Fantasy Baseball Today - Hunter Greene's Upside, Ranking Pitchers & Top-5 at Each Position (6/7 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Before we get to Hunter Greene, Scott has a buy-low third baseman (1:55)! What did Hunter Greene do differently on Monday? ... Michael Wacha threw a complete game (12:35). Does it matter? ... How do we rank Carlos Carrasco, Robbie Ray, and Blake Snell rest of season (14:50)? ... Who were the most added and dropped players from the weekend (26:42)? ... News and notes (33:32): Fernando Tatis will go for a CT scan later this week. ... Eduardo Escobar hit for the cycle (38:32)! How does he compare to Brandon Drury and Santiago Espinal? ... Who are the top-5 players at each position so far (42:07)? ... We wrap up with streamers and Team Name Tuesday (57:12). Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get 20% off Fantasy Baseball Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. What's up and welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, June 7. Frank Stanful joined by Scott White and the returning Chris Towers.

Today on the show, the most added and drop players from the weekend, top five at each position. Two months in, kind of a light night of baseball. We only had six games on the schedule. One got postponed, only five games. But we'll talk about all of that. We'll recap Monday's action. But first, Chris, what's up, man?

How's your time in Pittsburgh? You're back. Yeah, I'm back in Brooklyn. I came home last weekend. It was nice to spend some time with family. But I'm back at it. And I'm back at normal schedule and normal stuff. I played softball tonight.

First game of the season. Struck out the side, technically. In one inning. There's a rule where if you get multiple foul balls with two strikes, it counts as a strikeout. And so technically two of the strikeouts were of that variety. But I'm still counting it. Struck out the side in softball.

Love to see it. That's how it should be, right? I mean, if it's slow-pitched softball, I mean, you've got to be able to hit the ball. So you hit a foul on two strikes. You should be out. I agree. Anyway, I don't know if you realize this, but while you were in Pittsburgh, you were the Pirates good luck charm

They were eight and four over their last 12 games, so Hopefully they can You're welcome Allegheny County residents. That's right. All right, anyway, let's get it to Monday's action Oh my goodness gracious Oh my goodness gracious, who is that next to me? That is Scotty dubs Scott White and he has a hitter that he wants to talk to you about Yeah, oh, you're gonna start with me, huh? So we're gonna we're gonna start with not

actually the biggest performance of the day, but that's fine. I'm going to use this opportunity to highlight a player I want to talk about who probably wouldn't have been in the rundown otherwise because, you know, I'm sure a lot of the players that really did stand out in a big way Monday. We'll be sure to talk about anyway. So that player is Matt Chapman who went, he had two hits today. Oh my goodness I know

He had two hits today Including a double And that makes him Now he's batting 305 with two home runs in his past 17 games Appears to be heating up as we've seen a lot of hitters do Recently what made me say oh my goodness gracious though Was when I went to his stat cast page And saw

It lit up like a Christmas tree All the red his strikeout rate, which was 32.5% each of the past two years, is now below 25%. And in fact, it's been about 21% since May 1st. So big improvement there from Matt Chapman in the making contact department. Also, you may remember his average exit velocity was way down last year. Well, it's back to normal now. 92 percentile is his average,

he's hitting the ball just about as hard as anybody. His hard hit rate, over 50%, 96th percentile. So he's making a lot more contact. It's the high quality contact he used to make when he was, you know, the 30 plus Homer guy with the A's. And it really all the data looks like last year was the aberration for Matt Chapman. So I'm thinking he's about to go off. 17 games in batting 305 could be the start of it.

I would classify Matt Chapman as a by-low candidate at a position of great need. So get out there and make some offers. I like it. Yeah, I mean, the batting average is up. The strikeouts are down. Just need that power to come, which really has been the case for a lot of Blue Jays hitters this year. So perhaps there's just something going on as a team. Well, but a lot of them are heating up, Bo Bichette.

That's true. Vladimir Guerrero just homered for the fourth time in six games, time in 12 to Oscar Hernandez I sat him last week oops Alejandro Kirk looks like a top five

catcher all of a sudden the one thing that I struggle with with Chapman and this is not directly fantasy related but you know I was looking at it the other day and his defensive metrics are still down

pretty much across the board actually slightly worse than last season which was down from his peak and obviously you know he's 29 years old it's not totally unexpected that he would go from the best defensive player in the world to merely above average,

which is what he's been the last couple of seasons. But, you know, that was one of the leading indicators for me with his hip was, you know, whether the defense was bouncing back. And then that would be a sign of whether he was fully healthy. And so, you know, I'm not saying he's not healthy and I'm not saying that there aren't reasons to be excited about him. I do agree that just the underlying metrics are all looking the right way. But, you know, that was something that I had identified before the season.

as something I wanted to keep an eye on. So, you know, it's possible he's just no longer an elite defensive player. And that won't, that's not an indication of his physical ability as a hitter. But, you know, that's something I wanted to keep an eye on. So at least for the Blue Jays, that's not a great thing. I think that is fair criticism and skepticism, Chris, but this third base position man, but I agree he's a by low based on the data. Yeah. Like, let's just take a shot. Let's take a shot and see. where it goes because after you guys haven't ranked i've got him 18th and i think that means that there are 18 third baseman that i feel okay about i have him 16th but i have some names ahead of him that i mean i've got to update the rank it's like joan montcata looks lost again i've got montata ahead of him

that one's iffy right now ale boom i think is kind of iffy after a hot start um i did like i i'm sure i probably moved boom ahead of Chapman at one point, but that's going to change now. So I have Chapman 12th, and I I'm probably going to move him up to 10th based on what I just observed tonight.

So I'm in a different place from you guys. Yeah, I agree with moving Suarez ranked. 18th. I have him 17th. He's been good. He's hit for power this year. His strikeouts are massive, though. He's striking out at a crazy rate. The only, the, a close one I think is

Kid Brian Hayes versus Matt Chapman. I would take Cabrion Hayes, just because he's younger. I think there's a little bit more upside. And he's doing some interesting things under the hood as well. So I think that's close, but Chapman probably should be in that range and look to buy low on him. Chris, oh my goodness gracious for you from Monday. The actual, oh my goodness gracious player.

