Fantasy Baseball Today - DROP-O-METER! Plus Confusing Pitchers & Hitters Bouncing Back (5/28 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Jose Altuve has picked things up in the past week (2:36). ... Max Meyer has really taken a step back (9:20). ... Ranger Suarez is on a nice run (18:00). ... Cal Raleigh is having a tremendous season (20:05). ... News (23:20): Nathan Eovaldi left with a triceps injury. ... Cade Horton turned in his first career quality start (28:00). ... Carlos Correa is hitting better since coming off the IL (31:52). ... Let's fire up the DROP-O-METER for hitters who've cooled off in May (38:00). ... What do we do with Spencer Strider right now (52:10)? ... These hitters are picking things up (59:40). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (1:03:18). 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. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hey there. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, May 28th. Gang's all back. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers.

Today on the show, we are fired. firing up the dropometer. We also have hitters who are picking things up lately. Some confusing pitchers. Do we just keep throwing Spencer Strider out there? I don't know. We'll talk about it. But let's jump in.

Oh, my goodness gracious. All right, players of the night, Scott, you are back. How was Memorial Day? And who's your player of the night? It was, it was a good day off. and my player of the night is Jose Al Tufe. I'm not sure how much detail I was supposed to go into there. However much you want to give us, Scott.

We'll just move on to Jose Al Tuvei. Yeah, one of those hitters, struggling hitters, who may be coming around, just had a two-homer game here on, I'm confused what day it is, Tuesday, and that brings about to eight on the year. And, you know, he had a two-homer game just a few days ago, too.

So back-to-back weeks with the two-homer game for Jose Al-Tufe. You know, I've noticed he hasn't obviously been performing up to his usual standards. I've been reluctant to move him down in the rankings at all, in part, because there are so few true standouts at second baseman. There are some who are outperforming Al-Tufe, sure, but they don't touch the upside Al-Tuva has over what's been a Hall of Fame caliber career. So without any like glaring, flashing red light warning signs, I was kind of content just to let Al Tuvei write it out. And so I hope that this recent power surge is the start of that turnaround for him.

I would say that when looking at some of the underlying data, the biggest warning sign for me for Al Tuvei, the fact he's 35 years old is that his swinging strike rate on fastball specifically four seam fastballs is the high it's ever been, 7% swinging strike rate, which isn't a particularly high swinging strike rate, but it's high for him on that pitch. And the reason why I fixate on the four seam fastball is a lot of times with aging hitters,

you just see them not be able to catch up to those high-end velocities anymore. So if you're going to worry about something for Altovae, that would be the thing to worry about. out, but I don't think it's such a outlier for his career so far ahead of all the other years, him swinging and missing on fastballs that it really raised a lot of concern for me. And he remains my, is he number two? I think he's number two in my second base rankings moving forward behind just Catele-Marté.

He's number three for me, but it's not a huge gap between him and Aziolbe's. It's mostly just if I'm going to be freaked out by a slow start, it's more likely to be from the guy who's 35, then what is out to have? 20 or Albee's 27, 28. It's just, you know, inherently a little more concerning. And I think, you know, we were talking before the show because we also talked about maybe Brian Reynolds being a player of the night. And I'm sure we'll talk about him.

And we talked about both of those guys two days ago. We actually talked about them six days ago, but you listened to it two days ago. And I think, look, my memory is really bad. Like as soon as the podcast ends, I go blank. I don't remember anything we talked about. People read and be like, why'd you say that? I don't know. This is riffing, bud.

I got no. I got, I black out. No. You thought of a lot more about it than I have. I think, well, no, I'm saying I think we were more concerned about Altuvae than Brian Reynolds. I remember having very little concern about Brian Reynolds and having maybe a little bit of concern about Altuve. And obviously both had huge games and both seemed to be turned. turning things around since we recorded that.

And that's great. That's what we expected and hoped for. But Altuve's age does introduce, I think, some inherent volatility and risk that isn't there for a, you know, 30 year old like Brian Reynolds. In addition to the notes you mentioned, Scott, about the swinging strike rate on the fastball for Altuvei, I know something that we focused on,

on that other podcast when we talked about Altuvae was, he's kind of had to do the Esoc paradeous trick pulling the ball in the air and his ground ball rate is way up this year his line drive rate is way down fly ball rate is still fine actually but has pulled the air percentages down

so like just his batted ball distribution is kind of wacky this year and you know that was a little bit concerning just because he needs everything to kind of go right to get to that power but here we are last seven games Alteu is hitting 500 with four home runs so maybe he's

So I looked at the pull air rate because that's kind of my pet stat this year. It's a stat I've long liked for hitters, but now it's just much easier to look up. It doesn't take four steps to look it up on fan graphs anymore. You just scroll down on the player's paste Paul Savant page, which makes me seem like less of a savant for pointing it out, because anybody can just go to the page and scroll down themselves and see it. But it is easier to see. and because I'm looking at it more consistently for every player, I'm observing more patterns with it.

For instance, since we brought it up, Brian Reynolds, his pull-air rate is way down this year. And a strike-out rate is up, and I've noticed that's true for a lot of hitters who are just underperforming so far. The exit velocity readings and everything may look fine. It's just their strike-out rate is up and their pull-air rate is down. And that doesn't necessarily mean their strike-out rate

and pull air rate won't normalize, but it does probably explain, add some different data points to explain why I hitter struggling. But getting back to Altuve, in his case, it is lower than last year. It's higher than two years ago, and it's higher than most of his career. So I, yeah, I wasn't fixating on that so much specifically for him.

It may be true that he is, I don't know, maybe selling out, a little for power, unlike in past years. Though the overall air rate is lower, actually. There's more ground balls and more fly balls. There's just a lot fewer line drives. So I don't know. I think that all adds up to just less of a collapse in physical tools.

Yeah. And more, it's just a little off. And look, his margin for error at this point in his career might be enough, might be small enough that just being a little off can crater him. But it doesn't seem like he's just completely lost it. And as a general rule, Hall of Fame caliber players tend to age better than their cohort. So I remain pretty bullish on Jose Al-Tube.

All right, Chris, well, are you bullish on Max Meyer? So here's the thing. that really tough about Max Meyer. The thing that actually is just extremely frustrating, I went and looked at every pitcher who has had a 14 or more strikeout effort in the past five seasons. And as you would expect, it's almost entirely a list of the best pitchers in baseball.

