Fantasy Baseball Today - Emmet Sheehan's Return, Would You Rather & Rankings Questions! (6/19 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Emmet Sheehan made his return and looked good (3:02)! ... Time to drop Taj Bradley (9:18)? ... Nick Kurtz is finding his groove (11:49). ... Is Chris Sale a Hall of Famer (15:30)? ... News (21:17): it's confirmed that Cole Ragans has a rotator cuff strain. ... Stash Chase Burns over Bubba Chandler (27:42)? ... Let's do a little waiver wire 'Would You Rather' (31:47)! ... Any interest in these deep-league waiver wire pitchers (39:25)? ... Let's talk rankings questions regarding Maikel Garcia, Ranger Suarez and others (41:25). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (58:31). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow FBT on TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CBSScottWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@Roto_Frank⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join our Facebook group at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hello, welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, June 19th. I am Frank Stample, joined by Scott White, and a hairless Chris Towers.

Well, it's back. Not hairless. Kind of. I've got a bunch of hair. On the top of your head. It's not on the top of my head anymore. Yeah, no, it's great. The little promo video pictures we use for the YouTube thumbnails will be accurate again after two years of growing my hair.

You know, I just, this is not a joke. Haircuts are just really expensive in New York City. And I just got tired of paying like $90 a month after tip for. haircuts. And so this is this is what I'm doing. You know what? Perfect timing because it is heating up here in the Northeast. Today on the show, I spent all day updating my rankings and thus I have questions. We will talk about it. Emmett Sheehan made his return. We'll do a little waiver wire, would you rather? And much more. Let's jump in. All right, let's start with Scott. Player of the Night. My Player of the Night is Emmett Sheehan, who made his return for the

Dodgers, very good team, very good supporting cast after missing all of last year, Imich Ghan, recovering from Tommy John's surgery. And he looked great. He looked about as good as anybody could have hoped for. Only lasted four innings, but that's, that wasn't unexpected. Allow just one earn run, struck out six, walked none, and had 10 swinging strikes on 65 pitches, which comes out to a 15.4% swinging strike rate. Very good. And that's the number I want to focus on for Emmett Sheehan because I don't know how many people even remember him.

His rookie season was 2023. That's when he made his debut. He wasn't up for the whole season. He, it went kind of, it was kind of rocky, a rocky start for him. He got sent back down for a while. but during his time in the minors in 2023, Emmett Sheehan had a 19.2% swinging strike rate. And to put that in perspective, the current major league leader in swinging strike rate among starting pitchers, Terrick Scoobel, 17.2%. Remember 19.2 is what we're comparing it to.

17.2% scubel is the leader right now. Last year, the leader was Logan Gilbert at 14.9%. And the all-time leader, for as long as FanGraphs has this stag, going back to 2002, Spencer Strider in 2023, 18.9%. So she had swinging strike rate in the minors two years ago, 19.2% higher than any starting pitcher has ever done on record. Now, minors to majors, apples to oranges, right? Well, what you may not remember about Sheehan's rookie season is after that stint to kind of get things right in the minors. He came back in September, made five appearances, his swinging strike rate, and those five appearances back in the majors, 19.7%. basically what it was during his time in the minors.

And by the way, his rehab stint recovering from Tommy John surgery, 22% swinging strike rate. So this guy, this image Sheehan, is a next level bat misser, any way you look at it. And to see him come back and miss bats like this, I think is a very good sign to throw 66% of his pitches for strikes. no walks coming back from Tommy John surgery. Very good sign. One thing that changed for him during that impressive September stint two years ago, he stopped leaning on his fastball so much,

started working in the secondaries more, slide or change up. He continued with that approach. So he remembered those lessons learned from September two years ago and continued it here. So I know we haven't talked about him that Sheehan a lot since he suffered the injury, but for all the the bumpy rides we've gotten from pitchers coming back from elbow surgery from Spencer Strider and Sandy Alcantra and Yuri Perez,

wouldn't it be funny if Emmett Sheehan is the one who just hits the ground running and just is great from the start. I mean, this first start back, you know, a good first step. And I would say he needs to be picked up everywhere based on that. I could see in some 12-team points. leagues where you know you're only rostering 250 players just not having room for him i could see that but yeah no i agree pretty much everywhere it's a 40% strikeout rate in september of twenty twenty three while working primarily as a starter he made one appearance as a reliever i

think he threw three innings in that one struck out five um we just didn't talk about him much because he was like ninth on the depth chart coming into the season we just didn't it seemed like a lot would have to go wrong for M at Sheehan to matter. And a lot goes wrong for Dodgers pitchers over the course of the season. So yeah, I'm very excited about it. The fastball shape looked really good. He added a couple inches of induced vertical break on that. The change-up was different.

It was harder and had less movement. So that'll be interesting to see how that pitch plays moving forward. But on the whole, an incredibly encouraging first start for. Emishiehan. Yeah, we know among the most added pitchers right now, Jacob Mizirowski's up at the top, he's all the way up to 91% rostered, and then there hasn't really been much that has emerged.

We've talked lately about Jose Soriano and Lucas Gialito and Brian Beow and, you know, those guys are okay, but would you put MHG Han at the top of the list, even ahead of the names I just mentioned? I think I'm ahead of all of them, yeah. Were you including Mizorowski? No, no, no, no. Okay, that would be the one

that I don't even know that I absolutely won it, but it would be a close call between those two. I think I'd give Mizorowski to edge just because there's a little more attention on them right now. And looking at the like chat, someone asked Yuri Perez or Emishiham, I wouldn't drop Yuri Perez for him. I would hope you have someone less interesting.

Mick Abel or Emmett Sheehan, I think that's actually a fairly easy call. I'd rather have Emishin. Agree. Yeah. Now, it's worth noting, Mick Abel also had one very good start. So it's possible that Emishiehan comes out the next three starts and disappoints and we're, yeah, where we end up where we are with, but that hasn't happened yet with him.

My enthusiasm is just as much the history. I mean, yeah, I mentioned we haven't talked about him much since he got injured. We did talk about him a lot before then. He was a very trendy breakout pick before he got hurt leading into 2024. Well, here's the name. Would you guys drop Taj Bradley for Emmett Sheehan? Yes. And Chris, that's your that's your introduction. I just think he's not very good. I like the stuff when he came up was really good and then the results were really iffy. And it was like, well, man, if he ever just figures it out. And now I just don't know if the stuff is even good. If you look at all the various stuff metrics on fan graphs, every single pitch has declined over the last two years.