Yeah, kind of the free space on the board was Hunter Green. Complete game. Technically. That's true. Seven innings, weather aided complete game. But still, complete game shut out. seven innings one hit eight strikeouts zero walks for hunter green the fastball was unhittable in this one 12 wifts on 25 swings 46 pitches that's a massive 48% whiff rate better than 25% swing strike rate

also had five whiffs on the slider which is a pretty good number but you know the four seam fastball was the star of the show today and look the the diamond backs aren't the the toughest matchup in the world, but Hunter Green's fastball has been, I think it's fair to say, kind of a liability for him this season. His, um, the run value on it has been, you know, pretty bad. If you look at the, the various underlying metrics, he had a 730 expected slugging percentage coming in, a 478 expected Wobah on the pitch. But this was a, uh, a very good start. And the, the thing about it is, um, he's been getting whiffs with the fastball pretty regularly. I mean,

you throw 99 miles an hour on average. You better get whiffs with your fastball. It's not really a whiffs problem. He's got a 25% whiff rate, which for a four seam fastball is pretty good, if not quite elite. But it gets hit hard. And so, you know, it's one start, the spin rate,

stuff like that was still mostly where it has been in the past. So I'm not sure there's. necessarily a ton to take away from it. But he was getting more movement with the pitch. If you look into the baseball savant underlying metrics on the player breakdown page, he was getting three more inches of vertical break, five more inches of horizontal break on the fastball. That's not necessarily a sign that he's fixed.

What's wrong with the fastball? But it's a good sign given that it's been an issue for him. Well, it was also down, down 1.2 miles per hour. on average, which is interesting that this is like the best fastball we've seen from him in terms of effectiveness. And it wasn't as hard. I mean, maybe, I don't know, maybe he was doing something a little different. I don't know exactly what, but it seemed like it was different in a few different ways that then contributed to making it more effective. Another thing I've noticed for Hunter Green is he stopped walking guys.

He has a combined four walks in his past four starts. And that's obviously always a good thing. So I would say he's trending the right direction. And hopefully you got him in your lineup for this two-star week. There's obvious upside and talent here that's been worth betting on, even when the fastball has been bad, just because, you know, like his numbers have been bad this season. You know, 540 ERA even after this.

start that's bad but he's got a strikeout rate right around 30% walk rate's a little high right around 11% but that's not so bad and I guess if you're looking for reasons to buy in to this start you know the the main thing if you look at like the the chart you know the I don't know the strike zone chart I guess is what you would call it I don't know what you would call that but he did a really good job of keeping the fastball up in the zone. And when you have a forcing fastball, you know, you're looking for whiffs. Those are going to be high in the zone. So, you know, his problem has been, one, it's a pretty straight fastball despite how hard he throws it. Two, he leaves it in the middle of the zone a lot.

So, you know, it could be a situation where it's just more about leaving in the upper third of the zone rather than the middle third of the zone. And if he can do that, he can be more effective. I think he's pretty close to a must roster pitcher, just given the upside, even though the, you know, the ups and downs have, you know, arguably featured more ups or down so far this season. But I think the skill set is obvious. Yeah, Hunter Green is up to 78% rostered. And obviously up a little bit more this week because he was in line for the two

starts. His 72 strikeouts overall rank top 10 among starting pitchers. So despite the ERA being inflated, he's had a few blowups. He is giving a ton of strikeouts right now. And it's got just a last point on the velocity being down. I think maybe trying to throw a little bit less hard for him but maybe if that helps him

actually pinpoint where he's throwing the ball might actually be a good thing because it's still like even if it's down one mile per hour from his season's average it's still really fast so if that's something that can help him like harness control

I think it's something he should do so the results speak for themselves yeah 100% yeah all right so yeah Hunter Green I think look as long as he's in line for two stars or he's got a pretty good matchup I think we're obviously rolling with Hunter Green right now. Michael Waka, not sure he was in many lineups this week,

but he tosses a three-hit shutout up against the Angels. And he, again, allows us three hits, one walk, six strikeouts. He had 12 swinging strikes. In the start, he lowers his ERA to 1.99. The underlying numbers do not agree. The ex-fip is up over four.

He has just 33 strikeouts in 49 and two-thirds. Endings pitched, and his BABIP seems extremely lucky all the way down at 188. He is 63% rostered. Scott, is there anything to do with this? It feels weird because obviously it's a shutout and it's against what should be a good lineup, but I'm still just not very encouraged by Michael Waco.

No, I'm not either. I mean, he does have a 203.0.93.0.92 whip. The strikeout rate, oh, actually, I guess it's lower now because he ended up pitching the ninth inning, yeah. the strikeout rate and walk rate are both terrible for waka and doesn't get ground balls he has an ex-fip over four his fit was over four as well it's below four now but it's high threes like there's really nothing to back up the performance and and you know prior to this start i was writing it off because like he was basically just like a glorified long reliever he was going four in a third innings maybe five in a third inning's This was only his second start of six plus innings and he went the full nine. So like there's not even, you know, he hasn't had to navigate the third time through the lineup very often. It's only the sixth start in his career of eight or more innings.

And this is his 10th major league season. So not exactly someone who goes deep into games. Yeah. Look, awesome when things are good. Awesome start. Happy for the Red Sox fans out there. Okay. you got this great start. Angels, by the way.

They've lost 12 games in a row. They are kind of spiraling right now. It should be a bad matchup, but it hasn't been lately. Yeah. I don't think we can do much with this from a fantasy perspective with Michael Walker. Let's move over to some other starting pitchers who are on the mound on Monday. And I think just kind of collectively talk about where these pitchers should be placed in the rankings. Scott, you and I were talking yesterday about that 20 through 50 glob,

which is like very interchangeable right now and trying to figure out what to do with that gloat. And let's start with Carlos Carrasco, who was frankly awesome on Monday. He goes into San Diego, and he goes seven innings, two runs allowed. He had 10 strikeouts, 19 swinging strikes, and he lowers the ERA to 3.52. Outside of the injury concerns, performance, Carasco has been pretty awesome this season. Chris, where do you think Carlos Carrasco should be ranked as a starting pitcher? he has been pretty consistently in the 35 to 25 range for me

basically since the preseason I think I ended up with him inside of my top 40 during draft season and he's up to 25 and we'll say 24 so yeah that's I've been pretty aggressive on him all along but I feel pretty good about it Well, it's easy to say he's been awesome after this start, which was an objectively awesome start.

