Fantasy Baseball Today - DROP-O-METER, Circle of Trust & Young Hitters Emerging! (8/20 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Let's fire up the DROP-O-METER for Shane Baz and Tanner Bibee (2:55). ... Cristopher Sanchez is making his case for NL Cy Young (9:40). ... David Peterson bounced back and the Yankees blasted nine homers (12:34). ... News (21:27): Jacob deGrom was scratched from his start Wednesday with shoulder fatigue. ... Bryson Stott and Alejandro Kirk are picking things up (31:05). ... Any interest in Jameson Taillon, Emmet Sheehan and Tomoyuki Sugano (41:52)? ... Are Max Scherzer and Jacob Lopez in the Circle of Trust (39:18)? ... These two young bats are emerging (48:33). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (53:21). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@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/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hello, and welcome in some fantasy baseball today on Wednesday. August 20th.

I am Frank Stample, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we have a. bit of a fantasy smorgas board going on. We'll fire up the dropometer for two pitchers. We'll discuss the circle of trust, bombs away for the Yankees, and much more. But let's jump in.

Oh my goodness gracious. All right. Let's begin with Chris. You're up. Player of the night. You can let go of Shane Boss now. It's okay. It's fine.

We can stop holding on. I know there have been a couple of stretches where he's looked like a burgeoning ace. He's got like a 540 ERA for the season. He just gave up five of the nine home runs that the Yankees hit on Tuesday. And he has a nine ERA in the month of August. I understand. It's a little scary to drop a guy who has shown the upside shame boss has.

But we are talking about basically two, three, or four game stretches about two months apart and literally nothing else outside of those stretches. So just let go. It's fine. It's okay. That's not the case we normally have to make on this show. It's okay to making people feel like it's okay to drop a struggling player. He's still 81% rostered though.

I was shocked that it's still that high. Look, I know that the strikeouts have been there lately, but he, he's just getting shelled. He doesn't have command. He is clearly a talented pitcher. And I am not writing Shane Boss off as a contributor in the long run for fantasy. But again, he has nine quality starts in 25 tries this season. They have been clustered around that, what, first three starts of April and then like the last start of June and the first couple of July maybe.

But for the most part, It's just been bad and I think we can just let go. It's fine. Six starts in the second half for Shane Boz, a 932 ERA and a 182 whip at this point. So as you mentioned, still 81% rostered. He was one name on the dropometer, so that sounds like a 10 for you, Chris. Yeah. How about you, Scott?

Where is Shane Boz? Is it a just 10 drop everywhere? Pretty close. I kind of want to say, just because I'm sure there are some pitchers rostered in a similar number of leagues who I may drop even before Bosz, but I'm at a hard time thinking of a format that I still hold on to Bosz. A.L. only head to headpoints, maybe.

Any A.L. only, I guess. Does he have two starts next week? Are they good matchups? Would you trust him even if he did? These are questions one could ask, but they are not questions that I really feel like are worth asking. Maybe like a 16 team head-to-head points league. I want to drop Boz. But yeah, clearly over-roastered at 81%. Looks like he will be a two-star pitcher at Cleveland at Washington next year.

I think he'll be in the no-thanks section, regardless. Yeah, I mean, maybe in a points league, you could justify it just because if your alternative is like some, I don't know, mediocre guy with one start, then sure, just throw Shane Boz out there and hope. But I, there's a, there's a lot. no way you can trust him in any kind of league with ratios. It's just it's been so bad. He's got a 522 ERA and a 137 whip on the season. Yeah. I think even in a points league, right? Like we're getting to the point where some people's fantasy playoffs are starting already started or we're getting close to it. So it's crunch time. I don't think I could even start Shane Bob's only five lineup blocks after this one in weekly leagues. And that's assuming your league counts the final week of the season, which many head to head leagues don't. So we're yeah, if you haven't started,

if your league hasn't started the playoffs yet, it's probably Monday that they start. Let's just stick with the drop-a-meter for a second here. I have Tanner Bybee on this list. He has allowed four plus earned runs in six of his last nine starts, and during that nine-star stretch, it's a 604 ERA and a 151 whip. So he's been pretty bad for a while here.

He does line up for two starts next week. He gets Tampa Bay and Seattle, 87% rostered. Where would you guys put Tanner Bybee on the dropometer? Maybe a true 9. I'll say 9.5 for Baas, 9 for Bybee. He's got a little more of a track record,

but it's kind of out of runway at this point for fantasy. I feel like he has one quality start in his last oh, I wrote down this number. Now I can't find it. Biveys who we're talking about, right?

Tanner Bybee has one quality start. in his last nine. He has just two in his last 12. And, you know, the history of Tanner Bybee, he generally is kind of dragging his feet at first. And then he goes on a run that, like, lasts half the season. And it's not that impressive as you're watching it play out. But one day you look up and it's like, oh, Tanner Bybee's numbers are really good. I guess he's good.

And there's just not enough time for him to do that. If he's not the sort of pitcher that can have these real, really dominant starts that will justify living through all this frustration, then I just don't think he's worth holding on to it. I mean, he's really only had, like, he had a 330 ERA in the month of May. Other than that, his best months so far this season is 3908 ERA. So, Bibi hasn't really even had the highs that Baws has had, where at least you're chasing some theoretical, or not theoretical, practical upside. So, yeah, I, Bibi's just been lost all season. I don't know, he needs an offseason to work on it and figure out what his approach is going to be. But he, he's been trying to become more of a contact pitcher, and it has really not worked out for him this season.

So back to the drawing board. And I don't know, have the Guardians kind of lost it a little bit when it, you know, this used to be like one of the three or four teams that we just gave a huge benefit of the Dow for for pitchers. And it feels like that's kind. I know Gavin Williams has had good results. The underlying stuff is horrible. I feel like, look, neither was great for fantasy, but I feel like Louis Ortiz when he was still around. enslaved Cicone for a while there were both better than they had a right to be.

Though still not that good for fantasy, just because they're probably not that good to begin with. All right, Scott, over to you for your Player of the Night. Mine is, I'm going to go with a high-end guy, which I usually don't do, but Christopher Sanchez is my player of the Knight deservedly because he was outstanding against the Mariners. He struck out 12 and 6 in a third inning. allowing just two earned runs. He's pretty much been doing that all season. The overall numbers are good enough,

so there's not a lot of point to whittling it down like I'm about to do, but I'll do it anyway because he seems to have found here recently a way to get even better. And that's by emphasizing his change up more. It's always been his best pitch, but he's thrown it more than 40% of the time now in seven of his last eight starts. 208 ERA during that stretch, 103 WIP 9.7K per 9, consistently working deep into games. He's gone not just seven or more, but he's gone more than seven in three of his last seven,

and then the others are all at least six. And you break it down here for Christopher Sanchez. as he has the 14th best walk rate among qualifiers. He has the eighth best swinging strike rate among qualifiers. This is for the season. He has the fifth best ground ball rate among qualifiers. Like those are the three legs of the fifth triangle, which is a phrase I hardly ever use anymore.

