Fantasy Baseball Today - Fun Rookie Pitchers, Rankings Movers & Sandy Alcantara Struggles (6/22 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Andrew Abbott gave up three homers and had his best start yet (1:05)! ... Taj Bradley turned in the first quality start of his career (7:54). ... Justin Turner has been awesome in June (14:47). ... What went wrong in Gavin Williams' debut (19:12)? ... What do we do with Sandy Alcantara (25:17)? ... What about Yu Darvish and Cristian Javier (33:17)? ... News (43:55): Carlos Rodon will make another rehab start Sunday. ... Please add Ezequiel Duran (48:00)! ... Josh Naylor and Jonah Heim are on the rise (53:55). ... We wrap up with waiver wire pitchers, bullpen updates and streamers (56:42). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. What's up, and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. On Thursday, June 22nd, Frank Stamphill, joined by all the Chris's, Towers, and the Welsh.

Today on the show, fun day for rookie football. Pitchers, rankings, risers, and followers. What do we do with Sandy Alcantra? Before we get started, please like this video and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. And if you're listening on the audio side, download, follow, and leave a five star rating on Apple or Spotify.

Let's jump in. That's right, take a whiff of that. Chris, you are up. Well, which Chris? Towers, let's start with you. Yeah, I'll go with Andrew Abbott, who, you know, it's funny when we're talking about really all players, but especially young players who have wide error bars

in terms of what we know about them, we should probably say, this player is currently doing this, or this player is currently struggling with this, because they're constantly changing. And in his fourth start, Andrew Abbott finally looked like the guy we were hoping he would be when he got called up.

Yes, he gave up runs for the first time. The ironic thing is that he was scoreless through his first three starts and were like, he hasn't really been that good. And then he actually gives up runs in this one. And it's, I think, the most interesting and intriguing and encouraging start of his career so far. 10 strikeouts and six innings. It was against the Rockies.

So, you know, grain of salt there. But 17 swinging strikes, six of them with his four-seem basketball. Six with his sweeper, two with the curveball, three with the changeups who had everything going in this one. not really sure there's like a concrete explanation for what changed. You know, his velocity wasn't up. It wasn't, you know, his pitch mix wasn't super different. He wasn't the movement profile in the pitches wasn't different. So this could be a case where he just ran into a really bad Rockies lineup on the road.

But hey, we'll take it. You know, we were talking about, I think last night, you know, Gavin Williams versus Andrew Abbott and whether we should drop Andrew Abbott for Gavin Williams, hopefully you didn't do. that, but it's all to say that young pitchers demand patience, I think. You know, that they're constantly developing, they're constantly changing, they're constantly trying to figure out what works at the highest level and Andrew Abbott finally looked like it worked today. Yeah, certainly did. You mentioned the 17 swinging strikes, he gave up three homers, all three of them being solo shots. The

thing that stood out to me most, zero walks, right? So you get zero walks with all those whiffs in this start and overall I think this was the most encouraging start for Andrew Abbott and you know Chris when you started your analysis there it's something that I think about a lot we're in a really unique position on this podcast where we recap baseball every single day and we react to it and playing fantasy I think about this a lot I'm like I don't know that that's like the nature I don't know how to explain this it's tough because I feel like fantasy baseball is probably something you should analyze every couple of weeks. Like you let data build up.

And then, but we kind of have this interesting task of like reacting right away. So we have to make like snap judgment calls. I feel like you're also saying like that's not necessarily the nature of even the fantasy player. Because the fantasy player might do the real kind of deep dive in every three or four days. You know, they kind of, oh, how do my team score? Blah, blah, blah.

And they might look at like players to pick up. Like the nature of the fantasy player, not to everybody, of course, might be not so daily. and it might be more on a two to three times a week real check-ins, which kind of makes it unique. And this is something that I was talking about a little bit on Twitter today, where, you know, whatever, I'll do some self-assessment. My strengths as an analyst and my strengths as a, and my weakness as a fantasy player overlap.

Because I tend to anchor, we can get into a little bit of a general discussion, but I tend to anchor my thoughts to the baseline expectations that I had for players coming into the season. it's less important for a player like Andrew Abbott, but like what you're talking about is like fantasy playing sort of does demand overreacting, but there's risk when it comes to overreacting, right? Like Andrew Abbott comes out,

has three starts, 12 strikeouts, nine walks in 16 innings or whatever it was. And our sense, because we're trying to predict moving forward is, well, he's not really getting any whiffs and he's not really getting many strikeouts and the control hasn't been great. And you look at it and say, well, this is kind of not looking like a great player. and it worked out in Graham Ashcraft's case for us, you know, the skepticism there. But it's also, Andrew Abbott is not a finished product. He wasn't a finished product after three starts.

He certainly isn't a finished product after four starts. And so, you know, the home runs that he gave up, none of them were particularly well hit. It is kind of funny. The Randall Gritchick home run has an XBA of 240, so an expected batting average of 240. It also would have been a home run in 30 out of 30 Major League Parks. you know, kind of... Interesting. Yeah.

It's funny. That gets into the methodology they use for XBA versus the home run factors. But yeah, like the three home runs, I actually don't think that's particularly concerning just because it was 96 mile per hour average eggs of velocity on one, 96.3 on the other,

100.4. Those are well-hit balls, but none of them were crushed. You know, he's not giving up a ton of hard contact. He only gave up four hard hit balls in this game. I'm trying to remember yesterday if I said to drop Andrew Abbott, I don't think I did. I don't think any of us did. Yeah. I don't even think his name came up as like a realistic drop option for Gavin Williams.

I could be wrong, but just thinking off the top of my head, I don't think he was one of them. Last point on him, Chris, I wanted to ask you, are you kind of backing off a little bit on the cell high? Because I know that you were like vehement about it recently. Are you kind of backing off after seeing a star like this? Well, it's new information, right? This is now 25% of his major league career where, you know, he looked much better than he had the previous three starts. So I still think there's room for a sell high, sure. But I feel a little better about his success being sustainable moving forward after seeing him get 10 strikeouts.

Against the Rockies, you know, that is a relevant factor for sure. But it's, I think this was a very promising start for him. Yeah. And I was giving you that opportunity, not in a bad way, just. because we do have new data. And I think that's also something that's really unique about doing this podcast is, again, we have to react in real time just one start after another, right?

And then we get new data. So we do have to change our opinions about things. And it's just these are the things that I think about in my spare time. Anyway, Welsh, let's go over to you. Oh my goodness gracious, from Wednesday. I just want to also point out, like I'm a very contextualized person about like everything in fantasy and it's probably to an annoying point to some people.

So I appreciate that you say that and do that because I totally agree. I think it's hilarious how we were talking. You guys were talking. Anyone's talking about Andrew Abbott. And there's a negative connotation when he's not giving up runs. And then like he said, he gives up runs. But now the other stuff came together.