But I was beginning to worry about him. You know, his previous four outings were all short, less than six innings. Too many base runners, too many hits, too many runs. And it's not like he was, you know, getting the strikeout rate. we had gotten used to seeing from him in his prime. So I had actually dropped him outside of the top 60 in my rest of season rankings. Obviously, because he's in such a big glob

and he just had this start, you know, I could probably move him up into the top 50. But, I mean, I guess that just shows how globy it is that Chris could have him top 25 and I could have Carrasco top 50. Yeah. Describing his season as awesome probably was premature, but his swinging strike rate is going to climb up over

13% now after this start. He is getting ground balls at a 47% clip. His K-to-walk ratio has been pretty good for most of the season. He looks pretty healthy. So he's not as good as the Carrasco of old, but he's about like 85% of who that pitcher was, which makes for a pretty valuable

starting pitcher right now. Robbie Ray, On the other hand, not so great. Another subpart outing, this time at the Astros, obviously a very tough matchup. He goes five innings. He gives up four runs, three of those earned on eight hits, three walks, only three strikeouts. The ERA is now up to 4.97.

Scott, and with every successive start, it's just starting to feel more and more obvious that last year was the clear outlier for Robbie Ray. Are you getting to a point like that, and are you dropping him maybe outside of your top 20 starting pitchers? Hmm. I don't know that I think it's as clear as you think it is. Obviously, there were some velocity issues going on early in the season that kept his strikeouts down. The strikeouts have picked up, but he has had some lingering walk issues, and, you know, obviously the long ball got to him today.

The long ball's gotten to him recently. He's now given up eight, a home run, at least a home run in eight street. stars. And he does tend to get hit hard, even last year when he allowed contact. It tended to be hard contact. So I think the walks are the main thing. And it's not like he's regressed to pre-2020 walk levels. His walk rate isn't good.

It's not as bad as it used to be. And when you're capable of missing bats like he is, I don't know. I, can I drop him outside my top 20? Yeah, probably. I mean, yesterday, who were we saying I'd trade for Robbie Ray? Was it Jose Barrios? Yes. And I think I still would, even as awesome as Barrios' last start was.

How about Severino, Scott? We talked a lot about him yesterday. Are you going to rank Severino ahead of Robbie Ray? I'm inclined to say yes right now. But it's hard. Like, I don't want to constantly be moving guys within this glob, 20 spots based on the way our last start went, you know? Right.

But all the metrics for Severino look awesome, and he's been throwing that slider more. So I'm torn. I'm torn on that. But I would, as of this moment, I'm inclined, and I probably wanted of yesterday, but based on the way Ray continues to allow home runs,

I think my trust is higher in Luis Severino right now. Yeah, Robbie Ray, I mean, he's just kind of regressing a little bit in each department, and it's all coming together. and it's just not working out well. The walks are up a little bit. The home runs are up a little bit. The strikeouts are down a little bit.

A lot of hard contact. And I mean, look, all of those things together, it's not good. He's kind of a three true outcome pitcher right now, which is not what you really want to see. And that's the thing is that when you're, when you get hit as hard as he does, when you give up contact,

your margin for like, this is something that, you know, we've talked about with my concerns about Robbie Ray in the past, is that when you get hit this hard and you mean shame beaver right sorry shame beaver yes when you don't have if you don't have elite strikeout

rates if you just have very good strikeout rates if you don't have very good control you just have pretty good control that leaves you more prone to these kind of blowups because when you strike out 33% of

batters then you can get away with it when it's 28% like he's at right now that's just every slight opportunity for another home run, another double. And that's going to happen for him more often than it does for most pitchers. So yeah, I think it's always going to be a concern when you get hit the way Robbie Ray does.

Yeah, I think I'm going to drop him outside the top 20 starting pitchers. Yeah, I moved him outside of top 20. He is entering the glob. And we'll see where he goes from there. Is he a buy low, though? I mean, would we all buy low on Robbie Ray? It depends what by low means. Yeah, I think it depends how low, you know?

Yeah. But would I give up Patrick Sandoval for him? Yes, I would. We all think he's better than a 540 ERA. I'm sorry, that's just what he had today. A 497 ERA is what Robbie Ray is up to this year. Would I give up Patrick Sandoval for him? Yes, I would.

Would you trade Nester Cortez? to get Robbie Ray. That was the other name that I was looking at. And that's... I would. I would feel bad about it. But I would, yeah. I don't know that I could.

That was a hard one. I don't want to trade any pitchers for any pitchers. What about Terrick Scoobal? That I would do. I would do. Yeah, I would trade Scoobal for Ray. Yeah. All right.

I think we found the breaking point for trying to acquire Robbie Ray on the cheap right now. The other one I wanted to mention, and Blake Snell, another clunker, this one, up against the Mets, he goes four plus innings, he gives up four runs, seven more hits, three walks. The truth remains, while there was a stretch where Blake Snell looked unhittable last year, seven-eight start stretch in August, he was awesome. Since the start of 2019, tonight included, he has a 4.17 ERA.

That is a very big amount of starts and time to be a pitcher in baseball and have an ERA that high. So I am happy that I have no shares of Blake's now. I don't know what to do with him. I don't really want to rank him inside my top 50 starting pitchers. He's just very frustrating. Chris, what do we do with Blake Snow? I don't really think you do anything with him. I think this would be a bad time to trade him because he's going to have stretches where he looks better than this. And if you don't believe in him, do you just roll him out there though? Is he, is he just a must start? Do you just, is he just a put you just throwing your run? Not a must start at all. now. I think he's I think

Snell is closer to drop a bull than must start. Okay. Like I shallow league, Hunter Green's out there, I'm probably dropping Blake Snell for him if it comes to that. I'm not saying like Blake Snell is must drop or anything but we were to the, or at least I was to the point and I think a lot of people were

last August before that incredible stretch Frank where we basically were dropping him. He was a four or five inning pitcher who you know, walked a batter every other inning and like it they're just wasn't much utility in that.

