Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Waiver Wire MUST ADDS! Colson Montgomery & New Closers! (8/5 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Let's take a closer look at the most added players on CBS. Up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome in to FBT Express on Tuesday, August 5th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris Towers, and let's take a look at some of the most added hitters. First up, no surprise, but Andrew Vaughn is up to 66% rostered at this point. Still could be out there in some shallower leagues, and Chris, he feels like a must roster player across the board.

Starting point is 00:00:28 Yeah, I think you kind of just, just have to treat it as if it's real, even though we have a pretty big sample size of Andrivon being a pretty average hitter, what he's done since getting to Milwaukee, the fact that it coincided with a change of scenery for him, and the fact that there are some underlying skill changes with Androvon, all point to at least you need to be interested in what he's done. So obviously the service level stuff,

Starting point is 00:00:57 he's cut the strike rate from 22% to 13%. percent since getting with the brewers. He's walking over 10% of the time. We're talking about a 20 game sample size. So those I don't put a lot of weight in. But there are some process things that he's changed. His bat speed has increased to 71.8 miles per hour since joining the brewers. He was around 48, sorry, he was around 70 miles per hour before the trade there. But despite that, his swing length is actually down. And usually you see the opposite. Swing length is correlated with swing speed. So the faster you swing, the longer your swing tends to be. The fact that he's pulling off the trick of swinging harder and having a shorter swing leads me to believe that there are some

Starting point is 00:01:46 legitimate mechanical changes here under the hood that could make this sustainable. And he's hitting 23% of his batted balls in the air to the pull side. His career rate It's about 15%. So that alone is reason to buy into Andrew Vaughn, even though the likelihood's outcome is it's just a hot streak, right? What about these two? They are hot right now. Warming Bernabelle is up to 47% rostered.

Starting point is 00:02:15 He has first and third base eligibility. And Colson Montgomery from the White Sox, who is a former top prospect, definitely up and down in the minors throughout his career there. but man, he's come up and he's hitting for a good amount of power so far. Who do you prefer between the two warming Bernabel and Colson Montgomery? Montgomery. He's got more pedigree. I think the underlying talent is probably better, but in both cases, I think the

Starting point is 00:02:46 likeliest explanation is we're just seeing a hot streak. Now, with Bernabel, he's put up good minor league production, but the underlying numbers were not conducive to hitting for power. he is hitting for power right now. I don't necessarily buy that. Montgomery, it's kind of like Vaughn where it's a small sample size. It's a huge outlier for his career. His minor league numbers weren't really all that great, especially at AAA.

Starting point is 00:03:11 But this was a former first round pick, a guy who had a lot of hype as a prospect. A lot of people believed in the skills. And one thing I think I said on Sunday's full episode of FBT is just, it's possible that what the White Sox had him doing, at AAA was working on very specific things. You know, I'm not sure what it was. Just look for breaking balls or whatever. I don't know what it specifically was.

Starting point is 00:03:34 But the fact that they called him up, despite his pretty poor minor league production, suggests that they saw growth that wasn't necessarily showing up in the box score. And I think he had it was like two homers in his final game or four homers in his final three games, something like that before getting called up that could suggest that the White Sox saw what they were looking for, saw the skills that they wanted him to work on and brought him up and now that's all clicked into place. I don't think it's the likeliest outcome, but he's been good enough so far at the major league level

Starting point is 00:04:05 that I think it's worth betting on Koster Montgomery. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back in the FBT Express. Going over some waiver wire ads right now and Luke Kishel sounds like he will return to the Twins on Tuesday. 37% roster has second base eligibility on CBS he looked much he looked really good early on in the season Chris do you have any interest

Starting point is 00:04:28 here in Luke Keishel yeah I think in any roto league you probably need to add him just as a middle infielder with some speed he was just so aggressive on the base pass before his promotion to the majors and then he had what was it five steals and seven games yeah at the major league level and then on his rehab assignments since coming back from his fractured forearm he's got seven steals on eight attempts in 14 games so he hasn't slowed down at all he's not like the fastest base runner in the world, but he's been really opportunistic and really aggressive and he's got enough speed that I think you've got to give him a chance if you need stolen bases. He's going to get on base and he's going to be very active there. And I think there is some upside just as a

Starting point is 00:05:09 general hitter for Keishel as well. On the pitching side, it is all about the relievers right now. And we saw after the trade deadline, lots of closer rolls opened up here. The two biggest names, Randy Rodriguez up to 72% roster and Cade Smith up to 64%. Of course, Randy Rodriguez blew a save here on Monday, unfortunately. But it feels like those two kind of stand out from the pack, Chris. Who do you prefer between Randy and Cade? I've gone back and forth on these two a few times. I don't know, man.

Starting point is 00:05:45 Because Cade Smith almost blew the save on Monday as well. I think it was a tie game, but yeah, he was a tie. Yeah, yeah, he put himself in some trouble in the ninth inning. I feel more confident that he's a better pitcher than Randy Rodriguez. That's not a knock on Randy Rodriguez. It's just that Kate Smith's kind of been the best reliever in baseball. Since he made his debut, I think he's first in the league in FIP, top 10 in strikeout rate. He's just been unbelievable.

Starting point is 00:06:11 Randy Rodriguez has been incredible this season as well. But I think Smith's just slightly better. and they have a similar grip on the role, so I'll probably go with Smith over Rodriguez, but I really think it's a coin flip. They're both awesome. And I'm telling you to pay close attention to David Bednar as well, because Devin Williams blew another save here on Monday.

Starting point is 00:06:36 He's given up runs in five of seven outings in the second half so far, and the Yankees need to win now. They brought in all these big name relievers. They got Bednar, they got Doval, obviously Luke Weaver is still there, and he's really good, so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if we see somebody not named Devin Williams get the next save opportunity for the Yankees. The next tier of relievers here,

Starting point is 00:06:57 Jojo Romero, up to 31% roster, Dennis Santana, 40%. And then a little bit lower down, Cole Sands at 17%. Jose Ferrer of the Nationals, 17%. Chris, how would you rank those possible saves options here? Romero, Santana, Sands, and Ferrer. Well, I don't think any of them are perturier. particularly good. And they're not on great teams.

Starting point is 00:07:20 But Romero is among that group of four pretty clearly on the best team, right? It's not even actually, the rest of them are pretty obviously in tanking mode. So Romero has gotten two saves, I think, since the deadline. He got the save on Monday for sure. He's on a good team, so there should be more opportunities there. I'll give him the edge over Sands and Fadere and Santana, at least for now. All right, and one deep league starting pitcher that I want to give a little shout out to Joey Wentz, doing some different things here, getting an opportunity with the Braves.

Starting point is 00:07:55 I think a lot of people adding him here because he's a two-star pitcher. He has RP eligibility, so for those who play in points leagues, just the name to pay attention to, we'll see if he can keep it up, but he's throwing this cutter a lot, and the Braves are just going to let him go. They desperately need starting pitching. So just a deep league name there to pay attention to is Joey Wentz. 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 on Thursday. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Waiver Wire MUST ADDS! Colson Montgomery & New Closers! (8/5 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

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