Fantasy Baseball Today - Cristian Javier Struggles, Oscar Colas' Return & Sell-High Pitchers? (7/4 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

Bryan Woo turned in the first quality start of his career (2:17). ... Cristian Javier is struggling big time over his last three starts (8:17). ... Mitch Keller's velocity was down on Monday (15:32). ... Leody Taveras or Harrison Bader (18:05)? ... Oscar Colas is returning to the White Sox (26:45). ... Is it time to drop Drew Smyly and Julio Teheran (32:35). ... Should you sell-high on Tyler Wells and Blake Snell (35:40)? ... News (43:49): Clayton Kershaw is headed to the IL. ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (47:45). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Happy 4th of July and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball. Today, I am Frank Stample, joined by Chris the Welsh.

Today on the show, Christian Javier stinks. Oscar Coloss was a lot of. recall two potential sell high pitchers and much more. Before we get started, please like this video and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. And if you're listening on the audio side, download, follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. Welsh, happy Fourth of July, buddy.

Any big plans? Yes, actually, both my wife and my daughter share the same birthday, July 5th, same day. So my daughter has claimed Fourth of July as her birthday, so not to have a shared birthday. So we will be celebrating on the fourth for my daughter and we will be doing all the fireworks. And guess what?

During the show tonight, there might be more fireworks that get to be played from you, from me, all the lovely people and all of their awesome fireworks that go on really at any time when it's within five days of Fourth of July. Apparently, I didn't get the memo, but it's a free-for-all. At any time of the night, people just set off fireworks

so we can all just have the joyous time. America. America, Frank. Yeah, we were talking beforehand. I got crazy fireworks going off outside. You got the same thing. Lots of birthdays going on, by the way. It's also Chris Towers's birthday.

So for anyone out there listening, watching, if you want to wish Chris a happy birthday, you could do so on Twitter at C-Towers, CBS. Hook them up and send them some birthday wishes. Anyway, let's jump in, Welshie. In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened. And let's get it started.

We'll go over to you, your player of the night here from Monday. We can do that. I am going with, Woo! I'm going with the Woo! Brian Wu. Another 7 strikeout performance. He's now had 4 7 plus strikeout performances.

Now two straight sevens. His first start, a little bit eh, but since then hasn't given up more than two earn runs in a start. Give up two earn runs tonight. while striking out seven. He's actually given up seven earn runs over his last, oh, five starts, I believe that is. And he has been something.

This start individually, 32% whiff rate. Nice to see. 37% on the fastball, 30% on the sinker, and a 31% CSW. He has been efficiently getting this done. And he did something a little bit different. I don't know if he's been doing this in multiple starts. I don't recall seeing this.

A lot of cutter usage. And that might be an adjustment to just open up his arsenal, keep hitters off bay of what he's throwing. I mean, his arsenal so far on the season totals have been. Let me pull this up here. It just went away from it. Fastball, sinker, slider. Those are your double-digit percentage usage.

Changeup has been 4.5% 1.5% on the cutter. Then all of a sudden in this start, 11% cutter usage. Sometimes the slider and cutter. Cutter can get, you know, miscombobulated on some of the metrics here. But the cutter had an average of 87 miles an hour while his slider, which he throws a little bit lesser, 83 miles per hour. So it's really interesting that he now did this because Cutter, you know, we're going to cut in, sinker.

So he's really kind of dominated three points of the zone with a fastball. And he didn't really use a ton of his off speed stuff. So I just look at this and go, wow, this is like another dimension and level for a pitcher that is finding different ways to succeed on a great team that finds. ways for them to succeed, great pitching organization. And I'm pretty impressed overall with Brian Wu in the ever big crazy mountain of these young prospect pitchers. This is a guy that, I don't know if I was ever,

I wasn't like in love with him, but man, outside of baseball Zavant not having everything completely updated, he has an expected ERA two runs lower than his actual ERA, and he go and look at those zone charts. This man covers every point of the zone with pitches, which has helped in a third, 33, at least maybe not updated tonight, 33% K percentage.

The Brian Wu is here to stay. Oh, heck yeah, he is. He's looked great for the Seattle Mariners. The strikeouts have been there, as you mentioned. 39 strikeouts over 28 and 2 thirds innings so far for Brian Wu. That is a 12.2K per 9, a 13% swinging strike rate. He's up to 71% rostered and was the most, the second most added starting pitcher on CBS this weekend.

name ahead of him, Michael Soroka. I don't think I agree with that, Welsh. I think I would rather have Brian Wu. I would rather have the Brian Wu. You know what else is really nice about it, too? This is something I worried about from seeing him in, you know, previous stents over the last two years, is he can sometimes fall apart innings, walks I always worry about, 6% walk rate. I mean, like 30% K percentage and an under 10% walk. I mean, give me that to me all day. And he's consistently done it now over multiple starts. five really great starts. The Woo's are in. Wuz are in play, man.

I have this thought that if Brian Wu had more prospect pedigree, like if he was doing this and his name was, I don't know, Tanner, Bybee, or Gavin Williams, who'd probably be like top 40 starting pitcher, top 30 starting pitcher rest of season or something like that. But because his name is Brian Wu and maybe he doesn't have as much prospect pedigree as those other guys, it's like he's still kind of flying under the radar.

But to your point, all the numbers seem to line up. It's pretty legit. It's an interesting thing you're talking about too, because, and I'm going to do the annoying thing that some people hate that I do, but I have video of this guy this time last June pitching in Complex League. That was the first time I ever saw him. He started his, like, a little over a year ago. He's in rookie ball, and he just ascended that whole time into this. I feel like him and Andrew Abbott are kind of in, he's even worse, though. I mean, Wu's even worse, I think, than Abbott, but they don't have the same pedigree that the Williams and the Uri's do.

Even I don't think Tanner Bybee had that. So you're right. Like if this were a Gavin Williams doing this, we would be talking about this guy, like you said, top 35, top 40 SP, easy, and a must play through the rest of the season like Gavin Williams. You know, the first start kind of messed with the numbers a little bit. There isn't the prospect pedigree,

but it is a great team context and he keeps getting it done, man. The only other name on the most added starting pitchers list that I think is, it's close for me in terms of who I'd rather have, Brian Wu or Terrick Scuba, who is said to make his season debut on Tuesday against the Oakland A's. He lines up as a two-star pitcher this week, looked great in the minors during his rehab. The velocity was up. And when he pitched last year, he looked really good too. Well, so would you rather have Brian Wu or Terrick Scuba.

Oh, man, I really, really liked Terrick Scuba last year. Kind of some similar stuff, too, like a 6 to 7% walk rate. He had a really good ERA to expected last year. His strikeout rate was a little bit lower, even though he had some of those big, pop-up performances. I'm gonna actually lean Wu, I think. And I think that's surprising myself, just Tigers, team context, coming back from injury, missed time. We already see where Brian Wu is. Team, a little bit better into contention, a little bit more offensive support. I think these guys could be neck and neck, but I guess I wouldn't cut my Brian Wu to pick up Tarek Scuba,

even though I sure want to. Yeah, it is close. I think if they were both available and I was looking to just add one, I think I would lean with Scubule. just because we've seen him have sustained success. I don't know if you want to call it that half of a season with the Tigers last year where he looked like a really good fantasy option. So it is close. I think I lean with Scoobel, but I'd like to find a way to get both of these guys on my team

if I possibly could. Oh my goodness gracious for me is Christian Javier. Let's get into it. He has been hit hard three starts in a row now. And obviously it was a pretty scary spot going into Texas, knowing what we know about the strikeouts being down. And again, all that hard context. kind of adding up here for Christian Javier.