We're like, hey, now we feel really good. And this was, you know, from a earn run standpoint, the worst start. So it's just a really weird perspective in your instant reactions to the whole thing. And there were lots of reactions throughout this entire season on the guy that I wanted to focus on today. Tosh Bradley. Tosh Bradley from the first go to being sent down to the pitch mix and coming back up. up and being really, really good and locking it down. His start here on Wednesday night, almost forgetting what night it was, 13 swinging whiffs, double digit on every pitch he used,

similar to Andrew Abbott, which you love to see. A 33% CSW had four whiffs on the fastball. Cutter, which had looked like it might have been scrapped in the miners when he got sent down, came back a 33% whiff rate and a 57% whiff rate on that changeup. He threw all those pitches, whatever may have happened, they may have even talked to him about being more comfortable because some of the stuff numbers look like the curveball was maybe the worst pitch, and it's back, 23%. And the numbers are speaking for themselves. 95 percentile in K percentage on the year, a 34.1K percentage with an under 10% walk percentage on the year, an expected earn run average, which is almost a full run under. And if you look at, if you want to simply look at like

qualifications of pitchers, not under qualified, but if you go to 40 pitches, 40 innings or more, Tosh Bradley has the third best Sierra in baseball at 3.08. Only strider and Gosman have higher. And you know, the FIP is sitting at a little over two and a half ex-fip around two eight. Those are some pretty solid numbers overall with big strikeout numbers. And he just continues to do it. And I'm really encouraged with the pitch mix revamp where we We get to see the guy we saw at the beginning of the year, not the guy that got sent down to the minors, got beat up, was getting his pitches kind of screwed with. He's back to finding his comfortable level.

And I think he's back to just being in that elite rookie pitcher level right now. And he has been sneaky, sneaky good. And, you know, he didn't have the 17 swinging whiffs like Andrew Abbott. But it's something we need to continue paying attention to because he is in the elite echelon of these rookie pitchers this year. And he's maintaining and sustaining. And that gets me very excited. I've been pretty hard on Tage Bradley recently, too. I know Scott and I talked about him last week.

I think that was the start. He had 11 strikeouts against the Oakland A's, and I was like, yeah, but he didn't go five innings. So what I will say is, like Andrew Abbott, what I love about this start, zero walks. Walks have been an issue for Tage Bradley since coming back from the minors. He had three or more walks in each of his previous three starts before this.

And if you look at just the overall picture, since being recalled, six starts before this one, a 455 ERA and a 152 whip. He gets a lot of strikeouts, but he also has been walking a lot and giving up a lot of hard contact. This was his best start since getting called back up.

It might be his best start of the season. It's actually the first quality start of his career. So there's good and some bad, but if he can limit the walks, then I do think that, you know, there's a really, really talented pitcher here in Todge Bradley.

And I was just going to ask, again, I feel like we do this all the time, but just like trying to figure out where he ranks among the rookie pitchers. And kind of where I settled on it was like Hunter Brown, Bobby Miller, Yuri Perez. Those three are ahead of Taj Bradley. And then I kind of feel like Taj Kodi Senga and Bryce Miller are all in like a similar range.

What do you got to say? Yeah, I mean, Yuri Perez is in pie. I wrote about this. We talked about it yesterday, but I wrote about this for the trade values chart today. And he's kind of an impossible player to value because right now Yuri Perez might be a top 30. pitcher, but you can't rank him that way. Because as we talked about yesterday, he might only have nine starts left. But like those starts, I think he might be the best rookie pitcher on a per star basis.

It's just we know there's a clear limit on how much we're going to get from Yuri Perez the rest of the way. So like, I don't know if I'd rather have Taj Bradley or Yuri Perez, honestly. Like, it's an imposition. And I know our job is to answer questions like that. But it's just, would I rather? have nine to 11 starts of what I think are just going to be like borderline ace quality or Taj Bradley who probably won't be as good on a per start basis. You know, he's only thrown, he hasn't thrown more than 90 pitches in a start this season.

The rays are notoriously fine with their pitchers, only throwing five innings if that's what they need out of them. And so I do think that puts a ceiling on how good Taj, Tage Bradley can be, but. But it's not the innings. It's not the innings that are going to cap Tage Bradley. Yeah, yeah. It's the usage. It's old Blake Snell.

It's like an old Blake Snell type of situation. It actually feels very Blake Snellian, if you think about strikeouts and walks and a little different usage, of course. But it has that type of feel in it. But yeah, I think that the Uri, it's, maybe it's like Roto. You know, Yuri, you could just say, screw it. He's going to be the top guy. We'll get those innings.

Head to head, where you have a playoff format. I think Taj might be a little bit more of the guy. I think Hunter Brown sits at the top, like you said. But, you know, there's, I think he belong. I agree with you, Frank. I think he's in that upper tier or near that upper tier. I think him and Bobby Miller are very close. I think they're very, very close.

I think there's even arguments, too, that you can say if Taj continues this, he's going to be a more stable pitcher because there's a lot going on in that, and that Dodgers rotation and everything with them as well. And you've got team contacts that work in favor. You know, if you want to think about like Marlins versus Ray's going back, to Yuri. So Taj is in that upper echelon. I was even going to ask like, you know, Andrew Abbott or Taj Bradley, but I don't think

that's not in discussion here. Even off of this good start for Andrew Abbott, he hasn't moved into that quadrant of pitchers yet. Yeah, no, I agree. I think Taj is clearly ahead of Andrew Abbott, just from a skill perspective right now. Welch, are you taking Taj ahead of

like Kodai Senga and Bryce Miller? I think I'm going to take Taj over Bryce Miller. And yeah, you know what? I like, Kota Senka, those games where, you know, where he hasn't faced somebody, you're like, oh, these are sweet. And then the next time you're like, this is a disaster. I feel like it's just a little bit more minimalized with Taj Bradley. So I think I would take Bradley over Senga and I would take him over Bryce Miller. So that's why, like, maybe he's in his own little tier between the upper

guys. I actually just might put him and Bobby Miller in their own tier, because what was the top tier? It's like Yuri and Hunter Brown. Then it's Bobby Miller and Taj. And then the collection of guys really kind of starts to grow where, you know, the rookie. who pitched today might get himself in there and quite a few others. Andrew Abbott might get in there as well. I think I might take Senga over Taj. They're really similar. They both struggle with control, but I feel like Senga won't be as limited just on a per start basis. They let him throw like around 100 pitches per start. So it's close between those two. But yeah, you know, we're whatever. We're picking nits at that point. Splitting hairs. Oh my goodness gracious for me. I want to highlight

Justin Turner. I feel like we haven't talked about him all season. And this guy has just been like very low-key crushing it for the Boston Red Sox. He went two-for-four with a sock and a shoe on Wednesday, his 11th home run. His fourth steal of the season, four steals that's more than the likes of Ozzy Albies, Bo Bichette, and Mani Machado, Speedster, Justin Turner, exactly how we drew it up this year. But he is having a monster June where he's betting 3.42, five homers, two steals, and a 1030 OPS. The expected numbers look good for Turner.