You got Spencer Strider in there and Corbyn Burns and Garrett Cole and Jacob de Grom and Blake Snell and Sandy Alcantra and mostly just those guys multiple times. Jack Flaherty, Louise Heel, Tyler Glassnow, Hunter Green, Christian Javier, Pablo Lopez, Tristan McKenzie, Robbie Ray, Max Scherzer, Zach Wheeler. And then Lance Lynn. I think only one of those. It's happened 28 times in the past five seasons.

Tristan McKenzie sounds like he stands out there, but he was awesome in 2022. And that was when his 14 strikeout game happened. He had a sub three area. He was incredible. that year. He was really good. And injuries, I think, are the biggest explanation for why Winston McKenzie has fallen apart. So I think of the 28 starts with 14 strikeouts or more in the past five seasons, I guess 27 not counting Max Meyer. Only one of them was from a truly bad pitcher.

Lance Lynn in 2023 was bad. He had a 570 ERA, I think. He was also pretty bad in 2024. So I think at that point, Lance Lynn's career, you could say, Sam was a bad pitcher. And that is it. It has happened 27 times between 2021 and 2025. And it's happened once from a truly bad pitcher. And maybe now it's happened twice. And this is why I'm really struggling with this because it's just really hard to fake that kind of performance, especially he did that in six innings too. He had 14 strikeouts in six innings against Cincinnati. That's a great matchup. It was in Miami. So, you know, but like the Reds have played 50-something games. They aren't striking out 14 times against every starting pitcher they face. And so this is what I'm struggling

with with Max Meyer is like, you can fake a good month. It's really hard to fake this many strikeouts in a game. And it might just be happening with Max Meyer or maybe he was a good pitcher and now he's a bad pitcher because Max Meyer has gone from throwing his slider 40% of the time in the month of April and getting a 49.6% whiff rate and like a 230 expected Wobah against some kind of crazy mark as well. In the month of May, his usage has dropped to 28% on the slider and it should have. This is not an example of a pitcher who should be throwing their best pitch more because his slider has somehow become arguably his worst pitch in the month of May. He is down to a 30% whiff rate with his slider in the month of May.

and he was allowing a 460 expected Wobah on the slider before allowing five balls in play with a 97 mile per hour average X velocity on Monday. If Max Meyer doesn't have a good slider, I think he's a bad pitcher. I'm not sure he's a major league pitcher if he doesn't have a great slider. His changeup has actually been fine this year. His sinker, I think, has performed pretty well relative to the four seamer, certainly, which is. been a bad pitch for him again, despite a little more velocity. But it just, it all comes back to can he figure out the slider? Can he get back to the slider being not just his best pitch, but a foundational pitch for him?

He's done it before. Yeah. But he's completely lost it in the last month. Because like Max Meyer, former number three overall pick, long time top prospect. Like there's talent. It's just, I don't know, I guess it's kind of reminding me of Reed Detmer's. Sure. That's a good comment.

Who's had stretches of dominance and then stretches of incompetence. And it's all seemed to hinge on the slider. And I think it ultimately ended in a bad place. Like he's just in the Angels bullpen now and not pitching particularly well there. And I'm not sure he'll ever amount to anything. And I think it's too early to write Max Meyer off completely. But I don't think it's too early to say. he's more troubled than he's worth right now in bus leagues.

I do. We had a run of really exciting pitchers over the last like 10 to 14 days emerge. Ryan Weather's coming back from the IL. Logan Henderson. We're annoyed by that, but you know, whatever. Will Warren seems to be breaking out.

Hayden Birdsong moving into the rotation. Like there's been some really interesting pitchers. And knowing what I know now, I would have dropped Max Meyer for any of them. it's probably too late. Most of those guys are at least 80% rostered in CBS Fantasy League. So if you are in a league where Ryan Weathers or... Hey.

It's hard to say Logan Henderson just because you're just stashing him as well. And so that's just a bet on someone figuring something out. But there aren't a lot of widely available pitchers right now that I would definitely drop Max Meyer for, even acknowledging that he's been very bad and I don't have. a ton of faith. Among pitchers who are available in at least 50% of CBS leagues, it might just be slayed Sacconi. Noah Cameron?

You're that interested in Sikoni? I think Sikoni's interesting. I'm not really interested in Noah Cameron. I don't know that Sikonis, is that how you say it? Cicony? I thought it was like Shokone. But what do I know? Yeah, I think he's kind of interesting.

don't think he's any less interesting than Noah Cameron. I'm not crazy about either. We may see a rash of Logan Henderson drop soon. And I would, that seems like the most interesting if that happens, swapping out Meyer for him because I presume he'll be back pretty soon. Then again, they have a bunch of pitchers coming off the IL. So that's going to be a frustrating situation, potentially. But, yeah, I mean, if Hayden Birdsong happens to be out there still, obviously, you do that.

Yeah, and any of those guys that drop for for Meyer. Well, what is Will Warren's roster rate up to? It's like 77% I think. I'm surprised to say high. 78% if he's available, I think at this point I would drop Max Meyer for Will Warren. All right. Before we take our first break, just a reminder to that you can listen to FBT and FBT Express on Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube, you can scan that QR code that will take you right to the FBT Spotify feed.

And thanks to those watching us live on YouTube, make sure to hit. the like button and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. I'll quickly mention two players up top here that had some big games. Ranger Suarez, the guy has been money outside of his first outing where he gave up seven earned runs. Everything else has looked great. He was home against the Braves, six shot out innings with eight strikeouts, had 11 whiffs on 103 pitches here. And his five main pitches have all performed well so far this season. season. And he's got four straight quality starts, just three earned runs allowed over 26 and two-thirds innings during that time, doing an incredible job limiting hard contact. And we've seen this before. I mean, when Ranger Suarez is healthy and his body is right and he's executing pitches, he can be one of the 40 best starting pitchers in fantasy. I'm not ready to say he's there yet, but maybe he's trending towards getting back to that point.

Yeah, I don't want us to slip down the path of early last year. Not that we were saying this, but a lot of people were acting like he was the next Greg Maddox because he sustained an ERA below two for months at a time. I mean, people wanted us to rank him as P.1, Scott. Yeah, I know. I think it's fine to think of Ranger Choiras. Look, he's always going to, his whip's always going to run high because his walk rate isn't amazing.

And as a ground ball pitcher, he gives up a fair amount of singles. too, but the ERA should be more than respectable and he's got a good offense backing him, obviously. And so if you think of him as just kind of a steady number four, five type in 12 team leagues, I think you're, you're on point. He's usually not as good as he looks at his best and he'll go through stretches where he looked really bad. He's never as bad as that either.

But I think he's, Ranger Suarez is an extremely useful pitcher. Yeah. Yeah. He will be a big riser for me. I just haven't buried in the rankings, and he's someone that should be probably a top 60 SP, at least at this point, and the ability to move up higher than that.

