Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Gerrit Cole Out 1-2 Months With Elbow Injury! - Emergency Podcast (3/13 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:03 Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. According to John Heyman, Garrett Cole will be out at least one to two months. Welcome into an emergency update version of Fantasy Baseball today. On Wednesday, March 13th, I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris Towers, and let's talk about the latest involving Garrick Cole. As I mentioned up at the top, according to John Heyman, reigning A.L. Syong winner, Garakull will be out at least, and I think that wording is very interesting, at least one to two months.

Starting point is 00:00:33 and we'll head to L.A. to meet with Dr. Neal-Eletrage for another evaluation and to determine the best course of treatment. None of Cole's test results revealed a tear in the UCL, but there is swelling and inflammation. And I think that there are very clearly many different ways that this can go, Chris. I think the optimistic approach, Gary Cole rests for a few weeks, inflammation goes down, he restarts his spring training program. We see him in late May, early June.

Starting point is 00:01:00 He's Garik Cole for the rest of the season. That is the absolute most optimistic take on this situation. Pessimistic, after visiting with Dr. Neil Eletrage, it's determined that some kind of surgery is needed, and he probably misses the entire season. Or even more pessimistic, which Scott laid out the other day, is that Cole rests for a few weeks, tries to restart a throwing program,

Starting point is 00:01:22 re-injures himself or worsens the injury, turns out he needs surgery, and then we're talking about him missing time next year as well. So I think that would be the worst-case scenario. What happens here? If you're looking, I'm not going to try to predict it. All I'm going to say is if you're looking for an example of what that worst case scenario could look like, Walker Bueller in 2022 dealt with an elbow issue. It wasn't during spring.

Starting point is 00:01:49 I think it was like during May is when the injury started cropping up. And it was the kind of thing where MRIs showed no damage to the UCL. And then he had a flexor tendon strain. He had a very minor arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs in his elbow. And the idea was, yeah, he'll be back later this year. And then as he starts working his way back, the arm just isn't right still. He's still dealing with soreness in the elbow. MRI still show no damage in the UCL.

Starting point is 00:02:21 He goes to Dr. Neil Eletrosh. And they do exploratory surgery. And once they open him up, they realize, no, he does need Tommy John surgery. and Walker Bueller is still working his way back from that. So it's one of those things where MRI does not show any damage, does not necessarily mean there is no damage, obviously. And yeah, it's hard not to be pessimistic right now, especially when you're talking about a guy you were drafting

Starting point is 00:02:51 in potentially the first or second round before all this. And he went 58th in the mock draft that we did last night on the podcast. There's no way he's going anywhere. near that high at this point. Look, he could still be worth a 58th pick if he comes back in May and is fine. I don't think you should be betting on that at this point. It feels the vibes are off. It's ominous.

Starting point is 00:03:17 They're there. And I can, you know me as a pessimistic Yankee fan Chris. I'm trying to keep it down and not bring out the fandom as much. But obviously this does suck for Gary Cole and for the Yankees. While this is a meaningful update, there are still lots of things up in the air. Chris, I know you just wrote a reaction piece.

Starting point is 00:03:35 Where did you wind up moving Garikold to in the rankings following this latest news? Yeah, I've got a range in my Roto rankings that is basically just reserved for guys who are dealing with injuries this spring on the starting pitching side. And so starting at 151, I have Justin Verlander, Walker Bueller, Sunny Gray, Verlander and Gray, currently not 100%, but sounds like they'll probably be ready shortly after opening.

Starting point is 00:04:07 Walker Bueller, not going to be ready probably until May, but he's not actually hurt right now. He is healthy and they're just managing his workload. So I have all three of them ahead of Garakol. Then I have Garikol at 154, Kodi Sena at 155. Now, that might just be too high for Kodiysenga because he goes closer to 180 in a lot of the draft. that I've seen. And maybe Garrett Cole just needs to be moved down along with Kodi-Singa. But that's where I'm sticking him right now.

Starting point is 00:04:33 And look, that's a part of the rankings where your team needs are going to supersede who is actually ranked in one spot or the other. So if you get to a point where you feel like you can't afford to take Kodai-Sing or Garrett-Kohl and I've been in that spot before, then it just doesn't matter where you rank him. You're probably not going to take him until much, much later. And as we've said all off-season, something. that I stress is roster construction among your pitchers. So I'm not taking on too much risk with your pitchers. If you take Tyler Glass now in the third or fourth round, you probably want to

Starting point is 00:05:09 stay away from like a Chris Sale or a Carlos or Don. And if somehow if you wind up with one or even two of those guys, you probably don't want to take a shot on Garrett Cole or even a Kodai Senga. It's just the nature of pitching in fantasy. It's just there's been so many injuries. You don't want to start your team in a hole like that or that much risk on your team. And just to provide an example of that in my FSGA draft on Monday night, I took Terrick Scuba and Pablo Lopez, I think, in the third and fourth rounds. Then I didn't take another starting pitcher until Jordan Montgomery. And that was in like the 14th round, I think. And then I took Kodi Isanga.

Starting point is 00:05:44 And that was where that draft went sideways for me because I took multiple pitchers who definitely won't be ready for the start of the season. And so that's what we're talking about here, where if you focused on like Aaron Nola and Framberval and those guys early in the draft, you might be able to afford to take Garrett Cole with a 13th round pick and live with the risk, but it certainly depends on who you've taken already. For reference, over the past week, over at the NFBC,

Starting point is 00:06:13 Kodi Senga's ADP is 226.4. As we pointed out, many times, there are no IL spots over at the NFBC. So, Chris, I assume you're ranking for leagues that likely would have IL spots. Yeah. You know, in drafts like this, do you think Garikol's ADP will kind of be closer to that? I know you mentioned you ranked him around 155, but I could see people using Senga as kind of a barometer for Garikol.