And he has been that more often than not since he won the Cy Young in 2018. But then came that amazing stretch at the end of last season before he heard his groin when he, you know, started going seven innings, striking out 11 batters every time out. And it's like, oh, okay, I guess there's still something here. We're on. If you'll remember during that stretch, he really simplified when basically fastball slider, He's throwing his slider 30% of the time. And he's, I don't know if it was as simple as that,

but he's gone away from that. And he's, it's gotten back to these, you know, too many walks, not enough innings. Yeah, I mean, he was basically fastball 50% of the time, slider 35% of the time, curveball 10 to 15% of the time. And that, I don't know, when you look at what he's,

done recently. One thing that stands out is the past three seasons, his fastball has been pretty bad. Expected Woebo over the past three seasons, 433, 369, 419 with the fastball, with decent whiff rates, but nothing to write home about. So it's not this overpowering pitch, at least it hasn't been the last few seasons. And he throws it, you know, right around half the time. I don't know if he mixes his arsenal up enough. I don't know if the change up is enough of a weapon to, you know, be worth throwing as often as he does.

And so it's just, I do think there's a version of Blake Snell that can still have success, but it's probably one where he throws his slider 35% of the time. And he's not doing that right now. And so I wouldn't want to drop him because I think there are some relatively simple tweaks that he can make to get there. Although I do think he would probably still be, even a successful version of Blake Snell at this point would probably be someone who's prone to some blowups the same way Robbie Ray is. But I do think there are relatively straightforward tweaks he can make

that make me want to not drop him. But yeah, I've never moved him inside of my top 45 this season, even once he came back from the injury. So I've remained pretty skeptical, and I continue to remain. All right. It's skeptical. Last one here, Christian Javier, he's kind of slowing down a little bit.

I'm wondering, did we get ahead of ourselves a little bit by pushing him up the ranking? Scott, 30 seconds or less, what are we doing with Javier? Like all the underlying numbers still look great. Great swinging strike, great, great ERA estimators. You know, I wonder how likely he is to get bumped from the rotation at some point. But I would keep him right around 50th. Okay. The most added and most dropped from the weekend

These are a lot of names that we've talked about Just a few that I wanted to highlight here The most added hitters Christopher Morel Alejandro Kirk Kyle Farmer, Trey Mancini, Andres Jimenez And Vinnie Pasquantino Which seems like he is On the verge, he is breaking down the door ready

To get called up by the Kansas City Royals Those are the most added hitters I think we've talked a lot about those recently The most dropped hitters Is there anyone on this list that you think maybe shouldn't have been dropped? Eric Hosmer, Sean Murphy, Alec Bome, Wanya Pez, Josh Naylor. Is there anywhere on that list, anyone on that list that stands out as should not be dropped?

Well, I think we need to give Eric Hosmer some more respect. Or whatever the phrasing was earlier in the season. Gee, who could have seen this coming? Alec Bome kind of looks like a right-handed Eric Hosmer in a lot of ways. I would say if there's anybody here that I don't, that I would not want to drop, it would probably be Josh Naler. But even he's, you know, a relatively unproven bat-only guy who doesn't steal. So I don't, uh, I can't begrudge anybody.

And I, I've dropped Sean Murphy. You know, it's, it's hard because like, he ranks highly at catcher. I think he's still like top six or seven. He just plays so much, Chris. He plays every day. I think he leads the position in games, D.H. Um, And so he's just got, you know, that's so valuable.

But at some point, 175 batting average since the start of May, that's actually hurting you the more he plays. Yeah, no, that's a good point. I'm trying to remember who I sat him for in one league. Jose Trevino, who I don't necessarily think is better, but right now I'll take my chances. Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. I'm cool with all these hitters being dropped.

I'm okay with them all being dropped too, but I think I think Alec Bohm is the most likely to be useful in part because of the in large part because of the position he plays. And while I get the Eric Hosmer comp, it's kind of like a less extreme version of Eric Cosmer. Hits the ball hard. Should it could elevate better, but you know he elevates a little better than like a Brian Hayes or Hosmer. And I think, you know. The expected stats on stat cast are much better than the actual stats for Bome. All right, fair enough. The most added pitchers from the weekend.

Most of these, actually, all of them are two-star pitchers. Graham Ashcraft, Jeffrey Springs. Finally, Scott, Jeffrey Springs. People are adding him. Edward Cabrera turns out that he has two starts this week. He's going up against the Nationals and the Astros. Connor Pilkington and then John Gray. Believe John Gray will still have two starts.

That game was postponed on Monday, but he is going to start game one of the. double header on Tuesday. Someone we haven't talked about is actually Keegan Thompson, who was the sixth most added pitcher, and he's bounced between the bullpen and the rotation for the Cubs this year, but he's got a 1.99 ERA, a 108 whip. He gets a lot of ground balls, not that many strikeouts. Does a good job of limiting hard contact. He's one of those pitchers. Scott, is there anything here with Keegan Thompson? I'm going to start fading those pitchers, I think. I think I've, I've I think I've fallen a bit too in love with those pitchers in recent years looking for a market inefficiency.

And that's one of the changes that I intend to make next year. I'm kind of trying to look at ways I may have strayed in my evaluations of players because particularly with pitchers, I don't know. I think I've overcomplicated things. So I, you know, just by virtue of him having a $1.99 ERA, you expect Keegan Thompson to regress. And I don't know how firm his grip is on a rotation spot anyway, because you got Matt Swarmer coming in and doing some impressive things. And Thompson began the year in the bullpen and was pretty valuable there. So there's that holding me back as well. All right.

