Fantasy Baseball Today - Eight Burning Questions! Garrett Crochet, Brice Turang & Much More! (4/3 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Garrett Crochet did it again (2:48)! How many innings will he throw this season? ... Is Shane Bieber back (11:10)? ... Maikel Garcia is the top third base replacement (14:55). ... News (18:35): Josh Jung will miss 6-8 weeks. ... Reynaldo Lopez looked pretty good opposite Crochet (21:30). ... Did we undervalue Christian Walker (23:55)? ... Could Brice Turang steal 40 bags (28:49)? ... What's going on with Zac Gallen (30:53)? ... What could a healthy Mike Trout do (36:35)? ... What do we do with Nestor Cortes (38:16)? ... Luis Castillo is off to a slow start (40:54). ... Do any of these players matter in Fantasy (44:21)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (53:30). 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, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question, email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. With fantasy! Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Bryce Harper for three. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, April 3rd. Frank Stamphill joined by Scott White and Chris Towers.

Today on the show, eight burning questions early in the season. had a bunch of interesting pitcher performances on Tuesday. Did any of them actually matter? We'll find out. Big bouncebacks and much more. But let's jump in. Actually, I don't think I changed my call from yesterday, so I don't have a call loaded up.

Tuesdays have been crazy. Scott, you get the breadstick again while I load up a, and oh my goodness gracious. It could just be Susan, right? Yeah, but I... I don't have it loaded up on the old soundboard right now. I took the breadstick because I was the first. first one to log in today. So I am going to tell you about Garrett Crochet. It's one thing for him to do

what he did on opening day against the Tigers lineup. It's quite another for him to do even better against the Braves lineup, which is what happened here on Tuesday. Just the fact he went seven innings in his second start as a professional after many years of relief, I think. think is itself a victory, but there were seven dominant in innings he allowed just three hits. He struck out eight. Walked only one through only 93 pitches in those

seven innings. Very efficient. That's been consistent even going back to spring training. Some control issues and crochets passed, but we haven't seen them this year. And his fastball is electric. He also unveiled a new pitch here against the Braves. The cutter, which he sprinkled in, I believe,

in the first start. Yeah, he threw like four of them. He threw it 19% of the time. It was responsible for four of his 18 swinging strikes. 68% of his pitches overall were strikes. Like I said, he was efficient. And just mowed down what many would consider to be the best lineup in baseball. So we were already pretty high on him after that first start. We called him must add, and we've refused to drop him,

even with some of the other pitchers emerging off the waiver wire in the days since. But I mean, now you've got to double down on that because this was this was even more impressive. Here are some wild and wacky numbers. He's available in 23% of CBS Sports Leagues. That needs to be zero. He's available in 49% of Yahoo Leagues. Wow. That number also needs to be zero.

he's available and I double checked this is correct he is available in 79.7% of ESPN leagues that number also needs to be zero those are a lot of points

leagues too yeah I don't know if they have the same spark that I don't play I'm just thinking people would roster more pitchers yeah so the point is

Gera Crochet even on CBS, where he's not that widely available, is far too widely available. So the only question here is, who are we dropping for him? AJ Puck. Yes, right? I don't want to drop AJ Puck.

Let's say it's your worst, it's your objectively worst player. Yeah, you need crochet is better than Puck at this point, for sure. Ryan Pappio. Again, stipulating this is your worst pitcher. I'm uncomfortable with this exercise because you're naming good pitchers. That's the exercise. Yeah, crochet needs to create.

If I'm ranking them both as starting pitchers, which I can't right now, but you know, you rank them both as relief pitchers. And yes, I did put crochet ahead of peppy on my reading pitcher rankings. Yes. Michael King. Yes, though I'm not eager to drop King either. Bryce Miller. Easily.

Hunter Brown. Yes. Aaron Savali. Yeah, if it came to it, sure. All right, let's go. Mitch Keller. Yeah, I mean, if, again, I don't consider to be Mitch Keller to be dropable in realistic circumstances. But if you're asking me who I rank higher today, then I rank Crochet higher than Mitch Keller, sure.

So I had Garrett Crochet set up for later on, the eight burning questions early on in the season. I was going to ask is Garrett Crochet and Ace? I think a better question is, how many innings are we going to get out of this guy, right? Because it's all well and good right now, and he looks awesome. There is no doubt about that. He threw 12 in two-thirds innings last year. He threw zero in 2022. And I realize this is a figure it out when that question comes up later in the season kind of thing.

But I think we also need to kind of prep people for, I don't know that he's going to throw more than 100 to 100. 120 innings this year, if that. Yeah, it'll be, I think, around the All-Star break. We'll start to hear the White Sox making plans for what to do about Garrett Crochet's workload. That's assuming he stays healthy, of course. If he misses some time with injury, then that's going to push back that discussion because it's preserving some innings, right?

But, you know, yeah, I do think it's a conversation we'll have... That's not worth having right now when it's just, particularly when the conversation is, how do you get Garrett Crochet on your roster in leagues where he's still available? He has thrown 85 and one third innings since being drafted in 2020. I mean, it's, this is weird, weird stuff. And I'll also point out, here's a just random sprinkling of pitchers who had 16, or more strikeouts in their first two starts last season.

Sawyer Gibson Long. Luke Weaver. Taj Bradley, also his first two career starts, as was Sawyer Gibson Long. Joe Ryan. Nick Lodolo, who pretty famously had a terrible season when he was on the mound. Dylan Seas had a very bad season. I'm not saying. I'm just saying.

What are you saying? Give your take here. I'm going to hold your feet to the fire now. I plan on updating my rankings tomorrow and I will probably move Garrett Crochet into the top 40. You can't because he's only RP eligible. Whatever the top 40 range looks like 150th overall. That's what I was going to say.

I will move him to that range of my overall. I'm going to update my trade values tomorrow. So he'll have to be a part of that. I think he's 100% roster rate guy. I would drop Pepio, drop puck. I'd drop Charlie Morton. I'd drop Nestor Cortez.

I do want to stress, though, again, because people then come back saying, you said to do this. And it's like, I didn't say to do that. I don't think you should drop those guys. I'd rather, you probably have a bencher. header you could drop instead. But it's just an intellectual exercise.