He only lasts four in a third innings. Gives up eight earned runs, two homers in this start. He gave up nine hard hits, a 91.6 average exit velocity. And something just flipped in June. I don't know exactly what it was, because if you look from March through May, Christian Javier, 9.5K per nine, 12.9% swinging strike rate.

Not as good as last year, but not far off either. That's still a very good pitcher, right? From June on, an 8% swinging strike rate. 4.2K per 9 that was before Monday start in the month of June. And obviously now we have a start from July under his belt as well. So something has just kind of flipped and he's off and he's not getting whiffs and the walks are up

and hard contact and all this stuff just kind of snowballs right now on Christian Javier. And basically where we're at now, a 434 ERA, a 122 whip, less than a strikeout per inning. And while something that stood out to me, Eno Saris' stuff plus metric, which everybody can find on fan graphs. It's public knowledge. You can go check it out.

Highly recommend it. Last year, Christian Javier is Stuff Plus 116. 100 is league average. I think that's correct, right? I'm not making that up, right? It is. Okay, so last year, Javier 116, stuff plus. This year, 96.

Below average in terms of Stuff Plus. Your latest thoughts on another Christian Javier clunker. Yeah, and, you know, Eno has talked about, it's the shape. the shape of that has changed, the shape of the fastball. Something that, we've talked about it a couple times and just like how this has been

just kind of falling apart. I went and took a look at the illustrator tab you can do on baseball savant for this game just to see like what did the whole zone look like in pitches. And, you know, probably a better context for me would be to go and look at like all of the last,

like last 10 games and stuff. But man, when I was looking at it, something to just kind of sit on was you just see fastball slider of course. That's the main thing you're seeing. But the sliders are all over the place. I counted only nine sliders that were in the zone and when they were in the zone, they were in the zone. The others were you have one by the feet, one on the ground way up. So what I'm getting at is you've already got like a less shapeless fastball that's less

effective with a slider that's not scaring people and that fastball is just getting beat around in the zone. It's like the similar stuff we talked about like Brandon Fott. No one cares about a sweeper because it flies out of the zone and it's not fool anyone and they just wait to sit on the fastball. That's what's happening with Javier and he's getting hit hard. So when that slider does go into the zone and then you actually look at his actual zone charts for the year, where is the heat map on the slider? Dead center. It is dead center where he's getting smacked and that's where he's throwing it. And you saw big, like you mentioned, 106 and 104 EVs.

I think it was average EVs on the fastball and slider. That's in no way good. We're just preaching about all the same stuff. I don't know what the thing is. The slider being more effective to set up the fastball would clearly be it. He's lost shape on the fastball. How do you get it back? I don't know how you improved that this year.

But what I know is this does look kind of broken. And I'm not interested. I'm not interested in all the things that are going wrong with Christian Javier because where I'll make an excuse, I think I did this last week here, with a guy like U. Darvish, who you Darvish, what is he have? 10 pitches, Frank. and you know, sometimes his rhythm is difficult to find because he's going to just different pitches instead of focusing. Javier doesn't have that. He's got two pitches. We don't see upticks. We don't see what Brian Wu did. I'm out there. They cut her a whole bunch more.

Javier doesn't do that. It's fastball slider. When one is bad, it's really bad. And tonight was a big culmination of how really crappy it can get. And on top of the fastball shape not being the same as you pointed out, the velocity is down on it too. It's down 1.3 miles per hour this season compared to last year. The fastball takes a step back, not getting whiffs with the slider. It's just the effectiveness of both of those pitches has gone down for Javier. And some people were asking me, is there anything in the underlying numbers that says Christian Javier is going to be better? Not recently. I mean, you have to go back to earlier in the season, those first two months where he wasn't as good as last year, but he was still pretty good. I think there's a chance he can get back to that pitcher.

The thing is, I don't know when it's going to happen. And I don't think anybody can tell you when it's going to happen as well. So I think the advice is you got to bench him. You just have to bench Christian Javier for now if you have him on your team. I wouldn't try to sell him unless you can get at least a top 30. If you want to just sell whatever, 75 cents on a dollar. Top 40 starting pitcher value if you can get that. You sell him for Gavin Williams?

No, no. I think I would keep on to, I would hold on to Javier just with the off hope that he can get anywhere close to what we saw earlier this year. God forbid what he did last year, that would be amazing. What about us struggling you, Darvish? Darvish has been struggling. I make some excuses for him thinking he could bounce back. Is that a guy? Would you buy struggle for struggle?

Yeah, I would take Darvish over Javier. I mean, there's still some things in the underlying numbers for Darvish. I know the expected ERA according to stat cast is still pretty good for Darvish. Top 50, including relievers. It's top 50 in expected versus actual ERA on the positive front. It's like over a full run, expect. better, but he also has a little V-Lo dip going on as well. It's around a mile an hour on the fastball. Yeah, so I think the answer is, again, you just got a bench Christian Javier. No one's dropping

him. Look, I'm going to be stubborn with it, and I'm just going to ride it out and hope that he gets back on track. I guess you could look to buy extremely low if you could do that, but I don't think I'm giving up much of value for Christian Javier at this point. Trade your Andrew Abbott to get Christian Javier? Somebody asked me on Twitter today if I would drop Christian Javier for Andrew Abbott. And I hesitated. Ultimately, I said I would not drop Christian

Aviar, but Andrew Abbott should not be a free agent. But would you trade your Andrew Abbott to get Christian Javier right now? I mean, that's just the ultimate by low, sell high situation. Yeah. I think there's a reason to maybe sell Abbott as well, the ballpark factors and like can he be a 1.2 or even as expected

ERAs around like 2.6. Can that continue the rest of the year. I think it's hard to believe. It's too early, especially on the expected side to tell us a different story, but we can look at the ballpark factor and be like, I don't think he's going to continue going. So I think there is a sell high, but is Javier the guy you want to buy? I don't think I would do it. I think if I have Andrew Abbott, the chances are I probably need him to pitch me right now. If I'm trading for Javier, that's someone that's going to go into my lineup. And I can't start Javier right now. So maybe I'm just going to readjust the rankings where those guys get pretty close to each other, probably push Abbott inside the top, I don't know, 50 starting

pitcher or something like that. And Javier clearly is moving down as well. I wanted to give a quick mention to Mitch Keller because not a great outing at the Dodgers. I noticed his velocity was way down across the board. The sinker and fastball down 1.4 miles per hour each for Mitch Keller in this start. The cutter down 2.6 miles per hour. The sweeper down 2.3. The curve down 1.7. You see where I'm going here. It's between a 1.5. and three miles per hour on basically all of his main pitches. And over Mitch Keller's last eight starts, he is a 494 ERA, a 136 whip,

still just barely over a strikeout per inning. I don't know if he's just been unlucky recently. That kind of, that's what it feels like. He's not getting any whiffs. Welsh, are you worried here about Mitch Keller, his velocity, and recent results? I mean, I think there's definitely reason to be worried. There are expected numbers that are like pretty nicely in his favor.