But like basically he's good at everything you want a pitcher to be good at to limit damage. And I've moved him into my top five rest of six. season. He wouldn't quite be there if Zach Wheeler hadn't moved out of the top five, but he's there now. Sanchez in the top five. Chris, you brought up the point before the show. Like maybe with Wheeler being a down for the count, maybe Sanchez is the NL.

Syung frontrunner. I know Skeen's is the odds on favorite right now. But Sanchez has thrown more innings in one fewer start. he's He leads the majors in war and baseball reference war prior to tonight he led all of baseball

he's uh I don't know within two tenths or three tenths of a run in ERA pitcher war I should clarify just among pitchers you know I think with the the Wheeler going down narrative

I think Christopher Sanchez is is my current pick for NL Say young mm-hmm uh yeah he has been tremendous this season. He has a quality start in 13 of his last 14 outings too. So for those who play in points leagues or you have quality starts as a category, Christopher Sanchez has been one of the

most valuable pitchers in those leagues this season. I want to talk about David Peterson for a second here because he bounced back from maybe his worst start of the season with one of the best starts of his career. So at the nationals, eight innings, one run, 10 strikeouts to one walk, had 18 whiffs on 96 pitches here. Seven of those. On the change-up, the 10 strikeouts were a season high here. And look, he's mostly been solid all year. But obviously, you know, a couple bad starts in a row here. Last one was really bad.

He walked five. You're thinking, all right, maybe he's starting to slow down. Maybe he's starting to wear down a little bit. The Mets have really leaned on him. He's maybe been their only pitcher that they can rely on for length all season. But he's got a 318 ERA, 124 whip. I think that's always going to be a little bit higher for him because walks and, you know, ground balls can turn into hits here.

but it really has been just an all-around great season for David Peterson following up a really strong second half last year as well. So if anyone was worried about David Peterson, I think seeing a start like this, albeit against a struggling Nationals lineup right now, I think that gives you to confidence to put David Peterson back in the circle of trust, if he was ever out. I don't know.

Yeah, I think it was pretty much in it. I don't think he's going, I mean, the record shows that David Peterson doesn't show this kind of ceiling very often. He's more, you know, he's going to keep the ERA respectable because his ground ball rate is so high. He's more that kind of guy. And to me, that kind of guy is pretty much always in the circle of trust. He's not, you know, the centerpiece of your pitching staff, but he's somebody that you never feel that bad about starting. I want to stick with the, I guess stick with the New York teams here for a second because the Yankees, my goodness,

they put up 13 runs on 16 hits, including nine homers in this game. Of course, a lot of that damage against Shane Boss, who we spoke about, but just running down the lineup here. Aaron Judge, two for five with his 40th home run. He has three home runs in his past six games. And looks like he might be rounding back into form. Cody Bellinger, four for five with a double dong here. Now up to 24 homers, 75 RBI, 10 steals, and 825 OPS on the season. I want to say that's close to the best case scenario that we were hoping for this season. Maybe a few more steals,

but he's on pace for close to 30 home runs. Maybe he even exceeds that with obviously good counting stats and a good batting average as well. John Carlo Stanton, two for three, two homers, four RBI. Over his past 33 games, he has 14 homers and 34 RBI.

He has been incredible. But for fantasy, it's kind of hard to predict when he's going to play. I mean, I guess if you see smaller outfields on the schedule, you can figure, all right, maybe Stanton gets a game or two in there. But with Judge being limited to D.H., it does kind of throw a wrench in figuring out when Staten is going to play. So I think in daily lineup leagues, he's must roster. You can just throw him in there whenever he's in the lineup.

But weekly lineup leagues, it is a lot harder here with Staten. This was his first start in four games. And it's notable that he played three games in the outfield in a row, four out of five, and immediately needed four days off. I don't know. We can talk about the Aaron Judge thing now because there was a quote from Aaron Boone where he said he didn't think Aaron Judge would be able to throw at full strength at any point this season. Aaron Judge weirdly said that Aaron Boone hasn't seen him throw in two weeks, which I'm curious how that would happen. raises a lot of questions about the Yankees, I guess, if that's true. I tend to think if the manager and the player disagree about the likelihood of a player being at full health,

you should probably take the manager's side because players tend to overestimate their chances of getting to full health when they are hurt. I don't know, even if Judge does return to the field, setbacks are always possible. I just can't see Stanton playing even two-thirds of the games the rest of the way. And it's a bummer because he looks awesome. Like he legitimately looks like he's still an impactful player, but I just can't see how he's going to play anywhere close to every day, unfortunately. Yeah. And then Ben Rice hit another home run, has three homers in his past seven games.

He's up to 80% rostered now. I think he's started 12-stranking. games for the Yankees. So has pretty much taken over as their starting catcher over Austin Wells. And he's inside of the top 12 catchers, the rest of season for Scott and I. So yeah, he's firmly in that mix with Chris too, right? Oh yeah, he's eighth. Yeah, I didn't see he had him that higher. So yeah, top 12 for all three of us. And look, if you held onto him all season, hoping that maybe eventually those stat cast numbers would come to fruition. It looks like they are for Ben Rice. Last thing I wanted to mention here, Jose Caballero, revenge game against the

raise. Two for four. Two homers for him. Not usually a slugger. Had three RBI in this one. Has started four in a row. And during that stretch, seven hits, two homers, four steals. Yankees are finding a way to get him in the lineup. McMahon was out here on Tuesday. Volpe got a day off the other day. But I think as long as he's playing well, they'll try to find ways to get him in. But I also just don't know how. how much we can rely on playing time for Jose Caballero. And beyond steals, leaving the two homer game here aside, there just isn't much there for Commonero.

And we're at a point. Oh, whoa, whoa. Caballero, Scott, not Commonero. Freudian slip. There's plenty there for Commonero, of course. 35 home runs. But no, Caballero, there's not much there beyond just somebody who could pad your steals if he is playing consistently.

And I don't feel like there's that big of a need for a true steals specialist, one category performer like that in the current fantasy landscape. There's enough steals to go around in Roto. I mean, there are 12 teams in every 12 team Roto League, roughly, on average. One of them might need steals. So, like, you could get him to, you know, whatever roster rate just because of that. but the point is that he doesn't need to be rostered by every team, you know. Before we hit our first break, reminder, if you're still listening or watching the podcast at this point in the year and you haven't signed up for the FBT newsletter, you should change that because Chris is still out here grinding away, sending out a-

We're writing way too much. Sending out a newsletter. It's like 3,500 words yesterday. Yeah, man. Sending out a newsletter every weekday of the regular season. That includes down the stretch here. You need help in your fantasy playoffs or, you know, just trying to make up ground in your rotos standings, whatever it might be. If you're watching on YouTube, scan that QR code that will bring you right to the website where you can sign up for free.

