Fantasy Baseball Today - Home Run Derby Curse? First Half All-Bust Team (7/13 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

The Home Run Derby was awesome (1:30)! Is there a chance it helps with Juan Soto's launch angle? ... Is the Home Run Derby curse real (4:52)? ... News and notes (10:25)! Carlos Carrasco will start his rehab Thursday plus Eloy Jimenez is raking through his first two games. ... Let's start with catcher on the All-Bust team (12:20). ... Is there anything positive in Cody Bellinger's profile (16:31)? ... What happened to Keston Hiura and DJ LeMahieu (20:41)? ... Why has Eugenio Suarez's batting average dropped so far (25:50)? ... What's up with the New York shortstops (31:05)? ... Can Christian Yelich get back on track (38:28)? ... While Luis Castillo has gotten back on track, Blake Snell has not (43:24). ... We wrap up with Team Name Tuesday (51:00)! ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  To nominate Fantasy Baseball Today for The People’s Choice podcast awards, go to podcastawards.com/app/signup/ and then toggle down the "Sports" category. 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. I drive. Center field. What is magnificent? 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, Chris, and Adam. Beat Alonzo. What a beast. The polar bear goes back to back as the home run derby champ. We'll talk about it, plus the first half all-bust team. Welcome into fantasy baseball today. Frank Stamphill joined by Chris Towers. That was a pretty fun derby, eh, Chris?

That was an extremely entertaining, like, two and a half hours of television. My dog was very upset throughout. I don't know what it was that he didn't appreciate, but he was not a fan of the home run derby. He would just start barking at the screen. I don't know if it was like the sound of the bat, but he just was not having it. So I apologize to Stephen.

Well, I would imagine that dogs typically don't get along with bears. That might be it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He saw a bear on the TV and he just had to. He actually, like, when I'm like playing Call of Duty, sometimes there's like a dog on the screen and he will like bark at the dog on the screen. So, you know, maybe that was, maybe that was it. And he just saw a big bear on the screen.

By the way, for anyone listening or watching, don't ever take my advice on the home run derby because Chris and I did. a home run derby live stream earlier in the day. Little Q&A answering people's questions. And we did a derby draft, right? So, you know, Chris had Otani and Juan Soto and Trey Mancini. Oh, and he had Pete Alonzo. So I got absolutely crushed.

I had Joey Gallo, Mattelson, Trevor's story. Poor Salvador Perez. Look, Salvador Perez had a great showing, a great showing, and ESPN's just interviewing Pete Alonzo throughout it. Like, come on, man. Show the guy some love. Like, what the... That's, well, I guess here's the question.

Like, would you rather, like, no eyes are on you, you know? There's less pressure. Like, that's what actually, you know, he said, like, once Alonzo hit 35, he was like, there was no pressure on me. Yeah, he's got nothing to lose. I can't mess it up. Right. Oh, man.

Nice showing there from, from Salvador Perez. Of course, Trey Mancini. Yeah. Very inspiring story. What a stud, making it all the way to the final there. That was awesome. I thought for a second, Chris, because you gave out Trey Mancini as a super long shot in that live sheet. He was the longest shot.

I was like, hold on. I was like, Chris might be on to something here. So if you ever need home run derby picks, Chris is your guy. Juan Soto versus Shohei Otani, absolutely epic. It's like that. So much fun. Double overtime. By the way, Juan Soto flexing a left-handed batter using a lefty pitcher in the home run derby.

That is such a flex. That is awesome. I've never seen that before. So that was awesome. And he showed off some of that launch angle, and there was actually a really good quote on the statcast broadcast on ESPN2 where Juan Soto said before all of this,

it might mess with the swing of all the guys who are locked in, but I think it's going to fix mine because I'm hitting too many ground balls. I hope it fixed my swing, trying to put the ball in the air, Juan Soto said. 55% ground ball rate for Wonsoto this season. that represents a career high. So I like where his heads at, Chris.

This might actually get Juan Soto's power stroke going for the second half. I mean, it was a, it was kind of weird seeing him, you know, him and Shohay Otani, but more so Soto just trying to pull the ball because, you know, Soto, he only has five home runs to the pull side this season. Actually, six of his home runs have gone to the opposite way. So, you know, maybe that helps him tap into, I don't think it's going to mean anything at all.

If that was important, he could just do it in a batting practice session. Sure. Before a game where he takes as many swings as he did tonight. I'm sure, like, ultimately in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. But the fact that he's acknowledging that he knows... That he's aware of it, sure. Yes, he knows he's hitting too many ground balls is something that I was pleasantly surprised to hear. So, and just speaking of Soto, like you mentioned, him pulling home runs.

Like, he can hit the ball to anywhere that it is pitched. It is crazy. The balls that go to opposite field off of Wansoto's bat, they just look like lazy fly balls pop-ups. I'm like, all right, that's not a home run. Next thing you know, it's like 10 rows deep in left field, and just ridiculous. Juan Soto is, he's a guy, he's awesome.

Anyway, you mentioned that, you know, you're not really buying into this, Chris. And I guess that means you don't really buy into the home run derby curse either because you wrote an article on CBSSports.com. Everyone can go check it out right now. Basically, you do not believe that the curse is a thing. So explain yourself. So obviously, like, whatever you want to call it, curse or hangover or whatever, messes up a guy's swing.