Wanted to also mention Cal Rale, who is having just a truly great season, two for five with a double dung. He's up to 19 home runs, and his 150 game pace, last year he played 153. So stretching this out over 150 feels like it makes sense for Cal Rale.

he's on pace for 53 homers, 104 RBI, and 14 steals from the catcher position. How about this? Just over the past 365 days, and that's not including today. He has 40 homers and 107 RBI over the past calendar year. I mean, that's pretty good. Should he just be ranked as the catcher one?

I mean, we're not far off. I think we all have in top three, but... Maybe. I don't know. This is where you force us to say bad things about Cal Raleigh, Frank. You always have to take it to such an extreme. It doesn't have to be bad about him. The fact that William Contreras is playing through a fractured finger

could just mean that he has a down season. By virtue of contrasting things, it's going to come off as negative about Cal Raleigh. He's not actually going to hit 53 home runs. He's probably going to have a sub-240 batting average. he's still going to lead the position in home runs and be among the leaders and RBI, if not also runs.

And so, like, just, if you have Cal Raleigh, you don't need to catch her upgrade. You're set. Like, can we just leave it at that? I would still rather have William Contreras, okay? But Cal Raleigh is pretty darn good. Don't be scared to make a proclamation, Scott.

That is why we are here. And Cal Raleigh is doing, things. He is doing things that are more conducive to a higher batting average this season. So it is within his range of outcomes to have an outwire batting average season where he hits above 240 and hits. I mean, every player can hit within 30 points of their batting average in a given year. Yeah. Okay. So I could Calro-Ral-I do that. I will point out with Willing Pontreras. He's playing through the finger injury and that should be holding him back. He has a 412 expected Wobo over his past 50 plate appearances. The production hasn't actually been quite as good. There was that about a week where he racked up a bunch of hits, but overall he's gotten cold again. But I think we're seeing the highest end of Cowralli's range of outcomes

and the lowest end of William Petraris's. And at some point, they will pass each other like ships in the night. I don't. But ultimately it doesn't matter. Like if you really, if you're listening to this and you think we're idiots for not ranking Cow rally number one, okay? I don't like I guess you should if you have William Contreras

and someone offers you Cal Rally for him you should take that but it's not really it doesn't really matter you know like like Scott said you're not trying to upgrade from Cow Rally you might be I do think we should probably all have moved Cow Rally

ahead of Adley Rutherman by now which I haven't done yet and I think I'm going to but Cow Raleigh is not this good and William Contreras isn't this bad. Sure. All right. Let's move on to the news and notes. Nathan Avaldi exited his start early due to right triceps fatigue and taking a look at the velocity because that's usually the first thing that pops out for Avaldi. Nothing too bad

in this one. The team said it was a precaution and that Avaldi is not expected to miss additional time. But it's Nathan Avaldi. So I mean I would I wouldn't mind a missing additional time. I wouldn't mind a minimal IL stint just to make sure everything's good there. But nobody asked me. Well, it's just because we've seen this happen so many times where Avaldi is cruising and then something happens usually a relatively minor injury that he can pitch through and he just takes a big step back. And I hope that doesn't happen this time. But we've talked enough about it this season that that is how I'm operating that I do accept. expect something to go wrong for Evaldi at some point, just because it always does.

It's not necessarily always an injury, but he never, he's another one who's never quite as good as he looks at his best. Bryce Harper left early after getting hit by a pitch on his right elbow. X-rays came back negative on that one. Sounds like we avoided anything too major there. Logan Gilbert will begin a rehab assignment later this week. He's been out since late April with a flexor strain in his right elbow. Cole Reagan's threw a competitive bullpen on Sunday,

and he is eligible to return this weekend. Adley Rutchman has missed two in a row after taking a foul tip off of his mask on Sunday. I think I saw he was taking batting practice on Tuesday, so hopefully returns in the next couple days. Nick Kurtz was placed in the aisle due to a strained left hip flexor, retroactive to May 25th. Just when he was getting hot too. Yep, you had four home runs in its last five.

games before going on the aisle here. Brendan Donovan was scratched Tuesday due to hip tightness. Jazz Chisholm will begin a rehab assignment at AA later this week. Seth Lugo is trending towards being activated from the IL this weekend against the Tigers. Bryce Miller said he feels good after Monday's bullpen and could rejoin the Mariners rotation as soon as this weekend against the twins. And hopefully some time does him well. He is pitching through a bone spruce.

in his elbow, I believe I saw. It's in the back of the elbow that they, the team believes they can manage it for the rest of the season, but there's not really anything they can do about it right now. That's pretty worrisome. I missed the name. Bryce Miller. Yeah, it is.

I mean, we had sort of vague concerns about him, but that's a more concrete kind of validates the vague concerns about him. So yeah, he's fallen a long way in my ranking. Obviously, he's been on the IL, but even beyond that. I am 65th now, Bryce Miller. Wow, that's much more aggressive than I've moved him down yet. But you might be right. Corey Seeger will be activated Wednesday against the Blue Jays.

Hopefully the time off for him has done well. He's now been out twice the season with that hamstring injury. Aranola said he will need a rehab assignment before rejoining the Phillies. He's out with a sprained right ankle. Slade Cicconi will not start. as scheduled on Wednesday due to mild groin tightness. Well, now I look dumb. At least you pronounced his name, right.

And I know we've talked a lot about him on our Thursday episodes of FBT Express, but just in case people aren't listening to that, you should. But in case you aren't, you should stash Jack Caglione now while you can. In fact, a lot of people already are. He's up to 57% rostered. I actually wrote this news item in before I saw his stat line on two. Tuesday, he went 0 for five with three strikeouts. But even with that, he's batting 290 with five home runs in OPS near 1100 and crazy exit

velocities at AAA. So for a team like the Royals, I could use some offense, I think we could see him at some point in June. Yeah, I mean, if not sooner. I think it's in any day now situation for Jack Caglione. I mean, they could hold out another. They probably have to hold out like a month to be sure they get the Super 2 status later on. Years down the road when that comes into play.

But I don't think they will because I think they're trying to take advantage of their competitive window here. And Caglione fits squarely into it. All right, let's run through the waiver wire options before we get to the dropometer. And on the pitching side of things, Brady Singer had a revenge game at the Royal Seven innings, two runs, three strikeouts, which also included 13 hard hits allowed in this game. for Brady Singer. Kate Horton turned in a quality start against the Rockies, six innings, two runs with six strikeouts. He had 11 whiffs on 83 pitches here. First quality start of his career, also a career high six strikeouts so far for him. And Tyler Anderson turned in a quality start against the Yankees, six innings, two runs. One of those earned with just three strikeouts here. Did have 11 whiffs on 97 pitches. It looks like maybe, Horton and Tyler Anderson might be two-star pitchers next week. So kind of a beat-the-waiver-wire situation for those two, if you're interested.