I would say with that archetype of pitcher, they probably need to stand out somewhere. And I don't think Keegan Thompson does in that like he's got a good ground ball rate, but I'm not sure It's so good that you can expect him to to outperform the middling strikeout rate and he's got like Decent control but not great. It's yeah, you probably need like really really great ground ball rates or really really great control and even then it's iffy plus I don't think it's going to be as valuable and an environment where home runs are no longer the avoidance of fly balls is no longer as important because fly balls don't often as often yield home runs

although that may be changing the last couple of weeks yeah it's not going back to it's gotten better but it's not all the way back to where it was you know 2016 through 2021 yeah we're due for another macro level view of offense the past couple of weeks so I'll kind of conjure that up. You know, by the time we get to mid-June, I'll probably do like a two-week look at June

and let's see where offense is at there. The most dropped pitchers from this weekend. Dylan Bundy, David Peterson, Grayson Rodriguez, unfortunately, Matthew Liberator and Bruce Zimmerman, who has an 8.57 ERA over his last four starts. I assume we're good with all those pitchers being dropped. Totally fine with that.

All right. Let's take a break. And when we get back, We will get to the news and notes here on Fantasy Baseball today. The news and notes, Fernando Tatis will undergo a CT scan on his left wrist later this week in hopes of getting cleared to hit. He's been fielding some ground balls. I saw some video of him at Petco Park. Cross our fingers. We need some Fernando Tatis back in our lives. Actually, I have two shares of him just from early drafts that I did before he was hurt.

So I really could use Fernando Tatis. I've got him in like two of my like, most important leagues. I've got him in Towars and in one of my money leagues and boy, would really love to get him back. Let's do it. Let's get Fernando Tatis. Wander Franco has yet to resume baseball activities since suffering a right quadrane on May 30th. And just watching some raised games earlier this year, it always kind of felt like he was dealing with something. I would see him run the bases and he would kind of pull up lame and I feel like this has been kind of hampering him for longer than they let on. So I think we could see maybe an extended absence here for Wander

Franco. Some rehab updates. Jack Flaherty struck out three over three perfect innings in his first rehab start on Sunday. Shane Boz struck out 10 over four in a third innings on Sunday in his fourth rehab start with AAA. He's up to 84% rostered and rightfully so. If he's available in any of your leagues, please go out there and add Shane Boz. Scott, I haven't seen an official timeline, but he's made four rehab starts, I feel like we're probably pretty close to seeing Bob's with the rays, right? Yeah, I would say so. All right. Clayton Kirshall allowed one run over four in a rehab start at Single A. He's expected to rejoin the Dodgers this weekend and pitch against the San Francisco

Giants. Tyler McGill has joined the Mets on the West Coast. He's tentatively lined up to pitch this weekend against the Angels. Jonathan India will begin a rehab assignment at AAA on Tuesday. He has not appeared in a game since April 30. dealing with that hamstring injury. The Astros officially signed Yordon Alvarez to a six-year, $115 million contract extension. The deal buys out the rest of his arbitration seasons along with three additional free agent years.

Andrew Benetendi missed Monday's game with calf tightness. As expected, Jaron Duran was optioned back to AAA with Jackie Bradley, returning to the Red Sox, which it sucks. We talked about it yesterday, Scott. I mean, he let off two games over the weekend. He looked pretty good. It's yeah, I'm waiting for them to give Benintendi a real shot, but you mean to run?

Yes or you mean to ran. Yeah. Yeah, I did I meant to ran, but yeah, I think it's this kind of You did that you did the Matt Weider's thing. Yeah, it was one of those like weird slips like lefty bat for the Red Sox who's a prospect. Yeah, look at that. Billy Ober is headed back to the aisle with a right groin strain Jamer Candelario could be headed to the IL with a shoulder injury. David Peralta was removed from Monday's game with back spasms. Mike Mustakis placed on the I.L. without a designation, which sounds like a COVID situation. Sheldon Noisy optioned back to AAA on Monday.

Jake Oteresey threw a 57 pitch bullpen session on Saturday and had no complications. He's on the IL with strains in his right foot slash ankle. That's what I'm talking about with Christian Javier. Yep. That can be pretty bad there. Two sub five inning starts in a row. Not good with O'Donoh. Rizzi building up again.

I think Eduardo Escobar just hit for the triple. Just hit for the cycle, rather. He hit a trip. I'm all over the place right now. My head is going bonkers, but... He just hit for a Benintendi? Yes, he... What's going on?

Yes, but he is standing on third base. He's asking for the ball. I know he hit a home run earlier in the game. I think he just completed the cycle in the ninth inning. I almost sat Eduardo Cabrera and Tau... Eduardo Escobar and Tout Wars. We are about...

Almost did, but I said, you know what? This will be the week. I'm not going to repeat the mistake I made last week with Kyle Schwerber, Brian Reynolds, and Teoska Hernandez. Granted, this is a 15-team league, so Eduardo Escobar is that level, I guess. All right. Been to do it, and look what happened. Nice.

I want to go back to Shane Boz just for a second. He's got 10 days left on his rehab assignment. So one way or another, by the end of next week, he's going to be back. assuming he doesn't suffer some kind of setback, but I believe the 17th would be 30 days. I mean, they could option them. I don't think they will, but they could. Yeah.

Ryan Yarbrough. He's going to be back on the 17th or 18th or everyone's going to be yelling at the race. I guess you can't put past them. Reds prospect, Jose Barrero, was reinstated from the aisle and then option back to AAA. He's just a name to watch. deeper leagues. He has got sneaky power and speed. Dallas Kichel signed a minor

league contract with the Diamondbacks. These hitters were not on the most added or dropped list, but they've been hot recently, or at least today. And I guess we should start with Eduardo Escobar, who just hit for the cycle. He had his fifth home run as well. He's down to 71% rostered. Chris, do you think that number should be higher? It's kind of weird because Escobar, he's one of those players who excels in points league, so I don't know that this number should be much higher than 71%. Yeah, I mean, he's eligible at what, three different positions, so I think that helps.

