Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Cristian Javier's Return & Josh Hader's Shoulder Injury! (8/12 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Christian Javier is back and Josh Hader is hurt. Let's discuss on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome in to FBT Express on Tuesday, August 12th. I am Frank Stamford, joined by Chris Towers, and it was a successful return for Christian Javier, who actually got off to a rocky start in this one, gave up two runs in the first inning, but then settled down nicely.

Starting point is 00:00:23 Five innings, two runs, five strikeouts here. Chris, what did you see in Christian Javier's return? And how excited. are you to add him right now in fantasy? I'm much more excited than I thought I would be. He was pretty bad on his minor league rehab assignment. His velocity had been falling across the three starts. And then he comes out here and he's averaging 93.5 miles per hour.

Starting point is 00:00:43 That's basically where he was at in 2022 when he was at his best as a fantasy pitcher. Up 1.8 miles per hour from the last time we saw him. And through a new sinker 14 times, don't know how I necessarily, 12 times. Don't necessarily know how I feel about that one. That's worth noting, but the slider was excellent. Five whiffs on 14 swings. He got 10 whiffs on 85 pitches. That's a solid rate.

Starting point is 00:01:08 He was throwing his changeup harder with a little more or a little less drop on it. So a firmer changeup. Not sure how that's going to play, but just another different look for him. But I think all in all, fastball velocity and shape were there. The slider looked excellent. when Christian Javier has been a must-star fantasy player, it's basically been on the strength of those two pitches. I think it's very unlikely.

Starting point is 00:01:35 He gets back to being what he was in 2022, but I'm open to the possibility of him being useful down the stretch in a way that I wasn't necessarily before this start. How would you rank Christian Javier, Zebby Matthews, who had another nine strikeout performance, and Jacob Lopez, who had a great start late last week? Yeah, I think there was a 10th start. 10 strikeout star for Lopez.

Starting point is 00:01:59 Debbie Matthews had nine in this one. Look, they both have their limitations. And their limitations are probably pretty similar. They're going to have a lot of home runs. Matthews is like almost two home runs per nine over the course of his career. Even in this start, it was three homers, all solo shots. Lopez, I feel he's pretty iffy, pretty fringy. It's like when the ball's in the yard, he can be very good because he's got, he's pretty funky.

Starting point is 00:02:25 He's got a weird delicious. He hides the ball well, but it feels like the kind of thing that is going to catch up to him and already has at parts of this season. So he's third for me. I'll put Javier second. Zevi Matthews is first, and I think by a pretty decent margin, because he's a really good strikeout pitcher. He's up to about 29% this season, 26% for his career. He's got very good control. You put it all together, K-minus walk rate.

Starting point is 00:02:54 It's 21.2%. That would be the sixth best. in baseball just behind Joe Ryan. And I actually think that's a pretty good comp for what a good version of Zebby Matthews looks like. Because Joe Ryan, remember, 23, 1.8 home runs per nine. Had a 450-something ERA. A lot of things went wrong for him there. But he's turned it around just by being a regular bad home run pitcher.

Starting point is 00:03:18 And that's the hope with Zebby Matthews, that he can go from, you know, some of the worst quality of contact metrics in baseball through the first two seasons. of his career, giving up a lot of home runs, a lot of hard contact. If he just gets a little bit better at that, if he's just normal bad instead of worse than the league, you're probably talking about a must-start pitcher because of the strikeouts, because of the very good walk rate. So I think I want to bet on Zebby Matthews' skill set and his ability to figure it out. All right, let's take a quick break.