The K percentage, good 27%, hard hit doesn't give up a ton of hard hits. Bottom 10% or top 10% in the least amount of hard hit given up. His expected ERA is 321, I believe, prior to this game. I don't think this has been updated. But I look at this and I was going to ask you, when you see something like this, and I feel like I've seen this from Keller once or twice this year, do you chalk that up as like, man, that's an off-feel game?

Because those are dramatic numbers. Those are like really dramatic. And I kind of look at those and go, oh, okay, this is a bad game, a bad feel game for Mitch Keller. But the problem is, is like, we don't really need those right now because things have been moving a little bit in the wrong direction. So I would say there's like a, the general worry exists. But overall, I think there's, there's a lot of like positive regression numbers that can

come back and play for him. This isn't something that I get hyper focused about with like the Velo stuff because it looks so, so much like an anomaly. But maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, look, it's something just to throw out there to watch moving forward for Mitch Keller when I see something like this, well, my mind just starts going. I think the worst thing, oh, he's got some kind of injury that he's pitching through right now. That's a, see, now that's a possibility. I'm totally with that. That could be the thing. It could be more than just, oh, this is

a bad field game. There could be an injury. I guess I was referring more to like long term. This is going to be the new guy. You know, something has happened, blah, blah. And again, maybe that is tied to injury. I guess I wasn't even assuming that. But yeah, that's 100% part of that. And just to be clear, I don't know anything about Mitch Keller. There's no report. I don't think he's hurt. It's just his velocity was weighed down, and I wanted to let everyone know about it,

just in case it continues to happen moving forward. But ultimately, for now, it looks like just a one-off situation. Let's see where Mitch Keller goes from here. We have talked all about pitching so far. Let's talk about a few hitters, Welsh. Some waiver wire hitters that made some noise on Monday to outfielders that are less than 70% rostered.

Leoti Tavares, for some reason, he's still only 68% rostered. He went three for four with his 10th homer. He added three runs and three RBI. He is now batting 306 with 10 home runs, nine steals, and an 847 OPS on the season. Harrison Bader went two for four with his seventh homer, and he's quietly having a good year too. I know he's missed some time, but 261 batting average, seven homers, seven steals in 38 games. That's a really good pace there for Harrison Bader. Welsh, who would you rather have,

Leoti Tavares or Bader? Peter is always interesting, but you know what? I've turned my page back to Lioti Tavares. A lot of those guys, those Rangers guys just get me going. Ezekiel Duran. I think I looked, I could be wrong about this. I think I just looked. I was doing something around Duran,

and I want to say he's still like 79% owned. Maybe it moved up into the 90s, but I feel like Duran Duran was 79% owned still, so like him and Lioti just under owned. But that's the guy I think I'm a little bit more focused on. XBA 299 to his 306 batting average, which you love to see. Bader 261 average, 256, so both of them are a little bit more real life. Bader doesn't walk 3% so far this year, though he's also not striking out, but it's sub 20% K percentage, hard hit way more in favor of Lioti Tavaris over 40%. The barrel percentage works. I just think what he's been doing is sustainable, and he's pushing into that like, hey, because this has been a cheap 15-15 guy, maybe he could be a 20-20 guy through

the rest of the year. Expected numbers work pretty well in favor. Hard hit numbers are there. And he's been hit in fastballs. 297 on the year with a 304XBA. You'd love to see that because he sees him 56% of the time. So Tavares is my pick in that offense. Bader, I don't know.

I feel like the, like the Yankees can make some moves. And Bader might not be around. I think Lioti is going to be here to stay no matter what Ranger move they ultimately make. Yeah, I agree completely. I would take Lioti Tavaris. I don't know that Bader is going anywhere. for the Yankees, but that offense is very bad without Aaron Judge. So it seems like everyone's kind of been sputtering. I was watching the game today. I think they said Anthony Rizzo has not

hit a home run since May 20th or something crazy like that. It's, it's July 4th. What is going on? I know he's been fading. Glaver Torres has been pretty bad for them too. It's just, ah, just a whole. I mean, Judge, hey, you know, no shocker. Judge is the thing that makes the whole Yankee world move around. No, absolutely does. No shocker there. Two outfielders Chris and I spoke about yesterday were Andrew McCutcheon and Tommy Fam. Would you take Liotte Tavares over both of those names as well? Ooh, McCutcheon and Fam, I would take, you guys are testing me with the Tommy Fam stuff. The more I just keep looking and the consistency in there.

He is crushing the ball, man. He's crazy. He's crushing it. You see he also did like a fantasy football show the other day too. Like people are having him do that. It's crazy. or a mutual friend of ours. He did like a football show with.

Tommy Fam is wild right now. Getting in the Twitter streets doing football. And he's out there just smacked him. I think I would take Tommy over Liotti. And I think I might take Leotto over McCutcheon. But boy, those are all really close. That's going to be mine. But I think I might be wrong.

McCutcheon might even be the safest of all of them. But the other two, the stolen base and the underlying numbers really get me positive. Yeah, I think Leotty Tavaris and Tommy Fam are up at the top there. And then I would probably go McCutcheon third. He's a high floor. kind of guy and Harrison Bader, you know, he's fine. He's just really, really injury prone and, you know, the Yankees, again, are not really doing much right now. Yeah, Bader's at the bottom of the list if that wasn't clear for me as well. Right. Jamer Candelario went one for three with his

12th home run. He is up to a 264 batting average and an 824 OPS this season, which is higher than Nolan Aeronado, Brian Reynolds, and Josh Young. I don't know how this is happening, but Jamer Candelario is playing well. He is 58% rostered. I know he was one of Scott's top 10 sleeper hitters this week. So hopefully you picked him up. I picked him up in my home league. It's a 12-team points league. A little bit deeper roster,

so I needed a corner infielder. Any sized league where you have an extra corner infield spot, J. Mer Candelario absolutely should be owned in those leagues. And the other name I wanted to mention here was Willie Castro, one for two, with two walks and his 17th steal. He's got a whole bunch of eligibility playing for the Minnesota Twins. Well, it just feels like the quietest 17 steals of all times.

Like when did Willie Castro get all of these steals? It's it's pretty crazy. When I saw when I saw this I was like Frank, did you add a one? I was like did you put in a one in front of that? What do you tie? It is the quietest ever and everything just kind of lines up XBA batting average about in line same spot. He's actually barreling the ball up really well 9.1, which he only did in 2020. Otherwise he's kind of average around like three to four percent overall. So he's hitting the ball really well getting him on base. He's aggressive. base stealing right now and there's opportunity. He's pretty fun. I don't think he's in the same. I'm going to say this. Even though he's 17 stolen bases, I feel like he's not in the same comfort level as like

Candelario. And Candelario was like, hey, 12 team, corner infield. But Castro's definitely one of those bench guys you have out there because he's going to quietly have a 30 stolen base season. And we're going to be like, what? What happened here?