If these are the only two pitchers in the world, which would you rather have? And I answered Crochet. Now, I think Jack Flaherty, Garrick Crochet, and Gavin Stone are all right at 80%. Let's say you're in one of those 20% of leagues or in Yahoo or ESPN where they're more widely available. And you've only got one roster spot to play with. Gavin Stone, Jack Flaherty, or Gare Crochet. I think it has to be crochet because he's done it twice. I would say Flaherty.

But I think that's perfectly reasonable. Just because we've seen Flaherty have higher upside at the Major League level already. So that's why I was like him. And barring injury, you wouldn't expect Flaherty to face any workload concerns, really. So, yeah, I get that. I think Stone would definitely be third. But like, I don't know. I treat them all as must roster.

If you were to actually drop one of them, you would never see him again. Yes, absolutely. Unless, you know, Flaherty just blows up or something like that. All right. Well, the moral of the story is, Garrett Crochet should not be available in any league, so make sure to get him on your team if he is somehow out there. And here is our, oh my goodness gracious,

sound bite of the night. You can put it on the board. Yes. Yes. Made sense to go with the White Sox. Chris, you are a. player of the night. Shane Bieber, who had a very good start again, nine strikeouts, zero walks, zero earned runs over six

innings pitched against the Seattle Mariners. So much better lineup than Oakland's, who he did it against the first time. So it's all good. It's kind of interesting, though, because a big part of why we were like, hey, Shane Bieber coming into the season was velocity was up in the spring. He was averaging like 93 miles per hour with his fastball instead of 91.5. And in his first start, it was up about 1.3 miles per hour, if I'm remembering correctly. This one, his velocity was basically the same as last year.

91.6 miles per hour up from 91.3 last year. It was apparently quite cold in Seattle. Six mid-60s, I think. All right. So it wasn't that cold. I don't know why people are doing the Luis Castilla thing then. I didn't actually look at the weather. I just assumed it was cold.

I think it was an interesting start for Shane Bieber. Only 11 swinging strikes on 83 pitches, which is a fine rate, but not like an outlier rate, like the nine strikeouts might make you think. So yeah, I don't know. It was certainly another very, very good start. But I think a little less promising than the first one.

What do you guys think? Well, I think the one thing I was most, encouraged by with this Bieber start. I mean, I agree with your broader point that I'm kind of confused about him right now. But remember last start, we were like he got the majority of his whiffs on the cutter. And the cutter was a pitch he introduced that seemed to mess him up last year. And it wasn't a big swing and miss pitch. And where did that come from?

But since then, it looks like the cutter has been reclassified. And now the data says he only threw 7% cutters in that first start. and that it didn't get all the whiffs. I think it got confused with the slider. Probably because the slider, the shape of the slider has improved. That was part of what he worked on at driveline. It wasn't all about velocity. So I do think there's a reason Shane Bieber who was awesome this spring

and has been awesome through two starts, and it goes beyond just velocity. And so maybe we shone it obsess over the velocity. But I'd rather see more velocity. and I moved him into my, I believe I moved him into my top 30 at starting pitcher, and I'm okay with that, but,

you know, if somebody's going to make you an offer like he's top 15, then I think you obviously have to consider it. I think there's absolutely a cell window here, and it has to be high. Like you said, I think I'd look to move him as a top 20 starting pitcher, probably rank him more like top 30,

but the other thing to keep in mind is this was a guy who missed time of the forearm strain last year. And so even if he does pitch well, and even if this is all for real, there still seems to be heightened risk that because he is currently healthy may not be factored in to his price. Yeah, I think that's all fair.

I mean, would you guys, I feel so weird talking about trades this early in the season, but people overreact. It's just some of the things that I see here and questions that I get on Twitter. We bring some of those things up here, and some people listening might say, wow, that stuff would never happen in any fantasy league.

Oh, believe me. It does. It happens. It happens a lot. Lots of leagues out there. If you can trade Shane Bieber for Logan Webb, who had a bad start here on Tuesday against the Dodgers, would you do that? Absolutely. Yep. I would do it as well.

Oh, my goodness gracious for me, someone we've talked a lot about already, but we need a third base replacement right now, and Michael Garcia just continues his hot start, two for four with a double, a triple three RBI here on Tuesday night. Three hard hits in this game, including two over 106 exit velocity. He's hitting the ball hard. He's let off all five games for the Royals so far.

He's hitting it in the air? Yeah. The one hard hit ball that he had that was not a hit today. He had a double and a triple. The one, I think it was like a 106 mile an hour. It might be classified as a grounder. It bounced right in front of, uh, Gunner Henderson who had to make a really tough play to come up with it.

He, he, Michael Garcia looks really good right now. 57% rostered. So if you lost Josh Young in a, or Royce Lewis in a shallower league, Mikel Garcia is out there. Points League, category league, whatever it might be, six games next week. And again, he's a name we've talked a lot about. So I don't think we need to elaborate any more than that. But yeah, I just think he's very clearly the top third base replacement right now

if you are looking for that. Honorable mention up at the top, Bryce Harper. Triple Dong, not one, not two, but three home runs. He capped it off with a grand slam off a lefty in the seventh inning of that game. Four hard hits, two over 107 exit velocity. And I just want to remind everybody, it's a really, really long season, guys. Like, let's just have a little patience. You know, I understand.

Everyone wants to get off to a hot start. I'd love to wire to wire win my fantasy baseball league from the opening day until the end of the season. But it doesn't work that way. So just some patience. Like guys are going to come around, especially guys we've seen do it for very long, like Bryce Harper. And Mookie Betts, honorable mention for him,

he had a sock into shoe in his first two at bats of the game. Leads baseball with five home runs early on in the season. Quick reminder to subscribe to the FBT newsletter. If you haven't already, head to CBSports.com slash newsletters. Click on that FBT logo, punch in your email address.

It's easy as that. And one more reminder that you can download and follow FBT and FBT and 5 on Spotify. Let's take our first break. And when we return, we'll get to some news and some other burning questions here on fantasy baseball today. Welcome back in and let's talk some news and notes. Rangers GM Chris Young said that Josh Young

will be sidelined for six weeks after having surgery on Tuesday to repair his fractured right wrist. At least. Six weeks. I'm saying six to eight like I did last night. Dr. Scott is in the house. Great Scott. You don't sound Scottish, though.