I think it's just second and third, but it's still pretty good. Second and third, plus middle infield and corner infield, so technically five if you want to include utility. So, you know, I think that's right. He's a pretty fringe guy in a 12-team points league, but, you know, anything deeper than that, he's okay to have a round. Brandon Jury went two for four with his 10th home run, and he is. batting 263 overall. He's got a career high, 11.7% barrel rate. Expected numbers look pretty good. I don't think this roster rate needs to be higher for Brendan Drury, but I think if you picked him up, let's just stick with it. Let's ride the hot

hand and see how long this lasts because he's been pretty good. He hits in a good ballpark. He plays every day, so. I mean, he didn't drop off the face of the earth when he cooled off, because now he's hot again. 440 with two home runs so far in June. And, yeah, as you said, the data all backs it up. You know, he was a pretty good hitter when he first broke into the majors and then fell on hard time. I don't know. I'm beginning to believe in Brandon Drury a little bit more. What about Santiago Espinal who had two more hits, including his fifth home run?

He's betting 280 overall. I don't think he has a high ceiling or anything, but I think the floor is pretty high for him. in last seven games, he's batting 3991, he's got three homers, second base, third base eligibility. Chris, do you have any takes on Santiago Espinole? I think what we said about Eduardo Escobar probably applies here. He's not someone who's worth starting in a 12 team, head-to-head points league, but there's utility outside of that, I think.

If you are. I do think the batting average seems pretty, pretty safe like he doesn't strike out very much his quality of contact is pretty mediocre but I think he could hit 280-ish moving forward which is what you've gotten from him so far and that's there's utility in that yeah I would rather have Escobar than s in all I think I would too yeah it's I mean you know Escobar I don't know if it's not gonna work out for him this year in the new environment but he's you We've thought of him as a reliable source of 25 homers coming into the year.

And I think he got off to a slow start last year too before turning it on. If you need a catcher in a two-catcher league, someone I added this weekend was Cal Raleigh. And I'm admitting I got super lucky with this game on Monday. He went two for four. He had a sixth home run. He added four RBI. And his last 10 games is hitting 270-3 homers, 97 mile per hour average exit velocity.

It's a very small sample size. He strikes out a ton, but the name there... His minor league numbers are pretty good. Yeah, yeah. We were kind of excited when he got called up last year, but just didn't really do anything. So in those two catcher leagues, he's just someone to watch. All right, top five at each position.

I don't want to spend too much time on each of these, but we can just kind of do this rapid fire style. We'll start with catcher, and this is based on Roto. I'll point out any differences in head-to-head points leagues. But the top five catchers, Wilson Contreras, Dalton Varsho, Tyler Stevenson, J.C. Real Muto, Alejandro Kirk. That's right. Alejandro Kirk. And head-to-head-to-all-Hick-To, Will Smith is in there instead of Tyler Stevenson. I wanted to ask you guys about J-C. Real-Muto. Just what's your read on him so far this season? He's hitting 253, three homers, four steals. He's still ranks in the top five because he's

playing a lot still. But I don't know. Like the underlying numbers are just not as good. Scott, what do you think about real miso? Yeah, I think he's clearly in decline. He showed signs of decline each of the last two years, so it's not like a steep decline, but he's continuing down the slope and is bailed out by how much he plays. And he deserves to be in the top five catchers.

I'm not, you know, just because the circumstances aren't going to change for him, obviously. But he is not really a threat to be the number one catcher anymore. I don't think. He's a compiler, I think, at this point. He's been that way, basically, for the last calendar year, really. He got off to a good start last season, but I think basically over the last 365 days,

he's been like a 700-ish OPS bat. Yep. So not great there, but he does play a lot. That's J.T. Relimuto. Let's move over to first base, the top five. Paul Goldschmidt, Pete Alonzo, C.J. C. C.F.R. And Freddie Freeman. in Head to Head Points Leagues, Anthony Arizzo is just ahead of C.J. Crone in that format.

And Chris, speaking of C.J. Cron, he has been awesome. However, the Rockies have 59 road games left versus 49 home games. Is that something that you would see and then you look at the splits and you realize Cron is amazing in Corsfield and maybe just shop them around and see if you could sell high? Yeah, he's an obvious sell high candidate. Um, on the base. of that and the overall numbers that being said like I don't know the fact that Anthony Rizzo is still a top five first baseman that had that points league and tie France I know he had a 900 OPS in May but like it's mostly just batting average in a way that's not sustainable so I I don't know it's it's hard to

sell someone who's hitting like C.J. Crone right now when there aren't a lot of viable options but yeah I think the fact that you know what, 58% of his remaining games are on the road is enough to make him a sell high candidate. France has eight home runs. Yeah, five of them came more than 20. Five of them came in, uh, in April. And I think like, wasn't it like all really, well, I guess they were sort of evenly distributed. Mm-hmm.

Speaking of Thai France, he is in the top five at second base as well, where we have Trey Turner, Tommy Edmund, Ty France, Trevor Story, and Jazz Chishol. and in Headside Points League, Jeff McNeil is just ahead of Jazz Chisholm. And I actually was going to ask you guys about Ty France and whether or not he's legit. He's making a ton of contact this year, which lends itself to hitting for a high batting average.

He hits a good amount of line drives. Too many ground balls. But I think by season's end, Scott, we're probably looking at a 300 hitter, 18 to 20 home runs, which is good. Yeah. It's just, I don't know if it's an elite player. Well, I don't know either,

because I don't know what an elite hitter is anymore. True. And I don't think I will know until the end of the season, honestly. But I think he's pretty legit. I mean, I thought he was one of the better bets for batting ever. Look, in 43 games in 2020, he hit 305. And 152 games last year, he hit 291. He hit 399 one year in the minors.

Like, in a way that isn't fully explained by the data, he seems like a really good bet for batting average, and now he's cut down on his strikeout rate in a pretty dramatic way this year. High line drive rate, hits the ball to all fields. You know, taking all those factors into account, the 352 Babbap that he's currently sporting

doesn't seem that unsustainable. I think it'll drop off some, but I think he's, you know, he could be like a 315, 320 hitter with decent power. I think he's a lot like the good version of Jeff McNeil. Not Jeff McNeil right now, even though he's playing well, but the Jeff McNeil from like 2018 or whatever it was.