He's hitting the ball hard. You know, the past couple of years, he's dealt with some injuries. But when he's been on the field, he still has been a very productive player, formerly with the Dodgers, again now, with the Red Sox. And I have a segment plan for later on, rankings, risers, and fallers. I was just going to let you guys know where I moved Justin Turner up to, and you let me know if I'm off base. Maybe I'm a little bit too high on him.

Maybe I'm still too low. I moved Turner up to my 12th ranked first baseman, and I moved him up to 15 at third base. So he's like a low end starter at both positions, regardless of format. That is pretty close to where I have him, uh, 15 at both. Okay. Who is the guy like above and below? So I, at first base, he's just behind Nate Lowe and Spencer Steer.

Spencer Steer, by the way, has been so, so good. He's been awesome, yeah. I think he had two of the top five hardest hit balls in this game and he didn't have a hit. So I mean, he just, he wants to. to keep going. It's crazy. I've got him right behind Matt Chapman, Josh Young, and Ryan McMahon. So I moved him ahead of Matt Chapman. I have him as a, that's fair. Someone I was going to highlight as a fall. I know he had a good game here on Wednesday, his 10th home run, but since the start of May, Matt Chapman is betting 203 with a 30% strikeout rate. So I have moved

him down quite a bit in the rankings and moved Justin Turner up. Just that first base, right behind him, Josh Naylor, Ty France, and Anthony Rizzo. So just to give you some kind of perspective there Welsh. Yeah, that seems like the good range. I think I'm in agreement. Again, it might be like interchanging players and, but I think like the tiers that you have, I agree with. First base, I've got to say.

I mean, ranking the first base position, it's okay, you have your clear top five that ends with Matt Olson. That's kind of terrible after that. Yandi Diaz is like, whatever. He's on an island. He's like his own ranking at six. Although he has slowed down in June as well. And then you get into Christian Walker, Luisa Rise,

Nate Lowe, Stier, and that entire group. And it just, it feels very jumbled up. It's whoever the flavor of the month, the flavor of the week is. I guess you can kind of interchange those names. But remember pre-draft season? We're like, oh, we don't need those top guys. We can get Vinnie Pasquantino. We can get Jose Abray.

Brownie Tellez. It'll all be okay. Oh, gosh. Yeah, like Christian Walker, I think, is a solid top 10 first baseman at this point. He's been very good. I think he's been strong enough for long enough. that I'm, I actually do have him ranked just ahead of Yaddi Diaz. And how about this? I just realized on Wednesday, Cody Bellinger gained first base eligibility on CBS.

So I think he just played his fifth game there. And he was dealing with the knee injury and they've been trying to limit his movement there in the outfield. So I would think he's going to be in that like Justin Tier, Justin Turner range, probably a little lower. I put Bellinger at nine. So I have him ahead of that group. But I'm much more skeptical. skeptical. I'm with for I'm a little bit more with you Frank. Yeah. I he was just so good before he got hurt. Can you get back to that form? You know, that is a real question. It's just you know the player we saw before he got hurt. He was really really good. Cody Bellinger. Pretty bad in May. Uh, I think he like when I checked he was averaging three point four fantasy points per game on the season and that's the pretty elite. The worm had turned. The worm had turned once the calendar turned to May. He had a 578 OPS in the month of May before the injury. But your belief was that turn was permanent? Well, I just, like I said earlier, my, I strongly anchor to my priors and my prior coming into the season was that Cody Bellinger's no longer good.

And so there's potentially a little confirmation bias in that May analysis. All right. Well, we need more data. So let's see how Cody Bellinger finishes out the month of June. And let's quickly talk about what happened with Gavin Williams in his debut. obviously the overall stat line is unimpressive up against the Oakland A's, five and two thirds, four hits, four runs allowed, three walks, and four strikeouts, only seven swinging strikes on 84 pitches.

It's not like he gave up a ton of hard contact. He gave up a three-run homer to Ryan Noda on his curveball, which actually got hit, hit pretty hard in this first start here. The three walks didn't help. He really settled down. I think it was the third inning where he gave up all four of his runs. He settled down after that. He retired eight in a row at some point. Working with a four pitch mix in this one, average 95 and a half miles per hour on the fastball.

Welsh, what did you see from Gavin Williams in his debut? And he's still only 58% rostered. So could be out there. And maybe some people will even drop him after seeing this first start. Yeah, I think what you said was a really important thing because that one inning was really brutal. It just fell apart through like four, four bad. and then he, you know, before and after, he looked pretty solid. His command was pretty shaky if you watch the game.

He had a lot of bad sliders that, you know, they just bit way too soon and batters weren't needing to swing at. The curveball looks fun and it got some good swings, but it was like wildly up. And, you know, he was having to put the fastball in the zone. So it was an okay start. The fastball velo seemed to be a little bit down. I don't know if that was in maybe an attempt for big, control, but that's, I think he was like 93, 95. That seemed like that was in the range that he was

consistently hitting. So I think like overall this looked like a relatively unimpressive start, especially against an A's team, which we, I know we can't keep being like A's all the time. And now looking here, I didn't even see hit 98, but yeah, average 95 on the fastball, which seems like it was a tiny tick down or so. But I think there's nerves. I think there's jitters. And I would look at this with this guy as an opportunity, because he could, can eat innings for the rest of the year. I assume he's going to stick around. He got through it. I think he showed poise. And anybody that is insanely unimpressed by the start, I'm okay. I'm okay with that. We've seen multiple pitchers, you know, the heavy fastball guys not get strikeouts

early on. Emmett Sheehan had that. We saw it with Andrew Abbott. There's an adjustment period. I think he's got great stuff. His command was shaky, but I think he showed a ton to that organization. They let him go five and two thirds. They were going to let him go to the six inning. They pushed him, what did he end at? Was it like 84 pitches? So I, you know, I think they'll be able to push him a little bit further. I see this as an opportunity and I would be picking him up because he is the best of the Guardians pitchers. Maybe it's going to take a little bit more because we're a little that spoiled because Tanner Bybee came out banging and so did Logan Allen. But I'm okay. It wasn't greatly impressive, but I think a lot of the miscues came from just some lack of command.

And I think that can be fixed overall. So I'm still buying it. regardless of some of the results and some of the underlying stuff. And if we're looking at the workload for the rest of the season, Gavin Williams threw 115 innings in the minors last year and with this start he's now at 66 total. So I think he could probably- No real concern there. Yeah, he could get up to like 140, 150 and yeah. I mean, I don't think there's any risk of him like being limited or slowed down at some point. It's just coming, it comes down to him performing now and how effective he is in the majors.

yesterday I asked Scott if he would rather have Gavin Williams or Emmett Sheehan Towers, I will ask you the same question after seeing this first start. I think I would go with Williams but I don't have a strong feel either way. I'd like to have both. I think both probably should be rostered

in pretty much all leagues, maybe not 10 team points leagues, but pretty much anything deeper than that. Just because there's considerable upside for both of them. You know, what we didn't see from Williams and this one was the swings and misses with the curveball in particular when he was in the minors. That was the primary pitch that he threw out of the zone for chases. And so he only got one with that one.