I mean, I'm much more interested in Horton than Anderson because there's, we know who Anderson is now. And the upside is on a start-to-star basis, I mean, the upside's pretty low. And then the downside is high? High downside? Is that how you phrase that? There's a lot of downside is what I'm saying. and Horton obviously has prospect pedigree, was killing it at AAA,

the control hasn't been as bad as I thought it might be, and let's see, did he throw, was he throwing three pitches again in this one? He's mixing in the change-up, but not a lot. A little bit more we're seeing of that. So it was against the Rockies on the road, and there is no more favorable matchup than that. So I still worry about Horton's ability to pitch six innings consistently.

Yeah, he's had a really easy schedule so far. Yeah. Mets are a tough matchup. That was his debut. Then it's been White Sox, Marlins, Rockies on the road. So he's the only one of these guys, I think, needs to be more rostered than they are. Just because at Washington, at Detroit, well, Detroit's a tough matchup, but good place to pitch. Washington, not a bad matchup.

Two starts next week. That looks pretty good. Tyler Anderson, even with two starts next week versus Seattle at Boston, I don't want anything to do with that in a categories league at least, maybe in a points league, but there will probably be more interesting, widely available two-star pitchers than Tyler Anderson. Yeah. And even though the start was actually good for Brady Singer,

I'm okay calling him a drop. I mean, he's still 71% rostered. And previous four starts before this one, a 785 ERA and a 185 whip for Brady Singer. 10 strikeouts to 10 walks over that four-star stretch too. And he's become more of a flyball pitcher in Great American Ballpark, which is exactly what you don't want to see. You know where he is in my ranking singer? Oh, gosh, this sounds so bad.

He's 124th. Oh, I'm way higher. He's 104th for me. That's probably the right range where he should be. Anything to see here with Logan Evans, who had a great start against the Nationals, eight innings, one run. four strikeouts, only five whiffs, 11 hard hits.

If Bryce Miller is back, does he stick around? I don't know. I don't see much to be excited about here in either his major league or minor league track record. He was decent at preventing runs at the minors, which I know that's the goal, but doing that against minor league hitters isn't the most impressive thing. And I just, I don't know. I think he's just a guy. so I'm not particularly interested in Logan Evans.

I think he's going to be up and down a few more times between the majors and minors and probably ends up with an ERA north of four. I don't have a lot of interest, no. All right, let's slide over to the Waverwire hitters. And Carlos Correa hitting much better since returning from the concussion aisle had three hits here. And in five games since returning, he's six for 16 with two home runs down to 69% rostered.

So, you know, some people have been dropping Carlos Correa. If that happened in your league, would you take advantage of it? Depends what kind of league it is. If there's a middle infield spot, like a standard roto lineup, yes. Because as deep as you go into the middle infield pool there, I still think Carlos Correa gives you more hope than probably whatever else is out there. But if it's not, if it's more like a standard head-to-head lineup, no middle infield spot.

Shortstop's awfully deep. Correa isn't even inside my top 20. That's not to say he couldn't get back there, but I get it. If you can find a better shortstop, he's not in my top 20, so I agree. He probably can't find a better shortstop. Cam Smith is showing some signs of life recently.

Went one for four with two RBI. Last 11 games. He's sitting 375. It's just not really coming with much else besides batting average. It's zero homers, zero steals, lots of ground balls during that time. To his credit, he's got the batting average up to 261 and 733 OPS for a rookie. I mean, it's fine. It's just there's not much else going on there.

So at 51% rostered, I think we need to see more, right, from Cam Smith? I think 51% roster might be too high. There's still upside here. But his expected well-border his last 50 play appearances down to 285. He's making more contact, looking a little more. more comfortable, I guess, but he mostly seems like he's trying to keep his head above water right now. What about Max Muncie of the Dodgers? He's looked a little better since he started wearing glasses earlier this month.

He went two for four with his fourth home run here. And since May 2nd, since he got those glasses, 22 games, 236, three home runs, 19 RBI, you like that. Hitting the ball harder, but, you know, 48% rostered it. I feel like other third basement have emerged recently. You know, we've talked about Jake Berger and Matt Shaw and even, like, we were talking about Miguel Vargas before the podcast. Like, I kind of feel like I'd just take a shot on Vargas over Muncie at this point. Brett Beatty, though I don't know that I'm to the same point with Brett Beatty.

He does appear to be emerging, having started his eighth straight game and hitting well and you expect his stats look good. I don't think Muncie is really any different. in the long run than the guy we saw last year who still had an 852 OPS, but a lot of that was OBP the year before 808 OPS. But again, a lot of that was OBP. He doesn't really offer much in batting average anymore, hasn't for years. Not that he was ever a standout there, but now he sinks you in it.

And the power's decent, but he doesn't play as much against left-handed pitchers as he used. He used to be like better. He had good reverse platoon splits during his heyday. but now he doesn't even really play against lefties that much. And so I think it's going to reduce Muncie's appeal for deeper leagues. I think he's in that range. Shaw, Berger, Young, I think that's the range for Muncie, and it just comes down to personal preference.

And, you know, like I think Burger's probably a better version of Max Muncie at this point. Shaw, a very different type of player. I would rather have Moncie than Brett Beatty personally. Yeah, I agree, but not those other two. I think he's a step behind those other two, if only because of playing time issues. And last name here, deep leagues, very deep leagues. Any interest in Mike Tuckman of the White Sox?

He's not a bad team, but he's going to get a chance to play and bat near the top of the lineup, and he's got a little OBP. Any deep league interest in Mike Talkman? I like him in Sim leagues, because he gets on base. And so I just hit him ninth and have him play a pretty good outfield.

But conventional fantasy leagues, getting on base is really all he does. And in a White Sox lineup, that's not going to probably add up to many counting stats. All right, let's take our final break and when we return the dropometer right after this quick commercial break.

Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. I want to fire up the dropometer for hitters who got off to good slash great starts in April, March and April, and have cooled off quite a bit here in May. Do I have to time you guys because we have to keep this moving.