Yeah, which was like a 300 hitter with 18 to 20 homers. So that's a pretty good player in this environment. Again, like batting average around the league is still down quite a bit. So when you find someone like Thai France who doesn't kill your power, it's pretty valuable player. Third base has been, honestly, while it's not a good position at all, it's been the most predictable. The top five was basically the top five being drafted.

Jose Ramirez, Rafael Devers, Mani Machado, Austin Riley, Nolan Aronado. I know that Chris Bryant was kind of pushing that top five once he got traded, rather signed with the Rockies. And it's actually the same in head-side points leagues. Chris, I wanted to get your thoughts on Nolan Aronado. Because, you know, everyone was coming for you in April when he was amazing, he had an 11-25 OPS.

and then in May. It was a bad week. Yeah. It was a bad week for me with Nolan Aeronado that first week of the season. But things have looked okay since then. Well, what are you expecting from him moving forward, I guess? Reasonable batting average, above average power, but not elite. Good run production numbers because he never strikes out. I think like Jose O'Brayu-ish, like what we've gotten from Jose O'Brayu outside of

like the one monster season, probably less of a source of batting average. But like I said, you know, a bad week. Really since the seventh game of the season, he's hitting 257 with a 744 OPS. I think he'll be better than that. And he's still driven on a 93 run pace or RBI pace. So I think like he's going to be a good source of RBI,

a pretty good source of power and average. I just think like that's probably it. He's going to be close to a zero in steals and pretty bad in runs because he's a low O BP guy. So I don't know. He's a clear fifth third baseman for me. I think there's a gap between him and Riley, but I don't know if anybody else is coming up close to him with Chris Bryan's injury issues. Yeah.

I think that's all fair. For shortstop, the top five, Francis. Maybe Matt Chapman. Maybe. Maybe. At shortstop, we've got Francisco Lindor, number one overall at shortstop. Trey Turner, Tommy Edmund, Zander Bogart's Trevor Story, and it is the same in head-to-head points. But just outside of that top five is Danesby Swanson, who I did want to mention, hit his first home run on April 28th in 36 games since that game.

316 batting average, six homers, eight steals, in 879 OPS. Scott, Danesby Swanson is running a, a high babbip right now. So I think there's a chance to batting average comes down. But in terms of power speed, I mean, he's been maybe the best hitter on the Braves.

I don't know where the nine steals are coming from. Well, if that continued, like, if the nine steals have the potential to be a game changer for Swans, I mean, if he's going to be like a 25 steel guy,

okay, that, that, uh, yeah, that, that, that,

that, that, he's been pretty streaky over the years, and he looked awful at the start of the year. I was worried he was going to be one of those players that was just ruined by this new ball. And so I'm encouraged to see that he's still capable of being an impact player for stretches. And he's been so impactful during this stretch that he's moved up to second in the order for the Braves. They kind of rejiggered their lineup a couple weeks ago, moved Matt Olson down to fifth, and Swanson up to second,

which I don't think is going to be a permanent arrangement. If Matt Olson hits like Matt Olson, if Danesby Swanson hits like Danesby Swanson in the long run, you're going to want Olson higher in the lineup than Swanson. But it's been enjoyable for now. I guess what I'm trying to say is Swanson's, I'd view him as something of a cell high candidate,

a serviceable starter, but this is, you know, he's due to regress some from this. The top five outfielders, This season, Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Yordaun Alvarez, and Tommy Edmund. And Tommy Edmund's really popping up in every position. Second Bay, shortstop, outfield. And he's hitting 280.

He's got five homers. He's got 14 steals, 44 runs scored. It's tied for second in Major League Baseball. He's on pace for 38 steals over 150 games. Chris, I know you expressed some skepticism recently. You know, the OPS wasn't great for Edmund in the month of May. But what do you think about what we've done? seen from him so far and I guess moving forward.

I just I guess it depends on like what you expect him to be moving forward. If there's some expectation that he is like a difference maker outside of stolen bases, then I think you're likely to be pretty disappointed with him. But like a guy who hits 270 to 75 and steals a bunch of bases and hits at the top of a decent lineup, like that's a must start player, especially one who's a very very very very very. eligible at three different positions so sounds a lot like whit merrifield honestly chris yeah like that that that could be what whit maryfield has been and what maryfield's been a you know borderline star for fantasy so you know i was skeptical of the speed after last season and you know for what it's worth he did

slow down uh a bit as the season went on last year um let me see yeah he had well i guess 17 before the all-star break 14 after? Was it just, no, I guess he had four steals in every month, but one. He had nine in September, so that's a,

you know, a little bit of a, a fluke, a little, but yeah, I think, like he seems like a solid 30 plus steel guy who's gonna be decent

and runs in, and batting average. So, so a must-start player for sure. Starting pitcher, just end the season right now. Shane Mclanahan is number one. Sandy Alconso is number two.

I mean, I couldn't have drawn it up any better this season. Let's just end the season. This is awesome. This is Verrota, right? At points, I'm going to guess, McClanahan's not number one. He is not. I think he drops to third, but both of those are, both of those guys are still inside the top three in points leagues.

The other ones, Joe Musgrove, Justin Verlander, and Nestor Cortez. In a points league, Alec Manoa is in there over Cortez. I believe he has nine quality starts in 10 tries this season. Scott, Sanny O'Conra is the one I just quickly wanted to mention. His slider usage is up over his last four starts, and that's when we saw him kind of take off last year and the swinging strikes started to come more frequently. That's been the case.

He's got a 0.56 ERA over his last four starts with a 15.4% swinging strike rate. Yeah, I think at some point, he's going to have to decide whether he wants to be more of a batmiss or more of a ground ball guy. And I don't think, like I think he's going to be,

be a groundball guy either way. But do you want the contact early in counts or do you want to really take it to the opposing hitter and try to make him look silly? Because I think he's capable of that and he has the swinging

strike rates of a big strikeout pitcher. It's just is he going, like is that what he's going to aim to do with more sliders, more changeups, which is also a good swing and miss pitch for him? And we've seen him, we've seen him dabble with that

a lot more of it in the second half last year, which is why we were hoping for a step forward. But his caper and I is actually down a little from last year. So we haven't, we haven't seen him alter his approach too much. The top five, not that it's mattered that much, right?

