Fantasy Baseball Today - Is Burnes Back? Lawlar Promoted, Waivers Adds & More! (5/12 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Is Corbin Burnes back (2:30)? ... Tomoyuki Sugano keeps dominating (5:53). ... Lucas Giolito did some nice things Sunday (13:17). ... Ronal Blanco, Tarik Skubal and Jasson Dominguez all shoved this weekend (19:20). ... BREAKING: the Dbacks are promoting Jordan Lawlar (26:24). ... News (36:55): Blake Snell needs a second opinion. ... Evan Carter flashed some power and speed (47:24). ... We had a bunch of interesting waiver wire pitchers this weekend (50:30). ... What are the updates on polarizing pitchers (1:01:08)? ... Start or sit these pitchers (1:07:38)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpens and streamers (1:15:19). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow FBT on TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@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/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hello, welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Monday. May 12th.

I am Frank Sample, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. today on the show is Corbyn Burns back. We had two complete game shutouts from improbable pitchers, I would say. Waiver-wire moves, starter sit decisions, and much more. Before we get into it, just want to send a heartfelt happy Mother's Day out there to all the great moms. We wouldn't be here without you. So thank you for being amazing. Literally.

Let's jump in. Oh, my goodness gracious. All right, I'm going to start us off with Corbyn Burns because this is exactly how it would happen. And everybody benches Corbyn Burns. And then he has his best start of the season against the Dodgers. Seven shutout innings, five hits, two walks, five strikeouts, 12 whiffs on 91 pitches in this start. Average exit velocity against looked good here, actually lowered the cutter usage and mixed in all of his other pitches. And it worked.

His change up was especially good in this start. I don't actually think he's all the way back, but I think it's notable that he had a tremendous to start against one of the hottest, one of the best lineups in all baseball. And this week he gets the Rockies in Arizona. So load him up. Yeah, absolutely. Start him this week and then probably try to sell Corbyn Burns, which I feel like we are going to say sell high on this pitcher a lot today.

So buckle in and get used to that because I don't know if there's, any good pitchers right now, or at least any pitchers that I like who are actually succeeding right now. But anyway, Burns made some real changes to his approach in this one. It was, especially to right-handed batters. It was much fewer cutters, more sliders and curveballs for Corbyn Burns. The cutter still doesn't look like it should. The velocity was back up in this one, and that's good to see, but still looks like a media. or four seamer more than the dominant cutter that it's been in the past 12 inches of induced vertical break not as much horizontal break it just the result was good i just don't know how sustainable it was which day was this of the weekend that corbin burns did this i want to take a second look it was saturday i want to take a second look at the pitch break down here because i wonder if he's kind of reverting to the approach that he had for most of his year in Baltimore when the cutter wasn't working.

If he's just kind of like acknowledging, okay, it's not there, I can't rely on it the way I have most of my career. So I got to I got to mix in other stuff and hope to keep hitters off balance that way, which it caught up. It worked fine for most of last year. The strike rate was down, but he was still more or less an ace in fantasy. And then it caught up to him in August. And then he figured things out with the cutter, supposedly. but it's it's been gone this year so yeah i mean the the top line result was fine i mean it was good obviously seven shut outings against the dodgers i don't think anybody was expecting that

but the everything under the hood was still pretty underwhelming and so i i remain concerned about burns long term i think that's fair i wouldn't i don't know that i would say everything wasn't, you know, great under the hood here. The fact that he didn't allow hard contact and at least the other pitches look pretty good. We still want to see that cutter get back on track. But I do agree, get him back in your lineups this week against the Rockies.

And if he has an awesome start, try to recoup, I don't know, top 15, top 12 starting pitcher value. I don't even know if that's possible. But you can try. Chris, let's go over to you for your player of the weekend. Tomo Yuki Sagano, who continues to pitch incredibly effectively for the Baltimore Orioles,

the lone bright spot in their rotation. It was seven and a third, one run innings, five strikeout, zero walks. That is no start. It's actually amazing. No starts with more than three earned runs allowed this season for Sugano,

which, remember that start against the Yankees where I think he gave up, was it against the Yankees? There was one start where he gave up three, two home runs in his first three batters. faced and then ended up going seven innings. That might have been the start against Cleveland. He's been really good. He's got a 272 ERA and a 101 whip and don't ask about any of the other statistics that we typically cite to try to figure out if pitchers are good because those don't

look good. He's got a 490x ERA. The FIP and X FIP are both solidly over four. I don't know exactly. where those numbers are, if anybody has them in front of them. 461 FIP. This happens every year. There's someone, usually multiple pitchers who have a lot of success early on, and some of them sustain it all year, and it goes against everything that we think we know about pitching. And look, Seth Lugo is going on like two and a half years of outperforming his peripherals.