So under a minute, the best that we can, one to ten on the dropometer and Chris, you're up first with Christian Campbell, who hit 301 with a 902 OPS through April and in May is betting 120 with a 325 OPS. He's still 82% rostered,

Where is Christian Campbell on the dropometer? Five? I would, I'm going to say four. I would prefer not to drop him. You can if you really need to, but I don't think you're going to find a second baseman with anywhere near the upside that Christian Campbell does. We were talking about one of the top prospects in baseball,

a very, very productive hitter at the minor league level last season, who has shown the ability to do that at the, major league level already. Now it was only for one month and the most recent month has been very bad. But I don't think the most recent month is the only thing that matters here. So I am still mostly opposed to dropping Christian Campbell. All right, very good. 45 seconds. I like that. Let's go over to Trevor's story, his teammate who through the first month was batting 265 home run, six steals looked like, all right, some power, some speed here. But in May he's hitting 155, one home run a 404 OPS,

29 strikeouts to four walks, and a 57% ground ball rate, down to 66% rostered, Scott. Where is Trevor's story on the drop-home meter? I'm going seven, and the only reason I don't go higher is because I'm having to account for those deeper roto leagues

where you really have no choice but to hang on to Trevor's story and hope he comes around. But there's a lot of reason to wonder if he's even good anymore, and he's hardly played. the last few years, his strikeout rate is through the roof. And the few times we have seen in play during that stretch, it's been through the roof. And it's good that he's still stealing bases, but he's got to get on base.

And I do wonder if at some point this becomes Roman Anthony's ticket to the majors by shifting either Meyer or Seidon Raphael at a shortstop. I don't know what they'd do at third base if they shifted Meyer there, but obviously they could get Anthony in the outfield potentially and everything would be grand. But yeah, I don't think a story's 25th for me at shortstop at that deep position. So, you know, if you don't need the 25th shortstop,

you can move on. Let's talk about Bryson Stott, who through April was betting 297 with two home runs, seven seals, and in 810 OPS here in May. He is betting 2.13. Power and speed still looks okay. Two homers, four steals, a 559 OPS in the month.

He's still 92% rostered. What second base is kind of bad right now? I don't know. Chris, where's Bryson Stott on the dropometer? Again, this one's probably like a five or a four, maybe even a three. I think I do rank him ahead of Christian Campbell the rest of the way. I don't know. It mostly seems like it's some batting average fluctuation right now. The strikeout rates up a couple of points, but nothing too alarming.

The quality of contact is not necessarily any worse than it's been in the past. So I don't really have too much concern about Bryson Stott. We know what he is and he's a good source of stolen bases. He doesn't kill you in batting average. He doesn't really do anything else. I know in a Roto League. I noticed he was batting leadoff today. Is that something he's been doing a lot?

He's basically been doing that all season against right-handed pitching. But he doesn't play against lefties. I mean, that's the problem. Yeah. It limits, you know, volume from Bryson-Stott. which is annoying. But, you know, when I dug into his main numbers, he's actually hitting the ball harder.

The batted ball stuff looks fine. It's a 17% strikeout rate. I don't see anything under the hood for May. It's just the playing time is annoying. Like, it is, you know, if you're in a points league, like you want volume. You want guys that play every day. In points leagues,

the problem is second base is kind of the position of better in roto than points. And so there's a lot of guys like that. Matt McLean seems pretty. pretty fringy in a points league right now. So I don't know. In a points league, it's probably higher. It's probably like seven.

And you could just kind of try to stream your way through second base. But in a roto league, I think Bryson Stott is fine. What about Jorge Polanco, who through the first month hit 384, nine homers, 25 RBI, a 1226 OPS. We're thinking, this guy is back. And then in May, he's hitting 155, one home run, a 476 OPS. tons of ground balls. The strikeout rate is climbing,

not playing against lefties because he can't hit right-handed because of that oblique injury. 81% rostered, Scott. Where is Jorge Polanco on the drop-omere? So I will go about a six here, maybe a five, because the thing is, I don't think in roto leagues

you can drop them is you just have to go too deep into middle and corner infield, both where he's eligible. And I still like a lot of the underlying indicators here. The expected stats to look great for Jorge Polanco. But he is sort of like Shane Bos for me,

the regrettable instance of me moving a player way up my rankings and then moving him way back down my rankings. Because the bigger issue for me than Jorge Polanco's May production is just that he's still not playing against left-handers because of that side issue that affects him from the right side of the play. And it's been going on all year. I assumed it would have stopped by now. It hasn't stopped, and it's just costing them too many of bats.

All right, let's slide over to Cedric Mullins in the first month hit 278 with six homers, five steals, 927 OPS, and here in May, hitting 163. Four homers, two steals still fine, but a 553 OPS. Strikeouts are up. It feels like he's trying way too hard to hit for power. Has actually sat out two straight against a right-handed pitcher, which is kind of interesting. 98% rostered, Chris, where is Cedric Mullins on the dropometer? I don't want to give the same answer.

I've given multiple times already, but it's probably like an eight in a points league and like a one in a Roto League. I will say it could be somewhat interesting to see what happens when Colton Couser's ready. Because, you know, if Mullins, they're not, there's no long-term commitment to Mullins. I think he's a free agent after this season. So it, you know, could they, just kind of bury him.

I think it's unlikely, but it's not impossible that he gets buried when they have a little more of a full outfield. But I think in a roto, the power speed combination is still too hard to find. So I'll, I'll say like a two or three in Roto leagues for Mullins. All right. What about Nolan Aronado, who actually went two for five with his sixth home run here on Tuesday? And you know what? The March, April, May

numbers, they're all kind of similar. I'm just confused as to why Nolan Aronado is still 95% rostered, I guess. He has six homers on the year. He doesn't hit for a good petting average at this point. It's like not a good on base percent. I don't know. Maybe people are just holding out

for a trade. I don't get it, Scott. But where is Nolan Aronado on the dropometer? Pretty high. So I think I would rather have him than like Max Muncie to throw back to a previous segment, but less than some of those other third base options we name like Matt Shaw and who else do we name there. He's low ceiling at this point, high floor but low ceiling at this stage of his career, a good compiler, but not somebody who's going to make a difference.

and the more unfortunate thing for Aeronado is that his skill set works best in points leagues with the low strikeout rate, but that tends to be the smaller lineup league where you don't have to go into the third base pool as much. So he's very fringy at this point. I imagine the roster rate is so high, A, because he's Nolan Aeronado and probably going to the Hall of Fame, and B, because his best week of the season was the first week of the season when, and people kind of form their opinion on him based on that because you see that happen a lot. But yeah, he's pretty fringy.

He doesn't need to be even half as rostered as he is. If you can only have two good months, April and September are the months to have if you want to boost your fantasy value. That's the Taylor Ward way right there. All right, Scott, I hate to tell you, but you exceeded a minute. How could you do this?