And then only two with the fastball. So, you know, it wasn't an overwhelmingly dominant start, but I don't think there was anything concerning here. And I think also you saw like, I think he knew he didn't have that. He didn't have that curve. I mean, he threw some nasty, bad looking curveballs. And I think he knew he didn't have it because this was kind of, I'm trying to remember. I want to say this is at least 4% or 5% at least less than his last start as far as the curveball usage.

And it was weighted a little bit more heavy curveball slider fastball. So I think this was also a picture showing when he didn't have the pitch having to readjust. And like I said, it was one bad. I see this as opportunity. I understand all those things. And I would go with Gavin Williams over Sheehan rest of season. Yeah. You look at the like the pitch chart and fastball missed up arm size.

quite a bit, and then curveballed. Yeah, he didn't really have command of it. But one thing that I do like is in the minors, he pretty much relied. He threw his slider in the strike zone a lot. It was like 60% or 55% or something really high and generated a lot of weak contact with that. And this one, four balls and play 81 mile per hour average exit velocity. So that does seem like it could be a really good pitch for him even when he's not getting whiffs. Again, that is Gavin Williams in his debut. let's take our first break and when we return,

Sandial Ocantara, what's the latest? We'll talk about it here on Fantasy Baseball today. Welcome back and a quick reminder to follow us on TikTok at FBTPod. You go to TikTok.com slash the little at sign FBTPod. We are currently uploading a bunch of different clips from our Dexter Fowler interview, which was a lot of fun, but we typically just take, you know, fun clips from this show and we throw some highlights over it.

And yeah, if you dabble with TikTok, Make sure to follow us at FBT pod. Sandy Alcansara, what's going on? Let's try and figure this one out. It has a bit of like Alec Manoa stink to it. I don't know that we're at that level, but there's just something off. There's something off with Sandy right now,

and let's talk about it. Up against the Blue Jays, seven innings, 10 hits allowed five runs in this start. Only 10 swinging strikes on 96 pitches. He allowed nine hard hits in this game, and has now allowed five plus earned runs in five of 15 starts this year, has 10 swinging strikes or fewer in five of his past six starts. So it's a combination of not getting whiffs and giving up some hard contact right now.

The overall ERA stands at 508. The whip is 125 for Sandy. His strand rate is currently 60.3%. That is the second lowest among qualified starting pitchers this season. just to put in perspective, his strand rate for his career, 73%, last year, 79%. So runners are getting on base, and a lot of the time, they are scoring. And that's been a big issue for Sandy. A quote that I saw from an article on MLB.com, he said,

there's no luck for me this year, but I know it. And the writer went on to say that Sandy believes the implementation of the pitch timer could be a factor in his struggles with men on base. Now, this is the first time I've heard anything like this from Sandale O'Connor, but Towers, they could be on to something because considering how he's pitched with runners on base, I think, yeah, maybe this pitch timer is something that's affecting him. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, that's something that I'd want to see.

Like, is his velocity down when the runners on base or, like, I don't know. He doesn't strike me from watching him as a guy who, like, particularly labors on the mound, even when runners on base, he tends to move pretty quickly. So I'll be honest, I don't have any kind of explanation as to why Sandy Alcounter has been bad this season. Like,

there are, there are things that you can point to. His change up has been significantly less effective than it was last season. His Wobah allowed his change up last year. 169, this season 332, almost double. Crazy. But, like,

that is a, an explanation that, doesn't have an explanation in my eyes, at least that I can find. Like his release point is most of the same as it was last season. The velocity readings, most of the same. Spin rate, all like all the component parts are like very, very similar to what it was last season. Maybe it's just a combination of things that, you know, small factors that are making a big

difference. You know, it's clearly something is wrong. I don't have a specific explanation for why things have gone so poorly for him, which you can look at two ways. You can look at that pessimistically and say, well, there's no one simple trick for Sandy Alcantra figuring it out. Or you can look at it the opposite way and say, well, nothing seems all that wrong and he probably will just regress to his career norms. I tend to lean towards the latter explanation. I would take the under on a 3-5 ERA the rest of the way for Sandy Al-Contra. Maybe I'm alone in that, but I just, because I don't have a good explanation for why he's struggling,

I tend to think he will be better moving forward. The question now becomes, well, what do we do? if we have Sandy Alcantzor on our teams. And I would recommend or, you know, at least consider benching him moving forward. The problem, next week he's in line for two starts. And they're two very tough starts. He's facing the Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves both on the road. So it doesn't even have the friendly confines of Marlins Park there.

Both of those teams ranked top six in Wobah against right-handed pitching the season. Welsh, would you actually consider benching Saniel Ocantzor in a two-star week, the way that he's pitching right now? Yeah, I think so. Um, like this is one of those things. I've kind of been on the bandwagon of buying in on Sandale-Al Contra all year. Kind of similar to what Tower said. Like there does, there isn't like real big feasible things that are telling us this and crazy, you know, like we've looked at, even though Shane Bieber has kind of like

bucked the trend sometimes, you know, we look at like V-Lo down and spin and not getting strikeouts and K percentage. It's just not really there. The only thing I've really even seen like Towers has said is that change up has been so much less effective. It's actually got a, it's got an EV average EV of five miles an hour more than it was last year. It's also last year it had a negative launch angle on it, which is, you know, it's getting hit on ground balls. And it's positive.

It was negative five last year. It's eight this year. So I mean, that's a, that's a relatively significant launch angle difference, which just tells you batters are getting better reads and feels off of being able to hit that pitch, which might not just be about the change up. It might be the pitch mix. We've seen the change up usage go down in favor of the sinker, and that comes back to what Sandy's saying. If the pitch clock has the timing messed up, maybe there's less time to think about the pitch and shake off a guy, and it's just pitch go. You have to have the right catcher and feel. We could speculate, but when you start to like crazy speculate on a player, I revert back to being like, this is a crazy talented player.

Who also, by the way, I love here talking about this. Like he is actively listening. How many times have we heard these guys? be like, I don't know, you know, it's crazy. It's baseball, man. Like, these guys just get frustrated. Like, stop asking me these questions. Sandy's not doing that. Like, Sandy's taking it forefront. He's trying to keep a positive attitude. I know this doesn't help and maybe eye roll it to some people, but when there's not a lot of quantifiable stuff, I kind of believe what he's saying. And we see the change up being less effective, but it might be about some of these extracurricular things that are

going on. So I was thinking the same thing of like, I think at this point, it's hard to gauge that the that the worst ERA isn't already behind us. And the second half, I would bet, is going to be closer into, like, the three type of range. So I see him as a buy that doesn't help people that own him. So to mitigate your pain, pay attention to the matchups and don't put him out there in those, you know, the Texas Rangers, the Red Sox are hot right now. You just got to, like, be comfortable. I would rather bench one of the players I spent a high capital on than go and sell the guy out of frustration.

for so much less than you really should be getting for a guy of that talent. Just suck it up, swallow it, and just boom, sit him for a couple starts, let him get right. Because I tend to believe I'm on Towers' side here that this will revert back to something better. Maybe not elite, but something of a better Sandy. I think selling him right now is the biggest mistake you can make. I think that would just, that's, that is fantasy baseball 101. Like, don't sell your second round pitcher when, his ERA is over five.