So maybe there's something here with Sagano, his six pitch mix, his very, very good control. Maybe there's something that can help him continue to outrun expectations. But he has a 14.2% strikeout rate for the season. There have only been two qualifying seasons between 2021 and 2024 with a strikeout rate below 15%. You can't like it's actually, I was trying to do it like, well, here's how poorly those pitchers do, but it's like it doesn't matter. The two pitchers who had a lower strikeout rate than him through from 2021 to 2024 had a 528 and 413 ERA. It's a two person sample size.

That's how low Sagano's strikeout rate is, is that there's basically no precedent for it in recent years. If you expand it to anyone below a 17% strikeout rate, you get 12 pitchers. Two of them had an ERA below four in the season where they had a shot. strikeout rate below 17%. Collectively, they had a 471 ERA. I know strikeout rate isn't everything and Sagano has very good command

and has a walk rate under five and all that stuff. He's not generating a lot of weak contact. It's a 394 expected low bond contact. That's how you get that XERA. That's almost five. That's and that's the thing. It's like you can make a Kyle Hendricks

comp if you want to, but one, Hendricks was a significantly better strikeout pitcher than Tomoyuki Sagano. He was like a 20% strikeout rate guy at his peak, 20 to 22%. He was closer to average. And Hendricks was consistently one of the best in the majors at limiting hard contact over like a six-year span. And Sagano hasn't shown that skill. So I know we're going to get yelled at and I know they're going to be people saying upset, people who are upset that we are dismissing in Cagano,

but I'm going to dismiss him. And if he has another good start next time, that looks like this, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to continue to not believe in it because at some point, this works out. Someone on Twitter mentioned that Martin Perez season in 2022,

where he was just awesome all year. And like sometimes that happens. Sometimes guys can outrun their peripherals for a whole year. One, you shouldn't bet on outliers. And two, Martine Press has like a 430 ERA since that season. It'll regress at some point. Yeah. It may, a pitcher could overachieve for an entire season even.

Yeah. But eventually, I'm sorry, we wanted to wrap up that point. No, no, go, go, go. Okay. I will say, I don't know. There was one person who was very upset on Twitter about us continuing to, badmouthed Sugano or whatever. But I don't think that, like, he's,

Sagano's only 55% rostered in CBS leagues. So I, I don't think, even though his ERA looks great now, 272, I don't think a lot of people are buying into it. If I were to steal man the case for Tomoyuki Sugano, it would be, okay, so you're saying he has a 14% strikeout rate now. Three starts ago was an 8% strikeout rate. It's up to 17% over his last five. starts, I think.

Yeah. Also, that five starts stretched hope in the season where his ERA was at 354 and the whip was pretty high too and the strike array was non-existent. So that's really where like he was being dropped in even 15 teamers,

Sugano. So he allowed in those first five starts six of the seven home runs he's allowed in all. So there could be there is a possibility like he needed an adjustment period. Sure.

And now we're seeing the last three starts are closer to Sugano's true form, where he's not giving up so many home runs, where he is missing, not like a great number of the bats, but a survivable number of bats. And if things were to go right for Sugano going forward, maybe we mark the start of that three start stretch, April 28th is the turning point. But I do think on the whole, you're betting against a lot of, a lot of trends yeah a lot of tendencies that we know are are bad for pitchers you're kind of betting on sugano being a unicorn which is possible but you know unicorn sightings are rare for unicorns exist

of course you just rarely see them you know if you see a thing that looks like a horse you shouldn't assume it's a unicorn. You should assume it's a horse. I will say with Tugano this week, he faces the twins. And they are 22nd in Wobah against right-handed pitching this season. So if you want to ride it while it's hot and just keep going until the wheels fall off, but just know you might be caught with the bag at some point. Like we did this to Mitchell Parker two weeks ago, I think, where it was the same.

Like Mitchell Parker had this amazing four-start stretch or whatever to open the season. we probably had the exact same discussion and he got destroyed, I think, in two consecutive starts. And if you started him for at least one of them, if you only started him for one of them, great, I guess you avoided the worst case scenario. But these things have a tendency of falling apart in spectacular fashion. Sugana didn't make my list of 10 streamer pictures for this week. All right, Scott. Well, let's go over to you for your player of the weekend.