Starting point is 00:06:37 And maybe he starts to slip outside the top 200 in drafts. Yeah, I think he probably should go in the same range as Kodi-Sanga. Kirk-Kohl is obviously a much better pitcher than Kodai Senga, but I feel a little worse about his odds of actually pitching this season right now. So I think that's the right range. And so, yeah, if Senga's going outside of the top 200, Cole will probably end up going around there. And I think that's totally reasonable. And I think it's going to be one of those things

Starting point is 00:07:06 where once people see one of those names go off the board, they see Senga go, it'll trigger them to say, okay, now this is the time to go get Garrett Cole. And I think that's how it works with like Verlander and Bueller and gray now too. Kyle Bradish probably belongs a tier below Cole and Seng, just because he's not as good of a pitcher, but, you know, obviously kind of same situation with him. Yeah, and I think Scherzer is probably even below that too, right?

Starting point is 00:07:33 Yes, yeah. He's probably out until at least June, so. All right, let's take a quick break when we return. What happens next with the Yankees? Apparently, it doesn't sound like they're going to be going after a Dylan Seas or a Blake Snell. They'll have to fill the void from within. What does that mean?

Starting point is 00:07:48 We'll talk about it right after this. Welcome back in, Garrick Cole out at least one to two months with this elbow injury that he's dealing with. And according to Andy Martino of SNY, Garrett Cole's injury has not changed the Yankee stance on signing Blake Snell, and a trade for Dylan Seas is also unlikely. We've heard the past couple days that apparently

Starting point is 00:08:07 the Rangers and the Padres are in on Dylan Seas as well. So perhaps he could be moved before opening day. We'll wait and see on that. I thought the wording of this report was kind of interesting. The Yankee's stance on signing Blake's Nell hasn't changed. Well, they've kind of been in, on Blake's Nell. So maybe they're still kind of in on Blake's Nell

Starting point is 00:08:27 and he hasn't signed and we really haven't heard much in the recent days of anyone being interested in Blake's Nell. So I don't know what's going to happen there. If they try and fill this void from within, we're looking at names like Clayton Beater, Will Warren, Luis Heel,

Starting point is 00:08:43 which is spelled GIL, Luis GIL, Luis Heel, Luke Weaver and Chase Hampton. And there's optimism in the organization around Will Warren and Chase Hampton. I mean, these are legit pitching prospects. Chase Hampton, 22 years old, hasn't pitched above AA yet. My guess is he's probably not ready. But what is your best guess as of now, Chris, as to who fills this void in the Yankees rotation?

Starting point is 00:09:07 I would guess it's going to be one of the lower upside guys, at least to start. So someone like Clayton Beater probably makes the most sense just because, you know, you maybe don't want to rush anyone's clock. And like, Louis Heel was already sent down or option to minor league camp. He's still pitching in games. he looked really good in a recent start as well. But, you know, coming off Tommy John surgery, maybe they don't want to rush him back.

Starting point is 00:09:31 I would guess it's one of the more boring options that you mentioned. So Clinton Beater would probably be the guy. Will Warren and Chase Hampton in particular are very interesting. You know, their prospects who have gotten to the high miners, Will Warren a little ahead. Last year got to 100 innings-ish at AAA. Well, or Chase Hampton, only a handful of it. what was it, like 40 innings at double A, something like that.

Starting point is 00:09:56 So he's probably a little for 59 innings at double A for Chase Hampton. But Hampton had the fifth best K minus walk ratio among all minor league pitchers last season, just behind Drew Thorpe, who they just traded. So he's a really interesting one. I think Will Warren's slightly less interesting, but probably a little ahead of him in the hierarchy. So I would guess it's beater. I don't have a ton of interest in him

Starting point is 00:10:23 and then Warren and then Hampton would probably get the opportunity. Clayton Beater last year in the minor is 362 ERA 137 whip. Lots of strikeouts, 165 strikeouts, over 131 and 2 thirds innings. He was much worse at AAA.

Starting point is 00:10:40 Very bad control at both levels as well. Yeah, and I've watched Beater a little bit here in spring training. His fastball's okay. It's like mid-90s. He has a really good slider, but that's really it. That doesn't really have a third pitch to speak of. So not really, you know, too optimistic about Clayton Beater. Will Warren has put up some pretty good numbers in the minors.

Starting point is 00:11:01 He's someone who's also struggled with control over four walks per nine at AAA last year for Will Warren. But everything I've read, it's a nasty sweeper slider. It's rated a 70 grade on Fangraphs. It's a pretty good sinker, but the command is an issue. So I don't know that there is anyone that we're too excited about. Maybe it's Louise Heel a little bit further into the season. Maybe it's Chase Hampton a little bit further than that. You know, maybe we're talking about a midsummer call-up or someone like that.

Starting point is 00:11:29 There's something alike with, I think, Heel and Hampton, but I don't think those are the guys that we will see initially here with the New York Yankees. But we wait and see. Chris, anything else you'd like to add on this? Garrick Cole injury? Kyle Braddish threw a bullpen session today, all fastballs today. So maybe he's less far away than we thought. All right.

Starting point is 00:11:49 Well, Garrett Cole once again out at least one to two months and currently on his way to Los Angeles to meet with Dr. Neil Eletrage for another evaluation and determine the best course of treatment. We're going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating

Starting point is 00:12:06 on Apple or Spotify. And we'll be back again a little bit later tonight. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Gerrit Cole Out 1-2 Months With Elbow Injury! - Emergency Podcast (3/13 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

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