But also be interesting, I want to point out with Candelario, a lot of trade rumors going out. It's going to happen when the trade market it heats up and he's moved because that's a hot commodity, something the national should really consider monopolizing on and what's going to happen to, you know, that whatever team context, where does he go? Hopefully it's no platoon split situation. And also, is he not hitting in like a prime spot in the lineup? Could that change and maybe alter some of his stuff? So just things to keep in mind, but I agree, Candelario's been pretty lights out. I would imagine that wherever

Candelario's moved, it's a net positive unless he becomes a part-time player. for some reason, which if a team is playing for him, I think he's pretty much playing third base. I don't know off the top of my head. You could see, can you see him splitting? Could you see him be kind of like a splits corner infielder, a splits third baseman for a team?

I mean, he hits Ritey's 280 this year. He's only hitting 230 against lefties, so maybe they got a really strong righty to go in and he might be a candidate to be a splits type of guy. And if he's pushed down in the order, you're taking a way that net positive of he's pushed down, and he's in a little bit more of a platoon. I actually kind of think he might be

the prime platoon corner infield trade guy. It's possible. I wanted to look up how good his defense is, according to Stack has, he's 95th percentile in outs above average. So I don't know, I think of a team trades for him they're probably playing him at third base, but we'll see.

I think he definitely is a name to be moved around the trade deadline. That is Jamer Candelario. And as for Willie Castro, he's only 20% rostered. He's second third base outfield and shortstop eligibility on CBS and I think he's probably best suited for a daily lineup league where you can just play him when he starts. He basically sits every third game so he's not a true everyday player

right now. Dude, if I would have told you last year, what is it, July 3rd, July 4th, that there is a multi-eligible, three-positioned multi-eligible guy with five homers in 17 stolen bases and he would be 20% owned, you would laugh in my face. But it's the new kind of space of how many stolen bases are out there and the market kind of opening up. And, you know, usually that would be saved for like a John Bertie, like a one homer, 17 stolen bases over 200 or bats guy. That's not even the case. He's hitting some homers. He's stealing bases. I don't think it's wild that he's only 20% own. But you're also not wrong. Like he is a platoon. He's a part timeish player that is hard to justify, I think for a lot of people to even keep on the bench. Let's take our first break when we return. We'll talk about Oscar Kowas,

who is returning to the White Sox, we'll do that right after this. Welcome back into Fantasy Baseball today and a quick reminder to join our Fantasy Baseball Today Facebook group. It's free. You go to Facebook.com slash groups slash fantasy baseball today and you can interact with other people

who consume the podcast, whether it's by asking questions, answering questions, keeper leagues, trades, anything that you wanna ask about. You could do that at our Facebook group. If you're watching us live on YouTube, you can scan that QR code in the top right corner, that will take you right to the FBT Facebook group. Let's talk about Oscar Colos,

who is returning to the Chicago White Sox and somebody that we were hypened up coming into the season. I think I either had him as a sleeper or a breakout. Same thing with Scott. I know he was excited about him. He has hit well since being sent down to the minors earlier this season,

but especially over his last 10 games at AAA. He was batting 357 with seven home runs and a 1253. OPS. So he was crushing it recently. He earned this call back up to the White Sox. And Welsh, what do you think in here? He's 22% rostered. You know, what size league? Do you think he's going to play every day? Your thoughts on Oscar Coloss? I'm hopeful he's going to play every day. I think you could have some worries that there'd be platoons in here. I want to say, not to take into your notes, but I think you might have had a note in here that was worried

about maybe sitting versus lefties. Well, in the minor so far this year, hitting two, 29 against righties, 308 against lefties. So I mean, 289 plus on both sides of the ball. He's been hitting the hard in the miners. Rotowires hard hit strength percentage, 32.6%, which is very good. You get the nice green coloring when you get over like 28%. The Ks have been low. He's been hit and bombs making really good contact at 293. The strikeout percentage a little bit lower, walk percentage a little bit higher than when he was in the majors. And this is just a You know, he also can run a little bit. This is just a little bit more of a polished prospect who was really, really pushed into that major league front that I think if he would have got a whole season, you know, I don't know, this might end up being the best thing.

But I think if he would have been given the opportunity long term, I think he could have found some of the adjustments. But let's assume he went down. They worked through something. And you've seen those Ks go down. You've seen the walks go up. He's hit the ball hard and he's hitting both sides of the plate really well. I think Oscar Coloss is in consideration. 12-team-5 outfielder, easy.

12-team 3-out-fielder? I don't know. Probably not. Probably someone you're going to want to monitor, but five outfielder leagues, I don't know about 10, 10-team-five outfielder, maybe. But 12-team-5-out-fielder, that is where I'm going and up on Oscar Colos

because I really do think he can be an offensive force for the second half for the White Sox coming back. Yeah, I agree with that completely. I think any league with five outfielder is you can make it justifiable to add someone like Oscar Colos. I agree that he should play every day, but when he was up earlier this year, they strictly platooned him, did not play him against left-handed pitching. So hopefully they have a little bit more faith in Oscar Coloss. And they don't really have much going on right now, right?

Why wouldn't they invest in a young player and see what he could do with every day at bats? Well, you know, and first off, that could have been one of the things that they didn't feel comfortable that they had an outfielder that could play every single day. He goes back down, proves that he can hit versus lefties, which he's done so far in the miners. But also, throw this out to you, Frank. Could this be the first signs of the White Sox actually, you know, selling out? Actually starting to put the pieces.

No reason to keep these guys down here. Get Oscar Coloss up, start getting playing time, and then see what you can start to move out there. Obviously, those would maybe play in that they trade the guys and they bring them back up. But, you know, getting Coloss out here might be the, the start of like, okay, maybe they're going to start selling off pieces. And maybe it'll be a little bit more than that report that came out that it was like, only expendable pieces will be traded. There's Dylan Seas rumors that are floating around. There's Tim Anderson stuff

that's out there. There's plenty of players for them to move. So getting some of the young players up, watch for like Linion Sosa to be getting regular playing time, Oscar Coloss. Those are going to be the guys that would replace if any significant trades happen, Andrew Pennantendi, if he removed and stuff like that. So could all be the beginning of, you know, a big 30 days that the White Sox are going to undergo with their change in their roster potentially and maybe some moves. What's crazy is that as bad as the AL Central is, the White Sox are only six games out of first place, right?

They're 12 games under 500. They're six games out. That's not insurmountable in July. I mean, we saw the Atlanta Braves make a crazy comeback in the NLEs last year, right? The Mets had, what, a 10 game lead in June? And then they wound up blowing it. Obviously the White Sox aren't that level of team, but there's still a lot of baseball left to be played. So we'll see what happens with them.

