but it's kind of like a pirity mustache.
Some pitching leftovers from Thursday.
Chris Bassett at the Rangers
seven innings, one run, four strikeouts.
His slider was down 205 RPM, so notable.
Luis Garcia at the Tigers, six innings, two runs, five strikeouts.
After failing to throw a quality start in his first nine starts,
he now has five quality starts in his last six,
and he has a 2.83 ERA on the season.
Jose Burrios against Cleveland, six and a third, one run, two walks,
nine strikeouts.
He has a 3.41 ERA, but
it just kind of feels like Jose Burrios
has been worse than that. I don't know if you
guys feel that same way, but
I don't know. Has he been like really good
lately? He has quality starts
in four of his last five.
Yeah, because it did, yeah, in like mid
May his ERA was closer to four.
So he's
he's got a 303 already over the last
five. I guess that was
entering tonight, so it's even lower than that.
So I guess that's probably why it feels like he's been
worse.
And also, he's been steadier, so it feels like he's been worse.
Yeah, and also, so many guys had much lower ERAs at that point in the season that it kind of probably made him seem worse than he was.
Yeah.
We should probably talk a little bit about Zach Davies, who did throw six no-hit innings, five walks to four strikeouts.
So, all right, against the Dodgers, it's a very odd line, but he's 38% rostered and he's at Milwaukee next week.
avenge game. Scott, any interest in Zach Davies as a single-start streamer?
I mean, I thought about him to round out my 10 sleeper pitchers for next week.
He ended up going with Sam Long at Arizona instead. That was, of course, before I saw the results from this game.
But I don't know. He walked five. He's, he entered the start with 4.4 walks per nine.
And he's not a strikeout guy. He's one of the worst strikeout pitchers in bed. Like, I don't,
Yeah, I don't really see what there is to be enthusiastic about with Zach Davies.
This has John Gant written all over it.
Zach Davies is a better pitcher than John Gant, but...
Except Zach Davies already has a 431 ERA and a whip around 1.5.
So, like...
The Davies at his best has good control.
So Davies throwing six shutout endings with lows of five walks.
Yeah.
That's really, really hard for me to get excited about.
Yeah.
All right, the call to the pen.
Some bullpen updates.
The Tampa Bay Rays had JP Fire Eisen pitch in the ninth inning in a tie game.
He faced the heart of the Red Sox lineup.
On the other side, Matt Barnes allowed a run in a tie game,
took his second loss of the season.
I believe it came on a wild pitch.
For Cleveland, James Carinchak got his ninth save.
A manual Class A hasn't pitched since June 21st.
So I think he could have been available.
I didn't see any updates saying that he wasn't.
Karen Chack has the last two saves for Cleveland.
Emmanuel Class A had the two saves before that.
So whoever you think is going to get the next save,
flip a coin and let me know,
because there's no rhyme or reason that I can tell
for Cleveland's bullpen.
The streamers for the weekend.
To stream or not to stream, we'll start with Friday.
John Gray's return at the Brewers,
Griffin Canning at Tampa Bay.
John Lester at the Marlins.
Kwonghan Kim versus the Pirates.
Johnny Quedo versus the A's and Dane Dunning versus the Royals.
I think yesterday I said Lester and Gray were kind of on an island on their own.
And maybe this group of pitchers has made Scott nauseous given his reaction.
I just wonder who lives this way.
Who honestly is out there choosing between these pitchers to start on Friday.
Because it wouldn't be me.
I think John Lester could have a good story.
start against Miami.
I'm saying,
you just gotta get through
their two good hitters.
I'm thinking Griffin Canning's
my favorite here, actually.
Just
because I think he's the best pitcher.
I don't hate Quanghan Kim
versus the Pirates, so there you go.
Between the three of us,
we give you four different suggestions
and Scott actually hates all of them.
For Saturday, Shane McClanahan,
this is actually a better list.
Shane McClan v. The Angels,
Adrian Houser at Home
versus the Rockies,
Alex Cobb at the Rays,
revenge game.
J.T. Brewbaker at the Cardinals,
Antonio Sanzatella at the Brewers,
and whatever,
Zach Thompson versus the Nationals.
It's always Brewbaker.
No, I mean, obviously,
shame McLeanhan.
Yeah, McLeanahan, he shouldn't be a streamer.
Yeah.
He's less than 70% rostered, too.
It's him and Jonathan India.
Come on, get that up.
We have to get those roster rates higher for both.
I mean, McClanhan,
he's a no-brainer in any points league
where you can start him as an RP,
and even in Roto leagues,
given how many injuries there are,
like you're telling me you can't find room for this guy in your roster?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I do think I had Bruebaker at St. Louis and Hauser against the Rocky,
so not a course field.