And big thanks to those watching live. Make sure to hit the like button and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in. baseball today. News and notes, the Rangers are skipping Jacob de Grom's scheduled star on Wednesday due to shoulder fatigue and he returned to Texas to be evaluated and has been cleared of any structural issues. But the workload is getting up there. He's thrown 140 in a third innings this season, his most by

far since 2019. So they have relied on him a lot. He's thrown a lot of innings. He's been really, really good this season, but perhaps wearing down just a little bit here for DeGrom. And it's unfortunate for those who play in weekly lineup leagues because we didn't have any indication this was going to happen. So if you started him, unfortunately, looks like you're not going to get anything out of Jacob DeGrom this week. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was out of the lineup with that left hamstring inflammation and is considered day to day. Jackson Trio will begin a rehab assignment at AAA on Friday. It's crazy to think how good the Brewers have been and Jackson Trio is on the I.L. So it's just

makes it that much crazier. And he hasn't been, when he was healthy, as good as anybody thought he'd be. It's still pretty good, though. Yeah. Austin Riley felt more soreness during a workout on Tuesday and is not expected to return from the aisle anytime soon.

Francisco Alvarez was placed in the aisle with a right thumb sprain. He'll be re-evaluated in 10 to 14 days, but manager Carlos Mendoza admitted Alvarez will need surgery at some point, so sounds like that could happen in the off-season. The Guardians are called. calling up one of their top pitching prospects, Parker Messick,

to start on Wednesday, or Mesik. Messick, all right, it's probably it's Messick. 24 years old, second round pick in 2022, and 20 starts at AAA this season, a 347 ERA 122 whip. 10.9K per 9. He is just 5% rostered. Any deep league interest in Parker Messick?

Yeah, his change up apparently has opposing hitters down at AAA saying Parker, saying, Parker, you're making me sick. No, I was actually thinking today, like, trying to come up with, trying to draw the distinction between, like, fluky performance and unsustainable performance, right? And I was trying to, like, come up with some examples of, like, Gavin Williams feels like a guy whose success right now is just a total fluke. He's got, like, a three ERA and a nine K minus walk ratio over the past, like, three. months. It's just there's nothing about what Gavin Williams is doing that makes sense.

Then you have like Ranger Suarez and Matthew Boyd and there was another name that I had come up with. Nick Lerdlo, Andrew Abbott. There are a couple of other guys who like what they are doing is Eric Lauer. What they are doing is not a fluke, right? Like the skills indicators suggest that they are pitching really, really well. It's just like unlikely that they will continue to pitch quite as well as they have. We've seen that with Ranger Suarez over the past couple of years. And the one thing that I was thinking is like, there's a lot of weird lefties. Jacob Lopez, another guy. Like there's a lot of weird lefties who fit that.

Like Andrew Abbott's got kind of a funky delivery. He's got that kind of short step. And then Jacob Lopez is like crossfiring across his body. And Matthew Boyd gets real low. And like there is something to being a weird lefty that I think has value. And from everything I've seen of Parker Messick, that is his MO. He's like a 92, 93 mile an hour fastball guy, but he's got a funky delivery and he gets a lot, showed him a mnog another one.

He gets, you know, a lot of whiffs with a fastball that shouldn't get a lot of whiffs. If you just look at velocity because he locates it well up the zone and then he's got a great changeup. And so there's just, there could be something to that funky lefty having more value than we think and Parker Messick seems to fit the bill. He was a top 50 prospect per fan graphs midseason update. There's a spot for him in the

Guardian's rotation right now. If he takes it the rest of the way, he hasn't even thrown a hundred innings this season, so there shouldn't be limitations. I think he's pretty interesting. I think he's at least in 15 team mixed leagues. I think Parker Messick's worth a look. Hmm. Yeah, I'm watching some video now.

He definitely has a weird kind of delivery here that I can see why his changeup would be so deceiving. So, yeah, definitely a name to watch there. 5% rostered. That's Parker Messick with the Guardians. Jackson Merrill has missed two straight with that left ankle injury. He remains day to day. Adley Ruchman was scratched from the lineup due to right abdominal discomfort. Now, I wouldn't wish poorly upon anybody. Obviously, I hope for a speedy recovery for Adley Ruchman. But if the Orioles just want to play it safe and put him on the IL so that Samuel Bessio

could play a bunch of Catcher and we have maybe 19 more appearances at Catcher roughly not just more specific number on it but right around 19 maybe I think he's at two now right? Oh he's at two now so yeah let's say 18

he just needs the majority there right yeah that's it yeah so that'd be great yeah yeah he was the it would not be great I don't want Adley Ruchman to miss time. It would be nice for Samuel Bessio's value in 2026. Yes, that's exactly what we're talking

about here. Salvador Perez has missed two straight with an illness. Nick Ladolo tossed a bullpen on Monday and is scheduled to throw off a mound again Wednesday. He's on the IL with a blister on his left index finger. Reese Hoskins started a rehab assignment at AAA on Tuesday. And I am pretty interested to see how much, if any, playing time Andrew Vaughn loses when Hoskins is back. Yeah, I think, I think Rees Hoskins has been Wally Piped here. I think so, yeah. Pretty clearly.

Vaughner slowed down a little bit. Yeah, but still, he's done way better than Reese Hoskins was doing for a couple years now. And there's the D.H. spot, but the Brewers seem to like playing Christian Yellich there most of the time. He's hardly played any outfield this year, in fact. so I think it'll remain so maybe Hoskins will get some of bats there against lefties but I don't think he's going to be of much use

in fantasy when he returns Is Alex going to be DH only next year? I saw him playing in the outfield He's got four more I saw him playing in the outfield today so that probably... He needs four more appearances in the outfield. All right. I mostly agree by the way

I just, it would be annoying if Andrew Vaughn even loses like every third or fourth game because of Reese Hoskins so I'm hoping that doesn't have. happen. Jordan Westberg was out of the lineup with a sore right ankle. Colson Montgomery was out of the lineup due to left side soreness. Williara Abraeu has missed two straight with right calf tightness. Josh Lowe has missed three straight with a right oblique issue. And Victor Robles was handed a 10-game suspension for throwing his bat at a pitcher during a AAA rehab game. So he's been hit by a pitch three

times during his rehab assignment. Chris, I know you were explaining that him and Joey S has kind of have some history dating back to last year too, which kind of caused all of this frustration, but it's still a kind of a crazy thing to do. Robles has been hit like three or four times on his minor league rehab assignment and like the last three times he's gone against Estes going back to last season, Estes has hit him. So understandably frustrated, but like I've seen some people saying that a 10 game suspension was too strict, too harsh. And no, no, don't throw your bat at someone feels.

like a pretty hard line that MLB should draw. And didn't Delman Young? Didn't he get like a 50 games? He hit an umpire with his bat. I mean, this is, gosh, at least some members of our audience are too young to remember that. That was like 2007, something like that. Before I started playing fantasy. Oh, it might have been even longer ago.