And Lucas Gielito. Thanks for reminding me who it was because after that long conversation, I totally forgot. Yes, let's talk about Lucas Gialito, who I think I'd go so far as to say was great on Sunday, six and two thirds innings at Kansas City. He did allow an unearned run, but only two hits, only one walk, struck out five and six and two thirds innings. Ten whiffs on 88 pitches. Okay, that's pretty pedestrian, the strikeouts and the whiffs there. But here is the key for Lucas Gialito.

Fastball velocity up 1.5 miles per hour from his first two start. Slider up three miles per hour. Change up up 1.5. Curve ball up 3.2. Way up across the board, the velocities for Gialito. And that's kind of what we've been harping on this whole time because we were saying, okay, his velocity comes back for Tommy John surgery. It looked about the same as when we last saw him.

but he was terrible when we last saw him. And he hadn't been good since 2021. That was like the last Lucas Gialito borderline ace for fantasy season, or he struck out more than 200 guys. He averaged 93.8 on his fastball that season. Got up to 94 in this startup average on the fastball. So it was right there. Now, does that mean he's just back to being 2020?

2021 Gialito and prior? You know, I'm skeptical. It's only one start. And what's weird about it is I mentioned the velocity on all his other pitches were up. Well, the velocity on his other pitches prior to this start were fine. They looked about like 2021. It was really just a fastball that was lagging. So now the fastball back to 2021, but all the other pitches are like way above 2021,

if this start is just the new normal for Gialito. So more has to be sorted out here. We have to see if he can sustain this first of all, how his entire arsenal plays if the velocity on the secondaries is messed up. Like I said, he didn't actually get many whiffs or strikeouts in the start, though the overall result was great. But if nothing else, it's enough for me to say, okay, I'll devote a roster spot to Gialito,

see if this does end up turning into something. when particularly after a second star when he just got crushed. It was like, what's the point? Yeah, he also basically didn't throw his slider and curveball in the first two starts. It was negligent, like 95% of his pitches were fastballs and changeups. And this one, he actually threw the slider more than the change-up. So that's another, it's not necessarily a good or bad sign, but it's a change from his previous couple of starts.

Yeah, I think the, the, way to think about it with Gialito is if you hadn't already dropped him, this is a good excuse not to. And I'm not so sure, like, I'm not sure AJ Smith-Shawber would be worth dropping Gialito for. I think the upside is fairly similar there. I'm trying to think of some of the other. I wouldn't do it for Sagano. Yeah, I'd prefer. I'd prefer Gialita to Sagano is what I'm saying.

Not Smith-Shawber. Smith-Shawver was like my top starting pitcher waiver ad this weekend, but there is one pitcher two pitchers available in at least 24% of CBS fantasy leagues that I would drop Gilead O' four Bubba Chandler he's going to get called up I think in the next week or two Ryan Weathers is starting on Wednesday I don't want to start him this week but yeah the Cubs tough matchup yeah Cubs tough matchup but velocity has been right where we wanted it to be in his rehab assignment the results have been pretty good I I do think Ryan Weathers, he hasn't pitched yet and we haven't seen the success come from this

velocity jump. And obviously, injury risk is very high after he suffered a flexor strain. But I do think there is more upside with Ryan Weathers than Jolito personally. All right, before we hit our first break, big thanks to everyone for watching us live. Make sure to hit that like button and subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you haven't already, let's take that break. And we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Other just really big performances I wanted to get out of the way up top here and just quickly mention, Renele Blanco was a beast against the Reds here on Sunday.

Eight shutout innings, two hits, one walk, 11 strikeouts, 16 whiffs on 1001 pitches. He allowed just one hard hit in this game. And he faded the fastball. He threw his slider more. And I was trying to think of a comp for Ronell Blanco. And, you know, I thought a little bit about Reese Olson, how he has those two awesome secondary pitches, except Blanco has three really good secondary pitches. And like Rees Olson, his four team fastballs is not very good.

So I think if he moves away from that fastball a little bit and throws those secondaries more, maybe we have something here, but it's a quality start in three of his last four outings. He's only 56% started and at the Rangers this week. So I think it's like all systems go get Rinal Blanco back in your lineup if you have them. I think this was the best start of his career. And that includes the no hitter. last year. I think this was more impressive. 11 strikeouts over 8 shutout innings. That's that's really good.

I kind of think his skill set looks a little more impressive than it did last year. Obviously coming off of an 11 strikeout eight inning game, well, makes it a little easier to say. But his XERA is significantly lower than it was last season. He's getting more weak contact. So I don't know. I'm a little more optimistic about Ronel Blanca than I expected to be. There you go. Coming into this start, he had a 14.2% swinging strike rate, which is elite. It's coming into the start.