So much, it's so weird that you have like the All Star break that's kind of in the middle of this that leads right into a trade deadline that's not too far behind. And there's this small window where the teams are really going to have to make these decisions. Like what's the number for the White Sox? If they get it within, if they keep it within five a week before the deadline, do they hold? Or if they're down by eight or more, do they sell a week before? Like they're gonna have to make those decisions. That's why that final week leading into the deadline, I hope and kind of feel like is going to be wild with teams finally figuring out, okay, now we're out of it. And then teams just rushing to get those guys that are actually available.

Yeah, the extended playoffs kind of changed that too because teams are in it for longer than usual. So you don't see teams just kind of bail out and become sellers earlier like they have in the past. And we usually see like one of those trades happen like three weeks or a month before. You know what I mean? Like one of those bigger trades is like one team makes the move. They get some guys and we're like, oh, hey, that's kind of the start. It's crickets. It's crickets right now. And there's plenty of teams that probably want to get in this market. And I would assume the All Star game will probably be a time where GMs and stuff like that are going to be chatting and talking and starting to figure out the framework of what things might look like in the future.

Not complete crickets, Welsh, because the Mets, they acquired Chris Flexen and Trevor God. And then they cut, they cut, they cut, Chris Flexon, so poor guy. Anyway, let's get into the dropometer here. Two pitchers I wanted to bring up, Welsh, the way this is going to work. One to ten on the dropometer, 10. You could drop this player in any size league.

One, you want to hold on to this player in every league. The first one up is Drew Smiley, another underwhelming start. He gave up three runs over three and two-thirds innings, and over his last seven starts has a 649 ERA, a 187 whip. The walks are really adding up during that time, and he's still 75% of,

rostered Welsh. Drew Smiley on the dropometer. I think this is like a eight. I don't hopefully I'm not being too crazy and aggressive on it, but like you just kind of laid out, you've got a five earn run, a seven earn run. You've got one scoreless since actually May 12th. That's the second time that he's had a scoreless one. The K's stink. It's a 19% strikeout rate with a 7% walk rate. I actually don't care that his expected stats are better. He's given up really hard contact. He's not striking out guys. Very little window. This is like a eight to nine on Drew Smiley. I really do think you could just easily move on. The deeper, deeper leagues, maybe that changes a little bit. But yeah, I'd be alright dropping him for Brian Wu, Terrick Scoobel, even Mike Soroka, who's been added in a bunch

of leagues, just to put that in perspective. So yeah, I think those are no brainers though. Like, is there, would you push it a little bit further? What would you not. I guess we'd have to probably have the names. So the most added are like J.P. France is on the list. Kyle Hendricks. I think those are fine. If you want to drop Drew Smiley for those names, that's okay. Kyle Bradish is a little bit further down. I'd rather have Bradish than Drew Smiley at this point, I think. Okay. So that's a much bigger list of dropping Smiley. So Smiley's like a nine or 10 for you. Yeah, yeah. I think yeah, that's totally fine. The next name here is Julio Taran, who has allowed 13 earned runs over his past two starts. He gave up

six runs in this one on Monday over six innings pitched up against the Cubs. He gave up 10 hard hits. The ERA is now up to 364 and we knew regression was coming at some point for Julio Tehran. He's still 68% rostered Welsh. Where is he on the dropometer? Oh, I think we're going back to those high numbers, Frank. I think we're nine or 10 here. Like if you need to make a move, I think this Cinderella story is coming to a close here. Uh, wasn't walking a bunch, wasn't striking out a bunch. It's kind of like the smiley stuff again. They actually have to make a move. very similar expected ERA is just Tehran's is looking a little bit better on the forefront of its actual ERA. But no, I'm, you know, under under 90 mile per hour fastball right now, not getting

whiffs. It's a very low era of margin. So this is a nine or 10. You can move on for a lot of those names that you just mentioned. You could do that. I think when you start talking about like guys like Braddish and stuff, then you're in a place of easily drop these guys for whatever. I'd rather stream. I actually would probably rather stream than hold those players. I'd rather go into weekly streaming. All right. Fair enough. So. again, we're doing that. Dropping Julio Taran and Drew Smiley

for the names, Brian Wu, Terrick Scoobel, JP France, Kyle Hendricks, Kyle Braddish, all those fun names. Go ahead, make some moves.

Sell high. Have fun. Or no way, Guy. I got two names here on the list. Two pitchers. Should we be looking to sell high right now? Welsh, you're going to let us know.

Tyler Wells has allowed two earn runs or fewer in seven straight starts. He was at the Yankees where he allowed, you guessed it. Two earn runs. Over six innings pitched with four strikeouts in this one.

He has a 3.19 ERA, a 0.90 whip. He has a very low bat-up against this season because he allows a lot of fly balls. And he also gives up a lot of home runs, but because he doesn't walk many batters, a lot of those homers are usually solo shots. So it doesn't do much damage to Tyler Wells, but if you look at the FIP, it's 475,

the X-FIP is 429, kind of says that there's going to be some regret coming at some point. Welles, do you agree? Would you be looking to sell high on Tyler Wells? You know, here's my argument. I actually don't think I would because I don't think the return makes any sense. I don't think the return is there for Tyler Wells. He's got a weird stat line too. I don't know if you sell this. He has six straight games of giving up two earned runs. I don't know why. That just kind of stood out to me. It's just it is consistent across the board. I actually kind of like the strikeouts. I like the lack of walks. Those things I think are kind of exceptional. It is a lot of hard hit stuff.

He has 11% over 11% barrel rate, which I really don't like to see. But with the low walks and the strikeouts, and what I think is the lack of actual assets to be acquired, I actually don't think I'm going to sell Tyler Wells. Unless someone presents a fun offer, I probably would rather get the production of what I'm getting out of him than sell him for what I'm going to assume is going to be like a fifth outfielder, or I don't know, maybe a corner infielder.

I don't know. I don't know. no, you couldn't get the name. I don't think you could get like Brian Wu. Like I would trade him for Brian Wu and Andrew Abbott. And I don't think that's happening. So I'd just rather get the production out of him. So I'm going to not trade him. So I have Tyler Wells ranked at SP 42.

Scott has him at SP 45. And we have Tyler Wells ranked higher than both Andrew Abbott and Brian Wu. I haven't. I would be shocked if people took that in a leak. I would be, that's funny. You guys have that rank. I'd be shocked if people actually would sell those young arms for Tyler Wells.