Yeah. It was a long time ago. I'm sure a lot of people listening don't even know who Delman Young is. Yeah. I remember the name. I don't remember him hitting any plenty. 2006. I had not graduated high school yet.

That was a long time ago. So yeah. I think Robles is lucky. It's not longer than 10 games. But that's also 10 games that doesn't start until he's activated from the IL. So it makes it a lot less like that we're going to get anything for Victor Robles this season. Last I looked,

he was doing great on his rehab assignment too. So I was kind of getting excited about that. But the window is already so small and now it's two weeks smaller. Chris, no bats throwing in softball lately? You know, no, no. But I did, there was a guy wearing a Francisco Cervilly jersey

yesterday and I tried to chat him up. A Pirates, a Pirates Francisco Cerville jersey. And I was like, what's the story here? And he's like, oh, you're trying to distract me. It's like, brother, what's the point of wearing a Pirates, Victor Cerville. jersey if you're not going to talk about it. You know?

Like, that's a conversation piece. That's the only reason to wear. Yeah. Unless he doesn't even know who it is. He's just like, oh yeah, I picked this up at, you know, the thrift store. I don't even know who is. Is it your brother? Like, what's the story?

There's got to be a story. You can't just randomly have a Francisco Servali jersey. All right, let's run through some waiver wire hitters here. Bryson Stott had himself a big game, one for two, with a walk, a sock, and a shoe. His eighth home run, his 20th steel. And he's actually hitting pretty well. lately last 24 games 313 batting average two homers six yields and OPS over 900 the problem is he still sits against left-handed pitching so that limits the upside limits the playing time 66% rostered

I don't know that that number should be much higher for Bryce's not it's probably right right yeah alexo kirk turning up the power all of a sudden three for five with his 10th home run he has three homers in his past four games he's hitting 296 he has a 7771 OPS 62% roster but the problem. There's so many catchers that have emerged lately. So I updated the rankings here. We all have Kirk around 15 and 16 at catchers. So it's just kind of tough for him because none of us are taking him over Baldwin,

Basayo, Ben Rice, right? You know, Baldwin's playing time has become an issue again. So I know the last couple days I've been saying I'm taking Drake Baldwin over Samuel Bill Pesayo and I'm not saying that anymore. It's just too many lost to bats to Sean Murphy with Marcelo Zuna being fixed in the I, the DH spot again. As for Kirk, I have a lot more interest in points leagues because of that microscopic strikeout rate, but points leagues are hardly ever two catchers.

So even then, you're talking about on the fringes of rosterability. And even with the low strikeout rate, he's. I don't have the numbers ahead in front of me, but I would assume he's not a great points league option just because he has 32 runs in 100 games and 54 R-56 RBI and 33 runs. He just, the counting stats are miserable for him. So that really, really limits the value. Kirk, by the way, is at 2.5 fantasy points per game.

So, yeah, it's not that great. It's a little bit behind. It's basically where Salvador Perez is. So it's usable. I mean, Salvador Perez obviously opposite into the spectrum in terms of format specialty. He's much better in Roto than points. But I'm sure he's rostered in basically every points league.

So Kirk is about on his level and head-to-head points per game. Two mid-tier outfielers who have really picked things up here. Brenton Doyle stayed hot with his 12th home run in the second half, hitting 380 with five homers, three steals, and OPS over 1,000, has started 11 of the past, and Miguel Anduhar continues to hit with the Reds three for four with a double and two RBI. 14 games since coming over to Cincinnati hitting 395, three homers, 11 RBI, and 1132 OPS during that time. Who do you guys like more between Brenton Doyle and Miguel Andohar?

Doyle. Yeah, not really a competition there now that Doyle seems to be performing like we know he's capable of. It's been true for all of August, strikeout rate way down for the month. Very encouraging signs there. August is kind of redemption month for the outfielders who have underachieved all year between Doyle and Brian Reynolds and most of all Michael Harris. Andrew Harr, he hasn't really been a fantasy commodity since his rookie season, 2017 or 2018. He's hot right now. He had a good batting average last year as well.

and the Reds kind of have a surplus at the position where he plays too so I think he's getting plenty of playing time while he's hot I'm not sure it's going to last so I don't see him as a big priority in fantasy I don't mind using him where he's this hot I will note that I did a look at beginning Monday so the final five weeks of the season which teams faced face the weakest lineups going forward, which teams face the weakest

pitching staffs going forward to kind of maybe set aside, stash away some players who could help you in a head-to-head playoff context. Reds are kind of middle of the road in terms of weak pitching staffs being faced. So I'm not sure even from a match-ups perspective,

it makes sense to prioritize Andrew Har much. Welcome to Boston, Nate Lowe. One for four with a class Much game time home run in the ninth inning. He started against Tomoyuki Sugano in this one. My guess is he'll get a chance to at least start against right-handed pitching for the time being. He has 17 home runs, 70 RBI, but also hitting 2.16.

So 35% rostered. I think if he was dropped in really deep leagues, maybe you can look to re-ad Nate Lo and like a 15-teamer or something like that, but anything shallower, I would say he's probably a stay away. Kyle Teal is heating up two for five with his fourth home run, has home run in back-to-back games. Here in the second half, he is hitting 312 with four homers, and in 873 OPS, he's 22% rostered, again, another catcher, which we've been talking about. But I think he needs to be rostered in two catcher leagues, and I feel like 22% on CBS probably does not represent

all two catcher leagues on our site, I would imagine. That feels low. There's probably not room for him in one catcher league, but Kyle Teal's underlying numbers are really good. He's like, I think he's top five among catchers in expected Wobah this season, at least among who have as few played appearances as he does. So there is, like I know he hasn't quite taken the league by storm, and, you know, the last couple of games are carrying some weight for him. Just two days ago he had two home runs total.

So I think you can understand Kyle. Teal not being very roster. He has a 369 X-Woba, which is fourth at the position, actually. So if he played his way into the top 12 conversation at the end of the season, I would not be terribly surprised. He's a super talented player who's putting those talent into action. Yeah, I think Al-Tiel could make himself a top 12 catcher for next year. I moved them up to 17. So at Catcher, I would take him over, like Logan O'Hoppy has this completely fallen apart.

Sean Murphy's losing playing time. Austin Wells is losing playing time. So these are maybe names that you held on to all year. I would drop any of those for Kyle Teal personally. How much is Caro cutting into his playing time? He was at DH today, so I think they're just finding ways to get Kyle Teal in the lineup. Not that much, though. Like, Caro, most of the DH at-bats recently have gone to talk.

or Ben Intendi? Kyle Teal had sat out just three games in August, it looks like. Like out of the lineup, three games? Yeah, he's only been out of the lineup three times in August. Okay, so I guess Caro's just not playing that much. Teal, okay, so Teal started a DH five times this month, and Caro has two, four times. No, I'm counting some of the lineup, forget it.

