Fantasy Baseball Today - Figuring Out Edouard Julien & Joe Musgrove! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:02 Let's take a closer look at Edouar Julian and Joe Musgrove. Up next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5 on Saturday, March 16th. Happy 316 day to those who celebrate. I am, for example, joined by Scott White. These are the two players you wanted to hear about. So we will talk about Edward Julian first. The ADP is 210.

Starting point is 00:00:26 What an interesting player, Scott. Let's just quickly run through some pros and cons. Ridiculous eye at the plate, a 381 OBP as a rookie, tons of line dries, and he had a 13% barrel rate. That is all awesome. The cons. He struck out 31% of the time, with a 50% ground ball rate. I would argue that he's too passive,

Starting point is 00:00:46 almost Kevin Bigeo-esque in that way, and he was really bad against lefties. Scott, what do we do with Edward Julian? Oh, yes, I want to like Edward Julian. I dubbed him the Greek, no, I didn't call him the Greek god of walks, That's Kevin Euclis. I dubbed him the French emperor of walks because of the obscene on-based percentages he had in the minors around 440 down there. And as you pointed out, once he reached the majors, it's more like 380s.

Starting point is 00:01:10 So still very good. Maybe it gets better with more exposure. But it's just such an odd hitting profile that it's hard to, it's hard to feel confident in any projection you make for him. It's not just that he puts the ball on the ground a lot. it's that as a player with middling exit velocities, he is so opposite field focused that you wonder how he generates any power at all. You look at his spray chart. It's ridiculous how often he goes the other way.

Starting point is 00:01:39 And usually to deliver power, those middling exit velocity guys have to really excel at pulling the ball. Julian's just the opposite. And yet, he still managed to have 16 home runs in his form. under eight plate appearances last year pretty good. So is that going to continue? Could it even be more power than that? I'm open to it, but like I can't,

Starting point is 00:02:06 the ways we normally evaluate players, it doesn't add up for me. Even what Julian did last year, what he did in the minors, what he did last year, he's been doing it clearly. So I want to say it'll continue, but it's hard to wrap your head around. And the fact that he might sit some against lefties

Starting point is 00:02:26 because of those bad splits, I think confines him to the late rounds for now. All right, let's talk about Joe Muskrove. The ADP for him is 99.8 as the 30th starting pitcher off the board. It was a weird year last year in 2023, where he was limited to just 17 starts, missed the beginning of the year due to a fractured left big toe, dealt with elbow bursitis,

Starting point is 00:02:48 and then went on the IL in August with capsule inflammation in his right shoulder. He was not limited this spring at all. He made, I think it was three or four starts. Most of the starts were bad. His most recent one was good. But Scott, if Joe Musgrove is healthy, 30th starting pitcher off the board, could turn out to be a huge value. I mean, his three years with the Padres,

Starting point is 00:03:09 his highest ERA in those three years is 318. His highest whip is 114. His lowest K per 9 rate is right out of K per 9. 9Ks per 9. So, like, he is, before the injuries last year, Joe Musgrave was as bankable as they come, not a true ace, but just behind that, as good as he is an ERA and whip.

Starting point is 00:03:33 And he got off to a rough start this spring, really rough start. And coming back from a shoulder issue last year, I think that raised concerns for people. But his most recent start was good. I haven't heard any concerns about the velocity or anything like that, which would,

Starting point is 00:03:49 be a red flag coming back from a shoulder injury. Basically, what was reported with Joe Musgrove after having those rocky starts the first couple of times, he pitched a B game for the Padres, so not an official game. And he was just, Mani Machado stood in at the plate against him and just looked at pitch after pitch and was able to point out to Joe Musgrove

Starting point is 00:04:14 that he was opening up early and cutting the ball as a result. So he was getting this weird movement on a fastball that he's not supposed to get. And he was able to sort it out based on Manny Machado's observations. It felt really good at by the end of that B game, said he was doing better with his curveball, better with location, execution after that.

Starting point is 00:04:34 And lo and behold, gets back to an official spring game. Looks like Joe Musgrove again. So I don't think there's any reason to worry about those early spring performances. Spring training is spring training after all. And we don't always get concrete explanations for everything, but we have it in Joe Musgrove's case.

Starting point is 00:04:49 And given that track record, if you can get them as your number three, your SP3, I think that's great. You should take advantage of that. All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Baseball Today in Five podcast. And we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - Figuring Out Edouard Julien & Joe Musgrove! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

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