I just don't think Tyler Wells. has that cachet, that excitement that people are like, oh, I got to acquire him. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. I mean, he doesn't have like this big pedigree, but what he does have is a great home ballpark where he has a 257 ERA at home in Baltimore this season where he's a flyball pitcher. He can get away with more things with that big cutout in left field. So I mostly agree with you. I mean, I painted this picture as if regression is coming and it wouldn't surprise me if there's

some regression for Tyler Wells. Yeah. Maybe he's a mid to high threes ERA guy rest of season. But I don't think that you're going to get much. Unless you can get top 40 starting pitcher value in return, which is like, you know, you'd have to get a third outfielder or like a top 15 position player at a certain position that I'm probably just holding on to Tyler Wells

and, you know, just continue to roll with the production that he's giving me. The other name here is someone I know that you like quite a bit. And it is Blake Snell. He is human. After all, he had a solid start up against a. the Angels, five shutout innings, seven hits, four walks, seven strikeouts. So lots of base runners in this game, but he still had the WIFs, 17 swinging strikes on 100 pitches, and his fastball was up in the start, 1.4 miles per hour. It was up, and it was actually, he averaged 96.5

miles per hour with his fastball. That's actually up from where he was at last year, too. So everything's kind of clicking right now for Blake Snell, and he's down to a 303, ERA, a 127 whip, and over his last eight starts. He has been light out. Welsh, would you try to cash in now on what Blake Snell has done over the past month and a half? I definitely think it's something we have to consider. Funny enough, he's been using that change up so much. He didn't in this game. It went heavy curveball, even though the results weren't there, which might be part of the problem, by the way, but he had a 64% whiff rate on his curveball in tonight's game, which is wild. So I think there's a tiny element, though. I want to throw out here. I don't mean to like contextualize all these,

because here's my easy answer. Yeah. Like Blake Snell is performing at an insane level. Four straight games coming up to this one of double-digit strikeouts off of what was horrid into the year. A 31% K% is 31.5% which was like top 10 in the league. These are great numbers to sell on. 303.03, that's great.

But I think people are waiting. This is my contextualizing. I think people are waiting for the shoe to drop with Blake Snell. And I think that is in the back of their mind. And this start, they kind of get to be like, ah, gotcha. Like here comes. It's starting to happen.

So I wonder what that does to the trade market. But if people want to buy high on Blake Snell, I'm interested in it. Because I think he made those proper changes. He just said, screw it. I'm going with the change up. I think that's been effective for him and his work. But I don't, this is like some of these other guys, I don't know if this pace, like we were talking with Andrew Abbott.

I don't know if it can be this good for the rest of the season. You know, we've seen some of the big bumps and bruises. So if someone's willing to pay. up, which, then what do you have Blake Snell at as far as SP? Is he top 25? I haven't met 33, but I haven't updated the rankings yet this week. He's probably going to get inside the top 30. So if someone is willing to pay positionally what you would get a top 25 SP for, so whatever a top 25, let's say SP 25 gets you as far as a position player, that is something that I would consider. Maybe push it down just a tiny bit. But if someone's like, eh, he's

kind of falling apart again, this last start he gave up, blah, blah, walks, four walks. If they try to do that and they try to sell you on what the return is for an SP 35, I would rather hold on to Snell because we've seen what it looks like when it's right with Snell. But this is a prime opportunity strikeouts beholden and ERA coming down to capitalize on Blake Snell if it's done right. Yeah, and I think it comes down to what kind of fantasy player you are too. It might be what kind of person you are just in your everyday life. If you are a little bit more risky, you like to live life on the edge, you like volatility,

then maybe you hold on to Blake Snell because as we've seen, it's been a tale of two seasons, the first month and a half versus what we've, you know, saw over the previous month and a half. There's, you know, there's kind of like a Jekylland Hyde there with Blake Snell. But when he's going, that upside is really, really high. If you want a higher floor pitcher, maybe you try and sell him off for, I don't know, like a Julio or Rius or, a Logan Gilbert, someone like that, who is just more steady as they go but maybe don't have crazy upside

on a start-to-start basis. But if you do want that upside, maybe just hold on to Blake's now. But realize he does have quite a bit of downside as well. Let's take our final break and when we return, we'll hit some news and notes. I've got some hitters I want to check it on that we haven't talked about in a while.

We'll do that right after this. Welcome back and a big thanks to everyone watching us live. It is July 4th. Happy 4th of July. Make sure to stay safe. Don't do anything crazy out there, but it's a fun day. I really enjoy July 4th for the obvious reasons, hanging out with friends and family, barbecue, drinks, food, all that fun stuff.

But baseball. There's baseball on all day on July 4th. I just absolutely love that. And we are going to be live tomorrow night as well. Chris Towers and I will be here to break down all the games from July 4th. So if you are still alive and still kicking late at night, then come hang out with your boys. Did you hear, by the way, a couple minutes ago, they did massive firework right outside my window and it's scary.

I was like, oh my God, if you guys were watching on the YouTube, you probably saw me look over. Just everyone's like, ah, hey, it's late enough. Let's fire them up. The crow, fire it up. That's what's happening right here. So if I freak out on camera, it's only because a large explosive just went off right next to me.

So just everyone beware. And if you hear it in my microphone, that's what it is. Hey, happy fourth. Stay safe out there, Welshie. The news and notes, Clayton Kirshall was officially placed on the IL with left shoulder inflammation. Michael Grove was recalled

and he started on Monday against the pirates. Gavin Stone was also recalled. Sounds like he could pitch out of the bullpen or maybe as a piggyback reliever for the Dodgers. But I don't think we have much interest

in Gavin Stone, correct, Welsh? No, no, no, no. I don't have any redraft interest for the rest of this year on him. So Gavin Stone made three starts with the Dodgers this year, a 14.4 ERA and a 3.0 whip. He got sent down.

He made four starts in the minors, 12.0 ERA 2.39 whip. So something is just completely off. It sounds like his confidence is pretty shattered right now. Heavy change up guy. Heavy change up guy. And if that's not working, you know, that's a tough part about with some of these guys. Casey Mize had the same thing. Just you know, splitters. What are you, you're dominant into one pitch. Brandon Fott's having that with a sweeper. And you can't get that going and not set everything else up. It can really tailspin these guys. And I think that's what's happening with Stone. More bad news as jazz Chishol was placed on the aisle with a left oboeuvre. bleak strain and we're waiting to find out the severity of the strain, but it's clearly

frustrating. He recently returned from turf toe and he was hitting the ball well. He was doing jazz chisholm things, but alas does go on the IL. Bryce Miller also placed on the IL with a blister on his right middle finger, Darren McCann, McCaggin. I should have looked up how to say that name. Mingdon. I think it's Daniel Mingdon. What you're talking about? No, it's MCC-A-U-D. G-H-A-N. McAaghan. I'll let you do that. McCahn.

I'm sorry. He was recalled from AAA, so that is who is taking the place in the meantime for Bryce Miller. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that he expects Aaron Judge to incorporate additional baseball activities other than throwing prior to the All-Star break. Judge remains without a timetable.

That's a great report. Max Fried will throw live batting practice on Tuesday. He faced hitters for the first time last Friday. And if all goes well, could soon be cleared to begin a re-referral. have assignment. The Braves are the best team in baseball right now and they've been doing that without Mex Fried. That was something that came into my head today and I thought that's pretty crazy. How about rookie Bryce Elder making the All-Star game too? That's that Braves team.

Well deserved too. He's absolutely been amazing. Jordan Westberg was out of the lineup Monday due to a bruised hand. He suffered on a hit by pitch Sunday. X-rays came back negative, thankfully. Trista McKenzie will remain shut down for three more weeks. He's been out since mid-June with a partially torn right UCL. Tyler O'Neill will begin a rehab assignment at AAA Tuesday. He's been out since early May with a lingering back injury. Royce Lewis was diagnosed with a grade 2 left oblique strain, which typically requires six weeks of recovery,

so maybe mid-August is what we're looking at for Royce Lewis. Riley Green began a rehab assignment with AAA on Monday. Salvador Perez was out of the lineup due to a sore foot that he suffered on a hit by pitch over the weekend. Garrett Whitlock is expected to be placed on the IL in the coming days, but his right elbow injury isn't considered serious. And in the words of the great Ron Burgundy, I don't believe you.