Yeah, I mean, Teal, he's definitely two catcher material now. I've got him up to 21. All right. And Brett Beatty looks like he might be heating back up. Hit his 14th home run last seven games. He's hitting 375, 3 homers, and one steal. Any deep league interest in Brett Beatty? No, I mean, his playing time isn't the most consistent either.

I think he's positioned himself to maybe matter and fantasy in the future. But he's kind of part of an infield glut for the Mets. and it's not like his numbers are so good that you can justify using him as a part-timer. And it's worth noting Viantos is homered in two straight games. It's not like he's been great otherwise, but there's some concern that if he gets hot, it just remains a frustrating split.

Nice to see Owen Casey is on the board. Hit his first career home run in the game one of their doubleheader. Actually went to the opposite field. I thought that was really impressive and showing off the power there from Owen Casey. It's just, you know, once Kyle Tucker is done with this mental reset and gets this couple of days off, I just don't really see how Owen Casey's going to get enough playing time. Maybe it's possible that they, like, the problem is they're five and a half games up on the last wildcard spot.

So there's not really a sense of urgency, even though the vibes in Chicago aren't great right now. And so, like, would they really consider like a, you know, four-way time share in the outfield just to get Casey's bat in the line? And it's possible, but it doesn't seem like the sense of urgency has to be there for that yet. All right, let's take our final break. When we return, I have three waiver wire pitchers to ask about. We'll talk about the circle of trust and much more right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Three waiver wire pitchers.

Jameson Tyone returned with a great start against the Brewers. Six innings, one run, four strikeouts for him. Emmich Sheen tossed six innings for the first time this season. He was at the Rockies, where he did a lot of. out four runs, but had seven strikeouts, 15 whiffs on 91 pitches. And Tomoyuki Sugano, solid at the Red Sox, five innings, one unearned run with three strikeouts. And over his last five, he has a 191, ERA, a 0.99 whip for Tomiuki Sukano. Any interest in those three?

Sagano, Sheehan, and Tyone. Looking at the roster rate for all three of them, it's 72 for Tyone, 44, 45 for Sheehan, 41 for Sagano. They all seem right. Sugano may be a little high, but none of them seem like someone you have to add right now. Sheehan, I feel like it could be higher than that. He has, he's the most interesting. I just don't, like this isn't enough for me to consider him usable at this point.

If we're looking at the matchups for next week, Sheehan gets the Reds. Tyone, I think, is going to be, wind up being a two-star pitcher. And then Sugano also lines up for two against the Red Sox and at the Giants. It's all just kind of... I'm guessing Tyone will be in the advisable in head-to-head points league's tier

of the two-star pitcher rankings next week. Yeah. You know what the problem is? What's up? At San Francisco. That's pretty good. That's great. That's great. At coursefield. Yeah. I mean, it's not a bad matchup, but... They're starting to hit, though. I mean, they haven't been for a while.

In a Roto League, I think that's probably too risky with a guy like James and Tyone. And there have been a number of like Cores Field games in the second half. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. I don't know. I think he's a fine points league option. Yeah.

I think you'd really like the problem is earlier. If you start him, you might get nine strikeouts. You know, it's not like there's even a ton of strikeout outside there. Right. Yeah. It's sort of like I was saying as for the daily streamer segment for Michael McGreevy. Okay, maybe you get a quality start with. strikeouts and ended up being a little better than that.

But like just is the downside worth, is the upside worth the downside? And yeah, probably with the one start at Coorsfield for Tyo next week. Probably not. With the way Coorsfield is playing. The Circle of Trust, are these two pitchers in there,

rest of season? Maybe it's obvious and I just don't know, but I don't know. You guys will tell me. Max Scher turned in another strong start, this one, at the Pirates. Six innings, one run. Only four strikeouts here, but he's turned in five straight quality starts, and during that stretch at 225 ERA, 0.94 whip, 28 strikeouts over 32 innings. And Jacob Lopez, another strong start at the Twins, six innings, two earned runs, eight strikeouts to one walk. And over his last five starts, a 0.60 ERA,

a 0.83 whip, 36 strikeouts to seven walks over 30 innings pitched. What do you guys think? Are Jacob Lopez and Max Scherzer in the circle of trust? I think they both are. And in fact, I've moved Jacob Lopez up to 45th rest of season. So many strikeouts in his last three starts. Got kind of a scoreless streak going on here, too. And, you know, he had that rough patch where it looked like, okay, the pixie dust is worn off. He's not going to get away with that gimmick anymore. But then he's comes roaring back with even more impressive numbers here recently.

I don't know that he'll always be in the circle of. trust. I still think it's the sort of profile that really takes a long time to convince me. It's not just a gimmick, but the way Lopez has bounced back from that first rough patch has me showing a lot. And plus, it's such a big strikeout number when he is going well. Like, it's the reward is definitely worth the risk in Jacob Lopez's case. I might have some trust issues because I was leading no on both. Really? Scherzer, I just, I look at the underlying numbers and it all screams four plus ERA pitcher.

Well, I don't know that I agree with that. It depends what underlying numbers you're looking at, I guess. 448 FIP, 442XFIP. Maybe the XERA is a little lower because he's been such an extreme fly ball pitcher, but he's given up a lot of loud contact as well, so I would guess it's not. 3.83. During these five straight quality starts, Max Scherzer has a 68% strike rate, excellent. He has a 12% swinging strike rate.

Good. Better than the strikeout rate itself, actually. Yeah, I don't know, maybe. Maybe your circle of trust is just much narrower than mine. Like, I think of circle of trust, regardless of matchup, I would be fine starting this guy. And I think I'm there with both Scherzer and Lopez. I think I lean more with Lopez than Scherzer, but trust implies a, I think the downside for Lopez and any given start is still really low. I think he's a pitcher.

There aren't a lot of pitchers where if they gave up four homers in a start, I'd be like, yeah, that's within the range of possibility. I feel like Jacob Lopez is right there because of how many fly balls he gives up. And the fact that we've seen it already. I don't know if he's actually given up four home runs in a start, but we saw a stretch where he looked really good, and then it kind of fell apart. He reminds me there was a, there was a really good piece on fan graphs today

comparing him to Chris Sale and just like physically, like the way he's throwing, which brings to mine Shamaniah and how good he was last season and how unsustainable that proved to be. I still think it's probably a gift. with Jacob Lopez that's going to run out at some point because he's getting by more on, I think, novelty than quality of stuff.