Wasn't that the, was that a Star Trek reference or am I doing nothing? It was not. No? It was not. There was no Dr. Scott and there was no Dr. Spock either. There's Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott. Yes. All right. I'm sorry. I thought I was doing a thing. It turns out I wasn't doing anything. You weren't. You weren't. It's okay.

There's got to be a Dr. Scott out there. The corresponding move for Josh Young, the Rangers promoted Justin Foskew, but it was actually Josh Smith, who started at third base against the righty Zach Eflin here on Tuesday. Bobauchette was back in the lineup after I'm seeing two games with neck spasms. Justin Verlander will throw a bullpen session Thursday before pitching in a minor league game a few days later. He threw 52 pitches in a three-inning simulated game on Monday earlier this week.

Sunny Gray will no longer make a rehab start on Wednesday. Instead, opting to throw a simulated game. he's expected to make another rehab start at AAA next week. This wasn't a setback, right? It was just, I guess he wants to pitch somewhere differently. It does seem like the timeline has gotten pushed back a little bit because the initial report was that he was probably not going to go on the IL and that he would pitch the first series of the year.

And then obviously that got pushed back a little bit. So I don't, I didn't see anything about a setback, but it's, you know, might be a little bit longer. Jordan Romano threw a successful side session on Tuesday, his first mound work since being diagnosed with elbow inflammation. Paul Seawald played catch from 60 feet on Monday, his first time throwing since suffering a grade two oblique strain. Eloy Jimenez has missed two straight with a left adductor injury.

He remains day to day. Vaughn Grissom could begin a minor league rehab assignment next week. He started the season on the IL due to a groin injury. And apparently Mets pitching prospects, Christian Scott and Mike Vassel are both candidates to replace Tyler McGill in the rotation. If you have an empty bench spot in a deeper league, I would speculate on Christian Scott, who's only 9% rostered. But again, it would have to be a pretty deep league to do that.

Very excited about Christian Scott, who had a very high-swinging strike rate in the minors last year, as long as pristine control. and I, you know, like you said, it would have to be a deep league where you can afford to roster another pitcher especially in a speculative capacity like this because there are way too many pitchers to roster right now. Burning questions early in the season.

Number one, no surprise, was Garrett Crochet, but we already spoke about him. Let's talk about his counterpart who also pitched pretty well. Ronaldo Lopez, six innings, one run, five strikeouts, eight swinging strikes on 82 pitches, mostly fastball and slider in this start. Those pitches combined for 90% of his pitches thrown.

The velocity was way down, the fastball down, 3.3 miles per hour. The slider down almost 5 miles per hour compared to last year. Maybe it's due to starting and obviously throwing more pitches, maybe due to the cold. It was 44 degrees in Chicago. Actually cold. Yes. Actually, where the players dressed like ninjas, basically.

That's how cold it was. Rinaldo Lopez, 52% rostered. He's RP only. on CBS, Scott, would you think of the outing here from Ronaldo Lopez? Well, I mean, he was facing the White Sox lineup. And it was kind of funny. I actually did watch the game and pretty much all the damage the White Sox did were on blue pits and no man's land.

So you could argue the line was even worse than it should have been for both him and the entire Bray staff. But it was a good line nonetheless. Having said that, you know, through basically just two pitches, fastball two thirds of the time and then slider and didn't get a lot of whiffs with it and the velocity was down.

As you said, Frank, to some degree that's expected, three and a half miles per hour. Is that something he can sustain? I don't know. I'm pretty skeptical of Reinaldo Lopez and I'd certainly be fine for dropping him for any of the pitchers.

Oh, yeah. It's not like he's widely rostered, but if you happen to have him, you know, don't use this start as an excuse to hold on if you're trying to clear roster space. But he has the fifth starter for the best offense in baseball. And I think he'll have value just because of that. It just might be like Dane Dunning level value, you know? I was going to say, like, how valuable would Josiah Gray be if he was RP eligible in pitching for the Braves?

I think he'd probably be worth rostering in all points leagues. I don't really have any interest in Renaldo Lopez outside of where that RP eligibility matters. All right. Well, burning question number two, did we undervalue Christian Walker again? Two for four with his third home run. He added three RBI, two run scored. Three hard hits in this game against the Yankees, the home run. 108 exit velocity, 424 feet.

He's had some great matchups early on. He faced the Rockies pitching and obviously crush his lefties. He hit the, actually the home run was off a righty today, but he did have some hard hit balls off of Nester Cortez as well, who we will talk about in just a little bit. But entering this game, the average eggs of velocity was way up. He's finished as a top 50 player each of the past two years. And then Chris, the ADP on Christian Walker was 73.6.

It's very early on. But, you know, batting cleanup for a pretty damn good lineup, 30 plus home run potential. I don't know. It kind of feels like we might have just undervalued him again. Yeah, I mean, he had an 824 OPS in 2019, a 792 in 2020, 697 to 2021. That was really, really bad. 804, 830, the last two seasons.

Four of the last five seasons, Christian Walker has been good to very good hitter. And because he, you know, has gotten to 30 homers in three of those four full seasons, I would say a very good fantasy option. So yeah, he even stole like 11 bases last. year. I think he's just a rock solid must-star first baseman who there's no superstar there. And that's probably why he gets pushed down this board. Same thing with like, same reason Nick Castellanos ended up on so many of my teams because it was just like, we're chasing upside and kind of ignoring the guys who have a very projectable upside in

Christian Walker and Castellanos and guys like that. It's just we do the mystery box thing. And I think that's probably what happens with Christian Walker come draft season. I guess I reject the framing because I don't feel like he was drafted in a disrespectful way, given what he is. I understand drafted more like 75th, technically was a top 50 player, according to a formula that doesn't necessarily take into account roster construction. And, you know, what are the most critical things to fill early?

Batting average doesn't really help with that. Stolen bases kind of helped with that last year, but nobody's expecting Christian Walker to be a big big. stealer. And he's a first basement, so he doesn't really add to the position scarcity thing either. Plus, like Chris said, his upside's kind of capped. We chase players with

who we think have first round, second round caliber upside, which Walker doesn't. I think he was a draft he was drafted appropriately with the understanding he was more of a floor play than a ceiling play. And, you know, he's living up to it. Well,

I would reject your rejection, Scott, because I felt like there was no enthusiasm, at least on this podcast. I feel like maybe Chris was the most likely one to draft him. He was a floor play. Who gets excited about floor play? See, I think that's unfair. Because I think calling him a floor play, like, if Tristan Casas goes out this season

and hits 33 homers and drives in and scores 189 runs and heck, steals 11 bases. Or even if you want to shift, not stealing 11 bases, but hits for a better average than 258, but like, is the same. He should, if he breaks out, it'll be with a much higher batting. Right, but 11 stolen bases makes up. Which is more critical to fill early. I would say 11 stolen bases from a first base makes up for that. But either way.