Because he's been great. He's been great. The top five at relief pitcher in Roto, Clay Holmes, Josh Hader, David Bednar, Kegan Thompson, and Luis Severino, completely different. He's number one?

He's number one. Reliever. I think he has four or five wins and he also has like eight saves. So that'll do it. It's completely different in head to head points. Martine Perez, Josh Hader,

Kenley Jansen, Taylor Rogers and Liam Hendricks. Chris, real quick, who has more saves the rest of season for the Yankees? Clay Holmes or A roll of his Chapman. I think it has to be Chapman. I mean,

I guess it doesn't have to be, but like we've done this several times over the last few seasons. There have been stretches where Chapman's either gotten hurt or been ineffective and they've either pulled him from the role or, you know, given him rest and then he eventually gets back to the closer role. And so unless he's just broken and maybe he will be, I still think there's a strong bias towards him being the closer when he's healthy.

And part of that is just like, I don't know if a role does Chapman's going to be useful as a non-closer. you know like I just I don't I don't I don't know it's hard to like find the right words to put it in but like lefty specialist there you go I just I think there's so so much of his appeal personally is tied into being a closer that like that's a hard thing to get around yeah it could be just I don't know if he's a guy who's gonna be okay not being the closer you know he's been a closer for so long so I get that I think you know normally financials and politics will work their way into a situation like this He's in the final year of his contract, so I don't think that the Yankees are as invested in getting him back to the closer role as they have been in years past. But I could be wrong about that. The call to the bullpen, we have just one update. And that was for the Mariners on Monday.

Diego Castillo walked one, but picked up his third save. Paul Seawald had pitched three of the last four days. And if you are looking for the bullpen report, it'll be out on the site on Tuesday, written by our own Scott White. So make sure to check that out. Yep. To stream or not to stream, let's start with Tuesday's action. We have Graham Ashcraft versus the Diamondbacks, Edward Cabrera versus the Nationals, Keegan Thompson at the Orioles, Jose Cantana versus the Tigers, Dakota Hudson at the Rays, Jeffrey Springs versus the Cardinals, and Connor Pilkington versus the Rangers. One, some great names here. Connor Pilkington, obviously an excellent name, but Graham Ashcraft also

So sounds like someone from like a Neil Gaiman, like fantasy novel or something, so that's cool. Edward Cabrera would probably be my number one, given the matchup and given how good he looked in that first start. But him, Springs, and Ashcraft, I think, are all useful. I go springs over Cabrera, but those two, I would say, are pretty close to musts on Tuesday. On Wednesday. Cabrera, I would say, is must roster. Yeah, he's only 55% rostered, so... Yeah, it's too low. Get him on your teams.

Kentana versus the Tigers isn't bad either, just because it's the Tigers. Oh, yeah. Start anyone against the Tigers. I mean, if we can get a slow-pitched softball Chris Towers out there, I mean, I'd probably stream him against the Tigers right now. Spin rate was pretty impressive today, I guess. Yeah, I want to... Send me the stat cast numbers, Chris. I'll do a deep dive on that. Wednesday, we've got Alex Fayetteau at the Pirates.

You say Kikuchi at the Twins Dane Dunning at the Guardians Adrian Houser versus the Phillies and Alex Wood versus the Rockies I am starting Wood in Tau Wars I didn't necessarily want to but

Home versus the Rockies swayed me so I'll go with him This is technically their first series out of Coorsfield in a while so that could be the hangover effect the Coors Hangover you know Wood would be my first choice

here, but he doesn't have a six-inning start all season. He has, I mean, he just hasn't been good. No, he has been. Almost a five. Yeah, I mean, we could say the same thing, I guess, about Alex Cobb, right? His team, yeah. Yeah. I like, I like the Tuesday group better than the Wednesday group, but Dane Dunning at Cleveland

isn't bad. Alex Fayetteau at Pittsburgh isn't bad. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd stick with those. I do like Fayetteau as well. Team name Tuesday, I didn't forget about you. I still got some names written down here from last week. This one's from Paul. Cron Thugges. and Harmoni.

I think you don't need the manny part of it, but I like it. It's pretty good. I think you could just go with the crown thugs in harmony. From Chris. Don't overcomplicate it. From Chris Towers. Psycho Gorman. After, I don't get that one.

The movie Psycho Gorman, I think. Sounds pretty low budget. I don't know anything about it. Break a leg, man. I like that one. Student Detmers. Yep. on the contraris

that's pretty good from Greg Bas flute yeah I think like jazz he wrote jazz flute from Anchorman

and parenthesis but it's it's the way what's his name pronounces it uh will Farrell no the other guy

in that movie the guy who plays the manager of the restaurant I can't remember his name Fred Armisen and how does he pronounce it how does he say it like a jazz flute

bass flute Baz flute I haven't seen that movie in a while I guess Yeah it's been a while for me too This was from Mike Witt or Witt Trout you See again I think you're just I think you're over

Overcomplicating it but I like the effort I like it I like when people go They're so bad that they're good It's kind of like the John Sterling effect From Jeremy I did it all for the mookie Come on Are Limp Biscuit fans out there I don't know that I believe in so bad it's good

If I'm going to be perfectly honest in any context. All right, it's good. Cookies and milk. So bad it's good. From Daniel. Many machilada. It looks like a, like a michelada,

like that, like the weird drink with clam juice. Is that what that is? I think so. I think of the right thing? I think so. I think that's what it is. No, that's a climato. I don't know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I mean, but there is a drink, something like that, Chris. Mitchell, I don't know, something like that. From bro, tell me something good. Okay. And can of corn. Yep. The last one of the day comes from Cajun Pete,

Julio the Jet Rodriguez. Yeah. All right. Well, this is over. It's some Mexican beer, some tomato juice, lime juice, Worcester sauce, some hot sauce.

That's where I've seen it. That's a thing. I've seen it in a Mexican restaurant, I believe. And I've never had one because I refuse to drink anything that has like tomato juice or hot sauce in it. So Bloody Mary's, No, not happening for me.

For Scott and Chris, I am Frank, thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back to get tomorrow. Bye-bye.