Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Rapid-Fire Sleepers, Breakouts & Busts in the Second Half! (7/17 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sleepers, breakouts, and busts for the second half. Up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome in to FBT Express on Thursday, July 17th. I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers. And let's kick things off with some sleepers. Chris, you are up first. Yeah, and I'm going to go to Zeb Matthews. A guy we talked a lot about early in the season,

Starting point is 00:00:21 and then he went on the aisle with a shoulder injury. And I think people have kind of forgotten. But he made his first rehab start this week. His velocity looked fine. He struck out nine over four one-hit innings at AAA. He was someone who wasn't great early on, but still had a 30% strikeout rate. The added velocity was leading to a lot more missed bats. And if he can just keep the ball in the yard, I think Zebby Matthews could be a really, really good pitcher.

Starting point is 00:00:50 Let's stick with the twins. Another prospect here, Luke Kishel, who got called up back in April. He looked awesome in a small sample size. Only seven games, but hit three. 368 with five walks, five steals, 90.8 average exit velocity. He suffered a fractured forearm. He's working his way back. Down in Florida, taking live batting practice before he goes out on a rehab assignment.

Starting point is 00:01:11 I'm thinking he's back late July, early August. Jack of all trades type, good batting average, good OBP, a little bit of pop, has some speed. Twins are going to let him run. 25% roster. I would be looking to stash Luke Keishel right now. Chris, back over to you for another sleeper. I've got a decent number of them. You can check them all out on CBSSports.com,

Starting point is 00:01:32 but I'm going to go with Reid Detmer's, who, if you've listened to this show for the past, I don't know, eight, nine, 12 years, maybe how long we've been talking about Red Demers. You might be thinking, stop trying to make Reed Detmer's happen. Well, he is happening, all right? It's just, it's as a reliever,

Starting point is 00:01:47 and you probably haven't noticed because he's been a setup man for Kenley Jansen most of the season. Kenley Janssen seems very likely to be traded at the deadline. I know it's the Angels, and you never quite count. on them to do the right thing, but I think they're going to trade him. They are not likely to make the playoffs. And Redemers looks like he could be a really good closer. He has 20 innings since the start of June with a 135 ERA, 25 strikeouts, only eight walks in those 20 innings. I think he leads

Starting point is 00:02:15 the Angels and saves the rest of the way. All right, we shall see. Next step for me is going to be Hassan Kim with the Tampa Bay raise. He's 24% rostered, so widely available, has only appeared in six games, but has one homer, one steal, a 107 mile per hour batted ball. I think that's a really good sign for him coming back from a shoulder injury. And just two years ago, hit 260, 17 homers, 38 steals, and 15 games with the Padres. I think we could see in the second half a 15 homer, 30 steel pace the rest of the way for Hassan Kim, which would make him a serviceable middle infielder. Let's move over to breakouts, Chris.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Give me a name for breakouts. Yeah, Chase Burns. If you clicked on the video you saw already, I think Chase Burns is more talented than Jacob Mizirowski. I know Mizirassi made the All-Star game and looked pretty good, but I think Chase Burns is a better pitcher and we'll show that in the second half of the season. Fastball comfortably sits in the high 90s, can touch triple digits with ease, and the slider is a phenomenal swing and miss pitch. There's been some bumps in the road in his first handful of starts, mostly that Boston start. Struck out 10 in his last game. to close out the first half, I think that's going to be a runway for Chase Burns to take off and potentially be talked about as a top 30 starting pitcher by the end of the season. Completely agree through four starts. He has a 110 stuff plus. And if he qualified, that would rank sixth along with Spencer Schwellenbach. It would be better than Jacob de Grom, Hunter Brown, and Paul Skeen. So some serious stuff here from Chase Burns. Breakout for me, going back to the well from before the season. Jordan Westberg, I really just think he needs to stay

Starting point is 00:03:56 healthy. I think the injuries have stopped this breakout from happening thus far. But heading into the break, he was getting hot. 21 games, 293 batting average, six homers, 927 OPS, 93.8 average exit velocity. We know he's a great athlete, 91st percent house sprint speed. I think if Jordan Westberg just stays healthy in the second half, we get big power, handful of steals, and it could finally be happening here for Jordan Westberg. Let's take a quick break when we return, a few more breakouts, and then some busts. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in FBT Express. All right. Let's get back to

Starting point is 00:04:32 Breakouts for the second half, Chris. Who you got? Roman Anthony. What we've seen over the past couple of years, you know, there was that stretch with like Fernando Tatis and Ronald Acuna and all these top prospects who came up and just destroyed baseballs immediately were kind of past that error. And it seems like it takes everybody about a month to two months to really figure things out. And We're right around that point with Roman Anthony, and it's worth keeping in mind that, while he's been a little underwhelming as a hitter so far,

Starting point is 00:05:02 all the stuff that we liked about him as a prospect is still there. He's got a great approach at the plate, very low chase rate, doesn't swing and miss all that much. He's got a 93.8 mile per hour average exit velocity. That would be tied with Matt Olson for the seventh best mark in baseball if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. And if you just look at when he hits the ball in the air, so line drives and fly balls, his average X-velocity jumps to 98.9 miles per hour. That's better than Aaron Judge. That would be the fifth highest mark.