You're pencil and Walker in for 11 first base. That's what I'm just saying what he did last season. If Tristan Kossis did that, we would be thrilled. We would be like upside fulfilled. We did it. And I just think it's unfair to write. Christian Walker off as a floor. We weren't writing him off, though.

No, but what you said, writing him off as a floor play. Because I think his ceiling is quite high. 260 with 30 to 35 home runs and 100 RBI. I mean, that is a pretty awesome player. You had 36 homers the year before. He's not going to get better than last year. What do you mean? Like, it's a high floor, but when you're talking about,

you're saying we should draft them top 50. No, I'm just saying he had upside dealing as well. And I saw a draft where he went much later than 75th. His AP and NFC drafts, the last two weeks of the draft season was also 90. So he was going even later there. And that felt like more of why I still. But like, you know, I was in those drafts. I know I knew what I would have to give up to get Christian Walker.

And I decided it wasn't worth it. And three home runs in five games doesn't change my thinking. Oh, I don't. I don't, my, my thinking's not changed. I think he was just undervalued, yeah. Yeah, and that was part of the burning question, I guess. Number three on this list was Shane Bieber related. We already spoke about him.

Number four, could Bryce Terang steal 40 bases this year? Because if so, he probably needs to be rostered in all category leagues. So he went two for three with an RBI and two more steals here on Tuesday. He leads baseball, tied for the lead, because Jaron DeRansel on their base. So they're tied for 60. He's started three of four games for the Brewers. Not sure that he's gonna play against lefties. But Terang did have 26 steals last year,

95th percentile sprint speed. And that's where the positives end, because he also hit 218, he only had six homers, a sub 600 OPS. He's young. If he improves, gets on base, there's a world where he steals 40 bases. What do you guys think?

I think I'll lose his job before he has a chance to steal 40 bases. All right, Chris. Um, I, I think that's perfectly possible, but he was decent enough in AAA that I think he could be a guy who, I don't know, like J.J. McCarthy was pretty value value a couple of years ago. I could see that kind, not J.J. McCarthy. Jake McCarthy. Yeah. Um, it's a high batting average. Yeah, too many, too many, uh, too many draft guys on Twitter. Um, so I could see a world where Bryce Terang ends up stealing 40 bases because he gets to 500. played appearances. He'll have to be a lot better than he was last season, but I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. I do think in any categories league right now, Bryce Terang is probably close to a must-add player. Now, it depends on who you're dropping and obviously must-add Bryce Terang is very different than Garrett Crochet. But I would add Willie Castro before I added

Bryce to rang. I don't know. Willie Castro is pretty available still. I don't know about that one. I think they're right around the same roster rate, 25 to 30%. It's close. Willie Casher was pretty good last year. Willie Casher was better than Bryce Ryan. Anywhere close to my dad personally. He was better last year, yes. All right.

Well, let's move on to number five, the fifth burning question I have here. Should we be worried about Zach Allen? That's such a weird question because he just had a great start against the Yankees, six shot out innings with six strikeouts in this one. Only four swinging strikes on 96 pitches. velocity remains down. 92.2 miles per hour on the fastball last year,

93.6. His curve was down almost three miles per hour. His slider was down over three miles per hour. Maybe he's intentionally trying to take a little bit off the velocity to start the year.

He threw lots of innings last season. We know that. Maybe none of this matters because he pitched really well in this start. What do you guys think? I am so confused by Zach Allen's performance today.

because he only had a 25% CSW. That is called plus swinging. No, called strike plus whiff. Darn it. I almost had it right the first time. And so I don't know how, like he had 17 foul balls in this one.

So I guess maybe that suggests some level of fooling hitters that doesn't show up in what we typically look at, which is whiffs and stuff like that. But that's, yeah, that's a tough profile to make work. The whiffs being down so much is concerning. I don't know. I think Zach Allen is a sell high candidate, but I think emphasis really needs to be on the cell.

I would try to sell him for Tarek Scouble. On the high. Emphasis needs to be on the high. Gee, what is going on with my brain today? Emphasis needs to be on the high of the cell high. but it has to be like a Tarek scubel type. It has to be a... You have to get a top 10 starter for them.

Which probably isn't going to happen. And so I am worried about Zach Allen too. I wanted to see some improvement from the velocity from start one to start two and there was none. Like everything was down a lot. So I think, yes, emphasis has to be on the high if you're going to try shopping him. I don't think it's a bad time to try shopping. him coming off a start like this where it seemed like a typical Zach Allen start other than him having only four whiffs. But realistically, are you going to get another ace caliber pitcher?

I want an ace return for him, but is it going to be a pitcher? I'm skeptical you could pull that off. Doesn't hurt to try. I think the better. Kevin Gossman. You could probably get Kevin Gossman for him. Yeah, I would do that. Yeah, I would do that too.

I moved Kevin Gossman back into my top five. actually today. So I would do that if you could pull it off. But let's say you can't. What would be a realistic trade? What would be a reasonably good trade return for Kevin Gosman? Under what circumstances when I trade him? I guess is what I'm trying to ask.

Zach Allen. Zach Allen. Yeah. Gosh. It's contagious. It's key. It is. I think if you're in a position,

and it's more likely in a shallower league, where you've wrangled a lot of these breakout pitchers and you've got pitchers coming out of your ears and you have to understand they're not all going to work out, it's early, you're casting a wide net. You don't want to, you don't want to feel too safe at starting pitcher, but I could definitely see a case where somebody just feels loaded with pitchers now

and they have enough high-in types to go with Webb or with Gallin that maybe they could afford to shed him for a stud. bat. I think that's worth looking into. Like, you know, anyone drafted in the round two, three range, who's a hitter. If you feel

like that could be more useful. Someone in the comments said they traded Zach Allen for trade turn. I would definitely do that. Definitely. Sure. Yes. 100%. Make that happen. Let's take our final break. When we return, the next question involves Mike Trout. We'll talk about that right

after this. Welcome back into fantasy baseball. A burning questions, roll on. Number six, what could Mike Trout do if he stays healthy? So Mike Trout would one for four, which, all right, whatever. On the surface, that's not great. He stole a base. His first deal of the season, where, what, six days into the season,

he only had six total steals from 2022 through 2023. Still had 96 percentile sprint speed last year. Projections on Fangraphs have him for between 126 and 142 games. Scott, let's say Mike Trout plays 140 games this season. What could he do? What could he do? I mean, look at what Freddie Freeman's done the last two years. Like, he went from being a non-factor in stolen bases to a 13 steel guy to a 23 steel guy.