The overall stuff looks pretty average, which is surprising because Bradley seemed like a big stuff guy when he got called up, and it was the command that was bad. Well, now it's the stuff looks pretty mediocre, and the command is still bad for Tos Bradley, which leads to a 435 ERA coming into this start. He gave up, what, seven runs in one and two-thirds innings today?

So that's going to go way up. I there will be good Todge Bradley starts. He has at least one, possibly two 10 strikeout games this season. He's got that kind of upside. Yeah, it was three starts ago. He struck out 10 on June 1st. Since then, he's given up 17 runs in nine and a third innings. Only 13 of those are earned, though.

So, you know, let's give him some credit there. I just don't really have much faith that the. Taj Bradley upside is really even worth chasing anymore. Entering this start, he did have a 350 XERA, but the other peripherals don't look as good. It's a 462 FIP here. His swinging strike rate is down almost three percentage points here over year. That seems pretty consistent with the race pitchers right now,

aside from Pepio, who has obviously turned things around and is getting whiffs on his fastball again. But yeah, I mostly agree. Tosh Bradley at 82% rostered. He is in line for two starts next week at the Royal. at the Orioles, and on paper, those matchups are pretty good. But how can you have any confidence using Tage Bradley right now? You can't.

Yep. I could see doing it with those matchups in a points league, but it's not like it's a must. It's, it's, man, I don't have any good pitchers going this week. I need to get some extra volume and hope to get a little bit lucky. Yeah. And Scott, are you all right with that dropping Todge Bradley for M.S.E. Yeah, I mean, I had him as a bust coming in,

so I'm not going to argue against myself when it looks like he's busting. All right, my player of the night is Nick Kurtz, who very late in that final game, hit another home run, three for four with his eighth home run of the season, and now has seven home runs in his past 13 games dating back to before the injury.

And overall, he's up to an 801 OPS, 252 batting average. The stack cast data is awesome. Nick Kurtz is crushing the ball. He has started 10 of the past 12 games against left-handed pitching. mind you, he hasn't been very good. He's like two for 25 against lefties on the season,

but they're at least giving him a chance to play, and he's playing every day. So at 74% roster, I know I brought up Nick Kurtz just the other day. I think in any shaller leagues where he's available, I think I'm at the point where, and the rankings don't reflect this, but another good game.

I think I would drop Christian Walker for Nick Kurtz, just straight up. My rankings do reflect it. I would do the same. Yeah. I'm not there yet, but I can't argue against it. Yeah, and I know first base has been such a good position, and, you know, Iran is still hitting well,

and Michael Bush has turned things on, and, you know, Caglione hasn't hit, but the underlying numbers look really, really good for Caglione so far. So I understand it's a tough position right now, but Nick Kurt's 74% rostered. If you were hanging on to Reese Hoskins, if you had Christian Walker, I would drop those names for,

for Nick Kurtz. It just, it feels like he needs to be more rostered than 74%. He's going to blow up. I'm confident. Like, I'm confident in the profile. I'm confident,

uh, all the more confident because of how he performed in what his 40 minor league games. It just zoomed through the entire system and made it look too easy. What we've seen in the last at this point, it's like four or five years is that, uh, most hitter callups, even the most high end ones.

have about a two-month adjustment period, and then they take off. So Kurtz came up April 23rd. He did have an IL stint that cost him a couple weeks, but basically we're coming really close to that two-month point now. And it wouldn't surprise me if he just turned into a must-start player from this point forward. Let me give you one more name, Scott. Would you drop Paul Goldschmidt, who we know playing time is a little? little if you right now, would you drop him for Nick Kurtz?

I mean, that would be the only reason because it's hard to think along with Aaron Boone, what's going on there with basically every Yankees hitter other than Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpey and jazz Chisholm. So I do think there's more upside for Kurtz. And with him being hot right now, he feels more useful. in the immediate term in the sort of leagues where you could even think about just dropping Goldschmidt

where you could even think about picking up Kurtz because he's already rostered. Yeah, I don't have a problem with it. I know I rank Goldschmidt ahead of Kurtz right now, but rankings can't be everything to every format.

So speaking to that shallower format, I think that's fine. Scott, you put the words Aaron Boone and thinking in the same sentence doesn't happen often. There's not a lot of thinking that goes on. You're down on Aaron Boone. I've been down on Aaron Boone for years.

For years. Oh, gosh, it's, well, look, it's, it's, it's, they're going through it right now. It's, uh, six losses in a row, but, uh, some questionable decisions. We'll save that for another day. Shout out to Chris Sale, who came within one out of a shutout against the Mets, eight and two thirds. Innings here, uh, five hits, one, uh, one walk, seven strikeouts with 13 whiffs in this one. And he's got a quality start in eight of his last nine.

During that nine-star stretch for Chris Sale, it's a 118-ERA, a 0.97 whip, 78 strikeouts over 61 innings. Not really much for us to say here. I think we all rank him as like a top five or six starting pitcher. He's been awesome. There was just that stretch through like the first, what, five or six starts where he really didn't look very good. And we told everyone to buy. Yeah. And clearly that was the right call.

And I don't think any of us really had any concern about it. So, yeah, he looks phenomenal. This was very much in doubt two years ago. I think Chris Sails probably headed for the Hall of Fame. That was my next question. Yeah. Yeah. I think he probably is.

I mean, he could get hurt tomorrow and never be the same afterward, and maybe that he'd fall a little short in that case. But the way this season is shaping up, I mean, particularly, I'm not saying he's the Cy Young front runner now, but with the half season plus, left to go. If he continues on this pace, he'll definitely be in the discussion. And it's not unthinkable he could win a second consecutive Sigh-Young.

So, yeah, I think that would come close to clinching it for him. I'm pretty sure he has the highest strikeout-to-walk ratio in Major League history for a starting pitcher. I think it's only like Mariana Rivera ahead of him among all pitchers. he has the highest strikeout rate of any pitcher over the past 50 seasons, 31% for his career. I think he has the highest strikeout minus walk ratio. I actually don't think there's much question that Chris sales a Hall of Famer. The counting stats and the volume is going to be iffy, but.

Yeah. You got to think about voter tendencies. And just looking at the war, I think it would fall short for most people. But it's getting up there now. Here are the two pitchers with a lower ERA over the past 50 seasons than Chris Sale. There's only two of them, by the way. 1,500 innings. Pedro Martinez and Clayton Kirchall.

