Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Injury Updates on Grayson Rodriguez, Luis Gil & More! (3/8 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Grayson Rodriguez is a liar. Let's talk about it on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome in to FBT Express on Saturday, March 8th. I am Frank Stample, joined by Chris Towers, and let's go over some of the big headlines from the week, Chris. And sure seems like we got duped by Grayson Rodriguez. Turns out he's dealing with right tricepsorness and will undergo testing. That comes one day after his velocity was down quite a bit.

Starting point is 00:00:27 He gave us another completely. different explanation, which I don't think is true now, how much do you plan to lower Grace and Rodriguez as of now? We are recording this on Thursday, by the way, so maybe there's new information that's up. This is one of those situations where it's worth keeping in mind that professional athletes,

Starting point is 00:00:47 by their nature as professional athletes, have overcome impossible odds to be where they are. And so they are not very good at accurate self-reflection. And so when Grayson Rodriguez says, I just couldn't get behind the ball, I couldn't spin the ball the way I wanted to, that it might be athlete euphemism for I'm not 100% healthy. And he's either unaware of it or not wanting to admit it. It's frustrating because you and I both had Grayson Rodriguez as breakout candidates for this season. I think we both thought that there was room for growth. And unfortunately, it was mostly projecting, right?

Starting point is 00:01:28 Like it wasn't like there was one specific thing you could look at with Grace and Regis and say from May 5th on he was one of the 10 best pitch like it wasn't anything like that. It was just a belief in the talent. And now there's no there's at least right now there's not a chance for him to build on the talent that he's already shown. And there may not be the rest of spring. And you know, until we find out the timetable, I'm going to bury him in the rankings a little bit. I'm going to move him down into like the 170, 180 range. So not completely out of the drafting conversation, but comparing him to someone like Kevin Gosman.

Starting point is 00:02:08 I think right now I think I'd rather have to draft Kevin Gosman, whose velocity has been up this spring and who's given us reason to be optimistic, whereas Grayson Rodriguez so far this spring has not. Hopefully this ends up being as minor as he thought it was when he left that game on Wednesday, but right now I do think you have to downgrade him. We did get some Yankees injury updates. Luis Heel will be sidelined for at least three months with a high grade last train. He's shut down from throwing for at least six weeks.

Starting point is 00:02:36 Is he worth drafting and stashing at all? Last round of your drafts. I think it really depends on how many IL spots you've got. If you don't have any, no, you can't draft Louise Heel. There were already performance concerns before this. Now he probably won't be back until early June at the earliest. And then we don't know what he's going to look like. So I don't think if you have no IL spots, you probably can't draft him.

Starting point is 00:02:59 If you've got one or two, I think you probably can't draft him. Even if you've got three or four, you start to think about how many IL guys you end up having once the season starts, April, May. It's really hard to actually stash guys who aren't guaranteed to be difference makers. And I don't think Louise Heel is. So I'm moving him into the late round stash range at this point. John Carlos Stanton is going for a second round of PRP injections in both elbows. He doesn't have a timeline, but the Yankees still think that he will return at some point this season. It does sound like Ben Rice will be their DH against right-handed pitching, at least to start the upcoming season.

Starting point is 00:03:43 DJ Lemayhew's MRI showed a left calf strain. He shut down from baseball activities for a few weeks. Sounds like Oswald and Oswaldo could split time at third base for the Yankees. early on, not confusing at all. Super helpful. Yeah, let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back in, FBT Express.

Starting point is 00:04:03 We're going over the latest news from the week, and Christian Walker underwent an ultrasound on his left oblique, but is waiting for the inflammation to subside before having additional imaging done. And Chris, this sounds kind of bad, especially for a hitter who has had injuries to both of his obliques already in his career. Yeah, I mean, in talking to the media, he said it didn't feel as bad as last year's oblique injury, which cost him about eight weeks. Just rewind about a minute and a half to what I was saying about Grayson Rodriguez and the ability of professional athletes to accurately self-assess their health.

Starting point is 00:04:42 I'm going to wait until we hear back from the medical experts on this one. And hopefully it's relatively minor, but oblique injuries can be very tricky. You know, we've seen White Lankford miss about two to three weeks. You would hope that's a best case scenario for Christian Walker. Even that, though, would put opening day in some questions. So, yeah, there might be some room for him to miss some time in the regular season. There might be room for Yainer Diaz to play a little extra D.H. or first base to open the season.

Starting point is 00:05:14 And you got to move Christian Walker down at least a couple rounds as a result of this news. Yeah, he was going around Josh Nailer, Cody Bellinger, any past Guantino. I think as of now, you move them behind those names. Behind all those guys. Maybe you move them back up if, you know, the imaging comes back clean and, you know, he's expected to be ready for opening day miraculously, but we don't know that as of now.

Starting point is 00:05:37 Brendan Nimmo had an MRI on his injured right knee, which showed inflammation. So now he is dealing with the knee injury on top of the plantar fasciitis, which he has in his foot. So I'm a little bit nervous about Nimmo here, Chris, because, you know, if he was healthy, he's batting cleanup for the Mets. I mean, it's a prime spot in the lineup. It's just what version of Brendan Nimah are we going to get? Yeah, I was already a little worried just because, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:06 planar fasciitis tends to be a long-term injury that you just kind of have to manage him and play through. But, you know, like Carlos Correa has already said the pain he was playing through last year is gone. Brandon Nimo hasn't said that. And so that was already a concern that this is going to be a lingering issue this year. Now he's got this knee. just it's never a good thing when you're hurt during spring training. Hopefully it's minor. Hopefully he only misses a few days, but I, uh, I'm not particularly enthused about Brandon Nimmo unless he really starts to fall. All right. Junior Camerro left Thursday's game with lower back tightness.

Starting point is 00:06:41 Manager Kevin Cash said that Caminero is day to day. Hopefully he's okay. I just want to give a shout out to Curtis Mead, who's gotten off to an incredible start. He's 14 for 18 in spring training at the time of recording this. So hopefully the race can find a way for him to get in the lineup. And shout out to Lawrence Butler, who got a seven-year, $66.5 million contract extension. And Chris, do you think this was a good extension for one side, both sides? How do you feel about the law dog getting paid? It's definitely a good extension for Lawrence Butler, who locks in $66 million,

Starting point is 00:07:22 based on three really good months at the end of last season. I don't say that to like knock him. It's just that's a lot of guaranteed money for an unproven player. But you start to think about like, you know, we don't know the specifics, but it's like probably 11 to 12, maybe $15 million at the end of the deal per year. If he's just a two win player, that's still an okay price to be paying for him. So I think it's fine for both sides. And obviously if Butler lives up to the, the ups.

Starting point is 00:07:51 The upside that he showed last year, it could be a great deal for both sides. All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express, and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Injury Updates on Grayson Rodriguez, Luis Gil & More! (3/8 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

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