But it might not run out before the end of the season. And he does a lot of things really well. He's getting a lot of strikeouts, good control. It's just when it goes poorly in any given start, it can go really, really poorly. So that's my biggest concern with Jacob Lopez. I did want to mention. I don't disagree with that. I just think if I'm setting my lineup now, it's, it's like, I'm willing to take that chance

the way Lopez has performed recently. Two young bats who've come into their own this season. And I feel like names we haven't really talked about too much lately, but Nelvi Marte hit his 10th home run. And over his last 10 games, he's hitting 442 with three homers and 11 RBI. And just overall, like, it's only 57 games, but 10 homers, seven steals, 863 OPS. He's just been really good. and Joe Adele is about to have the quietest 30 home run season of all time

because I didn't even realize it. Two more homers here. He's up to 28 homers and 78 RBI on the season. Those are really, really good numbers here for Joe Adele. So, I mean, credit to both of these guys, you know, when they were kind of written off entering the season and, you know, they've bounced back here. They both had a ton of prospect pedigree. And Joe Adele actually could still be out there in some leagues.

He's only 72% roster. Stackass says Joe Adele should be way better than he's been. His expected batting average is 274. That is 73rd percentiles. Actual batting average 233. And like the K rate is not so bad. The Polair rate is fine. The X velocities are great.

Like I think it would be hard in a three outfielder points league to, I can't go as far to say, oh, yeah, pick a bucket. Adele wherever he's available because those leagues I'm not sure he quite makes the cut but in theory he could make the cut if he was performing up to what the expected sat say he's doing and then marty like I just think I was a year early on no he's good here he was one of my favorite players going into last year and then of course there was the suspension last year was a mess last year he had concerns about his playing time going in the spring training he had the suspension like that's it's reasonable why things were so tough for him.

But yeah, I mostly buy it. I think it's five category, true five category potential here for Martin. And also with the nod to points leagues because the strikeout rate is reasonable. With regards to Adele, he's 44th among outfielders and points this season. So if you think he's better than he has been, then yeah, I think you can get him into the top 36, but not someone that needs to be rostered in a three outfielder league. I do want to push back on quietest 30 home run season ever or of the season because Taylor Ward has 29 homers. Did you guys realize Taylor Ward has 29 homers and 92 RBI?

Yeah. That is surprising. I was getting a lot of grief for not having him higher in my rankings. Also, Julio Rodriguez is the number six outfielder in points leagues. When did that happen? He's been amazing since just before the All-Star break. That is shocking. Yeah.

Yeah, he's like 11 points behind Pete Crow Armstrong for top five. You might get there. Scott and I actually have a serial bet on Taylor Ward, where Scott took the under 34 and a half home runs by the end of the season, and I took the over. So six more homers. Let's go, Taylor. I want to, I don't know.

What would I ask Scott for? I got to do some digging, figure out which cereal I'm going to ask you for. CTC always. New Selects. What? That's what? Isn't that what it's called? I don't know what that is.

Yeah. Also, what is CTC, Chris? Cinnamon Toast Crunch, baby? Oh, okay. Yeah, one of my probably hottest takes that I'm sure nobody would agree with is that I like, I like French Toast Crunch more than Cinnamon Toast Crunch. But I don't think, Scott, that is, that is foul. That cereal?

I'm not sure I pronounced it quite right. I don't. What is this called? name, the name is weird, raisins, dates. Oh, come on. You don't like that in your serial? You were born in the 80s.

Come on. What is that supposed to name? You're not that old. Great grains, raisins, dates, and walnuts. It's one of the best cereals out there. What was the name of it? I don't.

Okay, it's spelled N-U, hang on. It's spelled N-U-E-S-L-I-X. Just. Come on. You know what? You know what cereal is for? It's an excuse to eat sugar at 9 in the morning.

All right. How old are you? You know what? Grow up. No. I will never grow up. If growing up means I have to eat dates for breakfast. The only time you should eat dates is if they're wrapped in bacon.

And even then, just bacon, you know? I can confidently say I've never, I've never heard of this cereal before. I've never seen it. It's Al Malkyore's favorite cereal, okay? That's why I thought of it. All right. Fair enough. Bryce Miller is back.

Tough return, though, at the Phillies. Also just a tough spot in general to go to Philadelphia, obviously. Face a pretty tough lineup here. Five innings, four runs, two homers allowed in this one. But, you know, some good. 15 whiffs on 85 pitches. The velocity was way up in this one. He also gave up a ton of hard contact.

So what do you guys make of Bryce Miller's return? I like it. I got, what, 15 whiffs and also 13 hard hitball? So in conclusion, Bryce Miller is a land of contrasts. I think on the whole it was more promising than not, given what we've seen from him this season. But it is also notable that he wasn't great on his rehab assignment despite the increased velocity. He wasn't great in his first start back. But he's like 77% rostered, I think.

If he's available in any league, I'd still add him. He might be a two-star pitcher next week, too. looks like he lines up for the Padres and the Guardians next week. But, you know, only one start under his belt. How much are people going to trust? Not trust, but even use Bryce Miller in a two-star week. I would imagine not many. So encouraging step back here, lots of whiffs, velocity up.

We'll see where Bryce Miller grows from there. Obviously, he was really good down the stretch last season. So perhaps he can do that again. Do you make anything of these bad starts? Mitch Keller is struggling. This time against the Blue Jays, three and a third. innings five runs allowed, three walks only through 59% of his pitches for strikes, had been really, really good for most of the season.

But over his last five, it's a 9.45 ERA and a 225 whip. Edward Cabrera, two rough outings in a row, four and a third innings, 11 hits, four runs allowed, still had 17 whiffs on 99 pitches. And Brandon Woodruff at the Cubs, four and a third, three runs, three walks. Still had 13 whiffs, you know, six strikeouts here. so not a completely terrible start, but has failed to finish five innings, two starts in a row. Any concern over these three, Woodruff, Cabrera, and Mitch Keller?

You missed your chance to trade Mitch Keller, just like the Pirates did? Like as soon as we point out that things are going well for Mitch Keller, it all falls apart. Yeah, that's... You can't look. He doesn't like to be perceived. You know, you can't look at him. Got to fly under the radar. Cabrera, I was watching this start.

It was clear from the fifth pitch he threw, basically, that he did not have the feel for his secondaries. And that's really bad because Edward Cabrera's fastballs are the problem. And he had to throw them a lot more in this one. So I think you just chalk it up as a bad start.

I'm not too, yeah. In this specific instance, he just didn't have the feel for the curveball slider or change up. And then Woodruff, you know, I saw the box score and I was priming myself to like have to push back on some confirmation bias because I was really skeptical of him coming in and he's really blown my expectations out of the water. And then like I looked into it and nothing really seemed to ride.

The velocity was fine. He got whiffs. He didn't really get hit hard. It just, I don't know. I didn't see anything to be too concerned about. Things went wrong for Brandon Woodruff. Life happened to Brandon Woodruff. You mentioned the velocity wasn't down in this start.