So it can change quickly, even for older players who aren't used to running. And Mike Trout's a lot faster than Freddie Freeman. and Ron Washington came in saying he wanted the angels to make better use of their speed to be among the most aggressive base stealing teams and specifically cited Mike Trout and Mike Trout was asked about it and he didn't shoot it down. So I'm open to the possibility. This is one steal. But considering like you said, he hasn't had more than two steals in a season than 2019,

our expectations are already so low for Mike Trout that it, it would have shocked me if he just completely blew them out. I'm not saying he's going to get back to stealing 40 bases or even 30, and I wouldn't bet on 20. But could he steal like 15 to 19? I'm open to it. Yeah, I think that's possible. Next question, what do we do with Nestor Cortez?

At the debacks, five innings, three runs, two walks, two strikeouts, only three swinging strikes on 88 pitches, and he allowed eight hard hits in this game. The pitch mix was fine. The velocity was down a touch. for Nestor Cortez. He got hit hard early in each of his first two starts here. Tougher matchups against the Astros and the Diamondbacks. He dealt with a shoulder injury for much of last year. He had a rough spring to 771 ERA

193 whip in the spring. He's still 94% rostered. Chris, what do we do with Nestor Cortez? I think you could drop him for Gare Crochet, as I said earlier. That I think is a no-brainer. Beyond that, I mean, you know, Tanner Halk was 38% rostered yesterday. I would drop Nestor Cortez for him, probably Ronel Blanco as well. So to make it less, to make it less actionable, just like, because you sounded pretty optimistic after Nestor Cortez's first start, if I'm remembering correctly, is this, are you, are you going into the drop thing

because you're just thinking about maximizing roster, and fantasy, or what is your actual, like, analysis? How do you actually feel about Nestor Cortez right now? I think I had him in, like, the 55 to 60 range at starting pitcher early on. And so that's the kind of range where a lot of movement very quickly tends to happen. And it's a very fluid, a very fungible group of pitchers. And, you know, you look at what he's done so far. And, like, the stuff was decent in the first start.

velocity was down in this one. No strikeouts. Only, I think, three whiffs in this one. It was just a bad start all around. But it's two really tough matchups. Astros and Diamondbacks, two teams that make a lot of contact. So I think it's, it would be an overreaction to say that Nestor Pretaz is just without value and should be dropped in all formats. It depends on who's available.

But yeah, I think he's pretty fringy based on what he's shown so far. But he was also pretty fringy before this. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree with all of that. For any of these emerging starters who are exciting, I got asked about Jared Jones a lot on Twitter today. Apparently, he's still floating around there. Yeah.

Floating out there in a bunch of leagues. Absolutely would drop Cortez for him. Agreed. Yep, and I would do the same. Last burning question, and this one is specifically for Chris, should we bench Luis Castile for the rest of April? What do you think?

He had a 182 ERA last April. Maybe all of May too. He had like a 350 ERA in May as well. Like I understand that this has been a thing for Luis Castillo. And look, there was, was it 2021 when he was just a mess for like half a season? He was just a disaster until June, basically. And if it might not have been 2021 in specific, but it was around then. And then he figured it out.

And so I, Luis Castillo has an extremely long track record of being one of the best pitchers in baseball. We have seen Luis Castillo struggle mightily at times and then turn it around and continue to be one of the best pitchers in baseball. So I understand the frustration. I don't think sitting him makes any sense. And I'm not seeing like the warning signs we're seeing with Zach Gallen. You know, it was just kind of a couple messy starts, you know, where the hits got kind of high. But for the most part, Louise Castillo looked like Louise Castillo. And I agree.

There's nothing I see to worry about here. I was mostly just being facetious with that question because I know some people panic about Castillo has been a slow starter. I don't want to downplay that. If you look at his ERA by month in his career, April and May are higher than the summer months. So he typically is someone who gets better as a season goes on, usually pinnepen is better and warmer weather. And, you know, it wasn't cold in Seattle,

but I guess it wasn't hot either. It was 63 degrees. So his fastball was down a little bit in terms of velocity. I have Luis Castillo in a few leagues. I'm not worried about it. By the way, I do want to go back to the Mike Trout discussion because I did just,

I was watching that game, but I didn't see that steal. So I wanted to check in. And it was borderline catchers indifference or defensive indifference. I don't know. I was watching that game. There was a runner on first and a runner on third.

It was a pitch up and in. The catcher pops out of his crass stance but doesn't throw. So Mike Trout just kind of jogs into second. It's a steal. It counts. I don't look, again, like we've been saying for years since he stopped running. Mike Trout is still more than athletic and fast enough to steal 50 bases if he wanted to.

like 96% on sprint speed last year. He is still one of the fastest couple dozen players in baseball. I just, I hope he runs more, but I'm still not counting on it. He did attempt to steal on the first pitch of the at bat as well,

which was a foul ball. Okay. It just looked like he got such a good jump. He didn't even need to slide into a second. He basically just jogged his way in there. You might be right. I mean, he might not steal another pace

for the rest of the season. Yeah, I mean, obviously the analysis wasn't totally based on. He stole a, base today. Yeah, right. He could steal. No, I just wanted to see what it looked like.

Sure, sure. All right, there is a lot of other things that happened on Tuesday. So we'll kind of move quickly through these next ones. Lots of like fringy, very deep league pitcher stuff here going on. Do any of these pitchers matter for fantasy? We'll just quickly go one pitcher at a time. We're trying to figure out of roster Garrett Crochet. Yeah, seriously.

Do any of these pitchers matter? Do, yeah. Someone like Alec Marsh, do they matter? Because he looked pretty good against the Orioles in Baltimore, seven innings, one run, five strikeouts, 10 swinging strikes on 76 pitches. He's only 5% rostered. Scott, does Alec Marsh matter for fantasy?