Like that just, maybe he'll never figure it out. Maybe this is a 2022 Jose Barrio season and he just never figures it out. But I, Sandy Alcantra's track record is long enough that he deserves the benefit of the doubt here. And that doesn't mean he will figure it out for sure. I can't promise that. But I'm, I'm very confident he will. For what it's worth, Craig Mish is probably the most dialed in beat reporter with the Marlin. out there. And he had this tweet after the start. Sandy is going to make you're citing this.

Sandy is going to make a lot of people on here look very foolish during the second half of the season. He'll be back. Save the receipts. Yeah. Just throwing it out there. Fully agree with that. All right, U. Darvish is next up. Another lackluster effort at the Giants. Six innings of four-run ball with six strikeouts had 11 swinging strikes on 101 pitches. His velocity was down across the board between one and one mile, one and a half miles per hour on three different pitches. Kind of got screwed over at some point in this start. I think it was the third or fourth inning.

Fernando Tati threw a runner out at the plate and it would have limited the damage to just one earned run against Darvish. Then the Giants challenged the play and they said Gary Sanchez was blocking the plate and things kind of like snowballed and got out of control there for Darvish. But the point remains that he's not really having a good season

for someone you drafted probably in the fourth or fifth round, maybe your SP1 or SP2. He's got a 4-854. ERA, a 123 whip. Wells, we'll start with you this time. Any real concerns with you, Darvish? Or do you, I don't know, are you more likely to keep the faith

much like you are with Sandy? I mean, I guess I would keep the relative faith. I feel like we've also seen this over years and years of Darvish having these kind of like up swings of four or five bad starts and then he kind of picks it back up. It's really funny too

because it's like, if you're going through baseball savant and there's lots of different things you can see. You can see like actual like pure pitcher values and stuff. His just pitch mix always makes me laugh because it's just eight pitches deep across the board. And it's like picking what he does. One of the things I would say I don't love is of the five pitches that he throws, double digit percentage of the time.

Four of the five have at least a 200 plus batting average against. I know that might not sound like something crazy. But, you know, a lot of these guys, you know, especially the upper echelon guys, it would be like, okay, maybe the fastball they're getting, you know, hit on, but they're more effective on their slider and their curveball, whatever. And it's just like, you know, the contact is kind of up right now. The positive is the, the strikeouts are still there. The walks are a little bit up. Everything else kind of feels in line. And he does have an expected ERA around 3.7. I think the Padres easily can get hot in the back half of the year.

So I don't want to be like, oh, I'm super confident. But I think this is a version of Darvish we've seen a whole bunch. We've seen the bad starts. There's not insane big worrisome stuff in the back end about outside of maybe finding the effective pitches that he needs to focus on and a little bit more walks, but that's also part of the bad swing. So I guess I give him a semi pass here. Yeah, and Darvish is just someone that goes through these crazy swings, not just for season to season, but from start to start from month to month. It's just we see inconsistency at times from him. And I mean, if you just look at his season log, it's like a odd year, even year kind of thing, right? Like, it's past five years.

398 ERA back in 2019, then 201, 422, 310, and now he's at 484. So it's a lot of up and down. Even that implies a smoother ride than it's actually been. Because if you remember, the first half, I think it was the first half of the 2019 season. Was that his last year with the Cubs? That was his second to last year with him. I think that was the year where he was just dreadful in the first half. And then was like the best pitcher in baseball in the second half.

I remember correctly. Yeah. 501 ERA in the first half, 276 in the second half. Remember, he was walking everyone in the first half of that season. One of the most incredible season split things I've ever seen. 49 walks in 18 starts in the first half. Seven walks in 13 starts. in the second half of that 2019 season.

So this is just well said, I think the fact that he's got eight pitches. And not just eight pitches, but he like changes his mix, his, his like grips on those pitches. His, you said the velocity was down on all of his pitches today.

Well, his curve ball or his knuckle curve, excuse me, was up four miles per hour today. And so it's just, it feels like he's constantly tinkering. and it's frustrating when you're going through it, but Udarvis his track record suggests he will figure it out.

There's like a rhythm thing, like you said. Like back in 2021, also, you know, he had a two ERA in April, two ERA in May, three ERA in June, and then July and August, a seven and a six. And I know no one wants to hear that. Last year, he didn't have an ERA over five in any given month. And so far this year, he's got two. So the swings are pretty prevalent here.

I'd love for him to stop tinkering and find his rhythm and make that be the focus, and that's kind of the bet. All right, last name I want to speak about here quickly is Christian Javier, who had an implosion up against the New York Mets, two and a third inning, four runs allowed, five walks to one strikeout. Very clearly did not have much working for him in this outing. He has a total of five strikeouts over his last three starts, two, two, and one, which is very clearly not what we were expecting

from Christian Javier this season. He still has a 325 ERA and a 112 whip, but he's now below a strikeout per inning on the year. Fastball velocity is down like 1.2 miles per hour compared to last season. There was some discussion on, you know, where to rank Christian Javier on Twitter. Scott and I have him,

I think all three of us, Chris, have him as a top 20 starting pitcher. Eno Saris was saying how he's going to drop him down to like near the 4th. He's a very polarizing pitcher right now. Towers, you know, what's the latest here on Christian Javier? What are your thoughts? Yeah, I did move him down today, actually.

I would say during this start was when I was updating my rankings. He's down to 26 at starting pitcher for me in Roto. And part of it was some stuff that, you know, Saris pointed out that I hadn't really been paying attention to, which was the velocities down, but also the shape of his fastballs down. And he's one of those guys who really, really relied on a very, very good fastball last.

Obviously, the slider is his best pitch. But when you throw a fastball 60% of the time, that's got to be a really good pitch to survive that way. And, you know, he's lost spin. He's lost velocity on the pitch. The movement profile, he's getting a little bit less ride on the pitch. And all of a sudden, it's finding barrels a bit more often. And the whiff rate is not far off from where it was,

but he's getting hit harder with the pitch. 90.2 mile per hour average axis of velocity, launch angles down. I think in this instance, it's one of, it's probably my hypothesis would be that he's generating fewer poorly hit balls, I guess would be the way I would say it. Like the launch angle is only slightly lower, but it's probably tighter, more line drives, fewer pop-ups, fewer fly balls. And so there are definite concerns here.