You know, there have been guys who've talked about it for sure. There have been guys who've said, you know, it messed up with my timing or messed up my swing. I'm not going to deny that that hasn't happened before. But based on the historical evidence, I look back at all home run derbies back to 2003. And then I looked at all those players performance in the first half of the season, the second half of the season. and then their performance in the prior season. And so unsurprisingly, players as a whole performed much worse

after the All-Star break when they participated in the Home Run Derby. 295 average, 379s on base, 558 slug before the All-Star break, 283, 371, 512 after. So a near 50 point drop in slugging percentage, 8 point drop on base. percentage, 8 point drop, 12 point drop in average. So, you know, there's something there, right?

No, not exactly. Because if you compare it to what they did the prior season, their actual, their second half numbers look identical to their post-home run derby numbers. Identical 283 average, slightly lower OBP the previous season, slightly higher slug. But you're talking about a difference of seven points one direction, three points of the other direction. Home runs per plate appearance before the derby 558 5.58% of their playofferance is ended in home runs after 4.65. The previous season, 4.74. So what appears to be a post home run derby slump or a curse or a hangover or whatever is more accurately described as just regression to the mean. If you're having a good enough season to be selected for the home run derby. If you're having a good enough season,

this also holds true for all stars. All stars tend to perform worse in the second half. Maybe it's because they don't get those extra two days off. But it's probably just that if you're playing well enough to get selected to an All-Star game, be in the home run derby, all this stuff, you're probably just playing a little over your head. At least most players are obviously, some guys are just doing what they do. And so there's lessons in that. You know, you look at like someone like Cedric Mullins. You know, he's probably not going to be quite this good moving forward, although he made enough tangible changes in his, you know,

banning, banning right-handed hitting to think that, yeah, maybe he can, or banning left-handed hitting? Yes, no, he got rid of right-handed hitting. Yes,

so he's left-e only now. That's enough to make you think, like, yeah, okay, maybe he just, he will be much better. I think that's a safe assumption, but even then, I think some,

regression is expected. I think some regression for Vladimir Guerrero is expected. Shohay Otani, it wouldn't surprise me. Just because these guys are having monster first halves. But that doesn't mean that going to the All-Star game or participating in the home run derby, you know, it's a correlation does not equal causation kind of thing. Logically, mathematically, everything that you're saying makes perfect sense. So I never actually thought about it that way. But when you lay out the argument, yes, a lot of these players are overperforming what was expected of them, specifically for, Otani. I know some people are not going to want to hear this and they might blame it on,

well, it's all Juan Soto's fault because he had to go into double overtime and you saw Otani was, he was hunched over, his hands were on his knees, he was tired. He looked like, like he looked like someone who had never played a course field before. Yeah, he really did. But I think natural regression is due for him or expected, at least in the second half. Otani slugging 698. That's never been higher than 564 in his career. His home run to fly ball ratio. is 38% in a season where they've deadened the ball. Now, he's a physical freak, there's no doubt about it. It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't drop off.

And maybe he's just a superstar like this. But I think the realistic expectation is that he will at least drop off some in the second half of the season. And on the opposite side of that, I'm not just saying this because Pete Alonzo just won the home run derby, but we've talked about him for a couple of weeks now as a potential buy candidate, as we do a lot of players. and some it's easier to buy than others, and it might be a little bit harder now because Pete Alonzo's face and name is everywhere for winning the home run derby.

But, best plate discipline of his career, he's still hitting the ball, as hard as he ever has, and he's making more consistent, solid contact than ever before. His infield fly ball rate is by far a career best, so he's limited those automatic outs. I think Alonzo could be due for just a monster second.

half. So if you have them on your team, I think you should feel really, really good about that. The Open Championship has arrived. Golf's final major is back for the first time in two years, and the First Cut crew has you covered on the links as the world's best travel to Royal St. George's join Rick Gaiman, Kyle Porter, and Mark Immelman as they preview the tournament from a betting perspective and give you round by round updates throughout the week. Go inside the ropes on the First Cut Golf podcast, available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and on YouTube some news and notes from Monday. Carlos Carrasco is scheduled to pitch one inning

in a rehab game at High A Brooklyn on Thursday. The Mets are, maybe we should go to that game, Chris, a little Brooklyn Cyclones game. I've never been to one, which is weird because I've lived here my whole life. It's very weird. I did go there. Like I saw the park, but I didn't actually go.

To Coney Island. I would like to see Brett Beatty. He's not thinking of. He's not playing there. Is he? Oh, yeah, he is. I think he is. Yeah, I think he's in High A right now.

Also, Francisco Alvarez. No, like, we really need to go to a Brooklyn Cyclones game. Yeah, I've got to figure that out. The Mets are loosely targeting early August for Carrasco to return, assuming he indoors no setbacks with the hamstring during the rehab assignment, which obviously is paramount for Carrasco. The Giants option, Joey Bart back to AAA, despite going two for five with an RBI on Saturday,

which sounds like Buster Posey could be back shortly after the All-Star break. And the Mariners reinstated U. U.S. Kikuchi from the COVID-IL on Monday. meaning he's allowed to pitch for the American League in Tuesday's All-Star game. Eloy Jimenez has gone three or seven with a home run, a walk, two runs, and two RBI through the first two games

of his rehab assignment at High A. He's up to 87% rostered on CBS, and I think I saw 73% rostered on Yahoo. So it might be out there in some shallow leagues, Eloy Jimenez. The White Sox granted Adam Eaton his unconditional release, which means, I think it's probably the end of the line for Adam Eamene.