I think it could. He was impressive with the slider last year. That was about the only thing impressive in his line. But it was impressive enough that I kind of filed the name away, and then he had a good spring for the Royals and won the job. And now he has an awesome debut against a good lineup, awesome season debut, against a good Orioles lineup. And, you know, you break down the start.

Change of velocity was up. Sweeper velocity was down. It just, it seems like he's made efforts to refine his arsenal. Just like there seems like intentional changes going on here to make it all work together better. And on the heels of a good spring, bring in a good debut, you know, I think, I think it's reason to take note of Alec Marsh. it's hard to group him in with all these pitchers we're looking to add. I don't think he's on that level. But if you're in a deep enough league that those pitchers are out of your range anyway,

I think Alec Marsh is a little behind Louise Heel, I guess, in terms of my interest level and fantasy. Chris, you get Javier Assad, who had a great outing against the Rocky six shotout innings with five strikeouts in that one. He's 11% rostered. And if we're looking to beat the waiver wire for two-star pitchers, things could change. more about that on Friday. Scott has this whole pitching planner coming out, but it looks like Assad lines

up at the Padres at the Mariners next week. Yeah, I don't love the matchups at San Diego and at Seattle, although it's two good places to pitch. So in a points league, I think that's an interesting two-start streamer, but I don't expect too much from Javier Assad beyond that. I know we said we liked him as a streamer today and it worked out, but, you know, it's the Rockies on the road. So one of the better matchups possible in baseball right now. Nolan Jones is off to a rough start. They struck out three times today. I think he's up to 11 and 28 plate appearances.

Not great. Not great. It's early. Two errors on one play yesterday. Look at what Bryce Harper did today. It's early. Yep. Miles Michael has turned in a quality start at the Padre.

Six innings, two runs, four strikeouts in that one. He threw a new sweeper. eight times in this start. And 46% rostered. Looks like he will line up for the Phillies. And at the debacks next week, Scott does Miles Michaelis matter for fantasy. Oh, I'm not ready to put my faith in him after he burned so badly last year.

I mean, was a net negative for fantasy. Even with two starts. I mean, the first start this year didn't look very good. Okay, the second start was okay. Very hitable pitcher. He talked about throwing less strike. this year in spring training.

That was something Miles Michaelis brought up that maybe he was too much in the zone for being such a hitable pitcher. But, you know, that's... I'm not going to attribute a one good start to those changes or anything. It was an uneven start for Andrew Heaney at the Tampa Bay raise,

four and two-thirds innings, one earned run, three runs allowed total. But seven strikeouts, 18 swinging strikes. So you love to see that. Problem is the velocity was down quite a bit on all of his pitches. He's 25% rostered, and looks like he gets two starts, both against the Astros next week.

Yikes. Chris, does Andrew Heaney matter? No way I'd touch him in a Categories league where the ratios, especially facing a team two times in one week. You expect hitters to do better the more they face a pitcher. So even in a points league, I think I'd probably rather have Michaelis. I think I'd rather have Javier Assad for next week. Tyler Anderson had a great start at the Marlins. Scott, I mean, Chris, what's going on? Oh, and five?

I don't know why you're asking me. I didn't have any expectations for the Marlins. Come on, man. Seven shutout innings with five strikeouts for Tyler Anderson. He had 11 swinging strikes on 83 pitches. 10% rostered. Looks like he will get the raise and at the Red Sox next week. Scott, does this matter?

It could because Tyler Anderson was pretty good two years ago, but he was so bad last. year and I am highly skeptical. I'd put him in the same category as Miles Michaelis and that it would have to be a break glass

in case of emergency situation for me to invest in Tyler Anderson right now. Graham Ashcraft turned in a quality start at the Phillies, six innings, three runs. Two of those earned with five strikeouts and 12 swinging strikes on 85 pitches. He allowed

14 hard hits in this game. but he changes pitch mix. So I thought that was worth mentioning. He threw more sinkers. Sinkers in this start. Yeah, it was sinker, slider cutter for him. 28% rostered. Looks like he will get the Brewers.

And the White Sox next week, Chris does Ashcraft matter? All right. So we saw, I think, early last year that Graham Ashcraft can kind of luck his way into decent results. And obviously, versus Milwaukee at Chicago, White Sox is not a terrible set of two start. option so I use him ahead of Androhini but I am

no I'm not going to fall for grabbing Ashcraft again I do have a couple of insights here with Ashcraft that I think are worth bringing up since it was a good start not that he's a high priority ad for me or anything but just something to keep an eye on

so Ashcraft for most of his career has just been slider cutter he brought in a sinker in this start basically 33% across the board. He used it on equally to the slider and cutter. And it was basically the same velocity as the cutter. So now he has two pitchers with different movement

in the same velocity range. And it might add enough deception for Graham Ashcraft's very high velocity to be more effective. I think it would make him more of a pitch-to-contact guy than like a bat misser. So I don't know that the upside would be, especially high for Ashcraft, but could, I could see him mattering the most of the pitchers we've talked about here.

The last three pitchers on this list, Louis Varland was not great at the Brewers, but apparently threw a new curveball 17% of the time. Jacob Junis, solid Brewer's debut, four innings, one run, four strikeouts for him. And Spencer Turnbull, who now pitches for the Phillies, five innings, one unearned run, seven strikeouts to zero walks. He's currently filling in for Taiwan Walker, who's on the IL. Scott, do any of those names matter? Varland, Junis, Turnbull.

Not yet. I'm not completely dismissive of any of them, but I'm putting them behind like Alec Marsh in terms of my level of interest. I think the one I'd be most interested in is Louis Varland because I... He's already 42% rostered. Yeah, that's too much.

Yeah, that's too much. That's too much. But he's showing... interesting strikeout upside both last year in the majors and in his minor league career probably a bit too hitable considering. But I'm

yeah, I'm not interested yet but if this goes on for two or three more, I mean, Farland start wasn't even that good, but if this goes on for two or three starts for the other guys, then maybe we'll talk about picking them up at that point. Chris, do any of these hitters matter for fantasy? Brandon Marsh, three for four with his second

home run. He's off to a nice start. He's got two homers, one steal. He's only started three of five games, so I think just a strong side platoon for Brandon Marsh. Blaise Alexander, the opposite. Short side platoon for the debacks, but had a big game here, two for three with a walk, stolen base, RBI, and two runs scored, multiple hits in two of the three games that he's played so far. Some interesting minor league numbers as well. And Colton Couser, it feels like the obvious answer should be. Yes, of course he matters. He just made his first start, six games into the season. He went two for three with a double and an RBI.