The slider's also not been as effective as it was. Last season, I think that's probably more. about the fastball if I had to guess. But yeah, he doesn't look like the same guy. And what he did last year, it was a very narrow tightrope to walk because he was elite on quality of contact. And obviously a ton of strikeouts and that helped overcome some concerns about the workload. It helped overcome some concerns about his control. He doesn't look right right now.

I'm certainly more concerned about Christian Javier than I am either. U Darvish or Sandy Alcantra. I think I wanted to ask. Go ahead, Wells. I just wanted to say the only, only quick add was exactly what Towers is going with, was with the slider.

Because a slider in general, if you look at like the zone chart, he really painted edges last year. And the, the dark red heat map is dead center of the strike zone. That slider is hitting dead center in there a lot more.

Plus, there's three inch, less horizontal movement on the slider than it was last year, which, you know, the 15 last year rated it out really well. And it's a lot less effective. I mean, that's three inches less movement. It's getting hit harder inside the zone. It might be like Sandy. It might be about the fastball. Not so much the slider, but the slider's also losing some actual movement too. So it's it's weird because like as Scott was making the argument, there's still a lot of like actual fantasy things that work in his favor. outside of a lot of the underlying stuff. But as a two pitch pitcher, you just feel the volatility with a guy like this more, especially was one off.

Like, we all experience Patrick Corbin in our fantasy lives, and we're all like, ooh, good. You know, like when one thing doesn't work, these guys aren't all Spencer Strider. There's one specific spencer. There's a de Grom in a strider, and then there's the rest of the group

when something doesn't go right, there's not enough to lean on. How polar opposite are Javier and Darvish, by them. It's like, there's 36 pitches over here, and there's two over here. So it's a weird, it feels scarier. That was the last point that I was going to make too is a reminder about two pitch pitchers, right? Where if you don't have one pitch working, it's going to be tough.

We focus on that a lot and I feel like people might hear it as this guy can't be good because he only has two pitches. And that's not what it is. Clearly you can be. Spencer Strider, pretty good pitcher to name one. It's just your margin for error might be a little slimmer. Because you don't have, this was my concern with, like you mentioned, Patrick Corbin. He got so slider heavy and it was like, well, all right, this works.

What if it stops working? Is there any counter left? And maybe Christian Javier can just throw his slider more and that's the counter. But right now, all of his pitches look less effective. And I think there's legitimate reasons to be worried. One other pitcher that is dropping down the rankings, which I will just quickly mention, is Sonny Gray, who continues his run of mediocrity. He was facing the Red Sox.

He allowed three runs over five innings pitched. And over his last seven starts, he is a 404 ERA and a 157 whip. Lots of walks, lots of hits during that time. The swinging strike rate is way down. So I haven't updated the pitcher rankings yet. I'm going to work on that Thursday. But Sunny Gray is someone who will drop outside of the top 40,

probably closer to the top 50 range at starting pitcher. Let's take our final break and when we return, I've got some news, some waiver wire options. We'll do all of that right after this. Welcome back. Let's hit the news and notes and start with Carlos Rodan, who will make his next rehab start at AA Sunday after pitching well in his first outing on Tuesday. Braves manager Brian Snitker said Sean Murphy's hamstring felt better after running on Wednesday. Sounds like he could be back Thursday with the Braves. Bobichette was scratched from the lineup with left thumb discomfort. The x-rays on Dansby-Swanson's right wrist came back negative,

but he was out of the lineup Wednesday. Emmett Sheehan's next start will come Friday at home against the Astros. Tim Anderson has missed four straight with right-shoulders soreness. Jordan Walker was out of the lineup with an illness on Wednesday. Kentimaita will return to start Friday against the Tigers and is 29% rostered. You know, you're playing a deeper league and you want to take a shot on a veteran pitcher that is Kenta Maeda. Andrew McCutcheon was out. of the lineup due to a sore right elbow. Logan Oh Hoppe began lightly throwing on Wednesday.

He's been out since April after having surgery on his non throwing shoulder. That was one I was watching the game and the broadcasters mentioned. The quote was something like, I think we're going to see him this season. One of the other ones were like, yeah, I'd bet a hundred percent I'd bet on that. And he's apparently aiming for an August return. I feel like a mistake too. When they said that, it's almost like, do you guys, know that it got hurt? Yeah, that was why I like, I peaked up. I was like, wait, that's,

that's, that was surprising. I thought it was done for the year. So yeah, good to hear. Yeah, it's kind of, uh, I think it was a similar entry to Josh Young from last year. And Young had it in spring training. He returned to the, to the minors by the end of the season and eventually the majors. So it is possible. Um, but we'll, you know, keep tabs on Logan O'Hoppy. Lamont Wade was sent for an MRI after being scratched Tuesday due to right side soreness. And he said he's hoping to return to the lineup Thursday, so hopefully not too bad for him. DJ LaMayhew has now set out three straight as he tries to make adjustments amidst a very long slump. Vinie Pass Guantino underwent surgery Wednesday to repair the torn labrum in his right shoulder.

Gio Urchella does not need surgery to repair his fractured pelvis, which sounds brutal. I'm so sorry, Gio Orchella, but he will miss the remainder of the season. Some prospect updates and Welsh, we might be back at it, man. Debax GM Mike Hazen. Is it Hazen? Hasen? Hazen. Hayeson. Yeah. mentioned that Brandon Fott as a potential option to help the back end of their rotation. I know it's like they have Gallin and Merrill Kelly and then it's just a complete mess.

So I don't know that it could get much worse, but in four starts since being sent down, Brandon Fott has a 386 ERA and a 129 whip over a strikeout for ending the preface. problem. Still giving up some home runs. His last outing, he gave up three homers in the minor. So we could see him back with the debacks soon, but I would keep expectations in check once again with Brandon fought. Two Rangers prospects, Owen White and Dustin Harris were promoted from AA to AAA, and the Red Sox are promoting Brandon Walter from AAA to appear in Thursday's game. Not sure if he'll start that game or if he'll have an opener, but it does sound like he's going to pitch on Thursday. He had a, he's had a brutal 2023 in the minors, but really strong numbers

leading up to this year. Walsh, is there anything to see here with Brandon, Brandon Walter? I'm not in on it. I actually, it's funny you bring him up because that's been a guy that I've never been like crazy, crazy into, I think a little bit older too. I struggle with like older prospects. And I've got, you know, Red Sox fans kind of poking at me like, Brandon Walter, Brandon Walter, or we'll see it's not on my radar. We have an overload of rookie pitchers, but pending the overall usage, there's some strikeout options there.

I wouldn't discount it, but he's not someone I'm running to pick up. Yeah, Brandon Walter, 26 years old in AAA with the Red Sox, so is a bit of an older prospect there. Let's talk about some waiver wire hitters, and for a while, Scott and I, we were begging people to pick up Matt McLean.

It's like, it took forever for him to get over 80%. And I think the new player that we're going to beg people to pick up is Ezekiel Duran. He went two for four with his ninth home run. He's betting 3.10 with an 879 OPS. He also has four steals. The expected numbers are amazing. He hits the ball hard.