It went up with this start. So I wish you had let us draft him for our shared team, Chris. You're right on not letting us draft Rinaldo Lopez. It went pretty poorly for. Actually, no, we did end up taking Robert Swarrest, didn't we? Yes, we did. That's like the only thing that's gone well for that team so far. And that was the pick that I was most upset about throughout that draft.

Well, none of us wanted it. He felt like 70 picks. It's been our best pick, I think, by far. Terrick Scoobble also want to mention maybe the best pitcher start this season. Seven innings, one run, 12 trackouts. 32 whiffs on 96 pitches is just absurd for Terrick Scouble in this outing. And coming off a Cy Young season, his underlying numbers this year are even better. it's kind of crazy he's pretty good remember when he had like two not great starts at the beginning of the season

yeah no you don't no i don't he has allowed a total of four earned runs over his last six starts after those two that you just mentioned uh also wanted to bring up jason dominguez who had a three homer game on friday three for four with a triple dung including a grand slam he had seven rbi in that game also added two more hits on Sunday. Really helped the overall line look much more respectable this weekend. Now hitting 250 with five home runs, three steals, a 791 OPS. Striking out too much, a 31% strikeout rate. Underlying plate discipline stuff doesn't look that bad.

You know, you want the quality of contact to look a little bit better. Where are you guys at overall? Obviously, this weekend helps much more, but what are your just overall thoughts on what we've got from Dominguez so far? I'd been underwhelmed. I'd moved him way down in my rankings, in part because the Yankees were, had taken to sitting him every third game or so.

To be fair, they're kind of just doing that around the diamond. Like, they're sitting out Bellinger here and there. They're sitting out Ben Rice. They're sitting out Goldschmidt. Just because Trent Grisham has been so good. Yeah, they got to find a way to get him in.

So, you know, obviously Jason Dominguez been a top prospect since he was 16 years old. And he's in his, rookie season technically. I know we saw a little bit of him the previous two years, but this technically is rookie season. And so I think the upside's very high. And if this is the start of him making good on it, it wouldn't be that surprising. It had been underwhelming to this point, like I said, but I think all I can say at this point is hopefully this means he plays more. And you got to have him rostered if possible because we know how high the upside is.

It's just kind of waiting to find out what happens next. The one thing I will say that still looks like a really big red flag for Jason Dominguez. And we're dealing with small sample sizes all the way across his career, no matter how you want to slice it up. But he has been pretty bad as a right-handed hitter so far. It's like a 450 OPS. It's only 77 plate appearances, but the strikeout rate right around 33%. getting a little young Yohan Mankata vibes from Jason Dominguez in that.

Like he's a switch hitter, but kind of in name only, he hasn't been able to to hit for power from one side of the plate as well. That is pretty typical of switch hitters. It's not yet. They're usually bad from one side. There's usually one where they're better. You'd rather it be from the right-handed side, obviously. Yes. But that still looks.

looks like a red flag for me, but yeah, part of the problem with his playing time is the defense is still pretty bad. And so, is that just based on like stackast stuff, Chris? Yeah, the stack cast range factor, outs above average is negative five, which is in the first percentile.

Maybe his other metrics are better, but, uh, yeah, that, that's one where if Trent Gersham is at all for real, he might just be a better player than Jason Dominguez right now overall, which is tough.

I'm not saying that I believe that yet, but it's not unjustified that Dominguez was losing playing time. No, it wasn't. I mean, he was bad. I think I dropped him to like around 60th in my outfield rankings. That's how obviously I regret it now. But you just don't know. Yeah. With a talent like that, you just don't know what how the trajectory of the development, you know.

And so when he does something like this, I think he hit the first from the right side, the first home run of his career in the three homer game, right? Wasn't that one of the three? I think I remember reading that. Yeah, because he hit a home run from both sides of the plate. And then I think the grand slammer is from the left-hand side. Yeah.

And I'm looking at his career splits. Yeah, only one from the only one against the left-handed pitcher. So, yeah, I don't know. Like I'm not. Do you have to roster him in a three outfielder league? Probably not because I don't think we're ready to start him in a standard league context. But certainly five outfields league. He's got to be rostering.

Hopefully. Hey, guys. You're making faces like Robots got his back. Big news. What's the big news? Jordan Lawler's getting promoted tomorrow. Oh, that's exciting. Yes, it certainly is.

I don't know how exciting it is because I have no idea where he's going to do. play but it's exciting. Yeah, I remember. We don't need breaking news on a Sunday podcast, by the way. No, we don't. We already have enough to cover Major League Baseball. Yes, but obviously we should talk about this, Jordan Lawler, who has been a top prospect for years now. He's dealt with a lot of injuries. He got actually called up a couple of years ago, but, you know, he's dealt with a lot of injuries since then. And now down in the miners this season, he has been absolutely crushing it.