I do not believe that report. Jorge Polanco did some high effort sprints on Monday. He's missed a large chunk of the season due to a pair of hamstring trains. Marlins pitching prospect Max Meyer will begin a bullpen progression this week. He's working his way back from Tommy John surgery. He had last August and Welsh, the hope You're gonna say it. Is that Max Meyer is going to be ready for the Arizona Fall League in October,

which hopefully I will be at. And we could hopefully watch the Max Meyer together. That would be awesome. Oh, that'll be. You know what? Save this clip. Let's go back into the, get into the future. You and me watching Max Meyer pitch.

I'm excited about it. All right. Let's talk about a few hitters. We haven't talked about in a while. And we'll start off with Jose Ibrahim, who went two for five with his seventh home run, 11.4 exit velocity, 452 feet. Kind of just feels like Jose Ibrahim is back over his last 21 games. He's betting 322 with six homers, 22 RBI, more than an RBI per game during that time.

94 mile per hour average exit velocity. It's not the biggest sample Welsh, but should we treat Jose Abraeu similar to what we thought coming into the season, based on how he's played over the past month? I think like a version of that. Like I don't want to give it because I was very hot. This is like QJel for me. I was very big on Jose Abrae. It was like, oh, I don't have to do these other things because I can get Jose

Abraeu. And I think he's going to hit here. None of that worked. But it is wild. Like something happened. June hit and it all changed. 292. Five homers with a 510 slug.

Only a couple games in July, obviously, but hitting 385 and has a homer here. It does feel like he's back. So when I say that, it's like you treat him like pre-value, but then there should still be a little bit of caveat. Like that, if you're talking about trades, you should have more of a discount on him. And the leash isn't quite as big, but this sure does feel like it's coming back to old school Jose Abraeu. Yep. So I had Jose Abraeu, I think ranked as my sixth or seventh first baseman coming into the season. I think I'm going to move him up to back up to 14. I had him outside my top 20 because he was dreadful.

But with the top who are like three guys you have ahead right now? So I had of him just now or in that 14 range? Just like yeah, because you haven't met what 14? No, I haven't met 21, but I think I'm gonna move him up to 14. Yeah, yeah. So like 13, 12, 11. So that would be Josh Naler, Justin Turner and Anthony Santander actually has first base eligibility on CBS. That's pretty sweet. Okay, yeah, that's a good. So who's the guy that'll be right behind him? Anthony Rizzo and Cody Bellinger.

It's a pretty good list. Yeah. That's a pretty, I think that's a pretty, I think that. I think you're pretty spot on there. God, having Bellinger there kind of stinks. I hate hearing that, but it's true. Yeah, that's a good list, and especially Naylor too. Like you and me are by Josh Naylor guys. So I like where you got him. Cool.

Let's talk about Christopher Morel, who went two for four with a double, two runs in RBI, and it has been a tale of three seasons for Christopher Morel. His first 12 games, he hit 388 with nine home runs. His next 11 games, he hit 0.063 with zero homers, and now over his last 20 games, including Monday, he's betting 312 with six homers, and he does have that strikeout rate down to about 23% during that time.

You add it all up, and Christopher Morel is batting 285 with 15 home runs and a 951 OPS. That is a really valuable player. Walsha wouldn't surprise me if we still see some more peaks in valleys because he strikes out a lot, and he's kind of an all or nothing-swinger. But for anyone who picked him up, if you just kind of,

I think he's one of these guys, you just kind of have to ride it out. And the end of season numbers are going to look better than the actual experience of having him. It's kind of like old school like Javi Baez. You know what I'm saying? Like last year all Morrell could do was hit fastballs. He's doing a better job this year. He's seen 27 against fastballs breaking pitches actually 327. Lowest whiff percentage on breaking pitches. Off speeds killing him. But you know, that's kind of who he is. This is like the same bias. Up, down, streaky, huge strikeouts, huge power numbers. He's going to probably. touched 25 to 28 homers this year and still have a 29 to 30% K percentage when all is done. So just kind of roll with the streaks because there's a lot of stuff in favor.

Obviously, like the hard hit stuff is there for Morel. XBA is actually 250, 253, but 46.5% hard hit percentage, barrels the crap out of the ball. There's a lot to like about Morel, but he definitely makes sure, like you said before, the certain type of player, it's going to make your stomach a little bit queasy if you're not used to these big ups and downs. Last one I wanted to mention was Wilson Contreras, who went three for four with his ninth home run, and he now has three or more hits and three of his last nine games. So he's kind of putting together some big games here.

It's been obviously a big letdown of a first season in St. Louis for Wilson Contreras. He's only batting 222 with a 701 OPS, but the underlying numbers, the expected stats, the hard hit data, the quality of contact. That all still looks really, really good for Wilson Contreras. and if you need a catcher, I would be looking to buy on him for the second half. It wouldn't surprise me if he gets back on track. Hopefully that entire Cardinals team could get back on track because it has been quite a messy first half for them.

A few leftovers here, I wanted to quickly mention with Anthony Volpe. I know I talked about him with Scott late last week. He keeps hitting. Good things are happening right now for Anthony Volpe. He went two for four with his 11th home run on Monday night. And over his last 18 games, he's batting 379 with two homers. five doubles, two steals, 91.4 average exit velocity, hitting a ton of line drives,

and I think most notable of all, a 24% strikeout rate. That is huge for Anthony Volpe. And watching the game, I heard them kind of reference, he made a tweak to his batting stance. I looked into it a little bit, and apparently he started watching some old at bats from when he was playing in the minor leagues, and he did this while eating chicken parm

with Yankees prospect Austin Wells. I mean, I was about to say, you were setting this up and I was like just I think we're all wondering. I was like, does Frank know the best part about this story? Oh, I do. That it was with Austin with total full on Italian chicken parm, his catcher, the whole product is the best thing about it. And I think what it was was I want to say he came in like his, his, uh, he was like it was a little bit more open stance and then he came in on the ball a little bit more.

And that might just be a thing about him. but they discovered it's the best story of any of these prospects and that they let us know. In 265, he's hit in June. He was averaging on the full months, April and May, over 30 strikeouts per month, only 21 in June. So again, the strikeouts are down, the hard. I mean, he's only hitting 225, but 11 homers and 16 stolen bases while he's approving.

He's scary in a good way in a kind of like, I want to buy right now because if the best is yet to come, 11 homer, 16 stolen bases, while hitting this poorly, what could be the second half? This is kind of why, like, you and I, Frank, have both been, don't want to give up on Volpey, don't want to cut him, even though he's justified some of the points.