He's got an 11% barrel rate. He's got three different positions on CBS, third base, shortstop, and outfield. Seven home games next week, too. 66% rostered. That's really low. Regardless of format. Head said points, categories. You need to add Ezekiel Duran.

So I'll just throw his name out there. Two outfielders, which one would you rather have between Luis Matos, who went two for three, with his second steel, hitting for good batting average so far. Not really much power yet. He's 67% rostered. The other name is Jake Frey, who went two for four with his ninth homer. He added 2RBI. He's 53% rostered.

Next week, he's got six games with at least five of them against Ritey. So some good news there for Freli. Towers, who would you rather have Matos or Freilly? That's tough because fairly we talked about earlier in the week. Just taking the time he's spent with the Reds, I think we're up to like 140 games or something. And he's a 2020 guy, I think in that time. So I think I'd go there.

The only thing I guess would be just Matos has a little more heat around him. So there's more risk that if you don't add him, you'll never have a chance to add him. And look, the fact is he hasn't struck out yet. Or sorry, he struck out once. and 29 plate appearances. So he's been pretty impressive so far. No power yet, but I'll give the edge to Frey.

It's such a unique profile too, because I want to say that Mottoe should be a better points league player because he doesn't strike out. But his best skill is batting average and speed, which I'm like, all right, maybe that should be a category player. So I don't know, he's a pretty interesting profile. It's close. I think I would lean with Matos. If for nothing else, it's like the playing time with Freli.

He's not going to play against lefties. And I think there's just more outside with Montes. Yeah. The next group is, this is more so for five outfielder, deeper leagues. Tommy Pham went one for three with two steals and is quietly batting 260 with seven homers, eight steals, and he's crushing the ball. 94 miles per hour, average exit velocity. Expected stats are fantastic for Tommy Fam.

He's 12% rostered. he's playing every day as well for the New York Mets. And Alec Thomas, who went three for five with a run and an RBI. And in three games since returning from the minors, he's got six hits, a home run, four runs, three RBI. And I know he made some adjustments down in the minors and started hitting the ball pretty well. Welsh, what do you think? Five outfielder leagues, Tommy Fam versus Alec Thomas.

I think this is kind of like the last one where you said like, I don't want to put Alec Thomas in like Luis Matos, but there is a, if you don't get him, you might. miss out where Tommy fam definitely has more of that boring feel. So I guess if like I'm encouraged, the thing that I think we talked about a decent amount here was like, holy God, that underlying stuff, when you look at the baseball savant page of Alec Thomas, you would have thought he was exponentially better than he was. And he wasn't doing anything with it. Now it's starting to click. I mean, hits in both of these last games, RBIs, you got a homer in there. This is exactly what you've wanted out of him on a team that's running hot. And we also know he's going to run.

Tommy Fam is the floor play. I don't love Tommy Fam, but he's the safer option here. So this also takes me back to when we've talked about, what was it, the Orlando Arcea versus Geraldo Pardomo. I don't want to be the Homer here. I think I love the turnaround for Thomas, and I think the savant page tells a story about the changes that are taking place here.

But Tommy Fam is getting it done right now. So I think if you're playing upside, it's Thomas. If you're just looking for like, I got to get a guy in that fifth outfielder and I need them to produce maybe due to injuries and lack of production. Tommy fan fits that role a bit better. The only problem with Thomas, and I'm a fan, I hope he figures it out. His numbers against lefties are just brutal.

In his career, it's 135 plate appearances against lefties. 365 OPS. OPS. Not on base percentage. On base percentage, that would be pretty good. 365 OPS. This season between the majors and minors, he has 20 strikeouts to one.

walk in 78 plate appearances against lefties. So, like, he's young, he's still talented, he's still too early to write the book on him, but strong platoon vibes from Alec Thomas. And pretty similar to Jake Frilly when we were talking about him as well. Tommy Fam, I'll just point out, I know Welsh you mentioned Alec Thomas, his stack cast page. Tommy Fam, this guy is like, uh, it looks like 90, 90th percentile or higher, higher and like everything. So he's really, really crushing the ball.

He usually does. It's just, can it actually translate to production? Yeah, wow, that is bright. Yeah, it's pretty good for Tommy fam. A few other names I wanted to mention here. Very deep leagues, the Yankees, the Misfit Outfielders. Jake Bowers, one for two with a walk and his sixth home run. He had a 19% barrel rate entering Wednesday, which just kind of caught my eye.

It's pretty crazy stuff. And Billy McKinney, who went two for three with his third home run, it was 109 off the bat, 414 feet. And so far in 12 games with the Yankees, batting 317 with a 992 OPS. I don't expect either one of these guys to be long-term plays. But if you play in a very deep league, in the meantime with all the injuries, they're going to get some playing time for the Yankees. I wanted to mention a few of those other rankings risers from earlier. Justin Turner is at the forefront.

Josh Naylor went 4-4-hit his ninth home run, which came off of a lefty. I thought that was pretty encouraging for Josh Naylor. He's playing every day for the Guardians. He's now batting 295 with nine homers and 55 RBI. That's top five in all of baseball for Josh Naylor. It's pretty crazy stuff for him. I moved him up to 13th in my first base rankings. And the other name is Jonah Heim, two for four with his 10th homer.

He added 3 RBI. He's a catcher, Jonah Heim. He has 54 RBI. That is tied for sixth in baseball. Like, what is happening? The next closest catcher is Sean Murphy with 42. Two. So Jonah Heim, he, like, I doubted it for a while, slowly just kept moving him up. He's inside my top seven. I moved him ahead of Wilson Contreras. I'm like, he's done it for long enough where I pretty much trust it.

Anything towers on Josh Naylor or Jonah Heim moving up the ranks? Jonah Heim seems like a clear sell high candidate. And that's not to say that he can't be good. But if nothing else changes moving forward, he's not going to keep this RBI pace up or anything close to. He's playing more than your typical catcher, and that certainly helps. But he's got a 776 OPS, which again is pretty good for a catcher. But he's also, if you gave him 162 game pace, he's on pace for about 140 RBI. So that pace is going to slow down considerably, I would say. If he had fewer than 30 RBI the rest of the season and was still a good hitter, that wouldn't shock me.

So there's going to be some slow down there, but obviously starting him as a catcher. I didn't realize how good Josh Naylor's been since like the start of May. He's basically been like a 900 OPS bat since the start of May. He's been pretty impressive. Yeah, he's been awesome. And shout out to his brother, Bo Nailer, got his first career hit on Wednesday. And Josh Nailer was way more excited than Bo. He's there like freaking out on the bench.