Yeah, I figured Pedro was one of them. That's probably a Hall of Famer, you know? And I think the threshold for what a Hall of Fame pitcher moving forward is going to have to change, obviously, just because the depth of injuries and, you know, the way things have trended for pitchers over the past couple years. Like, I think Jacob de Grom is going to have a case, but, you know, people might argue against that just because it's a lack of longevity.

But, yeah, I do think that we'll have to change a little bit here. How fast will it change is the question? Because I know Chris, you've argued before Johann Santana should be in the Hall of Fame. And he was as candid as he was one and done. Yeah. I think it's going to be after like the Scherzer Verlander-Kershaw group. After that, I think it's going to have to start to change a little bit. but he's also 23rd in war over the last 50 seasons too so like sale yeah like he's not

he's ahead of jack morris who got in well well like i think he got in with an asterisk how how many we're probably spending too much time on this but i love talking about the hall of fame yes we are how many votes did uh did felix get did he fall off the ballot i'm pretty sure he fell off. No, he got 21%. I thought he stayed on. I think Sale and Felix have a pretty similar argument. I think sale was more dominant. If sale retired right now, you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. I think sale has a better argument than Felix, but I'm happy Felix stayed on the ballot. I kind of thought he deserved to. Before we hit our first break, just a reminder that you can listen to FBT and FBT Express on Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube, you can scan that QR code in the top right

corner that will take you right to the FBT Spotify feed. And big thanks to those watching us live. Make sure to hit the like button and subscribe on YouTube as well. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. News and Notes, a second opinion confirmed that Cole Reagan's has a rotator cuff strain in his left shoulder. He'll stay shut down for two more weeks before reevaluation and just kind of ambiguous.

We don't know what's going to happen here, but obviously it's a pretty, serious injury for Cole Regans. Padres manager, Mike Schilt, told the reporter... It is like probably the best we could have hoped for. Yes, I agree with that. So I don't want to put too negative a spin on it. He could be back in six weeks, theoretically. I think the best case scenario would be probably around six weeks.

The best case scenario for a bad injury. Yeah, I mean, he could come back in six weeks. We already got a rotator cuff strain. But yeah, this was the, for having a rotator cuff strain, this is the best diagnosis we could hope for. And look, he could suffer setback after setback, never pet you again this season. Like it's not a done deal,

but just the outlook today is rosier for Cole Reagan's than it was yesterday, I would say. Padres manager, Mike Schilt, told reporters Michael King will be out through next month's All-Star break. He is on the I-O with a pinched nerve in his shoulder. Astros GM, Dana Brown, said Yoron Alvarez is experiencing a quote day-to-day thing, he feels a lot better.

Don't really know what that means. They also said Alvarez still isn't swinging a bat. I have no idea what this update was, but Astros are not beating the, they're doing it again, allegations, because I feel like this is exactly what it was with Kyle Tucker, where they just refuse to give any kind of clarity publicly.

And maybe it's true that he's day-to-day, and tomorrow he'll feel, fine and start swinging. But I have no idea, one, why we would assume that or two, why we would trust that they're being honest about this when they, when it doesn't seem like they have been with the two big injuries over the past year. Bryce Harper has improved strength and range of motion in his wrist and is getting close to throwing. Alex Breggman went through some scheduled testing on Wednesday to see where his strength is at. And I didn't see any updates on this. So hopefully we get one on Thursday. It's sounding.

like he's going to come back a lot sooner than initially suspected. He's talked about how he's progressing much faster than that same injury he had a couple years ago, and he is hoping he doesn't even have to do a rehab assignment. So that sounds like he is getting close to feeling like he's ready to push to return. I know that was kind of a word salad, but yeah, that's where it's at. Shane McClainahan received, quote, very good news from a nerve specialist this week, should resume throwing off a mound soon. Luke Weaver could skip a rehab assignment

and rejoin the Yankees later this week. He is 72% rostered. Any guess as to who will close for the Yankees? I honestly have no read on it. I watch them every day. I think it's a complete guess. There was a clip from Aaron Boone talking about Devin Williams

and he was very complimentary of him and the work he's done in the closer's role and didn't sound like they were itching to move him out of the role, at least. So I think this could be, honestly, I think it could go anyway. And I might put it at like 33% chance Williams is the closer, 33% chance, Weaver is the closer, 33% chance. They just split it. I'm going to give Williams two to one odds that he just retains it because that's what they wanted him. That's what they acquired him to do.

And he's doing it fine now. So that's my guess. Well, we don't know if he's doing it fine, Scott. The Yankees can't win a game. So we don't know. Brian Reynolds was placed on the paternity list, which means he'll miss one to three games. Max Scherzorz recorded eight strikeouts

over four and a third shutout innings in his second rehab start on Wednesday. He built up to 75 pitches and could rejoin the Blue Jays next week, it sounds like. And I still think the talent is there. I just have no idea how long his body will hold up. Yep. this thumb issue is kind of the genesis of all the issues he's had.

It all emanates from the thumb and he just can't seem to get past it. And I don't know that he ever will at his age. So I want to make a huge investment in Scherzer. He probably needs to be rostered. I wouldn't pick him up over Sheehan or anything. But if you have a spot to pick up an extra pitcher, Scher isn't a bad way to but keep your expectations low. Gabriel Moreno has missed three straight with a sore right hand.

Josh Smith has missed two straight with a minor left hamstring strain. They're hopeful that he'll avoid the IL. A couple of Rangers pitcher updates. Cody Bradford could be ready to return by early July, while John Gray could be back in late July. Max Meyer is set to visit a hip specialist. He's missed most of June with a left hip impingement. Michael McGreevy will be called up to start game two of the Cardinals doubleheader

on Thursday. And he's pitched pretty well here at AAA this season. 12% rostered, a name to watch there in Michael McGreevy. Not really news, but just wanted to give a shout out here. The Rays were down 8 Zip in the second inning. They came back to win 12-8, and they are now just one and a half games behind the Yankees. They were led by Junior Camerro,

who went 4-4-5 with two runs and 2 RBI. Cominero. Jonathan Ironda went 3-5. actually started against the lefty, had two RBI in that game as well. Brandon Lau came up as a pinch hitter, hit a two-run homer to tie the game at eight. That happened in the fifth inning, and then obviously they went on to tack on four more runs there and win the game, and I saw this via Opta stats on Twitter. There have been over 450 instances in the modern era of an MLB team allowing eight plus

runs in an inning to open the game scoring. Only one of those teams allowed no runs or hits the rest of the way and came back to win. That one team is the Tampa Bay raise in this game. So boom. How about that? They are streaking right now. Shout out to them. Some prospect updates here, and we will do prospects to stash on our FBT Express, so make sure to check that out as well.