And we were wondering when he would get an opportunity to get called up to the debacks. He's 45% rostered on CBS right now. Shortstop eligible. I know he's been playing at second base in the minors. He's been playing in third base. I don't know, initial reactions. Well, Suarez, I thought maybe that presented the clearest path, but he had at least one big game this weekend.

So I doubt he's just going to overtake Suarez. I had suggested the possibility in a recent prospects report, okay, maybe they shift Corbyn Carroll to center field, have Pavin Smith play right field primarily, and then get an infield rotation going through D.H. with Jordan Lawler kind of bouncing around the infield or playing D.H sometimes himself. Did Tim Tawa get sent down to make room for Lala?

I don't think that's been reported yet. Okay. because he was he was kind of playing the super utility role but his hitting really dried up so it would kind of make sense for that reason if they felt like they could

just give Tawa's playing time to Lawler I don't know though I mean I'd rather there be a clear opening where we knew he was going to play every day I think I think it's hard to know what to expect from Lawler everything that they have said both publicly and according to reports based on behind the scene stuff is they still view him as a key part of their plan long-term plan they still like you know they they love prodomo but it you know the extension for him was not necessarily a sign of a lack of confidence in jordan loller it was a sign of you know they really like perdomo um it's yeah like you'd rather there be an obvious spot for him and i

I'm surprised Jordan Lawler didn't get any playing time in the outfield at AAA, just because that would seem like the easiest spot. He should have the athleticism to do the center field transition that we've seen lots of middle infielders make on the flying recent years. Jazz Chisholm being a prominent example. Jackson Merrill. Jackson Merrill, yeah, like guys who have no or limited experience in the outfield have done that. It's just are they going to do that with his first inning as a.

professional in the outfield coming in the majors. I would guess at this point, the first time Jordan Lawler appears in a majorly game, or an out an outfield game as a professional will come in the majors, just because I think he's probably up for good now. But I don't think they're just going to play him out every day in the outfield. So I think there will be some headaches along the way. I also think Jordan Lawler might be the type of prospect where it doesn't matter. you know, he's just so good that they find a spot for him somewhere.

But he's got to, I think the thing is he has to hit. This is not going to be a situation where he just gets six weeks to prove himself. You know, if he gets, he'll probably start five of his first seven career games. And if he's not hitting, it might be for the next seven, you know? Yeah. So just to give people a reminder of, what we're getting excited about here. Jordan Lawler was batting 336 with six homers and 13 steals at AAA, a 992 OPS.

He was, his average exit velocity is 88.8. And that's always been, it's always been kind of in the high 80s range. He's not somebody who hits the crap out of the ball. He relies on elevating to his pole side for his power. and he was playing his game to AAA Reno, which is a very, very favorable place to hit. So that's why I don't think we can just take it to the bank that he's going to, you really shun it with any call-up at this point.

But I think especially Loller, there are some concerns in the profile there. It reminds me a little of Anthony Volpe, if I'm being completely honest. But hopefully it won't go that way. Definitely expect him to steal bases, definitely expect him to walk a fair amount. and beyond that, just hope he gets consistent of playing time to factor outside of deep roto leagues. Yeah, 45% rostered.

I mentioned that for Jordan Lawler. I wouldn't call him a must add in all formats. I don't think you need to add him in points leagues right away, but I think obviously any roto league with a middle infield spot. And then, yeah, I mean, even hedge head categories, I think I would probably want to add him and just see what happens from here. So, mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's, that's sort of like we're redoing. Interrupted us talking about Jason Dominguez. That's kind of what we're redoing with them. And now you do it with Lawler too. Yep. When we got interrupted, I was going to mention just some crazy games that happened this weekend, too, real quick.

The Dodgers come back on Friday against the debacks. They were down three runs in the ninth inning. They put up a six spot, a capped off by Shohei Otani's three-run Homer, his 12th of the season. and he has just been a monster so far in May, as has Freddie Freeman. They're both just going off right now.

The Red scored 10 runs in the first inning on Saturday before the Astros even had a chance to bat. So sorry, Lance McCullors. You got bombed in your second start bag. It's a pretty rough one. Only one out-recorded seven earned runs for him. And then the Padres beat the Rockies, 21 Zip on Saturday,

24 hits in that game, five home runs, one for each of Gavin Sheets, Jake Cronoward, Jason Hayward, Zander Bogart's Fernando Tati's Jr. And then on Sunday, the Rockies relieved their manager, Bud Black, of his duties. So obviously, look, 7 and 33, whatever it is. And a blowout loss like this, not great for Bud Black and the Rockies there. But they are going into interim manager here.