Maybe he latches on somewhere as, I don't know, pinch runner, fourth outfield or something like that. Manuel Margot could return late July for the raise. Don't know what that will mean for Vidal Bruhan by then, but I guess we'll see how he's playing ultimately. And the Padres were encouraged by the results of the MRI for Ryan Weathers. He underwent one on his right foot on Sunday, but the team expects him to be sidelined until at least the early part of August.

The all-bust team in the first half, non-injury-related. We'll go position by position. We'll talk out some of these players who we think can actually get back on track or are they just a sunk cost this season? So Chris, would you like to go first? I have a catcher ready or you're still trying,

you're still gathering your thoughts here. Yeah, you can go first. All right, so, I mean, catcher is like a whatever position anyway, but James McCann was drafted as a top 10 catcher. He's currently the 20th best catcher in Roto. He's averaging just 1.6 fantasy points per game, which is quite bad.

He's got a career high, 30.6% strikeout rate. Ground balls are up this year as well, 51%. His quality of contact is down, average exit velocity down, about two miles per hour for James McCann on the season overall. However, since June 1st, he's batting 292 with an 814 OPS.

He's lowered that ground ball rate some. It's like 47%, so still higher than you'd like to see for a catcher. Striking out a lot still, 35%. So in a point of that, Points League, you probably just want to ride the hot hand. I don't know that James McCann is someone that's going to get back on track in that format. But if you play in Roto, 292 batting average 800 OPS since June 1st, that's definitely

going to play, especially in two catcher leagues. So, Roto, headshead categories, anything like that. I think James McCann is coming around and showing signs, but that strikeout rate is going to limit him quite a bit still in points leagues. Yeah, and I mean, he's hitting 261 with a 752 OPS since the start of the 2020. Obviously, he was awesome in 2020, but it was 31 games. We're up to 106 now. And that's not far off from what he did in 2019. So I think it's probably fair to say that like this is closer to what he is, like a mid-700s OPS bat. That's probably closer to what you should expect from James

McKenna. I will throw out and I think that's probably the obvious choice here. Travis Darnow. I mean, he avoids the list on a technicality maybe because he has been injured, but he was awful before he got hurt. I mean, he had a sub-600 OPS. So, you know, obviously, I know that's not the rule technically, but I think you can make a pretty good case for Travis Arnault as well. But yeah, James McCannes the choice. I was going to bring up Wilson Contreras as well, but he was the fourth catcher off the board. He hasn't been awful this year. He's currently the sixth best catcher in Roto, but he's only batting 236.

He's been okay. 13 homers, three steals. He's fine. You want the batting average to be better, but I think Wilson Contreras has been underwhelming, is the word that I would use for him.

Yeah. Yeah, he's, I mean, his OPS is right where it was last season. So I think it's, you know, he kind of is what he is.

Maybe he's not a difference maker at the position, but, you know, the league's where I have him, I certainly haven't thought, like, man, I need an upgraded catcher the way I have with pretty much every other player at the position. Yeah, for sure. The one thing I will say, Wilson Gutierrez is not.

That's Salvador Perez. So I remember we had some off-season chatter, Salvador Perez versus Wilson Gutreras. Salvador Perez has just completely pulled the way. He is the number one catcher in Roto this year, a top 60 player, which is weird because J.T. Real Muto is the fourth best catcher. He's ranked 183rd in Roto this year. So maybe you can make a case that he's been underwhelming as well. He's having such a weird season because like...

The power is just way down. He has eight home runs. Yeah. You know, everything else is pretty much where you think it would be. You know, he's even got five steals after only four last season. So, you know, he's well on his way to, you know, challenging for another double-digit steel season. It's just we've come to expect him to be a 20 to 25 homer guy. And right now he looks like more like a 15 homeer.

guy. But he has an 808 OPS as a catcher. I don't think you can really say he's a bust, even though he was being drafted so far ahead of everyone else at the position. All right. So let's move on to first base, Chris. I will let you kick us off here. Can I count someone who was not first base eligible before the season? Do you think most people play this person at first base? You could. He got first base eligible. eligibility of the very first week of the season. Is that Kessin Hira?

Yeah. We can save him for second, though. That's fine. There's a lot of candidates for second base, by the way. Cody Ballinger doesn't count, I guess. Cody Bellinger, he's my pick. Cody Bellinger is my pick.

Yeah, I think he's the obvious pick. First base has been a bad position for fantasy this season. I don't think so. Not to, like, if you... The top end of the position has been. Sure. Freddie Freeman hasn't lived up to expectations. He's coming around now.

He's fine. But like Bellinger, LeMayhew, Abraou, Alonzo, Hiro, Voigt, Goldschmidt. That's, what is that? Six of the top 10 have been to varying degrees. Rizzo, too. Rizzo's been awful. Have been varying degrees of disappointing. Alec Boem was the 13th. Mike Mastakas, 14th.

Dom Smith, 16th, Josh Bell, 17th. Now, you're right about that. The top end, for sure. But there was just so many guys that went late that have been awesome, that it's kind of made up for it, I guess. So, like, Jared Walsh and Trey Mancini have been really good. Max Muncie has been ridiculous this year. But you're right.