The hype continues to grow for Red's top prospect Chase Burns, who struck out seven over seven innings of one-run ball at AAA. He is 61% rostered. and it feels like he has, and rightfully so, supplanted Bubba Chandler at the top who has struggled here in June. Yeah, I don't know that Bubba Chandler deserves a promotion at this point with the way his control has slipped. And Chase Burns, meanwhile, he's making a B-line for the majors because it doesn't seem like the minors can hold him.

He's kind of the pitcher version of Nick Kurtz from last year's draft class. He just hasn't been challenged. And the thing I like is he's thrown, I think, 69 innings this season, something around there. He threw 100 last year. So he could throw another 70 innings this season and probably be okay. I mean, you know, obviously as okay as any pitcher will ever be. But I don't think there's like some looming shutdown threat for Chase Burns. So I kind of think they should just call him up pretty soon.

I guess they probably just once waited. Miley implodes, which seems inevitable, then there will be a Chase Burns-sized hole in their rotation. Yeah, I didn't realize the Reds have played pretty good ball. I mean, they're four games over 500. Yeah. They're half a game out of a wild card spot right now. And look, if you get Hunter Green back, if you call up Chase Burns,

it's kind of a scary rotation in the postseason, right, for a little wild card series there. So, man, Hunter Green, Chase Burns. that's a lot of fun there. Burns 61% rostered, so please go out. Add him for now. He's obviously like the top prospect to Stash. Would you guys rather pick up Emmett Sheehan or just Stash Chase Burns hoping?

I mean, I think he could be up as soon as like July 1st. So the one thing that we do have to mention about Sheehan is just the next few starts are probably still going to be pretty short. He only threw 65 pitches in this one, four innings. I would guess we're not going to see any hundred. pitch starts for Emmett Sheehan anytime soon. So it's probably going to be more like July before he's someone you feel really good about starting. I think he's a two-star pitcher next week.

And so that does change it a little bit, especially in Roto leagues. But like, I think there's very little chance you're going to get any quality starts out of MS. Sheehan anytime soon. So it's entirely possible that both Chase Burns and Emmett Sheehan are two weeks away from really being starting caliber fantasy options. And I do think Chase Burns is more talented. So I wouldn't prioritize Burns over Sheehan

just because Sheehan's already in the rotation and we don't know when Burns is going to be up. But I wouldn't feel good dropping Burns for Sheehan. It's entirely possible that the Reds are satisfied enough with their rotation, don't feel like they're going to make a strong push for the playoffs, wait until late August to promote Burns so that they preserve his rookie eligibility for next year

and could potentially recoup draft picks from that. So we don't really know. It is more of a hope than a true projection that Burns gets called up. But wait, Marley, is their number five starting right now. Yeah, no, I get you, but they have other, they have other pitchers they could use to if they were purposely delaying Burns,

which, you know, wouldn't be unthinkable. So I would say Sheehan, look, nobody, if you're in one of the 39% of Leaves where Burns is still unrastered, you could try to let that play out longer. Sheehan might continue to accumulate value in the meantime. So I would lean toward Sheehan. All right, Weaver Wire, Would You Rather? Let's begin with Colton Couser, who went one for three with a sock in a shoe, fifth home run and his first stolen base of the season.

In 12 games since returning, he's hitting 2.14 with four homers, one steal, 39% strikeout rate for Kouser. And Addison Barger, 3 for 4 with two doubles and a walk. He's hitting 275 with an 850 OPS. The data looks awesome here. You might want to use Barger as a third baseman, but they both have outfield eligibility. Would you rather, Barger or Colton Couser?

let's not forget Hunter Green will rejoin the Reds rotation at some point too at some point yeah um I would rather have Barger barger's yeah barger's incredible look you don't have this number in the notes so I'm going to share it addison barger last 37 games which I mark is about the time he became a full-time player 37 games 313 batting average eight home runs the OPS is like 940 during that time. And that's incredible, obviously.

And the stat cast data suggests he should be pretty incredible. So I think Barger is being slept on, especially since he has third base eligibility. I am surprised the roster rates as low as it is. Yeah, 60% for Addison Barger. And looks like he has started five of the past eight games against left-handed pitching. And he's been okay this season, eight for 29, 276 batting average. 723 OPS, so hopefully keeps getting more opportunities to play every day there. That is Addison Barger.

What if I throw Cam Smith in this mix? Now, Chris and I both shared our thoughts about this yesterday. Chris said Cam Smith. I said Addison Barger. Scott, you are here to break the tie. He's going to say Addison Barger. Cam Smith, who just had three more hits. He had a multi-holmer game.

The batting average is all the way up to 276. The OPS is climbing 771. Would you go Barger or Cam Smith? I would go Barger because I think he is that impressive. I don't mean that as a slight to Smith. It's possible Smith. It's been more like three months that he's had in the majors than the two-month window I referred to earlier. But it's possible he's starting to find his footing and is going to deliver up to his potential now.

But I think Barger is already doing it. And it's hard. it would be hard for Cam Smith to be much better than that, frankly. So yeah, I'm going, Barger. All right, let's move on to the next one. The Battle of the Sox. We got Marcelo Meyer and Trevor Story.

Meyer hit his fourth home run. You know, bat at ball date actually looks great here for Marcelo Meyer. I didn't realize he was hitting it that hard, but it does come with a lot of ground balls and not playing against lefties. Trevor Story, solid April, awful May, and he's having a pretty strong June here.

283, batting average, three home runs, 15 RBI, two steals, 828 OPS. Would you guys rather Marcela Meyer or Trevor's story? I guess story. I don't really buy it at all. I guess, okay, it depends on what you're asking. Do I need a starter right now? Or do I need, am I just stashing my bench and picking the highest upside player?

If it's the latter, it's pretty clearly. Meyer. If I need a starter right now, Story's hot, he plays every day, clearly more useful than Meyer right now. Sure. Yeah. And I think neither are useful in a points league right now. Meyer striking out 31% of the time.