You love to see it. It was great stuff. I'll tell you too. A little side note. They're going to be the most prolific fantasy baseball heritage of a team. As today I was at the MLB Draft Combine, and they have a younger brother who might be more talented than both of them named Miles. And he was out there just cranking 107, you know,

as like I think it's 17 years old, 18 years old, EVs out there. And there's another nailer that's coming to baseball soon. So what a family. Wow, crazy stuff there. All right. wanted to mention quickly, Matt Chapman, he's someone who's following in the rankings I mentioned earlier. Since the start of May, he's really, really slowed down. I dropped him down to 17th in my third base rankings. A few waiver-wire pitchers, Garrett Whitlock, we talked about him a lot recently. It wasn't the greatest start.

Four runs allowed over seven innings on Wednesday. Still had 18 swinging strikes. That's now three starts in a row with 17 or more swinging strikes for Garrett Whitlock. 73% rostered, beat the waiver wire, beat the pitching planner for tomorrow, because I guarantee he's going to be on Scott's list. He's facing the Marlins and at the Blue Jays next week as a two-star pitcher. So just a heads up there on. It should be 100% rostered there. Yep. Let's party like it's 2016. Kyle Hendricks and Julio Taran.

I don't know how much you actually want to buy into it, but they are doing it. They're doing the thing. They are pitching well right now. Kyle Hendricks, six and a third, three runs allowed. only one of those earned only two strikeouts but he now has a 260 ERA and a 0.98 whip Julio Tehran has allowed two earned runs or fewer in all six of his starts a 153 ERA and a 0.88 whip. Both of these guys are pretty widely available Welsh any buy-in here on Julio Tehran and Kyle Hendrix.

Maybe I want I want Julio Tehran to be a thing but then you look at like a 7% swinging strike percentage and you're like I don't know think so these are streaming guys i might play them up against matchups julio tyuron has been playing good that's going to probably change soon kyle hendricks maybe i don't know a little bit more viable um as a trustworthy option but not much for me outside of streaming for these guys last season julio taran with the with los tos de tijuana had a 488 era this is incredible i have no idea I have a strong inclination to believe it's not sustainable whatsoever. But it sure is fun.

As for Hendricks, he's got a long track record when he's right of outperforming his peripherals and making fantasy analysts look dumb. I'm skeptical that he's back to being that guy. His peripherals are even worse than they were at those times. But I have a little more faith in it than Tehran. Yeah, we can't completely discount the possibility of Kyle Hendricks making us look foolish for at least one more season here. A few bullpen updates. Let's wrap up with the Blue Jays.

Jordan Romano. He allowed two base runners, but struck out two for his 20-second save for the Reds. Alexis Diaz was unavailable. I didn't even mention. The Reds have won 11 in a row. What is going on? I had the year. This is their longest winning streak since 1957.

You know, I just completely missed a whole section of the rundown here. I'm just realizing. I didn't even talk about Shohei Otani, who had an amazing start, seven innings, one run, 12 strikeouts. And he must have heard me last week when I was talking about how mediocre his pitching has been recently. But there you go. If you're listening at the like 103 mark on the show, there you go. You get my analysis of Shohei Otani.

Anyway, back to the Reds. Alexis Diaz was unavailable. Buck Farmer picked up his second save for the Astros, Ryan Presley picked up his 14th save for the debacks. Scott McGuff fired two perfect innings with four strikeouts for his fourth save. And I think they're probably still going to mix and match, but McGuff looks very clearly like their best option right now. Well, you have a feel there for the Arizona bullpen?

I just want to point out, like, we could make a mashup clip of how many times I've been on here on a Wednesday, and you have been like, Andrew Chafin clearly looks like the option. Miguel Castro clearly looks like there. is, and I'm not picking on you, there is no clear option in Arizona. Their bullpen stinks. They run hot hands. They run multiple guys out there. And there's a reason that you're saying this is these guys get hot. They run them out and then they get blown up. McGuff has been inconsistent. I don't believe he's the guy. If the nine-backs are going to be smart, the guy who's going to lead them in saves is not on this team right now. And they need to make a change and a move soon. But, you know, hey, write it out

with McGuff. He will be the guy until they go to Chaffin and then Chaffin is going to get a run. Lavello's crazy about that stuff. All right. For the Nationals, Kyle Finnegan recorded four outs across the seventh and eighth innings. Hunter Harvey then picked up his fourth save, and I'm here to tell you that Kyle Finnegan could be dropped.

He does not have a save since May 27th. I even, I dropped them in like my 15 team leagues where I had him. So if I'm dropping them there, I think you can pretty much drop Kyle Finnegan anywhere. For the Yankees, Michael King got the final out of the eighth with a three-run lead. He then started the ninth inning.

He gave up a walk and a head. hit. He was pulled for Tommy Canley, who then picked up his first save of the season. For the Guardians, Emmanuel Class A got his 22nd. For the Twins, Yoan Duran entered in the 8th with a one-run lead. He gave up an RBI double to Tris and Cossis and then pitched a scoreless ninth inning. And then for the Dodgers, Evan Phillips picked up his ninth save of the season. To stream or not to stream, let's start with Thursday. And yeah, Thursday was good. We mentioned this yesterday. Logan Allen against the A's, Braxton Garrett against the Pirates, JP Sears at the Guardians, I'm down, and Brian, woo, at the Yankees.

You got to get a major boy drop, right? That is a very, we do need one. I think you did towers, do you have a nature boy, woo? Woo! Ooh! Okay, now my... It's pretty good. All right, spicy. I like it. I thought about getting one, but I'm like, I don't know. That seems like one where I could get hit with something. I'm like, I don't know. I don't think I want to mess with Rick Flair. Oh, like it's a, what is it,

buffer, the Let's Get Ready to Rumble, like that copyright type of thing. I'm like, I don't, I love Rick Flair, but like, I also don't want to get sued by Rick Flair, so I'm just going to leave it there. I wouldn't either. Let's look at Friday to stream or not to stream.

And you've got some options here. I think Smith Schaver at the Reds. That's pretty interesting. Agreed. His last start out, I think he had like, whatever, 17 swinging strikes or something crazy like that. I actually like that one. Who else do we have here? Taiwan Walker's on quite the run, and he's got a revenge game against the Mets.

Yeah, I think that's fine. Contemayette against the Tigers, I don't have much faith in him, but if you do, you know, there aren't a ton of matchups that are better than that for a right-handed pitcher. Wait, hold on. I'm getting further down the list here, and there's actually a lot of interesting names. Emmett Sheehan against the Astros. I'm cool with it. Brian Beow still only 70% rostered for some reason. That one's fine. He's at the

White Sox. He's probably at the top of the list. What about Dunning versus your Yanks? I think it's fine. Yeah, I like that. I like that one too. Okay. Wade Miley, his first start back, his velocity was way up. And he's at the Guardians. I think that's fine too. So what's the top three for Friday then? I think I'm gonna say it is Bayo at the White Sox, Sheehan versus the Astros and Smith Chauver at the Reds. I would put Dunning in there and probably knock off Sheehan, but I'm with the other two. But yeah, I mean, if you missed out on those other names, I think Dunning is fine. Taiwan Walker is fine, as is Wade Miley.

We're going to wrap there for the Chris's. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.