Starting point is 00:05:32 So he needs to elevate the ball more often. He probably needs to be a little more aggressive at the plate. He's probably taking a few too many strikes. But man, I think Roman Anthony, when he figures it out, it could be like James Wood in the second half last year where he just vaults himself into that top 50 conversation by the end of the year. This next one might be cheating. a little bit. It kind of looks like he is breaking out, but no one has realized because he missed

Starting point is 00:05:57 two months with an oblique injury, and that is Noelvi-Marte, who in 288 games this season is hitting 284, 6 homers, 5 steals, 884 OPS, 150 game pace. That's a 30-25 season here. He's lowered the strikeout rate to just 16%. He hits the ball very hard. He's got a 116.7 max exit velocity. I think the final step to really maximize his upside is get that ground ball rate down a little. little bit, but there's power, there's speed, there's a great ballpark, there's opportunity, and he's available in about a third of CBS leagues right now. So if you need a third baseman or just a bat with some upside, Nolvi-Marte, I think, could have a really, really big second half. Let's go over to the busts we have here, Chris.

Starting point is 00:06:42 Yeah, look, all right, so I just want to say, like, when we say a bust, it doesn't mean we think the player's bad, we just think they'll be less valuable for fantasy than they were in the first have certainly and I think that's especially true of Jurassicson who has been just terrific for the raise he's been arguably their best pitcher in a staff that's been really good the problem is he's already thrown 91.1 innings this season he threw just 36 last year and the race have said that he's on 150 inning limit so you start to do the math there and like even if they don't care about having them available for the postseason that's only 60-ish more innings. That's 12 starts of five innings per start. That's if he never goes more

Starting point is 00:07:27 than five innings. Well, if he never goes more than five innings, that means he's probably not going to be all that valuable, especially in points leagues, which is a bummer because he is RAPE eligible. That should be his best format. But if he's capped out of five innings per start, there are going to be shorter ones than that. I think there's going to be stretches where he skipped to try to get to that innings limit a little later. I think there's a decent chance Drew Rasmussen just isn't that worth rostering in the second half, unfortunately. This one is tough because Chris Bubbage has looked like a breakout for a majority of the first half, but it looks like maybe he's wearing down and the innings are catching up here.

Starting point is 00:08:01 He's up to 108 and two-thirds. My bad. Up to 108 and two-thirds innings here. And last year, 66 total inning. So already a huge jump. He only had 16 innings back in 2023. And we already started to see him fade. six starts before the break, a 486 ERA,

Starting point is 00:08:20 153 whip here. The walks are up during that time. I still think, you know, they'll have some okay starts here, but maybe the Royals start to taper back his workload a little bit. If you can get top 24-ish value for Chris Bubich, I would look to do that heading into the second half.

Starting point is 00:08:35 Chris, wrap it up here with a one final bust. Jacob Wilson's super fun. He's got that batting stance where it looks like he's riding a horse sideways or something. He's just like a weird player, and somehow he has, like, the best contact skills in baseball, and he's hitting 332. And I think he's a really good contact hitter. But Luis Arias is also a really good contact hitter, and he's got one season with a 332 batting average. It's really hard to hit 332 over a full season.

Starting point is 00:09:06 And if you look in the underlying numbers, Jacob Wilson's expected average, only 287 doesn't hit the ball as hard as Luis Suraias, actually, which is kind of surprised. only hits the ball to the pole side in the air marginally more frequently, not like a huge difference there. So I really like Jacob Wilson. I think he's probably not a top 12 shortstop the rest of the way. And I will quickly mention here Clay Holmes, who another one reliever turned starter. He's up to 103 in a third innings last year.

Starting point is 00:09:37 It was 63. He hasn't thrown this many innings since 2018. I think there could be some workload issues here in the second half. Perhaps the Mets try and limit him. and the walks have become a major problem. Final five starts heading into the break. He had more walks 16 than strikeouts, 15. So I do think he's starting to wear down a little bit,

Starting point is 00:09:57 and perhaps the Mets can limit Clay Holmes' workload as well. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-lane 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. tomorrow. Bye-bye.

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Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Rapid-Fire Sleepers, Breakouts & Busts in the Second Half! (7/17 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

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