Man, I didn't think I said that much either. Let's talk about Kyle Manzardo, who hit eight home runs with an 853 LPS through April. And here in May, he's hitting 203, two homers, 618 OPS. The strikeout rate is up to 30% for the month, down to 57% roster. So some people have already dropped him. Chris, where is Kyle Manzardo on the dropometer? It's so funny because coming into the season, the big question about Manzardo was could he leavees? And he's been awesome against lefties.

he's got a sub 25% strikeout rate against them. He has a 975 OPS, and he's been really bad against Ritey's. He has a 689 OPS. I'm not sure what 455 divided by 156 is a 29% strikeout rate against Ritees as well. I mean, on the plus side, I guess it's good that he's showing he can't lefties, but if that falls apart, things could get pretty ugly for Kyle Manzart if he doesn't turn it around. so I think he's pretty dropable. I'm going to say a seven.

I'm not giving up on the talent, but we just don't have much of a sample size here at all. Would you drop for Burger and Hoskins? Manzardo? Sure. They're hot right now and Manzardo isn't. Last name on the list, and regretfully, Ben Rice, hit a home run here on Tuesday,

and we know he had eight home runs, 22 RBI, 958 OPS through April. And in May, obviously, the numbers have come down the playing time has come down he's still hitting the crap out of the ball but reinforcements are coming we heard about jazz earlier and sounds like stanton could be back within the next couple weeks or month or so ben rice is a tough one man um i love all everything under the hood but just the playing time is getting annoying 88% rostered scott where has been right yeah well i mean before the the reinforcements come he's getting pushed out so trent grisham is kind of ruined things here and i

I think Ben Rice is a better hitter than Grisham in the long run. I think he's a fantastic hitter. I think skill-wise, he is everything I could want to hitter. And it's been disappointing what's happened to him and, frankly, Jonathan Ronda. And, you know, a lot of those first basemen we elevated early on were having to push back down now just because they're not getting consistent enough at bats. So I think if I went six on Jorge Polanco, I'm going to go five on Rice, and that's because I'm splitting the difference between head-to-head and Roto. Roto, you probably can't drop him head-to-head.

It might be like an eight or a nine, unless you can do, unless you just can't do better at first base, Rice isn't playing consistently enough. Now, one caveat that's probably going to put me over a minute is he's a game away, one appearance away from gaining catcher eligibility. And that he's 100% rostered. Probably. I mean, catcher so deep too.

Yeah, I don't know. Frankly, he's probably getting less playing time than some of them at this point. He's playing more than Drake Baldwin still, I think. Although I don't know if that will be the case moving forward. I'd rank him ahead of Baldwin,

but I don't know. It would put him on the fringe of the top 12, I think. I think him versus Ramirez would be really interesting in a points league because Ramirez is going to play a lot more. but his skill set is less well suited for it. Because Rice, the underlying numbers are still terrific. I know.

I love them. Yeah. And I think he's a really good player. Or just a prolonged Jason Dominguez slump that gets them sent to the minors. Like there are still ways Rice could turn into a fantasy stud and in for the remainder of the season. But man, those shallow leagues where you only have one first base spot. Like I can understand him getting squeezed out. If Stanton is healthy.

I just don't know where Ben Rice is going to play. I don't think they should just bench Ben Rice, but Paul Goldschmidt's been good this season. Stanton is still like, I don't know. Are they going to be sentimental about it? Are they going to give Stanton an opportunity because he was such a big part of their postseason run last year and all that? I think they should play Ben Rice ahead of Stanton,

even if Stanton's healthy. But even if Stanton's playing 30% of the game, games. There's just not a lot of room for Ben Rice there. I know this shouldn't dictate things, but it often does. I mean, politics and baseball is still making a lot of money, and he still has like two or three years left on that contract. I think if he's healthy, they're probably going to play him at least four or five times a week. And so that really just muddies everything there. Teach him third base. It's not that hard. That's honestly the answer, but I don't think it's going to happen unfortunately. So a rough go there for Ben Rice. Let's run through the rest of Tuesday's

action. What do we make of these starting pitchers? Spencer Strider, struggle to throw strikes at the Phillies, four and two-thirds innings, one run, four strikeouts, seven, four walks, excuse me, seven strikeouts here, only through 56% of his pitches for strikes. I know it's only three starts, but it's, ah, it's just so frustrating because you waited all year and you're not getting the Spencer Strider. Scott, what do we do? Well, what do we do? I mean, do we just, what is there to do?

Do we bench him until he looks almost like himself? I don't know. See, I'm starting to wonder if that'll ever happen. And like, look, he got well more than a strikeout per inning here. He allowed one hit. I know the contact was hard. The biggest thing that killed him was he walked four and he threw just 55% of his pitches for strikes.

And that I'm not worried about in the long run. But there's been no improvement in the velocity. And that worries me. It definitely worries me. And I wonder if it's a mechanical thing because just, and maybe somebody could look into this and say for sure. But it doesn't look like he's getting as low on the mound. And I know his arm angle is lower by a few degrees. So I'm just wondering if he's driving as much with his legs,

and that's why it looks like he's standing taller as he delivers and why he's having to compensate with the arm angle there. That's kind of my in the weeds theory on what's going on with Strider, which would make it correctable, but who knows how long or if it will be corrected. So I think you, I don't think you treat them like an ace right now, obviously. I think he's

maybe a little shy of must start at the moment. I hope he gets back to being must start, but you're kind of just hoping for the best. Is there a scenario by which you sell high on the name value? I think

it would be a lot easier to do if he had a great start to this point, and he hasn't. Or if he'd had one good start. Yeah. But I only have him I think I have them outside my top 20. So I don't know.

I mean, particularly, I don't know. What's the scenario by which somebody would potentially buy high on the name value? I'm not sure. Would you rather have Spencer Strider or Robbie Ray, the rest of the way? I mean, I know I rank Strider higher, not a lot higher. Okay, you've got Spencer Strider. Someone calls you right now and offers you Robbie Ray. I don't know why they're calling.

it's 1.45 in the morning. They should just taxed or do it through the league. But, you know, it might depend how good my pitching staff looks. If I feel pretty secure in my pitching and Spencer Strider is just a very rich icing on the cake, then I probably hold on and see if he can figure it out. But if I'm desperate for pitching help, maybe I take that deal. Like, it's not like Ray is a sure thing. He has a pretty extensive injury history.