I just don't think he's going to play enough unless an injury occurs here. Do any of these guys matter right now? Kouser, Blaze Alexander, Brandon Marsh. But it's like the man says, life finds a way. Does. And if you're going to add any of these guys outside of like an NL only league where I think Marsh and Alexander are going to play more, and you might just need immediate help.

But if you're looking for a speculative ad, it's clearly Kouser. because he's by far the most talented of this group, and it might just be a bad couple of weeks from Ryan O'Hern away from getting more playing time. Also, Blaze Alexander stole a base, so it's not just a clever name. We did get some big bouncebacks from Zach Eflin and Framber Valdez on Tuesday night.

Eflin against the Rangers, really tough matchup, six in a third innings, one run, five strikeouts for him. And last year, was mostly sinker, curve, and cutter. I feel like he just needs to kind of like get back to what works. And in his first starting through 24% sweepers, he said he didn't really have it much on that pitch.

And he lowered that tremendously in this start, threw more curve balls. Obviously, it looked like it worked. And Framber Valdez against the Blue Jays, 7 and 2 thirds, shutout innings with five strikeouts in this one, zero walks. That is the key for Framber Valdez, who walked six in his first start.

It's got anything to add on Valdez. or Eflin bouncebacks? Yeah, I'm relieved for Valdez because he was one of the pitchers who on opening day, his velocity was down the most. It was down like 1.5 miles per hour. It wasn't all the way back to last year,

but it was much closer to last year. So I think nothing to worry about here with Valdez. Anything on Eflin? No, I mean, like you said, the curveball usage, I gather he just doesn't have a great feel for that pitch yet because he hardly used it at all

at all on his first start. and it was up in this start, but still not where it was last year. And that's kind of his key pitch, Eflin. So on the right track, and reason to be encouraged. But I think there's even more improvement to come still for him. Some other pitching leftovers, Jose Burrios, back-to-back quality starts to open the season. He was at the Astros, six innings, one run, three walks, two strikeouts. Went a little bit more sinker heavy in this one.

I think that might explain the lack of strikeouts. Brian Beow got tagged for two home runs against the Oakland A's of all teams, but he had 17 swinging strikes on 87 pitches, so I thought that was noteworthy. You Darvish, quality start against the Cardinals, seven innings, three runs, six strikeouts,

with 16 swinging strikes on 82 pitches. Change his pitch makes, he's always tinkering, we know that, but he led with his splitter today, 26% usage and looked like a really, really good pitch for him. And Logan Webb, not great, against the

Dodgers. I knew I should have dropped that guy. Three and two-thirds innings, five runs, five strikeouts in this one. He gave up some hard contact. Looked like he had nothing with the change-up. Just one with 14% CSW on that pitch. Chris, anything notable on Logan Webb, Darvish, Beio, or Berrios? Yeah, some notable stuff on two of them, I think. Brian Beow did get hit a little hard in this one, 92.7 mile per hour average exit velocity on 15 balls in play. That is not great. But 17 whiffs on 87 pitches is very promising. And seven of them on the slider, that's potentially a big deal because he's been searching for a third pitch.

He worked with Pedro Martinez on the slider this offseason. And that's a pretty good result. Now, if you look at the, you know, the kind of strike zone map, of the slider, you can tell that the command is not there. There's a lot of letter high and belt high sliders on there. But

the fact that it played up pretty well getting the seven whiffs, even against a good match or a very bad lineup, I think it's a good sign. And then, yes, we're just I think we're just, well, it's the Dodgers in Logan Webb. And I think we're going to do that for a lot of pitchers

this year. His changeup got hit really, really hard. early on in this one. Yeah, but if you looked at it, he gave up four balls in play on his change-up. The average exit velocity on it was 104.1 miles per hour. I think the change-up just wasn't working today, and that's why he stopped throwing it.

And I don't think he's going to ditch it. I don't think the slider is going to be a 40% usage pitch for him. He got zero whiffs. The change-up is normally a pitch he throws. more than 40% at the time just to put it in. It is his primary pitch and Logan Webb, yeah, I don't think he had it because he threw it

less than 15. Yeah, he threw 15%. So he threw it like a third as often as he normally does. And so the slider, not getting any whiffs, that's not a great sign, but again, it's the Dodgers. They're probably just going to do this to

really good pitchers all year long. I think we're going to say that a lot this season. I do think the fact that the Dodgers have seen Logan Webb so much probably factored in as well. Maybe they just have a read on that change-up and they kind of knew it was coming and Logan Webb tried to adjust. It didn't work. And obviously that change-up got hit really hard.

So no, you should not drop him and no, I'm not worried about Logan Webb. So I'm hitting leftovers. As I mentioned earlier, patience. Big game for Bo Nailer. Two-for-four with his first home run, which came off Luis Casill, seemingly one of the better pitchers in baseball. It's not ideal that Bo Nailer is not playing against lefties, but I think he'll still be really good whenever he does play as a strong side platoon.

So, yeah, he's a catcher. Spencer Steer has multiple hits in four of his first five games. He went three for four with an RBI in this one. The Cubs had a huge game against the Rockies. They put up 12 runs. Sayas Suzuki, two for four with his first home run. 115 exit velocity, the hardest hit ball of his career. Let's go.

Cody Bellinger went two for four. five with his first homer. Christopher Marelle hit his second, and Garrett Cooper had a big game. Three for four with his first home run. He looks like he'll be starting against left-handed pitching for the Cubs. Marcel Ozuna, two for four, with a double dung in the blistering cold against the White Sox. Jose Al-Tuvae, two-for-three with a double and a home run.

Very narrowly missed a two-home run game as well for Al-Tuve. Jaron, two-for-three with his sixth steel. We mentioned that earlier. Luis Camp Busano off to a great start, three for four with a double. He's batting 400 early on. Victor Scott, not the best game on paper, one for four with a double and a run scored. He had two hard hits, 103.9 and 103.8. Exit velocity.