Yeah, the top half of the position has been brutal. Did you want to say anything about Cody Bellinger? Oh, I mean, I think it kind of goes without saying. We saw last season he tweaked his swing. And so far this season, he has not been able to find it again. You know, obviously the calf injury right at the start of the season makes it a little more difficult, but even before that, it was only four games, but he wasn't like crushing the ball. He didn't have a home run through those first four games, seven strikeouts to two walks,

and he just really hasn't shown really many signs at all of turning things around. We talked about this on the live stream, but the underlying numbers, you know, this is not a case like Juan Soto a month ago, where you can say, yeah, he's been bad, but. He has a 267 Wobah and a 299X Woba. He's hitting way too many fly balls, way too much weak contact. Infield pop-up rate is it's up to 8.5% that's the highest since 2018. That was obviously a disappointing season, 27.7% strikeout rate. That's the highest of his career.

I just, you look at everything pretty much and nothing looks right for Cody Bellinger. His max exe, Velo's 106 miles per hour. to the low. It's just like basically everything that could be wrong for Cody Ballinger is. Yeah, there's nothing. You're right. And I do wonder if the offseason shoulder surgery is still kind of lingering first season back. And that's why I had him in my bus column coming into the season because I thought, you know, maybe first couple of months he gets off to that slow start. You can look to buy him low. So maybe that's what we're looking at right now. But man, it's it's rough right now. The strikeout rate way up 27 points. 7%. The hard hit rate for Cody Bellinger down about 10 percentage points according to stat cast. So these are just massive blows to Cody Belanger's skill set right now. And there's not much to hold your hat on there hoping for a bounce back other than just

we've seen him be an awesome player before. So you've got to hope that he gets back to that point. Anthony Rizzo is another one that I was going to bring up. And I pull up the stat cast numbers and they actually look pretty good for someone who's been battling a back injury all year. His hardest exit velocity in the stat cast era, he's batting 247. That comes with a 274

XBA. 429 slug comes with a 471 X slug. I think better days are coming for Anthony Rizzo, so he's probably someone you can get him on like the super cheap just because he's an old, boring veteran, but yeah, I think better days are coming for Anthony Rizzo. Second base, I mentioned.

There's a whole bunch that you could choose from here, Chris. Kessen Hiura, Kavan Bish. who we all were avoiding in the preseason. But yeah, Kestan Hero is the guy you want to talk about here. I think it's got to be Keston here. I mean, even like he's been hitting better since coming back from the miners. Did he come back for good on June 23rd or was there another send down? He's hitting a 40 OPS since then, but he still has a 37% strikeout rate over his last 17 games.

He's been up for good since then, but he's sat here and there. And just this past weekend, he sat two games. They traded for Rowdy Tellez. So the playing time could get a little bit tougher here for Kesson Hira. Yeah, I just, the takeaway is he really hasn't been useful at any point. You know, there was maybe a week when he first got called back up where he hit really well. I mean, he had three home runs in his first five games, but no home runs in 13. game since he's been,

he was unplayable before that, literally, for a long stretch because he was in the minors. Like, Kevin Bigio, the nice thing is he's eligible at lots of positions. So you can, you can really find a place for him on your all bus team if you really need to.

I was going to say, we could just put him at every position on this list, right? Yeah. And like, Kevin Vigio has just been playing better than Kestin here. As bad as Kavanaugh has been. True. Like, Kestin Hera,

wishes he had a 700 OPS. Yeah, the biggest issue for me with Kessin Hira, Chris, is that the strikeout rate 37%. It's massive. It's, for most hitters, it's, you can't swallow that and still have them be viable for fantasy. However, for the ones that do strike out that much,

Miguel Sino comes to mind, Joey Gallo's been up around that mark in his career. They hit the ball so hard that they're able to overcome that strikeout rate. And that's just not who Kestin Hira has been since his rookie year. He crushed a ball that rookie year. Maybe it was something to do with the bouncy ball that they were using, whatever it might be, but since then, his quality of contact has gone way down. So that in conjunction with the strikeout rate being where it is, is how we get

Kestin Hira as someone who, you don't even need to roster at this point. It's not even those two guys just at the position. You can also throw Brandon Lau in there. He's been hot for like the last month, but before that, he was miserable. Jeff McNeil. I mean, I know it's been injuries, but he He also hasn't performed when he's been healthy. So second base, not a shortage of options there either. Yeah, and you didn't even mention the one that I was going to choose, which is DJ LaMayhew. And he had an ADP in the early third round, 25.8 coming into the season. He was the first second baseman off the board.

He's currently the 21st best second baseman in Roto, and he's 16th in fantasy points per game. So he's hitting 270, seven homers, 718 OPS. not going to get it done as a third round pick. His home run to fly ball ratio has taken a huge step back from where it was in 2019 and 2020. We talked about that coming into the season. When we learned about the dead and ball, he was someone that stood out because his average home run distance had been among the lowest, the past couple of seasons for DJ

LaMayhew. I will point out that since the start of June, he has been better. He hasn't been what you were expecting. He's hitting 281 since the start of June, hitting the ball much. harder. So I think he's getting better. He's not going to live up to expectations. He's not going to be, I don't think, an elite player,

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Let's move on to the third base position, Chris. And I'll start us off this time. And for me, A. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E.O.Henio, Suarez, who I guess I was just kind of avoiding that. I was really in on, like, the Anthony Rendon, Alex Bregman Range, which you can make arguments. Those are two of the bigger busts this season as well. More so for, more so for injuries. Not so much. Yeah, more so for injuries, I think, for both guys, but even when they played, they haven't been great. Suarez was the 10th third basement off the board, according to ADP.