We'll see what they can do. I don't really think that anyone can succeed with the roster that they put together. But I guess you will see. Just wanted to quickly ask on Kronoward. when he's played the season, he's been great. He's only played 15 games. 52% rostered, do you think that number needs to be much higher for Jake Cronoworth? It needs to be higher.

Is he like, are you picking up Lawler or Croninworth? You're probably picking up Lawler, right? So if we're saying that Lawler probably doesn't need to be rostered in points leagues yet, then I would imagine Croninworth, same goes for him. So he's not going to get that roster person. percentage up in the 80s. But yeah, it needs to be higher than 52, you said. Yeah.

You know, just before we move on, I do just, we haven't talked about him like barely at all this season. Fernando Tatis looks like him, as the kids say, capital H, him. Not the early 2000s new metal band him. But, you know, really good player. Looks like he's finally living up to all that potential. after the injuries and stuff. He's having one of his best seasons ever,

so you love to see that. Do the kids still say him? Dude, I'm almost 40. I don't know that. I mean, Scott, you're the only one here with kids, so I don't know. That's true. You told me the other day that your kids like to say bruh a lot.

Yeah. My 10-year-old niece refers to me as bruh. And it's like, show some respect. It's not that they call me. me, bruh, it's just, it's kind of like an interjection to express contempt, like, really, except instead of really, they say, well, that's, yeah, that's the, that's the response I'm always getting from my niece to everything I say is really. Yeah. So that makes sense. All right, new segment soon. You heard it here first. Brah. Let's take our, let's take our final break and I guess we'll

finally get to news. We're like 30 minutes into the podcast. We'll do that. Oh, we got to. One news item. Yeah, one news item right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Let's quickly run through the news and notes. Blake Snell is getting another opinion on his shoulder Monday from Dodgers team doctors as he continues to deal with left shoulder soreness. His plans to resume playing catch earlier this week were shelved as the shoulder continues to bother him. The good news for the Dodgers is that Tyler Glass now did resume throwing it this weekend as expected.

So pretty rocky start there for Blake Snell and his. Dodgers career. O'Neill Cruz left Saturday due to lower back tightness and then was out of the lineup Sunday. The Pirates said that Cruz is day-to-day and we have a lot of just kind of ambiguous hitter situations like this right now and people are going to have to figure out whether to start or sit. So what do you guys think about O'Neill Cruz this week? I'm pretty hard starting, but yeah, just because they're acting like it's a day-to-day injury, but it is like most of these injuries I heard about them and I'm like, okay, well, I guess he's going on the 10-day IL.

And it's like, he might play tomorrow. Yeah. I don't know if we're just at a point in the season where teams are like, we can't play at this carefully anymore. We're running out of players. Yeah, I'd lean towards starting crews, I guess. Yordaun Alvarez has been clear to resume gripping a bat and could start hitting off a T on Monday.

Jackson Merrill was scratched from the lineup Sunday due to an illness. The Padres play again on Monday. So we'll find out right away if he's back in the lineup. If he is, obviously you start Jackson Merrill. Corey Seeger was out of the line of Sunday after his right hamstring tightened up on him on Saturday. Apparently, he missed Thursday and Friday for that same hamstring injury. Feels like the Rangers might have rushed him back here. He did play on Saturday, and he hit two home runs, so I don't really know what to do with that.

But do you start Corey Seeger this weekend? I'm inclined to start him, but, yeah, I don't know. I mean, would you get a recurrence like this? Yeah. I think they'd be more likely to put him on the IL. So I lean towards sitting, Seeger, if, you know, if you get a decent shortstop alternative. Jose Altuve left Saturday due to right hamstring tightness

and then was out of the line up Sunday. Apparently he's still dealing with some tightness, but said that he feels better. The hope is that he can return within a few days. Start or sit altouvae. I was trying to pick up backup second basement in the shallower leagues. like, you know, leagues were like a Jonathan India type was available.

I was trying to secure that as a fill in for Al Tufe. Luis Robert missed Saturday and Sunday with right knee soreness. The expectation is that he'll return Tuesday, but we don't know for sure. Start or sit, Luis Robert. I'd prefer to sit him. That might be tough in a five outfielder league.

The thing that's so tough is the main thing he's, I mean, he's hitting better lately, but the main thing he's been providing is a ton of steals. Yeah. How confident do you feel in that being the case with a knee injury that I'd lean towards sitting? Ian Hatt missed Saturday in Sunday's game due to an oblique injury. He played catch and took swings on Sunday. There is some hope that he'll return on Monday.