Thought it was notable. And again, patience. Evan Carter doesn't have a hit yet. He's over 15 to open the season. It's, you know, again. But he's got like a 380 on base person. He's got to walking. six walks at two strikeouts.

I do wonder if we'll get to a point where he has to be more aggressive. Maybe he's just being a little bit too passive here early on in the season and it's... I mean, he's not striking out. Normally you associate over passivity with too many strikeouts. So I would guess

the Rangers aren't complaining about what he's doing right now. But obviously he'll have to get some hits at some point and he will. He will. I'm not worried about Evan Carter. You know, it's good that we can run through a few hitters here. I've found hitters are very hard to analyze this early in the season, which is why so much of our focus has been pitchers.

Just the samples are so small to have any kind of takeaway for anything any hitter is doing. But I will comment that I'm encouraged by how much I'm seeing Marcelo Zuna pull the ball early on because when we see bad Marcelo Zuna, he's hitting a lot of balls to right center. He's hitting them hard, but in a spot where they can't go out of the park. He seems to be, he seems to be,

the trajectory of his fly balls seems to be where we want it to be for him to be. That's a lot of bees, for him to be who he was last year. Some bullpen notes for the Brewers with a one-run lead. Yoel Piaomps pitched a clean eighth inning. Abner Arebe got the ninth.

He walked one but picked up his third save. He's only 58% rostered on CBS. That feels like it should be closer to 100% as well. For the Royals, Will Smith got the ninth inning with a three-run lead. He struck out one for his first save. His fastball was down at three miles per hour. It feels like this isn't going to end well for Will Smith this season. But who knows?

Maybe he'll build that velocity up a little bit. I've noticed that most closers velocity is down a lot. like two, three, at least a mile per hour and a half. It's almost all of them. And so I think it's just they pitch so little in spring training. That's my guess anyway, that they're still kind of getting their arm strength up. Could be wrong about that. But it's a near universal phenomenon among closers.

One thing that helps Will Smith is I just, I don't know who it would be if not him. You know, like Nick Anderson's had that upside, but it's been. a while since he's shown it. James MacArthur, I don't think, really has the closer stuff. So I don't know. I guess John Schreiber has been a pretty good reliever in his career, but it doesn't have many saves. Only nine saves. Yeah.

I think Will Smith will get a decent leash. I know you just dropped him in Memorial Mag, Frank. So you're trying to make yourself feel better about that very tough decision. No, no, no, no. I dropped him for Jason Foley, Scott. So I don't regret that. decision. I know, but I'm sure he probably

was, you probably didn't want to drop Will Smith. Well, he wanted to drop Logan Webb. Yeah. He actually did drop Logan Webb. That was obviously a mistake, so I corrected it and he dropped Will Smith. Well, let the bidding begin.

Whoever wants Will Smith, he's all yours this weekend. For the Angels with Carlos Estevez unavailable, Luis Garcia, got the ninth inning with a three-run lead. He gave up a solo homer, but picked up his first save. For the White Sox, we got the entire Michael Kopec experience. He entered with

one out in the eighth inning. A one-run lead, runners on first and second, facing the heart of the Braves lineup. Doesn't get higher leverage than that. He walked Ozzy Albies, but then he got Austin Riley to ground into a double play. Kopeck then started the ninth inning, now with a two-run lead. He gave up a solo home run to Marcel Ozuna. He walked Michael Harris. He gave up a single. He eventually got out of it. He picked up his first save of the season. So there were some ups and downs, the velocity was up four miles per hour. He hit 100 miles per hour eight times in this outing. And he was a little wild, but overall, I was pretty impressed by it.

And I think it revealed that the White Sox see him as their high leverage reliever, which will translate to the majority of their saves for as long as they believe in Kopeck as their high leverage reliever, since it was shaky, you know. He can't have too many outings like this, but just goes. go even further. I go even further saying he's, he's the white socks reliever to own. Yeah.

Command was real shaky for him, but I think he's someone who, what's his roster rate at at 34%. That should probably be closer to where Abner Uribe's is. And Abner Uribe should probably be closer to 100%. That's fair. For the Astros, Josh Hader got the ninth inning with a one-run lead. He gave up a two-run homer to Davis Schneider,

took the blown save and his second loss. For the Blue Jays on the other side, Yimi Garcia entered in the seventh inning down one run. Then Tim Mesa recorded two outs in the eighth. Chad Green got the final four outs of the game, which translated to a win, not a save because they took the lead in the ninth inning. For the Cardinals, Ryan Helsley, got the ninth with a three-run lead. He gave up a hit, struck out two for his first save.

For the A's, Mason Miller got the ninth and the tenth in the tenth in the 10th innings in that game with the game tied. He struck out four. He looked amazing. I think, what did you say, Chris, beforehand? 11 swinging strikes on 28 pitches. Yeah, it's just bonkers stuff. 14 swings, 11 whiffs for Mason Miller.

He's... So good. I think he's going to be one of the best relievers in baseball and might only get like 18 saves. If that. For the Dodgers, I'm seeing now, Evan Phillips got the final four outs, two strikeouts for his third save of the season.

So good for him. And we will wrap up with to stream or not to stream on Wednesday. not many options, but I think yesterday we said Puck, Logan, Allen, Jose Cantana? I believe that is who we said. I said Paddock. Yeah, you did say Paddock.

Yeah, I'd take Paddock over Kentana too. But my favorite of those is Puck, and yet in a typical league, I would rather not start Puck. So that kind of tells you what this streamer segment is all about. On Thursday, I believe we have a four, game slate. That's annoying. Does that include the Mets game from today?

Let's see. That game's being play. Yeah, there's five games. So maybe we'll get a rain out tomorrow. Five games on Thursday. So Scott will have a little fun on Thursday to come up with some creative segments or whatever. But among those pitchers, I don't know.

There's Martin Perez at the Nationals, Josiah Gray versus the Pirates. Ryan Weather is at the Cardinals. Lance Lynn The Marlins look so bad right now that if I had to start one it's Lance Lynn against the Marlins Soroka at the Royals I don't know

If I had to pick a second I'd actually say his opponent Ryan Weathers at St. Louis I didn't It wasn't a great start But I saw some positive signs Within it for Ryan Weathers And I think there's a chance

Where we're back to hyping him Uh heading into the weekend All right, we're going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.