He's currently 21st in Roto. He's 31st in fantasy points per game. He does strike out quite a bit. Since the start of last season, 2020, 143 games for A. Eugenio Suarez, a 185 batting average does have 33 home runs, so that helps you there. But it's just so hard to swallow that. sub-200 batting average, and he's doing it with a 200 babbip. So there's not really anything that says he's going to get much better. I mean, you can kind of look at his career babbip and say,

okay, maybe that will regress, but his line drive rate has dropped each of the past three seasons. It's now at just 15.7%. And Suarez's quality of contact is way, way down, which obviously correlates with Bavip there. So I don't know if this is just who he is at this point. Maybe starting the season at shortstop, playing a different position,

with him as well. But ultimately, I just think you get a batting average that completely sinks you and a ton of power. That's basically it. Yeah, it reminds me kind of of the way Brian Dozier fell off really, really quickly. You know, he, he, if you remember, broke out as like, I think he had like a 40-something homer season. So kind of like a Johanio Suarez's breakout. Yeah, Dozier had that 42 homer season, 34 homers the following season. He had a 696 OPS the following season. 771 after that as a partial not full-time player for the Nationals. And then he was out of baseball.

I'm not saying the same exact thing is going to happen for E. E. E. E. E. Hia Suarez. But that's what it kind of reminds me of a guy who was a little bit of a later breakout and just has not been able to sustain that. wonder if like maybe he learned some bad habits that led to that breakout but that weren't sustainable or maybe he's you know in trying to keep chasing that breakout he's making more and more adjustments that are you know causing him to not get there the the one thing here is like the strikeout rate's really not that far from where it was in 2019 the launch angle is pretty much the same the barrel rate

is actually slightly higher. So it's kind of hard to find, like, the magic bullet for why he's struggling. You even look at the plate discipline stuff, the chase rate, the zone contact, the chase contact rate, all of it mostly looks the same. His, you know, average X velocity is down,

but it's not, you know, it's not like he was ever elite there, even when he hit, you know, his 48 homer. It is really hard to find a good explanation for why Suarez is struggling so much. But the fact of the matter is his expected stats are still well below where they were in 2018 and even 2019. So it's also not like you can comfortably say, sure, he's struggling, but X, Y, and Z can get better. There's no real obvious answer for how Suarez gets better right now.

His exit velocity is down 1.5 miles per hour this year, Chris, which might seem minuscule, but in a season where everyone else's average exit velocity is up, I think that has played into it. And his hard hit rate, how often he's making hard contact, that's down 10 percentage points. So that is a massive drop for him. And something I was thinking about while you were talking is, so he's hitting less line drives than ever before. His fly ball rate has remained stagnant, yet his home runs of fly ball ratio has dropped six percentage points from this year, from last year to this year, and 11 percentage points from that awesome 2019 to this season.

So basically that's telling me that those are just turning into outs. Those are just fly ball outs now, where they're not flying out as frequently as they were before. Granted, I mean, like he has 50 RBI at the break here. It's just, you're right. Like there's not much that you can look at and say that Swarrow. is going to get back on track. Do remember he had shoulder surgery in the off season of 2020.

He wasn't going to be ready for the season if it started on time in April. So now we're seeing, you know, Bellinger, Suarez, shoulder, you know, maybe it's... Pull related shoulder surgery, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I mean, maybe this is something

we need to take seriously, more seriously moving forward are these guys that have shoulder surgery and maybe it takes a couple of seasons for them to get back on track. Is there anyone else you wanted to highlight, Chris at third base? No, I think that's it.

Shortstop's got some good, good guys. All right. Shortstop. You can kick us off here. Yeah, I mean, I think you could make a case for Trevor Story, but he's been useful. I think you can make a stronger case for Francisco Lindor, but I would point out that, you know, if you cut his season and half, he's appeared in 86 games, his last 43, his first 43 games, he hit 185.

The last 43, he's hitting 272. his per 162 game pace is 114 runs, 31 home runs, 102 RBI, 16 stolen bases. That's Francisco Lindor. Sure is. He's been himself for half the season. I know, oh, big contract, and he's been a big bust. But, like, I don't think you can say he's been the biggest bust at the position. And that's because there's a dude about three miles away as the crow flies,

who's just been an abject disaster so far. And that's Glaver Torres, who has a 634 OPS at the All-Star break. This was a guy who had one of the best home run seasons for an infielder of all time at age 22 or younger back in 2019. And he just has not been good since then. The interesting thing is, though, his expected stats haven't been all that different. different. You actually look at his whole career. His ex-Woba, 335, 337, 332, 321. Now, 321 is certainly lower than 332, 337, 335, but League wide Wobah is down this season as well. So it's not that big of difference. Now, I don't think there's any question that Glaber played over his head in 2019. I think if you take out specifically the games against the Orioles, which, hey, those Homer, runs counted, but it was unsustainable what he did. He was more like a low 800s OPS bat with like a 28 to 30 homer pace.