So these are just names for Roto, maybe some daily category league, something like that. And last one, we have a triple threat match for a corner infield spot. Nolan Shannon Shannual, quietly hitting well, hit his fifth home run here, narrowly miss a second home run in this game. And in June, he's hitting 297 with two home runs, two steals in 844 OPS.

Michael Tolio, he's back. Three home runs in his past two games. He has at least one hit in each of three games since returning. And Brady House, who recently got called up by the Nationals, back-to-back multi-hit games. He went two-for-four with his first steal. He had two hard hits in this game. One of those was 107.9 exit velocity and hit very well at AAA this season.

So who would you guys choose from this mix? Daniel, Michael Tolia, Brady House? I think it's got to be Tolia. Yeah. Just because the impact potential is the highest. It is a very frustrating profile because if you chase the production, you're very likely to get burned.

But, you know, so like Jake Berger or, I don't know that Christian and Carnaccio on Strand is quite there yet, but even like Brandon Lau to an extent, it's that boomer bust power profile where he could carry you when he's hot and he will absolutely sink you when he's not. But it seems like he fixed something during that stint in the miners, Michael Toley,

and he's come back hot, obviously, and we saw him perform at like a 32 homer pace in the second half last year. So we know the power's there. I think at some point it's all going to crash again just because that's the profile. But right now and, and just the overall impact possible,

Tolia seems like the best choice of these three. Chris, do you agree? Of course I do. That's your guy, Michael Tolia. All right, I am interested to see what Brady House can do. Obviously, he was facing Rockies pitching for this series, so a very nice landing spot for him, but we'll see if he can keep this up here with the Nationals.

Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll quickly run through some deeper, Waverwire pitchers, and I've got some rankings questions for the guys. We'll do all that right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today. Let's talk some Waverwire pitchers, and outside of Emmett Sheehan, pretty light night here on this side. Ryan Yarbrough, solid outing against the Angels 5 in a third, two runs with three strikeouts here. He had a terrible start against the Red Sox a couple times out ago, but he has two run runs or fewer in each of his other seven starts. So it's been solid for the Yankees. Parker, a tough luck loss against the Rocky, six innings, one run, eight strikeouts. Chris,

you can add another one, another quality start against the Rockies here. We're up to like 65% now. And Eric Lauer, that's right, he's back. And now he's pitching for the Blue Jays. Solid start here against the debacks, five innings, one run, eight strikeouts, had 12 whiffs on 75 pitches, his first time completing five innings this season. And, you know, last time he was fantasy relevant was 22 with the Brewers. pitched in the KBO last year. Did not work out very well,

but he's back. He's doing some things. He looks all right. Some deep league names. Any interest in Yarbrough, Mitchell Parker, or Eric Lauer? Only under duress. All right.

Is that it? Chris? Anything? I, I, no. No, I'm just looking up Colorado Rockies' stats. for starting pitchers. That's 334 ERA, 710, 710 strikeouts, and 657 innings of work so far this season.

You can basically start anyone against the Colorado Rockies, man. Yeah. And you really do mean that because entering this start, Mitchell Parker's previous nine, he had a 750 ERA and a 167 whip and still managed to have a great start against the Rockies. So there you go. Ryan Yarbrough, by the way, might be. a two-star pitcher next week. Same with Eric Lauer. I guess we'll have to wait till tomorrow to find out if they are on Scott's Sleeper Pitchers list for next week. Let's get into some rankings

questions. Mikel Garcia continued his breakout season, three for four, with his eighth home run, added four RBI. He is hitting 318. He's got an 877 OPS, eight homers, 15 steals, and he entered Wednesday as the 56th overall player in Roto, averaging three fantasy points per game. Now it has shortstop eligibility as well.

So I threw him in there as my 13th shortstop. And I wanted to ask you guys, where did you put or plan to put Michael Garcia in the shortstop ranks? He's 15 for me, so not far. He's right behind Danes Bueswanson and Brendan Donovan. If you wanted to take him ahead of those guys, I think that's perfectly reasonable.

They're all 100% rostered, so that's not really a decision that you have to make. I guess the quadruple, now for Michael Garcia, six tuple if you include a corner and middle. That could be enough of a tiebreaker. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how did he get shortstop eligibility

if they have Bobby Witt, unless they've been playing Bobby Witt at D.H. Sometimes, I guess. Yeah, I'll be honest, I had not noticed this. I didn't notice either, and then someone asked me about it on Twitter. Yeah. And I realized, oh, it's, yeah.

Michael Garcia has shortstop eligibility, so I put them in the rankings, but I don't really know how that works out because there are a couple other players that need that DH spot for the Royals as well. So pretty interesting one there. Do you guys buy what Michael Garcia is doing in just this breakout has lasted nearly three months now? Just to shed some light on the position thing, because sometimes people misstate it. It's not five starts to gain eligibility.

It's five appearances. So he could have shifted over there in a blowout scenario. a few times and gotten it that way. Fair enough. As for whether or not I buy into Mike L. Garcia, pretty much, yeah. I mean, I don't think he's going to hit 318 necessarily all year,

but his expected batting average is in, I believe it's the 86th percent of it. Yeah, it's high. And the strikeout rate is down, not that it was ever bad. The pole error rate is up, not that it was ever good, but both are trending the right direction so you can understand the improvement there.

And he's a speed source. And yeah, I just, I wouldn't rank him 14th at shortstop if I didn't think he could come close to sustaining this. To a certain extent, we're seeing some of what we saw last season from Michael Garcia, where early on the quality of contact data was really, really good. And it's just slowly gotten worse over the course of the season to the point where his most recent 100 plate appearances, the ex-Woba is 3-11. For the season, it's 3-4. So that's the one thing that is keeping me from fully buying into what Michael Garcia is doing.

But I think he's clearly good. Yeah. It's just, is he this good? He is overperforming his ex-slug by quite a bit. So perhaps the power pace comes back a little bit. But the ability to hit for batting average and speed, I think that part of his game is pretty legit. Let's talk about Ranger Suarez,

who continues to dominate this time at the Marlins, seven innings one run. Eight strikeouts had 13 whiffs on 95 pitches. He allowed seven earned runs in his first start back on May 4th. He has turned in eight straight quality starts since, and he has gone seven innings in three straight. It's a 220 ERA, a 105 whip. I've been trying to find any excuse to move any pitcher inside my top 40.