It was in his previous start. The fastball was down. Which was his first one on normal rest. Yeah, yeah. So it was encouraging to see that bounce back because he can't, he doesn't need to lose any more velocity than he already has. We had ourselves a good old-fashioned pitcher's duel out in Detroit. It's time to do to do-do-do-do-do-d-d-d-hunter-Bound.

against Terrick Scoobel, two of the very best in the game. Hunter Brown, six shutout innings with six strikeouts here. Velocity down, that's something to pay attention to. He's throwing a lot of innings this season. And Terrick Scuba on the other side, six shutout with 10 strikeouts, 25 whiffs on 95 pitches. He has double-digit strikeouts in nine of 25 starts this season. That is bananas. Anything to add on Scoobal or Hunter Brown? So Hunter Brown is fourth in my rest of season starting pitcher rankings and I've struggled with that maybe Christopher Sanchez needs to be fourth. I think they're extremely similar. They are Sanchez is having a slightly better season. The area is about a what a half run

lower but the skills are very very similar for both of them. But I think Sanchez is a little better. Yeah I think I'm going to make Sanchez fourth. Forget you. It's reasonable. Hunter Brown's ERA for the season is actually a little bit lower than Christopher Sanchez. Is it really? Yeah, it's 236 versus Spider-Man meme. 246, yeah. I mean, Sanchez misses a lot more.

Like, Sanchez's swinging strike rate is high. Yeah. Which. They've kind of trended in opposite directions in that way. Sanchez has been getting more strikes. Hunter Brown has kind of been falling. Brown's, and it's been true for most of his career. He's one of those pitchers who, like,

you wonder how he can get away with having such a low swinging strike rate for as many strikeouts. he has. Like it just doesn't. Just doesn't jive there. Some other pitching leftovers here. We actually surprisingly had a lot of pitchers with double-digit strikeouts today. Hunter Green, a quality start at the Angels.

Six and a third innings, three runs, 12 strikeouts to zero walks. We already spoke about Sanchez. And Nick Povetta turned in another quality start. This one against the Giants, six innings, one run, 10 strikeouts. Actually got off to a bit of a rough start in the first inning, gave up a home run.

I think he maybe walked two or something like that. but then really, really settled down. Anything to add on Hunter Green or Nick Feveta? It's basically perfect the rest of the way, if that's how the first day he went. Yeah. Yeah, he's been great. I had a little bit of concern about Hunter Green

after he missed two months, but boy, he's cementing himself as a top 12 pitcher whenever healthy. And now we're, you know, if he makes it through the end of this season, we're, what, two full seasons where he hasn't had any arm? issues. That's a pretty good sign. And then three other quality starts, Carlos Verdon

at Tampa Bay, six innings, two runs with five strikeouts. That's back-to-back quality starts for him after a pretty rough stretch. Merrill Kelly, six innings, two runs, three strikeouts at the Royals, and on the other side, Seth Lugo bounced back with a quality starts, six and a third, two runs, five strikeouts. Two homers loud, still just six whiffs. As much as the result was okay here for Seth Lugo, I'm not. I'm still pretty worried about him. He's a space filler. I think he's a fine space filler.

Like, I trust him over Jose Barrios or Chris Bassett or some of those others who occupied the same role. I think he's fine. I don't, I can't feel strongly about Seth Lugo one way or the other. I can't say anything about Seth Lugo. He's your archimis. I just don't understand. Like, 498 FIP is crazy. Yeah.

But hasn't, he's still been useful, so I don't know. Something to watch with both Rodon and Merrill Kelly, Velocity Down for both of them in these starts. So we'll see how that trends in the next couple starts here. Some hitting leftovers, Juan Soto has provided big power and speed this season. Hit his 31st home run. He also has 20 steals. He is the only 30, 20 players so far,

and his previous high and stolen bases was 12. And I think his speed is, his sprint speed is a career low. The Mets are doing, I saw a tweet about this a couple of weeks ago where they have one of the lowest sprint speeds as a team this season, but they also have rarely been caught.

So it's just, they're super sneaky. They know the right times when they go. They get good jumps, whatever it might be, but the Mets have kind of figured it out. They're stealing a bunch of bases this season. George Springer continued his Renaissance season, two for four with a sock into shoe, his 20th run and 13th steal.

That's shocker. That is the quietest like studly season from an outfielder we're seeing, I feel like. George Springer is eighth in head-to-head points per game among those with at least 300 of bats. Eighth. I'm not sure he's ever been eighth

in head-to-head points per game before. I'm just going off the top of my head with that. Like, I know he's had some great seasons. I would guess he has, but yeah, that's... Eighth is really high. And I don't remember him being like a, like a points league standout in the past. He was fine. But, yeah.

Yeah, that year he hit 39 homers and hit 292. I would guess he was probably top eight in points per game. Yeah. Nothing like a 35-year-old with a 200-point jump in OPS year over year, right? Yeah. That's baseball. The underlying numbers completely back it up. He has the second.

best ex-wobe of his career. It's crazy. Crazy, crazy stuff. Yvonne Herrera, two for five with three RBI and his sixth stolen base. He's just kind of been mid since coming back off the IL, hitting 250 with two home runs, nine RBI, but five steals. It's actually really useful. Hitting the ball hard, but lots of ground balls

during that stretch, and does not look like he is going to get the 20 games a catcher required for next season. And I don't think he's going to get enough games in the outfield either, so probably U.S. only Yvonne Herrera next year. So that kind of stinks. I wonder if an offseason maybe getting his knee healthy, they'll kind of throw him back at catcher next year.

I guess it's possible, but. I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. But I think he's a good enough hitter that he could matter in fantasy as a DH-only type, you know, the way Victor Martinez did when he became that went from Catcher to being DH-only. but he's got to finish stronger than this, I think, to have much draft value if he is DH only heading into next year. You know, Scott, this podcast is funny.

Yesterday we mentioned J.C. Realmuto. He's hitting for batting average, but not really much else. Boom. Two for three, a sock in a shoe. His ninth homer, his seventh steal, back-to-back games with a homer here. Yeah, he's been hitting well for a while. You know, maybe can turn up some power here down the stretch. Durekson ProFar and Michael Harris both did it again.

ProFar hit his 10th home run. Michael Harris hit his 16th. Both of those guys just on fire here in the second half. Eugenio Suarez, a nice game, three for four with two doubles and two RBI. But he's been pretty bad since coming over to Seattle. 176 batting average, two homers, a 34% strikeout rate. I think it's a sub-700 OPS too. So, you know, we were kind of worried.

about it being maybe an issue here in Seattle, but there's still time for it might be. And he did have a rough stretch. I want to say it was May with the Diamondbacks earlier this season. So there is just an element of like, well, he's a streaky header. But given his history in Seattle, I think it's fair to be concerned about Eh, E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. Hohanias. If I could make a couple comments on the profar and Harris. Yes. Profar, there was nothing cheap about.

this home run that he hit. It was his second hardest hit ball of the year. It traveled nearly 440 feet, 108.9 miles per hour. And three of his four batted balls in this game met the standard of being hard hit, so 95 miles per hour or more. That average exit velocity's, it's creeping up.