Starter sit Ian Hap. I probably try to sit him. Again, five outfield leagues you may not have a choice. And then Santander also missed three straight with a left shoulder injury. He's the last one I've got for you guys. Starter sit, Anthony Santander. that's kind of easier to sit because he's off to such a poor start anyway. So I don't know, maybe it'll be a Corbyn-Burn situation,

but then you'll have next week to look forward to activating Sant'an-Tas. Set him for now. Chris mentioned this earlier, but Ryan Weathers will make his season debut this Wednesday against the Cubs. He's 34% rostered in a name that you can look to add. He was available in, you know, some 12-team Roto Leagues and deeper that we plan. The NFBC League, we actually picked him up for like $34 out of $1,000. So looking forward to Ryan Weathers, though we don't want to play him this week,

just more of a long-term play. Andres Jimenez was placed on the IL Friday with a right quad strain. Ernie Clement started all three games at second base for the Blue Jays this weekend. The Brewers moved Freddie Peralta's start back to Monday. So unfortunately, he did not start this past week for those who had him in the lineup. But that does make Peralta a two-star pitcher at the Guardians and home against the Twins. this week. Logan Gilbert could throw off a mound by the end of Seattle's current homestand, which ends on Wednesday. George Kirby made his second rehab start Saturday. He allowed three earned

runs over three innings pitched, and his velocity was pretty close to last year. He got up to 54 pitches in this one. Spencer Strider said that he feels ready to return, but the Braves have yet to decide whether he'll be activated this week or go on a rehab assignment. Scott had you Yeah, I was going to say, Scott, have you heard any rumblings from the Braves beat on Spencer Shrider? Not beyond this. No, I think it's too questionable for you to roll the dice on him. I think even if we knew he was starting, I just first start back with no rehab assignment, even though it's only been a three-week absence or whatever, I'd prefer to just let him get one under his belt.

Casey Mize was placing the I.O. with a left-hand hand. string, strain. Kair Montero would make sense to replace him in the meantime. Hayden Wazneski went on the aisle with right elbow discomfort. Ryan Gusto will rejoin the Astros rotation on Monday, which I believe makes him a two-star pitcher, Scott. Do you have any interest in Ryan Gusto as a two-starter? He was in the no-thanks section of the updated two-star pitcher rankings. He hasn't been bad this year, and I had a bid in form at a 15-team league. I don't think I ended up getting him.

But, you know, in a deeper league like that, you might think about it. Generally, though, no. So you do not like, you do not gusto, gusto. No me gusto. I want to bring up something. Nick Piacoro, I think is how you pronounce his name, beat writer of the Diamond Bex. He says that, according to Tori Lavello, the plan is to play. play Loller four games a week at various positions,

and he doesn't think that all stunt his development. So it sounds like he's going to be less than a full-time player, which kind of takes the wind out of the sales there. At least to start out. I would still say add him in categories, ladies, because he also could very well play his way into a bigger role. I would assume that's their hope. There's one news item I noticed is not on here.

here what do we got sounds like jake burger's going to be back this week um let me see if i can find the exact quote but there was a quote from bruce boccey right that's that's that's that's the guy uh from bruce bocci i believe he hasn't been fired yet saying that they expect him to be back uh the dallas morning news reported it could be as early as monday i think we are hoping he's going to be ready to go then he's getting better swings off he's looking good there we're comfortable with where he's at. That was a guy who was basically a top 100 pick a month and a half ago. And I don't think anything about Jake Berger has actually changed between now and when he was a top 100 pick.

He shouldn't have been a top 100 pick. But I think it's absolutely possible that Jake Berger stunts up with 30 homers this season. Not that Bruce Bochie's getting fired. That was just a joke about all the managers getting fired. Jake Burger 48% rostered. Look, roto leagues, category leagues, if you need home runs, points, leagues, stay away from Jakeberger there. The Orioles option Kobe Mayo back to the miners. So again, we wait for him to get a real opportunity.

The Brewers option, Tobias Myers to AAA on Sunday. Brandon Woodruff and Aaron Savali are nearing their returns from the IL. And all of a sudden, the Brewers had no pitching to start the season. they have this surplus of depth at starting pitcher where, you know, we're waiting for Logan Henderson to get a chance, maybe Jacob Mizziarowski at some point, but they also have these veterans that are about to return. So I don't think this is very good for the people stashing Logan Henderson.