We might be in for a really, really good couple months, kind of the hopes of the Gunner Henderson stuff we've been going through. All right, some pitching leftovers. Let's start with The Good. And Logan Webb had a strong start up against the Mariners, six and two thirds. Two runs allowed, 11 strikeouts for him. Bryce Elder turns out another quality.

start at the Guardians, six and two thirds innings, two runs allowed, only one strikeout in this one. The Guardians really do not swing and miss very often. And Joe Ryan, a solid bounce back after getting crushed by the Atlanta Braves. He faced the Royals on Monday, six innings of two-run ball with nine strikeouts and a whopping 21 swinging strikes. Good for Joe Ryan. Welsh, anything you'd like to add on him, Bryce Elder and Logan Webb. I mean, I'm just still a Joe Ryan believer. it's hard even when he gets kind of banged up.

Whenever he gets hit around, I look at that. I'm like, oh, I want to go and see what the market is like. Can we get him for cheaper? Because he can have these big strikeout games. You know, the Royals, they can strike out, but they hadn't been really striking out. I think they said that in the game, the twins are like a hundred more team strikeouts

than the Royals had on the year. And Joe Ryan comes in, low walk numbers, and he's got an exceptional 2.73 expected ERA. So I just really love him. And Bryce Elder is the way. weirdest guy all year. Like the strikeout numbers, they can be great one game. They completely disappear another, 20% K percentage. The expected stats are a little bit worse and probably tell a story of regression, but he just consistently gets it done with that slider. I really love that slider

that he throws. What about these two names? How did Domingo Hermann follow up his perfect game? Well, he was not great. Four and a third innings, nine hits allowed, three runs. Two of those earned. He did have 12 swinging strikes, but this is the Domingo Hermon experience. And to be fair, we tried to warn you. Gavin Williams, a not so great start. He's going up against the Atlanta Braves. I don't know how much I want to put. How much stock do I put in this?

It's six and a third innings, four runs allowed, only had two strikeouts. He gave up three homers in the start. He is a fly ball pitcher, or at least appears to be one so far. Gave up a lot of hard contact in this start, but it's the Atlanta Braves. And this guy is a really young. young pitcher who he's making his third career start. So maybe I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt. But Welsh, what do you think about Gavin Williams there and old friend Domingo Hermann? Yeah. And Domingo? He didn't have another perfect game. It was an amazing. What are you talking about?

This is crazy. Frank. Why didn't anyone tell me? Gavin Williams, I'm an apologist. I don't have anything to add because it's like these three starts. Do I love that he gave up, you know, that he's giving up any runs, foreign runs to the A's? No. Uh, the, uh, the, I don't know what you take out of this one with the Braves. This is a team that beats up on some of the... I think this is the team that destroyed Bryce Miller. You know, he's going to hit up on these rookies. I'm an apologist that I need to see five starts.

Like the K percentage, walk percentage, kind of not great so far with Gavin Williams, but I really do feel like he's trying to find his footing and find the type of pitcher he is. But what we know is he can induce whiffs. He can go deep into games. And he is still the best of that crew, Logan Allen, gone of Tanner Bybee.

I would so rather have Gavin Williams. So give me a couple more starts. Let's see him get it together and let's see how he rebounds off of the Braves before we make any like really decisive decisions on him. The call to the bullpen. Let's talk a few updates here for the Rangers. Will Smith entered the ninth inning with a one-run lead and he quickly gave up two runs on three hits, took his second blown save and third loss of the season. A roll of his Chapman pitched a clean eighth inning and obviously is lurking there in the background. So big for so many of my teams. I got so when I saw. him throwing camp and he was Vila was back. I have all the shares of Chapman. I've been sitting on him. I don't want anything bad to happen to Will Smith, but I need Chapman to take this gig over because it will be huge for every team of from tout to my keeper leagues to everything. I've got him everywhere. I'm actually the complete opposite well. So I'm holding on hope on Will Smith and I had a tweet once the

trade went down. I'm like, ah, I think Bruce Bochie's going to stick with Will Smith. Well, you know, if he has a few more of these, then he might not be sticking with Will Smith. Smith, so we'll see. For the Astros, Ryan Presley picked up his 18th save. For the Brewers, Devin Williams also picked up his 18th save. For the Reds, Alexis T.S. has been lights out. His 24th save of the season. For the Marlins, AJ Puck picked up his 14th. For the Yankees, Clay Holmes picked up his 10th. For the Braves, Reisel Eglacius picked up his 15th. And then we get into some messy stuff here. For the Giants, Camillo DeVal entered the ninth with the game tied. He gave up four runs and wound up taking the law.

And on the other side, Paul Seawald, he answered the bottom of the ninth with that full run lead. He gave up a three-run homer to Blake Sable, but still managed to get out of it. No save there, but kind of a messy performance for Paul Seawald. Last but not least, the Dodgers. Evan Phillips picked up his 12th save. Daniel Hudson pitched in the eighth inning, got his first hold, and it's a situation to watch. If, you know, Evan Phillips struggles a little bit, or maybe they want to deploy him earlier in the game as a fireman. then maybe Daniel Hudson could pick up some saves moving forward as well.

Let's get into to stream or not to stream, and we'll start with Tuesday. And who did we say yesterday? I think Kentimaida versus the Royals. Yep. It's totally fine. Scoobal, Oakland. You don't like guys coming out with injuries, but it's Oakland,

so I think we can do that. Right. Emmett Sheehan versus the Pirates. I think those were my top three. Sheehan, Scouble, and Kentomaieta. But, you know, even J.P. Sears at the Tigers, I think that's fine. That's a big park. He's a fly ball pitcher. Wade Miley versus the Cubs is like, okay.

Those other three names, those were my top three. But a few other. Those are my hands down my top three as well. Yep. On Wednesday, we've got J.P. France is facing the Rockies on the road in Houston. So I think that's a good opportunity for J.P. France. And look it up and down. How about revenge, Josiah Gray versus Seventh? Sensi. Josiah Gray versus Sincy.

Was he on the Reds at some point? Was he like a Reds? Reds prospect. Yeah. He was. He was a Reds prospect before. I believe he was he was in the Jeter Downs trade that went Reds. They went to the Dodgers and then the Dodgers ended up, you know, trading all the pieces around. So I mean, I'm pulling pretty deep here. Most don't know.

But yeah. Just I don't know if that revenge narrative. I don't like a lot of the rest of these. I guess that's kind of why I'm doing this, Frank. I don't see a whole lot of other stuff I'm trying to get down with. I think Josiah Gray versus the Reds is okay. His last start I was pretty excited about. He had 20 swinging strikes and eight strikeouts,

and he did some things a little bit differently in that start. So I think that's okay. I think JP France, Josiah Gray. I think the last one is Michael Soroka at the Guardians. Their offense has just been so blah. It's been mostly bad for, you know, this season. Seth Lugo versus the Angels is like a backup. but my top three are going to be J.P. Franch, Josiah Gray, and Michael Soroka for Wednesday.

All right, it's pretty late, so we're not going to do team name Tuesday. We'll save that. I'll either do it tomorrow or Thursday. Thursday is probably a smaller slate. So maybe we'll do it Thursday, but we're going to wrap there. For the Welsh, I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We'll be back again tomorrow.

Bye-bye.