I noticed it was close to 88 miles per hour coming into this game. So that's like the one kind of the thing that lingers over this performance for ProFAR and makes you wonder if he can sustain it. But it's trending up. It's moving the right direction. And then with Michael Harris, I just wanted to say,

I don't know. Ridiculous. You know what I'm going to say? So there was, in this game, it's not fantasy relevant at all. It was just a ridiculous. moment. The Braves came back in one 11 to 10 over the White Sox. They were down 10 to 4 at one point. They're rallying in the 8th. Bases loaded, nobody out. Michael Harris, the hottest hitter of the second half. Attempts a bunt. I saw that. With them down low down one bases loaded nobody out just gave himself up.

It was one of the most baffling things I've ever seen. Well, I mean, you know it was even more baffling? I guess not because they were losing by a ton. But they had that furious comeback yesterday's game and they had already pulled him for Eli White.

So Eli White came up with like the tying run representing the tying run late in the game. No, I was just laughing

about how ridiculous Michael Harris has been. I do want to point out Jerks and ProFAR. 385X Wobo for his past 100 plate appearances.

Last year it was 364. So very much trending in the right direction after a slow start. and he was the number five outfielder in points leagues from the time he debuted until before Mondays to Homer game.

So he's hit three homers in the last two games, and he was the number five outfielder since his debut in points leagues before that. Yep. That's pretty wild. Usually when you see a player kind of peak at a high 70% roster rate, it's because they're not a great points league player, but Church Prefer is actually a great points league player. Yeah, well, it's all the walks he's been getting. Yeah, so yeah, that's pretty impressive.

And then you mentioned Nick Kurtz, right? Not yet. Okay, sorry. But yeah, he is leading off all of a sudden. He went three for three with two doubles, two walks. Last four games, he has eight hits, two homers, six runs, five RBI, has let off three of the past five games, which is kind of interesting.

I wrote biggest questions of the second half. half piece a couple weeks ago. And one of them was Ken Nick Kurtz play his way into being the number one out first baseman for 2026. And I said he wasn't there yet. And I said it was pretty unlikely that he was going to. His strike rate keeps going down. He keeps getting multiple hits.

He has a $3.99 on base percentage as a rookie man. It's, um, yeah. We're going to have the conversation. I'm not there yet. I've been banging that drum since the four Omer games. Yeah, I'm already there. There are still a lot of really good first baseman out there, but his strikeout rate is way down in the month of August.

He's only had one game with more than two strikeouts, only five multi-strikeout games. He's really impressive. Yeah, I wanted to mention his teammate, too. Shea Langalear's hit another homer, his 27th, and updated numbers since coming off the IL, 312 batting average, 17 homers, and OPS over 1050, all of that in just 39 games.

About a 23% strike array for Nick Kurtz since the All-Star break. That is... That's... If that's real, he's the number on first basement of fantasy. Call to the bullpen for the Cubs in game one of their doubleheader,

Daniel Palencia picked up his 17th save. Then in game two, Andrew Kittridge got the ninth and picked up his second save. For the Cardinals, Jojo Romero got the eighth with a three-drun lead. He struck out one. Riley O'Brien got the ninth. He walked two.

but also struck out two for his second save. For the Phillies, Yawain Duran struck out one for his 22nd save. For the Orioles, somebody named Yaramil Geraldo, got the ninth with a two-run lead, immediately gave up a two-run homer. The Orioles eventually took another lead, and Corbyn Martin picked up the save and extras. Kegan Aiken pitched earlier in the game. I don't think the Orioles have a closer right now. For the Braves, Reisel Iglesias got the ninth with the one.

one-run lead, he picked up his 20th save. For the Royals, Carlos Estevez and Lucas Erzig were unavailable. John Schreiber picked up his first save. For the athletics, lefty Hogan Harris got the ninth with a three-run lead. He picked up his first save. Sean Newcomb threw 51 pitches combined on Saturday and Sunday, so perhaps they opted to give him some extended rest here. For the Reds, Tony Santian struck out two for his ninth, in the ninth, for his fourth save.

I just wonder if maybe the Reds are starting to think about their bullpen differently. Emilio Pagan took back-to-back blown saves on Saturday and Sunday. Scott Barlow picked up the save on Monday. Maybe they're just giving him a few days off too as like a little bit of a reset here. Are you guys worried at all about Emilio Paghan? Well, I hadn't until you brought this up. I've been expecting since April, since it first became clear he was. in the role that he would lose it at some point just because he's been so Homer prone

over the course of his career and he's pitching in Cincinnati like why wouldn't that happen but but it hasn't happened he's actually been really good until very recently and I'm not sure it's enough that it makes sense for them to remove him from the role I would guess they're just given him they're given him a blow to use baseball terminology All right. And then for the debacks, lefty Andrew Salfrank picked up his second save.

I believe he has the last two saves for the D-backs. Any deep league interest in Andrew Salfrink? Just deep leagues. Very deep. Anna only. Probably that might be the extent of it for young Salfrank.

To stream or not to stream on Wednesday, we have Charlie Morton against the Astros, Andre Palantes at the Marlins, Brad Lorde against the Mets, Hurston Waldrup against the White Sox, Cam Schlittler at the raise, Bailey Ober against the athletics, and that's probably it. Waldrop at the top for sure.

For sure. I would go Ober second. Hmm. And then probably Morton. Astro's lineup has been pretty bad. Yeah, I don't, I think I've been the biggest optimist on Bailey Ober rest of season, but I'm not ready to trust him against an athletics lineup that can be pretty prolific. Yeah. I don't mind Morton, obviously, Waltrip's the big winner here.

Sneaky play might be, you didn't mention him, but Landon Rup at San Diego, I could see that being a quality start. Not eager to do it, but I could see it. I know his first start back off the aisle was pretty bad, so that's why I didn't mention him, but yeah, it could happen. Brad Lorde is pitching well, too, but the Mets lineup is also pretty hot, so I think I'd probably still stay away there. And then on Thursday, we have Jack Perkins at the Twins, Patrick Corbyn at the Royals, Verlander at the Padres. Jason, Alexander, and Brendan Young are facing

each other once again. They both had great starts over the weekend. Joe Boyle against the Cardinals. Perkins is my favorite, and Perkins is actually somebody I identified, given the athletics, the lineups the athletics are facing the rest of season. Somebody, if you are

looking ahead in a head-to-head playoff scenario, you should be picking him up because his, look, he looked great out the bullpen had a great swinging strike rate. That number's only gone up since he joined the rotation because he's been able to bring in a third and fourth pitch and all of them are playing well. Like he has a deep arsenal and I don't think we've even seen him achieve his final form yet,

Jack Perkins. At Minnesota, obviously that is a stripped down lineup. I think he's a very good, a very strong play on Thursday. My second choice would probably be Justin Verlander at the Padres. Yeah, maybe Jason Alexander at the Orioles. He's got a couple quality starts in a row, but, you know, facing the same lineup two times in a row. Don't love that either.

But, yeah, I would probably say Perkins, Verlander, and Jason Alexander in that order. We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks, as always, for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Paramount Podcasts.