He hasn't even been that the last two seasons. And, you know, like with Bellinger, I guess was who we were talking about when we said this, there's not really any reason to think things are going to be a whole lot better. Like he should be better. He has a 289 Wobah compared to a 321X Wobah. Wobah, but like 321X Woba still wouldn't make him a starting caliber shortstop. He's a bottom 8% in exit velocity on average, 16th percentile and hard hit rate. There just isn't really anything he's doing well besides plate discipline.

Yeah, and this one really pains me too, because when he came up a couple years ago for the Yankees, he quickly became my favorite player on the team. And now it's just there's no explanation. I watch a lot of Yankee games. and the biggest thing, and they talk about it a lot on the broadcast, is that they think it's something mechanical, that he's got a lot of movement in a swing.

His hands are right next to, like, right above his head, and he's constantly moving the bat, so there's a lot of movement there. And I think it's just his hand placement is off right now. It could be something, you know, how Gary Sanchez eliminated that huge leg kick, and all of a sudden, you know, he's turned his season around. It could be something as simple as that,

but the fact of the matter is, that we now have 119 games since the start of last season where Glaber Torres has a 664 OPS and a 5% barrel rate. He's not making hard contact now

for the last 120 games that he's played. And Chris, you brought up what he did back in 2019 when he absolutely crushed to Baltimore Orioles. He played 18 games against him.

He had a 394 batting average, a 1512 OPS, 13 home runs in 18 games versus everybody else, he had a 786 OPS. Yeah. So, I made this comparison

before the season comparing him to D.D. Gregorius. And I basically, it was just, if you just took out the Orioles numbers, he basically was D.D.

Gregorius. And that's not a knock. D.D. Gregorius has been an underrated fantasy player, I think, for a long time, including right now.

I think he's a, you know, in the discussion for the top 12 short stops, if not, you know, in there. But that's,

you know, Glaver was talked about as a superstar. And at this point, I think you can say pretty safely, he is currently not a superstar. He's young enough, I think 24, that he can still become one. But we're a long, he's got to get a lot better real quick.

I don't think that our reason for thinking he was going to be a superstar was wrong, though, by the way. I will just point that out. I mean, age-adjusted production is something we talk about a lot here. And for someone, whether it's against the Orioles or not, to hit 38 home runs at however, you know, he was 22 years old at the time, that's impressive. And you see something like that hitting in the middle of a great lineup like that

where you assume the run production and everything else is going to be there. He actually has double the amount of steals this season as he does home runs, which is just weird. Yeah. And it's not like I was down on Glaber coming into the season either. Like as I said that, I still had him, you know, as a top, at least, 12, but definitely, I think definitely top 10 shortstop in the rankings as well. You know, there was kind of that like top 12 or 13.

Yeah. This season that we thought were like clearly above everyone. And Glaver was there. You know, I didn't think he was going to be a 40 homer guy. But the thing about that season was he wasn't going to sustain it, but he did it. You know, that that counted. And, yeah, it's really disappointing. And I'm not sure, you know,

what exactly he needs to do to figure this out. Last one. Who would you rather buy Loan in Dynasty? Glaver Torres or Kestanhira? Glaber, by far, his issues seem bad, but relatively manageable. Kestanhira has like, this guy might not be in professional baseball in three years kind of issues. Yeah, definitely a massive problem there with Kesson Hira. We're going to take a quick break, but when we return,

We have a few more positions to get to here, the first half all bus team on fantasy baseball today. Let's talk about the outfield position. And I guess Mookie Betts is in this conversation just based on how he's underperformed to this point. But I'm going to go in a different direction. And I'm going to bring up Christian Yelich, who had an ADP at the 1-2 turn, 12th pick off the board, fifth outfielder being drafted coming into the season. He's batting 2.41 with a 28% strikeout. rate. And like Glauber, he's been awful since the start of last season, Christian Yelich has. And

last year, he blamed it on not having in-game video. And this season, it seems like he's playing through a back injury. I think that's probably the main cause of everything that has hamper him to this point. But 117 games since the start of last season for Yelich, 222 batting average, 778 OPS. Chris, do you see anything that makes you believe he's going to get better? he's still hitting the ball really really hard I mean he's still 96% down hard hit rate what's crazy about that though max ex of ELO his average exit velocity

is still down three and a half miles per hour from where it was last year though the average is way down the lot the barrel rate is way down but you know it's largely like the launch angle has just collapsed he's back down to like where he was at the beginning of his career

I think the back injury is clearly an issue I mean, you, I don't know if you saw him kind of lose it at the umpire the other day. It looked like a guy. I don't want to psychoanalyze too much, but it certainly looked like a guy who was just, you know, I've never seen him get that angry. You know, it looked like a guy who's just kind of having a really crappy season and going through a lot. You know, that being said, maybe he, you know, the back starts feeling better. He can, you know, leverage his legs a little more, stop getting on top of the ball and start driving.

it and all of a sudden, I think that the skill set is definitely still there for Christian Eilich to be one of the best hitters in baseball. But he's not there right now. I think he's unquestionably, not just one of the biggest bust in outfield, but one of the biggest busts in the game, period. Yeah, for sure. And I think a huge issue with that back is he probably just cannot lift the ball with authority like he has in the past. I think probably the deadening of the ball hasn't helped Christian Eilich much either. Maybe he was someone who took advantage. of the bouncy ball a couple of years ago. But he has just a 16% home run to fly ball rate.