So I'm going to continue to rank Strider ahead, but there is a scenario by which I'd trade him for Ray. Sure. I'm pretty confident Spencer Strider will be a must-start pitcher again at some point. Yeah. I'm not at all confident that it will be in five days. I think it will be by 2026. There's a lot, there's about 20 starts in between there that I'm very uncertain on at this point.

Let's talk about Jack Flaherty, who had one of his best starts of the season up against. The giant six shutout innings with eight strikeouts here, had 13 whists on 97 pitches. And, you know, Chris, where are you at on Jack Flaherty? Because I look under the hood and it's, you know, his pitches get hit really hard. He doesn't really have his slider working.

Curveball is still look awesome. But, you know, fastball and slider getting hit kind of hard this season. So it looks like overall, like his pitch mix has taken a little bit of a step back here. Where are you at on Jack Flaherty? I haven't really been too concerned about Flaherty. so far this season. And I know his slider was bad today, but it's been very good overall.

Well, no, I guess not. 33.6% whiff rate. Yeah, I guess it's been a little worse than last season. The fastball's been a little worse than last season. None of the physical characteristics seem particularly worse. So my assumption has been that Jack Flaherty would figure it out. And I hope that's what today was a sign of. but I can't say that for certain

but he's not someone that I've moved down significantly in my in my rankings yet all right well last name I'll ask about here is Carlos Hordaun who threw seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts 21 whiffs on 105 pitches I don't I don't know if I should ask this because earlier in the podcast when I asked if a player should be ranked higher

I got yelled at by Scott but should Carlos Rodon should Carlos Rodon be ranked higher the way he's pitching the season. Don't be so sensitive, Frank. Let's see. Should I rank him higher than, I think I haven't in my top 30 now. That's pretty high. I have the highest of all of us, 22nd.

Almost top 20. Two spots behind Spencer Strider. Do I need to drop Strider behind Rodon? I think that's a... I was going to ask that one. Even more difficult question than Ray. Yeah, I mean, so far, it's holding true with Carlos Rodan, even though he's not throwing as hard.

I don't think he's getting as many swinging strikes this year. He's become a pitcher rather than a thrower. Can I use that cliche? I mean, yeah, I think that's the answer. Yeah, he used to just be able to get by with an elite four seamer and an elite slider. and he's not as good as he was at his best in San Francisco. You know, that one really, really good year. I don't think he's that good anymore.

But his struggles over the past few seasons have forced him to evolve. And the change-up looks really good for the most part. There are still times when his feel-for it goes, but for the most part, it looks really good. And the curve ball, he doesn't throw it a ton. I think he only threw one or two today. But when he does throw it, he's, he's, he's, capable of stealing a strike with that. And the sinker is getting weak contact

and seems to be making the fourth seamer playup. So it just kind of, I think this is the best version of Carlos Rodon. We've seen since he's been with the Yankees for sure. And a swinging strike rate is down, but clearly it's not impacting his ability to get K's. So yeah, I'm pretty pleased with everything we're seeing from Mr. Rodan right now. Last eight starts for Carlos Rodana, 127 ERA.85 whip, 62 strikeouts over 49 and two-thirds innings. Hitters who are picking things up, we already spoke about Jose Altuve,

Christian Yelich walked it off in grand style, a grand slam. His 10th home run has multiple hits in four of his last five, including three homers and two steals during that stretch. Lawrence Butler, three for three with his eighth homer, and over his last seven, he's hitting 400 with two homers and two homers. two steals. And Julio Rodriguez quietly has picked things up in May. Three for five with his 10th home run.

That's back-to-back three-hit games. And all of a sudden, the May stat line, 293, six home runs, 15 runs, 18 RBI, 841 OPS. That all sounds pretty good for Julio Rodriguez. Anything to add on him, Butler, or Yelich picking things out? Funny enough with Julio, the problem last year was when he pulled the ball, he couldn't generate power. That was the biggest problem is he just, he didn't have any pulled home runs until like July or August of last

season. And now he's pulling the ball less in the air than ever before. And he's more or less having a better start to the season than we've seen. So I don't quite know what to make of that except to say that I think Julio Rodriguez is awesome. And so I'm not surprised that he is starting to look more awesome lately. that's basically the long and short of where I'm at on it. I think all three of these hitters, Butler and Yelich being the other two,

were destined for better days. And I know I talked pretty extensively about Yelich a week ago. But I'm going to mention Butler here. The strikeout rate is lower than last year. The average and max ex of velocities are both higher than last year. He does have a worse launch in, spray ankle he's another one of those hitters who the pole air rate not that it was amazing to begin with but it's lower but we've seen him overcome that before and it doesn't surprise me that

he's hot all of a sudden I think better days are ahead does it were you at all that he has turned into Serrano from major league and can't hit anything but a fastball his numbers against breaking and off-speed pitches are alarming yeah but we've seen him do it before so So, like, I don't think it's going to be a permanent affliction. I think he's obviously young. So, yeah, I think they're going to figure that out. I hope these last few days are the start of it. He also moved back into the leadoff spot today

or has been hitting leadoff against righties more often lately. So that's a good sign. Maybe not a great sign for Jacob Wilson, who I think is hitting lead off more against lefties. But yeah. And Butler himself had been sitting some against lefties, right? but I imagine that'll change. He's had two of the past five games entering,

well, including Tuesday here. But it was like he's, he's been hitting leadoff since May 18th when he's in the line. We talked some last week about how outfield, what range is it? Like the 20 to 50 range of the outfield rankings is really difficult to sort out.

And Butler is one of the holdouts that I've, I've moved him down some. but I've been reluctant to move him behind like the Williore Braus and Elliot Ramos's of the world. And yeah, so I remain concerned, but overall optimistic. Some other hitting leftovers here, Shohei Otani will not stop. He now has homered in three straight.

He's up to 20 home runs on the season, which leads all of baseball. Ellie Daler Cruz, two for four, with a double dong in this one. He's up to 11 home runs and 17 steals. The Cubs ran wild. Picked up six steals against the Rockies. Two for Matt Shaw, two for Pete Carr Armstrong,

one for Ian Hap and one for John Bertie. A couple hitters who needed a big game and got it. Pete Alonzo, Lars Neupar, Brian Reynolds, we mentioned, went 4-4 with his seventh home run. Anything to add on those names? Yeah, I mean, we already got into what I had to say about Reynolds, so I'm not going to repeat myself. me. Lars Neupar has much better expected stats than the actual ones.

And he is a player whose pull air rate is way higher. It's not like high relative to the league as a whole, but it's far higher than he's had the past two years. And that's what he's needed to do to tap into those exit velocities. That's what's held them back. So I think points league players are pretty high. happy with them overall. The walk rate has been high, the strikeout rate low.