Starting point is 00:03:49 When we return, we'll talk about Josh Hater's injury right after this. Welcome back in the FBT Express. So Josh Hater was bypassed for his. save on Monday night and then it turns out afterwards we find out he's dealing with a left shoulder soreness and Hayter last pitched on Friday he threw 36 pitches over two innings he's thrown 32 plus pitches in an outing three times since July 8th so they have been throwing a pretty big workload here at Josh Hayter lefty benatususa picked up the final out and his fourth save of the season here on Monday night that was because brian abray was unavailable he recorded five

Starting point is 00:04:26 out on Sunday. So if anything happens to Hayter, if he has to go on the aisle, which it kind of sounds like that might happen. Brian Abraeu is next up, we think, and he's only 28% rostered, Chris. So that could turn out to be a priority ad if you need saves. Yeah, I've been wrong about who I think the closer is going to be in various situations before. It's part of what's so frustrating about trying to talk about closers for fantasy because it's not just, hey, is this guy good? It's hey, is this guy good? And will his manager give him the, the, the, opportunity. But in this case, Brian Abrayu's not just good. He's one of the best pitchers in baseball. He's got like a 218 ERA over the past four seasons, a 35% strikeout rate in that time.

Starting point is 00:05:10 He is absolutely one of the best relievers in any role in baseball. He has a little bit of closer experience. I think you have five saves a couple years ago. And if Josh Hader goes on the IL, I see no reason why Brian Abraeu wouldn't be the closer in Houston. So, that is one that we hope Josh Hader's fine. We hope it's nothing serious with the shoulder. Maybe it will be, but I think if you're in a daily transactionally, you got to add Brian Abrae just in case

Starting point is 00:05:38 Josh Hader's not good, not okay, because Brianabreou, I think, could be a top 10 closer for as long as Hader's out if that happens. And for those who have Josh Hater on their fantasy team, again, Brian Abraeu makes a lot of sense. Some shallow league replacements, names we've talked a lot about,

Starting point is 00:05:56 Randy Rodriguez, Kate Smith, David Bednar in some deeper leagues. Phil Matan looks like he's taking over as the Rangers closer. We also have Jose Ferrer of the Washington Nationals. Let's wrap up by ranking some Waverwire hitters and some young names that have emerged lately. Colson Montgomery hit his 10th home run here on Monday. We got big weekends out of Luke Keishel, Jacob Marcy, Isaac Collins. Warming Burnable, we haven't heard much about as much recently.

Starting point is 00:06:23 but Chris, how would you rank these five somewhat exciting hitters here? Montgomery, Kishel, Marcy, Collins, and Warming Bernabel. So with Colson Montgomery first, I just want to say, like, back when Blake Griffin, I'm dating myself here, but back when Blake Griffin was young and, like, still in the NBA and was a rookie, a lot of people would use, like, oh, all he does is dunk as a criticism of him. And it's like, I mean, no, but like, even if that were true, if you can't stop him from dunking, That's not really a criticism, you know? It's pretty good.

Starting point is 00:06:56 Right now, Coles Montgomery is only hitting home runs, basically. That's not entirely true. I think he has three doubles and he has like 13 singles or 12 singles, but it's mostly the 10 home runs in 32 games. It's a 50 homer pace. That's driving the 876 OPS. His play discipline has been pretty bad. The quality of contact's actually backing up the power,

Starting point is 00:07:16 but he's probably not a 50 homer guy. He's probably not a 40 homer guy. If Colson Montgomery is a 30 homer guy, he's probably still fantasy relevant, but it's probably going to be a bad banning average, so I think it's going to be, you know, it could be a little iffy. So he's not, I think, a superstar and probably more just like a fringe fantasy starter once the regression comes. So I would clearly put him behind Luke Keishel and Jacob Marcy,

Starting point is 00:07:44 who I just think have more well-rounded skill sets. They're going to steal a lot of bases in both cases. They're probably going to get on base a lot. And Keishel has shown the ability to lift the ball to the pull side pretty consistently. So I would go Keishel, Marcy, Colson Montgomery. The other two names were... Isaac Collins and warming Bernabelle. I think I would give Burnabelle the edge over Collins just because of Coorsfield.

Starting point is 00:08:09 You know, I think Bernable has an interesting skill set as a hitter, maybe not a ton of power, but a lot of contact skills. And that could play up at Coorsfield with the batting average inflation that you get there. So that's the order I would go. But I think Keishol and Jacob Rcy are clear, top tier among that group. All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Baseball today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

Starting point is 00:08:35 or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express. And we will be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye. Podcasts.

Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Cristian Javier's Return & Josh Hader's Shoulder Injury! (8/12 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

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