Yelich does this season. That is half of what it's been each of the past three seasons. He's been up over 32% each of the past three seasons. So yeah, I think it's all back related. Is there anyone else you wanted to highlight at the outfield position? Yeah, I think we can, we can, if we wanted to go three deep, I think this is a good spot for Cabin Bigeo. Yep.

And that multi-eligibility, it's very valuable. And I think you kind of have to call Michael Conforto. I know he was hurt, but he's been really bad when healthy. And you look at the guys that you passed up to get him at outfield. And it's Trent Grisham right behind him. Coutel Marte, okay, he was awesome when he was healthy. Nick Castellanos. Nick Castellanos.

Jordon Alvarez, if he's outfield eligible in some leagues, Tiaska Hernandez, like the opportunity cost of having drafted Michael Conforto is especially what has hurt. You know, like we talked about on yesterday's podcast, I like Michael Conforto a ton as a bounceback candidate. And if you look at the underlying numbers for Trent Grisham in particular, there are reasons to think that he might be in for a pretty rough second half. And Conforto, you know, could make up a lot of ground there.

But right now there's no question that you're feeling a lot worse if you took Michael Conforto instead of Trent Grisham. And my bad, because I definitely would have done that. And my bad, because I love Dom Smith as a breakout candidate this year.

He was the 35th outfielder off the board this season. He was going just ahead of Joey Gallo. If you made that call, you took Dom Smith over Joey Gallo, you feel awful right now. Dom Smith was going ahead of Verdugo and Tommy Fam and Michael Brantley.

So a lot of names behind him that have performed very well. And just one more that stands out here. Jorge Soler, 40th outfieler off the board. He's unusable. He shouldn't be rostered anywhere. He's been dropped in my 15-team Vroto Leagues. That's how bad Jorge Soler has been this season. Another one who has lost big time on the home run to fly ball ratio this season.

So he's a big strong dude. I don't know what's going on there. I feel like he's someone that shouldn't be affected by the deadening of the baseball. But maybe there's something there with him. he's only had one good half season in his career, one great half season in his career. And we were kind of chasing that. And that's,

that's always a risk. Sure is. All right, let's go over to starting pitcher. And I think we can highlight a bunch of names that are, that were being drafted inside the top 15. I think the ones that stand out most for me,

Aaron Nola, Luis Castillo, who obviously has turned things around, but was brutal the first month and a half of the season, basically. I mean, yeah, like put you in a hole you may not be able to dig out of

in a roto league. That's how bad Luis Castillo was. Yeah, I think even with he's got a low two's ERA over his last seven or eight starts, and I think he still has a high four ERA right now. Luis Castillo does. I actually thought it would have been higher.

Yeah, four, six, five. He's three and ten with four six five ERA. Yeah, that's rough. It is definitely rough. And Kenta Maeda is someone else who stands out there. Well, even Blake Snell when he's pitched. Blake's now, I think, is the obvious one. Gosh.

Aranola, we spoke a little bit about on our Q&A live stream where if anybody's just had it with Aranola, I would be looking to buy. Obviously, he's got a mid-4s ERA. His expected ERA, according to Stackast 3.72. His ex-fip in the mid-3s. He's just kind of off this year. The change-up hasn't performed the way that it has,

that it did last year, which kind of unlocked the rest of his pitchers. Arsenal, but I would still, I would take the under on Aranola having a, I don't know, 3.6 ERA rest of season. Yeah, 3.5, I think I would take the under too. I'll also, I know he's been injured, but I think Steven Strausberg kind of has to be in this discussion. Yes, he is injured, but drafting him as a top 20 starting pitcher required you to overlook the fact that he was coming off a surgery. He had a knee, injury coming into the season.

And obviously he has a long track record of injuries as well. So I think Strausberg, even though he's been injured, certainly counts here. We only kind of talked about Blake Snell briefly there, Chris. But if you have him on your team, do you have any confidence whatsoever that he gets right in the second half? A confidence would not be the right word. Now, I could have hope. Yes. You know, there are things that he still does.

as well. He still has a lot of velocity from the left side. He still has a couple of great swing and miss pitches. The problem is the profile of those pitches has changed quite a bit. You know, look at the

vertical movement on the slider and curveball are both way up this season. And, you know, that's not necessarily a good thing if you're trying to differentiate your pitches. if they're all kind of converging,

that's not necessarily a great thing. So I think, you know, Snell, I saw a piece, I think it was Mike Ahito from pitcher list, um, talked about how his arm slot is down over the last couple of seasons

from his height in, uh, Tampa. And it, it really seems to have made a big difference in the effectiveness of his pitches. And I wonder if, maybe I'm reading into this too much, but maybe he does something like,

that because he's hiding something or he's dealing with something. Yeah. Because he's he's dealt with elbow issues the last couple of seasons dating back to 2019, I believe. Yeah. So yeah. The walks per nine for Blake's now, 5.6. I mean, he's always had bad control, but that is just, that's, that's like peak Robbie Ray badness, 5.6 walks per nine. There's no shortage of gigantic bus at starting pitcher this season. I mean, I'm looking at the ADP, Chris Paddock, Hazers-Lisardo, Denelson Lamette, Dylan Bundy. That's four out of five in a row. And the guy between them is Charlie Morton, who hasn't been exactly stellar himself. The 30 to 40 range at starting pitcher has had some real hits and also like Patrick Corbin and Dylan Bundy and those other guys I mentioned.