Like, who is worthy of being inside the top 40? And I move Rangers 4 as all the way up to SP 37. I think I'm pretty clearly the high guy right now, but... I'm not far off. I had him at 40 in my update today. And in looking at it, like, there's a... He's kind of just right behind a bunch of injured guys. So, like, moving him up to like 33, 34 wouldn't be that tough.

And then you start comparing him to like, I've got this group of Tanner Bybee, Luis Castillo, and Kevin Gosman who are all fine, but not really great anymore. It wouldn't take much to move him above those guys. And then, yeah. Yeah, I don't think he's far off from being top 30. Yeah. Yeah, he's not. I have him 43rd, but, you know, Senga, Snell, King, Glass now are all ahead of him. So if you'd rather put them behind him, it becomes.

39. And, you know, Ranger Suarez isn't necessarily worse than Luis Casti or Kevin Gosman or some other names Chris mentioned. So I think we've been down this road with Suarez a couple times before, both last year

and the first year he moved from the bullpen to the rotation for the Phillies where he had a stretch like this with like an impossibly low ERA. and that exact mark for Ranger Suarez. He's like a 190 ERA or something? 117. Yeah. And his last eight starts.

So he's had a couple stretches like that. And then it always ends. And so I just, I expect it to end again. He's not this good. We know that. He's probably low to mid three ZRA good with less than a strikeout per inning. Kind of a worse control.

I don't know. no that that comparison doesn't work so scratch that i just i think he's i think he's pretty good um but i don't want to rank him according to his hottest which we're in danger of doing right now yeah yeah he's he's really good his margin for error seems a lot slimmer than other pitchers whose highs are as good right like he can pitch like max freed for a while it's just max free does it every single year for six months. And Ranger Suarez does it for two or three months. And he hasn't shown the ability to do it for a whole season yet.

So that's almost the comparison I made was Max Fried. That was a pretty, yeah, it's a pretty. It was, I felt it was over flattering. But the point, like, it's a similar profile. It's just we see Suarez maintain free level control for stretches. When Freed has that kind of control all the time. Freed has done it for eight years. Yeah.

Freed is a freak. Yeah. Let's talk about Gunner Henderson, who is hitting well in June. We just need more power. Two for four with a run and RBI. He's hitting 373 in the month. He's got three steals, a 906 OPS, that comes with just one home run. He's done a better job limiting ground balls in the month,

but it's just mostly line drives. He's just not driving the ball in the air enough to hit for power. So I noticed Scott and I have moved Gunner Henderson behind Trey Turner. Is there a conversation? that he should start to move even lower? I mean, I don't know. Then we're talking about O'Neill Cruz, C.J. Abrams. No, I would not trade.

If someone called you right now, and probably not called, text, sent an email, whatever, and said, I will give you, you give me Gunner Henderson, I give you CJ Abrams. I would not do that. There's no way you would do that. Give me Gunner Henderson,

I'll give you O'Neill Cruz. I guess I could see it. O'Neill Cruz is among the leaders and steals this season, but it's still, what, like a 220 batting average? Yeah. I still think as good as Abrams and Turner and O'Neill Cruz have been, Gunner Henderson has the best season among them in the last three, let's say. So I'll still take Gunner Henderson. Yeah, I was hesitant to move Turner ahead of him because I could see myself.

swapping him right back and I hate doing that. But Turner obviously has first round pedigree himself, first round from fantasy perspective, I mean, and is living up to it. So for now I've made that switch and put Turner ahead, but didn't think about dropping Henderson behind Cruiser Abrams. All right, let's move on to Chris Bubich, who looked a little bit more human at the Rangers,

five and a third, nine hits allowed, three runs, six strikeouts, 19 whiffs. You got to love that on, 101 pitches here, but did give up some hard contact. It's two subpar outings in a row here for Chris Bubich. I just wonder if we need to have a conversation about the innings, which we brought up earlier in the season. He's now up to 85.

He only threw 66 total innings all of last season. And he last got up to up over 140 back in 2022. So that was three years ago. Obviously, Bubich has been mostly awesome for the entirety of the season, But I do wonder if maybe we're going to start to see, maybe this is part of him looking a little bit more human, is that the innings are kind of catching. That's the thing is they've spaced out his last two starts.

And I just wondered if it's kind of, I don't know if Rusty is the right word, but it's just, he's not as sharp because they've started giving him extra rest between starts. And maybe that's why, not that everything was bad in this start. I mean, he's still got a ton of swinging strikes. Yeah. And the control was much better than in the previous start where he had the longest layoff between starts.

But yeah, he looked kind of shaky, definitely not the boo bitch we were seeing when he was taking, starting every fifth or sixth day. So obviously that's intentional. They've spaced out his starts more. They're trying to do the sort of thing the Braves did with Rinaldo Lopez and Chris Ail last year. And still are doing with Chris Hale, by the way. He had eight days off between his starts this week. Though that was, they hadn't been doing it as consistently with sale. Not to get off on that tangent.

I still want, I think as long as the royal stay in the playoff race, and they're on the fringes of it now, so it may not be long. But as long as they are, given that Boobitch is a free agent after next season, and it's not like he's a long-term investment for them, I don't think they're going to do anything too drastic as far as Shepard. shutting him down. I think they're going to build in some kind of extra rest like they've been doing. But if they do fall out of the race, then all bets are off because they might just want to put him on ice till next year. And that's not the only concern. The other concern is just that he's just he's able to pitch. They don't shut him down. He's just not as effective.

I don't know how likely that is. The stuff has still looked pretty good to my eyes when I've watched him. but yeah, it's, he hasn't thrown this many innings in four years, three years. So that's, he's thrown 82 pitches total in the previous two seasons. So, yeah, running into some rough patches wouldn't shock me. All right, let's talk about Ronald Acuna, who continues to mash since his return. He went one for three with a walk. In his eighth home run, he's batting 390 with a 1215 OPS so far. He is just hitting the crap.

out of the ball. And Chris, I know you're the only one of us three that maintains overall rankings. You have the trade chart. How high has Ronald de Cunia kind of skyrocketed up those? Yeah, he is my number six player in Roto and number five in head to head. And I'm not sure Corbyn Carroll should be ahead of him in Roto. That one's really close. But I think the power is probably pretty similar. Carol's going to steal more bases, but the batting average is a little tough for Corby and Carroll. It's better than it was last year, but he's hitting what, like 255 right now? Is his strikeout rate still really high? Yeah, 254 for Carroll. Yeah, and his swing just seems uncondusive to the batting average at this point. He had a low XBA, his rookie season as well.