I do think I had them both on my 10 sleeper pitchers entering the week.
So,
definitely,
Saturday is definitely a better day for streaming than Friday is.
Didn't mention the second best pitcher among this group.
Oh, man.
There's a guy with a 29% strikeout rate,
a 7% walk rate and a 61% ground ball rate.
Is it Zach Thompson?
Alex Cobb has been by the ways that we traditionally understand pitching in the Sabermetric era
has been really, really good this season.
No.
And he's got a good matchup.
The rays aren't good against right-handed pitchers.
Nope.
Start Alex Cobb.
No.
Six innings, eight strikeouts guaranteed.
Nope.
Nope.
I'm looking at it right now.
A 2.40 FIP, a 2.59 X-Fib,
a 3.07 Sierra.
Been there before with Alex Cobb.
Not doing it.
Not really, though.
Not doing it.
Sunday.
If you want to trust Chris, then start Alex CIP.
He hasn't had a FIP below 4 since 2014
when he had a 287 ERA.
Alex Cobb.
Keep sleeping on Alex Cobb.
That's all I'm going to say.
It's all I'm going to say.
All right.
Sunday to stream or not to stream,
Cole Irvin at the Giant Sam Long.
versus the A's.
Brady Singer at the Rangers,
Ross Tripling versus the Orioles,
Patrick Sandoval at the Reyes,
and Jake Oteresee at the Tigers.
Ross Tripling against the Orioles.
I can be enthusiastic about him, genuinely.
Odarezi at the Tigers,
I have no problem with.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's good too.
Oteresee.
That's probably the one.
And if I had to choose
the third, Patrick Sanival.
at Tampa Bay, though I do like stripling and odorese quite a bit more.
Let's wrap up the week with some fantasy justice.
Chris?
Hey.
I just play.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, there you go.
This one's from Sam French, who was actually in our podcast, Points League.
Points League, one of our podcast leagues last year.
Recently, one of the teams in my league offered me Nelson Cruz and the Cubs just
finished off the no-hitter.
A combined no-hitter for the Cubs
against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Okay.
Recently, one of the teams offered me
Nelson Cruz for Alec Manoa
and Shane McClanahan.
I took that offer happily,
feeling like I got the better end of the deal.
But he was in need of pitching
even before his ace class now went down.
He's been in the league forever and is great.
If he wants to make the deal,
that's his call.
That night, Byron Buxton, who was on his team,
got hit in the hand and broke it.
The next morning, he texted me asking
to cancel the trade because of the injury
and also saying he hadn't meant to offer it in the first place.
If he had said that when I first accepted it,
I would have canceled.
But basically 24 hours had passed before he brought it up.
I didn't want to cancel the trade,
but figured that considering I was the commissioner
and involved with the league,
I might be biased.
I offered him two alternatives
to me outright canceling the trade.
One, we could pick it up,
put it up to vote to the league
and let the majority decide.
or two, we could pick an unbiased member of the league to act as a de facto commissioner.
I thought that was more than fair.
He said he would prefer one, but that if the trade went through, he would likely stop playing
for the rest of the year.
Oh, wah, wah.
In the interest of peace, I caved and voted against my own trade, giving him the numbers
he needed to squash it.
Was I being unfair here, or was he being unreasonable?
I love it when
someone's own
participation has used as leverage
like
just so childish
like what
the commissioner handled this the right way
that guy's being a baby
there's no way
that you reverse this trade
there's no way
the
oh he texted me asking me to cancel the trade
because of the Byron Buckson injury
and also he never meant to offer it in the first place
like, come on, buddy.
Come on, buddy.
I was born in the morning, but not earlier this morning.
Yeah.
That sounds like a backup argument you bring in when you're losing the initial argument.
You know, I never meant to offer it in the first place.
That's like, come on, buddy.
Yeah.
Like, come on.
That's, uh, I wouldn't have reversed it.
Like, I'm fine with the commissioner.
I'm fine with the commissioner doing it.
That's a very selfless act.
didn't have to.
But if that guy was going to throw a temper tantrum,
commissioner does have to operate in the best interest of the league.
Boo.
Boo!
Boo!
To whoever did that.
But like make fun of him and like make sure the league knows that he was being a big baby.
Maybe change like the cover image of your league to a Photoshop of him and like a bonnet with a pacifier.
So to answer your question,
the person you traded with was being unreasonable, Sam.
So make sure you let them listen to this and know that that was the case.
All right, justice has been served.
Yeah, yeah.
All right for Chris and Scott, I am Frank DeGel for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today.
We'll be back again on Monday.
Bye-bye.