He's up there in the points league standings. Because the batting average has lagged for Lars Neupar, I don't know that Roto players are as thrilled with them. But I think they should keep the faith because I think at worst, he's a number three outfielder for them. I will say he's consistently underperformed his expected stats. And partially that was because he never hit the bell in the air. and so maybe that just maybe his skill set is different enough that his underperformance now should be taken with a grain of salt and an assumption that he will perform better. But I will just note that that he's always been a guy. And like even though he is hitting the ball in the air more right now, it's a lot more straight away and a little more of the opposite field and then a little more pull as well.

Yeah, it's kind of. Yeah, it's not like a, it's not high relative to the league, but it's definitely high for him. He's not Isok Paredes suddenly. Yeah. Some pitching leftovers, we got anywhere from good to great starts from all these names, Hunter Brown, Corbin Burns, Joe Ryan, Logan Webb started off rough and then recovered in that one. And Taj Bradley had a tough luck loss against the twins. But anything that stood out to you guys on Taj, Logan Webb, Joe Ryan Burns, and Hunter Brown.

I am going to plant the cell high flag on Corbyn Burns. I just don't really. I know he's been very good in May since that shoulder injury. I think it's 29 strikeouts and 27 innings. Sub 2 ERA, if I'm remembering correctly. I wrote about it earlier. It's still not with the best version of his cutter. And so it still feels like there's a lot of room for things to go wrong for him.

What would selling high look like? Well, I think it does, like it needs to be high because I do still think he's at least a top 20 pitcher. I just don't think he's an ace again, even though he is pitching like an ace right now. So it's Spencer Schwellenbach. I would do that if I could get Spencer Schwellenbach for him. Spencer Strider.

I need to get something else. Dylan Sees. I would rather have Dylan Sees than Corbyn Burns. Assuming Jacob deGrom is fine after the weird finger injury, non-injury Monday. I'd rather have him. So I have Burns 11th at starting pitcher. It looks like I'm the highest.

Frank has him 15th. You have him 16th, Chris. It's kind of at the top of it. It's kind of at the top of a tier for me. So I don't know that those four spots really say a whole lot. I have them behind both the hunters. I have him behind Max Fried. But Corbyn,

still technically in my top 12. Call to the bullpen for the Tigers. Will Vest picked up his seventh save for the twins. Yohan Duran picked up his ninth. For the Phillies, Jordan Romano picked up his seventh save. For the Cardinals, Ryan Helsie Sharkout 2 for his 11th. For the Mets, Edwin Diaz was unavailable. Reed Garrett got the final five outs for his second save.

And he's actually been pretty awesome. And he's a name for saves plus holds leagues. For the Red Sox, I rolled as Chapman, got the ninth inning with a one-run lead. He gave up a run on a walk in two hits, took his first blown save, and the Red Sox lost in extras. Yeah, I will point out, Liam Hendricks was really bad in that one as well, so it doesn't seem like a role to Shatman has much to worry about there. I would think Slayton would be the other guy, but it's a moot point. Chapman's been awesome. For the Rangers, Luke Jackson got the eighth inning with the game tied facing the heart of the Blue Jays lineup. He allowed a hit-by pitch and a walk, but got out of it.

Rangers took a two-run lead and Robert Garcia got the ninth inning. He struck out two for his third save. And he has the last two saves for the Rangers. Numbers look pretty good. Only 11% rostered. It kind of feels like maybe Garcia's next up for the Rangers. Well, I don't think Chris Young's injury or I'm sorry, Chris Martin's injury is long term. Chris Young is their general manager.

So, yeah, I don't think. I don't think Chris Young's... I don't think Chris Martin's injury is long term. He's right-handed. He has even better numbers than Robert Garcia. So I don't... And even then... But they've been so unwilling to just make Chris Martin the closer.

Bruce Bochie hasn't spoken like it's a permanent demotion for Luke Jackson either. And Jackson was back to working the eighth inning in this one. So I do... I do think there's a lot of murkiness. even if Garcia's gotten the last two saves and I think he's perfectly capable of being the closer but he's also left-handed and so that adds demerits against him

and yeah I don't know how it's going to play out but Garcia in leagues where safes are scarce is at least on equal footing with Luke Jackson if not surpassing him. If you need saves would you rather add Robert Garcia or Daniel Palencia from the Cubs? I would

rather add Palencia because I think we've seen it for longer now with him and there are fewer questions but Ryan Presley has looked a lot better. His swinging strike rate is more than double what it was

before being removed from the closer roll and he did work the eighth. Was it the eighth? Or was it the ninth in a tie game? It may have been the ninth in a tie game here on Tuesday and also Porter Hodge is coming back from the IL sooner than later. So I don't know how much security Daniel Palencia has either.

Yeah, Presley actually pitched the ninth inning of that game with a tied. He gave up a hit and a walk, but yeah, I guess somewhat notable there. And for the Yankees, Luke Weaver was unavailable. Devin Williams got the ninth inning with a three-run lead. I just, maybe he just can't close games this season. I don't know what's going on. He gave up two runs, so barely escaped with the save here. Yeah, I don't think he's any closer to getting his closer job back.

To stream or not to stream on Wednesday, we have Clark Schmidt at the Angels. Clayton Kirchow is at the Guardians. Landon Rup is at the Tigers. Severino at the Astros. Shane Smith at the Mets, Noah Cameron Home Against the Reds. Ah, Cameron's okay. I like Schmidt and Cameron, I think. I think Schmidt, Cameron, and...

that's probably it I've become kind of kind of smooth-brained with Shane Smith I think I just I just think he's good there's no individual metric that's more than fine but all the fines add up to a good pitcher and I know it's the Mets so I'm not saying he's a must start or anything but

compared to some of these scrubs I don't think Shane Smith is a scrub and then on Thursday we have a four game slate So not much going on. Oh, man, you, you can, you can bet yourself will have a little Scotty doesn't know this, this Thursday night. Jeffrey Springs. No, we're not. I won't be on, Frank.

Chrissy doesn't know. Chris he doesn't know. All right. We'll have to figure something out. You want that who wants to be a millionaire thing you did the other week? Yeah, we'll see. Or go something totally off board. I don't care.

I won't be here. Well, there's a lot of suit. Yeah. There's two names. Jeffrey Springs at the Blue Jays, Emerson Hancock against the Nationals. I don't know. May.

Probably. I don't know either. Springs has been a lot better. Yeah. All right. If you need a name for a four-game slate, Jeffrey Springs, but yeah, it's just probably don't stream on Thursday. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.