Acuna, as a hitter alone, looks as good as he's ever looked. I also. I also, assault today he's averaging 97.5 miles per hour on his outfield throws which is bonkers um that throw against soda yes yeah that was awesome that was so cool that was so good uh i i think you can make the case for him as the number three player in fantasy rest of season so behind just judge and otani right yeah because wit hasn't been quite as good as a hitter he doesn't seem like an elite stolen base source anymore ellie has really picked things up ellie but i think we kind of know how that works or right? Like he's going to have stretches where he's the best player in fantasy. He's going to have stretches where he's super frustrating.

Yeah, I think Okunia's clearly a top 10 player rest of the way. And I think anywhere from three on is not too high. I think three is counting on him to not to be a 70s deal guy, but to get back to at least being a 30 steel guy. And because he has only the one steel in. and not a true, it was kind of in a weird situation. It wasn't just him being aggressive and stealing bases. I think that's very much in doubt.

I'm hopeful he'll get back to that because I think he really wants to. And I don't think the Braves are necessarily preventing him from doing it. But he hasn't shown it yet since returning. And you can understand why. But man, if all he is is 2023, but without steals, that's still not better than Otani and judge, but that's better than anyone else, I think. I think it's unrealistic to see that he's going to hit 335 with 43 homers.

Is that it? Yeah, something like that, 41, yeah. Yeah. Based on his exit velocity and barrel rate so far, I mean, it's unrealistic. It's certainly not impossible. Yeah, it is within his range of outcomes, as we've seen before.

His strikeout rate is more than twice what it was that year. That's the biggest difference. That's true. Let's wrap this up with Bailey Ober, who was having another subpar outing before the rain hit that game and I think it actually went final

in six innings there, the twins and the reds. Five and two-thirds, nine hits, four runs, five strikeouts here, zero walks. Nice to see. That's kind of our consolation here for Bailey Ober, who had six walks in his last outing, but either way, he still has allowed four-plus earned runs in three straight. He has a 454 ERA and a 140 whip.

We all dropped Bailey Ober outside of our top 45 starting pitchers, And I just wonder if maybe that should be even lower for Bailey Ober. Well, it depends how you're interpreting the rankings. Who do I want to start most right? And how definitely lower. I think Ober's unstartable until he figures out this mechanical issue. But I kind of have faith in him doing it because it seems like the twins and Ober and the articles I've read about it,

express optimism that he's going to figure it out and that he's making progress in certain ways. So I'm giving him that benefit of the doubt. I don't want to be quick to drop him. Could he be lower than 45th? Could he go as low as 60th and still not be in the dropable range? Sure. I think 45th in my rankings puts them kind of below a tier. A tier of pitchers I absolutely wouldn't drop for any reason and ones that,

I could see it happening if they have a bad enough run. So that's probably why Ober landed there for me. It's worth noting before the most three recent starts from the start of April through the end of May, so two full months. He had a 243 a. The strikeouts were low, but the walks were also lower than normal. He had a 323 FIP. I understand that the bad starts have been really, really bad. I was surprised I saw a stat that Chris Paddock became like the fourth Twins pitcher to give up eight runs or more and two starts twice in a season.

And Bailey Ober hasn't done that somehow. I was kind of surprised by that. He only gave up seven in that second start. But I don't want to overreact to three, four bad starts because that's what it's been for over. So with an actual explanation behind them. Yeah. So I'm not optimistic. I am hopeful.

And again, that's why you guys are here because I'm much more emotional. I just want to drop Billy over way down the rankings. How can you do this to us? but it's a very fair explanation. Yes, I honestly do, and that is a problem in my fantasy. That's the Yankees fan in you. That's my fantasy analysis and fantasy playing, yes, it is a problem. Let's wrap up here with some leftovers on the hitting side.

Alec Bohm, 3 for 4 with a walk. He had an awful April, but since the start of May, he's hitting 3.39 with an OPS near 900. So good on Alec Bohm. Big game for Bryson Stott, who went two for three with a sock and a shoe. his fifth home run, his 12th steal, and he desperately needed it. He was struggling immensely.

Bo Bichette stayed hot, three for five with his 10th home run of the season. Nice game for Vlad Jr. He reached base five times here, two for two with three walks and three RBI. Matt Olson hit a home run, and in his last 28 games, he's sitting 306, eight homers,

and OPS over a thousand. Matt Olson is back. Wyatt Langford, trying to pick things back up. Three hits here. Last eight games, he's batting three, with two home runs. And I wrote about Wyatt Langford today

and the trade values chart. If you want to check that out on CBSports.com, I wrote about kind of three guys who I think are really hard to rank right now and it's Hunter Goodman, Wyatt Langford, and Seth Lugo.

And Langford, the one thing, it's been another disappointing season, reasonably so. He's on a 30-home or 25 steel pace. For being disappointing, that's pretty good. It just feels a little empty.

And that's with an I-L spot. Yeah. It just feels a little empty because the batting average in OPS are lower. Oh, and the runs in RBI, I think, are really bad too. I think he's only got like 33 of each or something like that. So it's been mostly the home runs and steals, but I was surprised by that. The quality of contact has taken a big step back for him,

at least in the last month or so. So hopefully he's starting to turn it around. And the last name here is Jose Altuve, who went three for four with his 12th home run. had three RBI, and in June he's hitting 3-10 with three homers, two seals, 8, 83 OPS. All right, that is the Jose Altuve that we need. Some pitching left over is Garra Crochet looked great at the Mariners, six innings, one run, eight strikeouts with 17 whiffs on 96 pitches.

Luis Castillo on the other side, a quality start, six innings three runs with five strikeouts, quietly has a quality start in six of his last seven. Nicodolo, a quality start against the twins, six innings two runs, runs with four strikeouts and Framber Valdez, a quality start, kind of. Six innings, two runs, but 10 base runners here. Five hits, five walks, only three strikeouts. So, seems pretty fortunate to wind up with a quality start here. Anything on Valdez, Ladolo, Luis Castillo, and Garret Crochet? Everybody's pretty much holding serve here. Crochet, I just want to point out, like, he's a legit five pitch pitcher now. It's pretty impressive, the way.

way he has expanded the arsenal to where, you know, he's got very different looks. He basically never faces lefties and for good reasons. That feels like it would be a horrible experience if you're a left-handed hitter. But he's got that change up now that he throws like six, seven percent of the time against righties and it's looked really, it's got a really good whiff rate. And the cutter remains awesome. And yeah, he's just really good. whatever skill concerns there might have been are completely gone.