I would imagine your pitching is probably doing pretty good, Chris, because you were living in that range with Zach Granky and Sandy Alcansara and Pablo Lopez. I know you were on those guys. A lot of Trevor Rogers. Pitching has not been my issue in fantasy this season. My pitching has mostly been very good, actually. Hitting has been a real disaster. Yeah, I think one of the lessons learned is, you know,

I was kind of leaning into the volatility. of starting pitcher this season and we knew that there would be injuries. We knew it was going to be a wacky

season coming off of the short in 2020 but I don't think anybody could have seen this level of injuries and how frequently they've come. So yeah,

I tried to lean into it but man, it was... I mean, there's two ways you can lean into the volatility. You can either lean

into it with volume or you can lean into it with not making the high-end investments. The problem with not making the high end investment is you have to hit on your hitting. And I haven't done that.

You want to talk about relief pitcher, Chris, or should we just skip that position? I don't know. Relief pitcher always stinks. Yeah, like, I rolled as Chapman, I guess. Like, if we want to just pick one, I think he's probably the obvious choice. Actually, you know, I just said the position stinks. I'm looking at ADP, and there's no one that really stands out as a huge disappointment. Chapman recently, for sure. Trevor Rosenthal, if you drafted Rosenthal as a top 12 closer. But even that, that was injury. Brad Hand's been okay.

Ryan Presley's been good. Kenley Janssen's been good. It's mostly been the top end of the position. Devin Williams, I mean, people were, we were drafting him based off 24 innings, and he has not been nearly, like, he has probably not been all that. useful. That was... The R.A's down to 297.

No, he's been much better. And the strikeouts are back. The strikeouts are back, too. The whip is high for him. But that was just, that was such an obvious one to me. I don't think I drafted Devin Williams anywhere. There's just,

for relievers that don't give you saves to consistently be just awesome in ERA and whip and strikeouts. I mean, there's a lot of volatility in this position year over year. There are guys that just emerge for one season and are great.

And then you might not hear from them again for their, next for the rest of their careers like it's it's just that's the nature of the relief pitcher position Alex Colomay one of the biggest bus I mean he was he lost his job within the first couple of weeks of the season Raphael Montero brutal for the Seattle Mariners Jordan Hicks I guess originally we thought he was going to be the closer that that's worked out pretty badly so Greg Holland oh gosh yeah if you were living if you were living in that mid-tier with any of those names that I just mentioned like yeah it's

might be rough for you right now trying to find some saves. So those are some of the worst ones. One more thing to promote here. We are finalists for the sports category of the People's Choice Podcast Awards. We appreciate all you guys do for us. And we hope you enjoy our show enough to nominate us to advance to the final round to nominate fantasy baseball today. Go to podcast awards.com slash app slash sign up and then toggle down the sports category.

We've included the link in the episode description as well. last thing that we have here. It's a Tuesday podcast. We'll give you a little team name Tuesday here, and this one is from Dave. Akeel Badoo, Abu D, Abudai, a dabudia, Bada. Did you ever see the Blue Man group, Chris? I have seen the, I'm aware of them.

I remember their American Express commercials, I believe, but I have never seen them. I saw them live once when I was a kid. They were pretty fun. That seems like a good time. time, you know. Yeah. Definitely was a good time. These are from Jason. Woodruff, Raff, scratch, a boobitch. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that or what he's trying to say. I don't know. Well, yeah, it's an itch. I think is all all he's saying. Woodruff,

oh, no, okay. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what we're going for here with the Raff part either. So all around, I say, not our best work, collect. collectively. All right. Well, his next one is, yeah, yeah, yeah, I am Lordus. Have you ever seen? I don't understand. Oh, you've never seen the South Park episode? Oh, gosh. I haven't watched South Park and probably, oh my God, 20 years, 15 years. It's, uh, he's making fun of Lord. I forgot what songs. I'm not here for that. Lord's great. I leave Lord alone. It's actually a very funny episode, though. This one's from Alex. Darth Hater versus Han Soto. Sure. Yeah. From cause. void where prohibited by low or lao.

Yeah, yeah. And this one's from... I think that's where it works better. Voight where prohibited by Lao. Sure. And this is from Jack Boyce. He actually sent in a song that he made. He took a page out of your book here, Chris.

And he said he was disappointed with Scatz's lack of approval for last week's submissions. So here's a little parody song. Hopefully this will garner acceptance to the tune of Climb Every Mountain. Every montas Choose worthy streams Gallo every franco Till you find John Means

Really held that final note for a long time there That's very good. It took me a while to play. It took me a little while to place it. It's the sound of music and it like started out. I was like, what is this? And then yeah, that clicks in and it's, I think that's the one she's singing like on the mountain top. Great, great work from Jack as always. I mentioned last week he's kind of become the the face of team name Tuesday. He sends in some very great ones there. So we do appreciate it. All right. We're going to wrap up. I think Scott might be back tomorrow. So nice little welcome back there. For Chris, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.