It's just a question of whether he can hold up. And he's one of the three or four pitchers in one of the three or four best pitchers in baseball, I think. All right. Let's get into the call to the bullpen. And for the Red Sox, a Rollis Chapman was used in the eighth inning with a two-run lead facing the top of the Mariners lineup. Dylan Moore, J-Rodd, and Cal Raleigh.

He retired all three. Kind of frustrating usage, not the first time we. We've seen Chapman use this way the season, but... Especially lately. So Greg Weissert worked the ninth for the save following Chapman. And Weissert has three of the Red Sox's last six saves now. Well, Chapman has two during that time. So I mean, Chapman's still the one to roster here.

But it does seem like Cora, Alex Cora, playing matchups a little more late in games. And that's going to be frustrating. Speaking of playing matchups, the Phillies, Orion Kirkering got the eighth inning with a three-run lead facing 9-1-2 in the Marlins lineup. Then Matt Strom got the ninth. He allowed a run on three hits,

but picked up his fourth save. He was about, I don't know, three feet away from blowing this one, though. I think Nick Castiano's caught the final out at the wall. With two runners on, so, yeah, or maybe a runner. It might have been to tie it. I can't remember the exact situation, but he almost blew the save. I don't know that we're any closer to figuring out the Phillies bullpen. I kind of feel like they're just going to play matchups.

If big lefties are coming up in the seventh or eighth, they'll use Strom. Maybe it'll be Kirkering in the ninth inning. I kind of think Romano is on the outside looking in for now. Maybe he's like sixth, seventh inning usage. Yeah. But in deeper leagues, I think both Kirkering and Strom could pick up saves here in the near term. For the Angels, Kenley Jansen got the ninth inning with a one-run lead. He struck out one for his 15th save.

For the Royals, Carlos Estevez got the ninth inning with a three-run lead, picked up his 20th save. For the Rockies, Seth Halverson got the ninth with a two-run lead. He struck out two for his fifth save and has each of the last two saves for the Rockies. And three this month. Yeah. I was wrong. Rockies are-in-save each month. Take that.

Take that, Scott. I mean, the Nationals are a game away from consecutive sweep losses to the Marlins and Rockies. that'd be pretty embarrassing. Did you guys see those quotes from Dave Martinez? I think it was last week. Where he kind of just... I understood what he was saying. I didn't think he should have said it.

For those who didn't see, it was along the lines of... He was saying, it's never the coach's fault. Sometimes the players just need to play and show up kind of thing. Yeah, he was saying like, the coaches are doing what they can,

the coaches are putting in the work, the coaches are doing their jobs. It's on the players to perform. which, like, of course it is. It is on the players to perform. It just doesn't sound great. You probably shouldn't be saying that, though. Yeah.

For the Guardians, Emmanuel Class A, picked up his 16th save, and for the Padres, Robert Suarez, got the ninth inning with the game tied, and he allowed a walk-off homer his third loss of the season, and he's kind of going through it here. Robert Suarez, he's, you know, over the past month, he's struggled. Yeah. At some point.

they if it continues for long enough, they'll have to consider other options. I don't know whether that's going to happen or not, but he's, uh, you know, on thinner ice than he was, I would say.

And something to keep an eye on. All right, to stream or not to stream on Thursday. Just realize I did not update Friday. So that kind of stinks. And I didn't put any of the, uh, double header games in here either.

So, uh, We'll kind of do it on the fly. But the names that I do have here include Eric Fetty against the White Sox, Nick Martinez's home against the twins, Kate Horton against the Brewers, Edward Cabrera against the Phillies, Charlie Morton at the Rays,

Colton Gordon and Jacob Lopez are facing each other. Are all three of those rainouts going to be double-hedders Thursday? I don't know. Let's find out together. Because I did not. Because almost every team was already playing Thursday. If it is. Looks like two of them all. Scott, we are going to have a mess of a Thursday night podcast.

Pirates, Tigers are doing it, and Cardinals, White Sox are playing a double-headed today. I think that means we have 16 games on Thursday. My gosh. No, Scott, he doesn't know. No, no, definitely not. We also get Michael McGreevy against the White Sox. That could probably work out pretty well. I guess I actually have to recommend pitchers here, huh?

Don't mind Nick Martinez. Did somebody already say that? No, but he's all yours if you want it. Against the twins. Does Mizorowski not qualify? Is he too rostered at this? He's like 91% rostered. Oh, he's going against the Cubs anyway, so.

Walk a through roster. He's two rostered. I think I would go both Cardinals against the White Sox, Fettie, McGreevy, and Nick Martinez. I guess. I don't love any of these. Also, Adrian Houser is not making the start against the Cardinals. I don't know who they're going to. going to replace him with, but he's on the, uh, it's Mike Vassel and eternity list, I think.

Yeah, Mike Vassel and Sean Burke for the white. Also, we should note, shame on whichever manager didn't adjust their rotation so we could get skein scoble tomorrow. I guess the pirates are starting Heaney in game one. They should have shifted Heaney to game two and given us skein scuba. and a one o'clock skein scoble game on a national holiday, how do you deprive us of that? Come on. Yep, I mean, that sounds like the pirates. Ridiculous.

And then on Friday, let's see what we got here. A lot of TBDs, according to MLB.com. We have Davis Martin at Toronto, Andre Palante against Cincinnati, Brady Singers at the Cardinals. I don't hate Mike Burroughs against the Rangers. I don't love it, but I don't hate it. but I don't hate it.

Clayton Kirshaw against the Nationals. If the Yankees get shut out again tomorrow or struggle again tomorrow, are we starting Tomi Yuki Sagano at Yankee Stadium? Probably. I mean, I don't think I would do that.

I don't think I would do Davis Martin at the Blue Jays. They're suddenly pretty hot. Would not do Bryce Elder versus the Marlins. Against the Marlins, come on. He couldn't even pitch well against the Rockies. Yeah, you know who's worse in the Marlins?

It doesn't. that doesn't mean that will it will always be so not gomber at home yeah not not a lot of options maybe hunter daubbins versus the giants i don't really buy it but he's been good lately i will go ahead and say kershaw brady singer and mike burroughs i'm fine with that yeah cool all right we're going to wrap there for scott and chris i am frank thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today, please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

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