No, it's not what you want. But life finds a way. It does. And it's one fewer obstacle, right? If Tobias Myers has pitched his way out of a rotation spot, then that's one down. You know, that's one domino has fallen. Like we knew, I've forgotten about Savali, to be honest, but we knew Woodruff was going to jump ahead of Henderson in line. And it's nice that Myers has removed himself from the queue now. Yeah, I kind of feel like it might not be too long until Quinn Priester does the same thing. Well, I assumed he was going to be the one out for Woodruff, but apparently he'll be the one out for Savale instead. Yep. We did have a few promotions this weekend. The White Sox promoted 26-year-old first baseman Tim Elko, who had 10 home runs and an 1100 OPS in the minors.

And the Angels promoted 24-year-old outfielder Matthew Lugo. Very deep league names, probably just AL only for now. but did you guys have any deep league interest in Tim Elko or Matthew Lugo? More so Alco. He's had a good start to the season of AAA, but I think it's pretty unlikely. He's anything more than a Gavin Sheets type. I will say, early team named Tuesday.

Elko cooler. I saw you write that on Blue Sky out of me, and obviously I didn't understand it. Yeah, you have no idea what that is. Like ecto cooler? Yeah. Yeah, that's what we're going for. Yeah.

Ecto 1, Elko 1. Elko 1A. And maybe the most important news item of the weekend. The Reds, the Reds, no ball, baby. They traded from my guy, Connor Joe. And what do you know? First game in there, two hits, stolen base? Come on, man.

Just give the guy a chance. Right? Am I right? Right? Okay. All right, we'll move on. Let's get into some waiver wire options from the weekend. Evan Carter had himself a nice weekend.

He hit a home run on Saturday, then two for five with a steel on Sunday. The overall line still doesn't look great, but to see some power and speed right away, 38% rostered, were you aggressive at all in trying to add Evan Carter on Sunday? Well, you were. I saw that. No, I mean, five outfielder leagues, you know, he was the most interesting outfielder out there. And he actually did something interesting the other day.

I think it was the same game where he had a home run, though I don't think it was. was the home run. It was the home run. Yeah, hardest hit ball that we've seen in when he played with Stackcast available. And games where Stackast was available, he hit that ball 111.1.1 miles per hour, his previous high between AAA and the majors in a year,

108.7. So he hit it way harder. It's good to see. Yeah, that is exactly what we want to see from Evan Carter. It's just one bad at ball, but it, It's a good sign. So, yeah, I think between that and the other multi-hit game this weekend,

I think Carter's deserved a second, earned a second look at five outfield release. I agree. Ryan McMahon has really picked things up. He homered twice this weekend. And in 10 May games, he's hitting 419 with four home runs, a seal, and a 1473 OPS. We pretty much know who Ryan McMahon is. End of season 240, 20-ish home runs. So, you know, a deeper corner infielder, things like that.

and the problem is that he's on the road this entire week. So just wanted to mention Ryan McMahon had a great week, but I don't think you really need to act on it. Two deeper league names here, Brett Beatty showed off some power this weekend, homered on Friday and then a double dong on Saturday. And he could get some playing time versus right-handed pitching. Jesse Winker is on the IL right now. And then Addison Barger for the Blue Jays had himself a nice weekend,

three hits on Friday, and then hit a home run on Sunday. Some deep league names, any interest in Bates. or Addison Barger? Not outside of deep leagues. Bady is one of those players that I kind of refused to quit on, and I'm frustrated with myself because in the Scott White Dynasty League 24-teamor, I was tempted to add him for several days, and I finally put in a bid on the night he happened to hit two homers.

And how much did you put on him, Scott? Two bucks. He went for four. Got it. So he went for four and I had a $3 bid. So I was pretty upset about it too. But I could have got him for one. And it's critical in this particular league because that becomes the starting salaries, the dynasty league.

So you don't, you want a bit enough to get him, but you don't want to bid so much that you're, you're not going to be willing to keep him. So there's an extra wrinkle. There's an extra wrinkle to the story, Scott. I actually picked Brett Beatty up earlier in the week and then I dropped him. So I love that.

So good job, Frank. Hopefully he doesn't become a superstar because then, I would be pretty upset. Let's get into waiver wire pitchers from the weekend. And let's talk about Cade Horton, who made his debut for the Cubs. And he was okay at the Mets. Obviously, tough match up here,

but four innings, four hits, three runs, zero walks. Love to see that. He did have five strikeouts here, nine whiffs on 77 pitches. And Scott, as you suspected,

it was mostly just two pitches, the fastball and the sweeper here for Cade Horton. He's 46% rostered. Looks like he gets the White Sox this, week. So that's a pretty nice match up there. Chris, any interest in Cade Horton this weekend? Yeah, I would say non, non zero interest. The problem is it just, it's technically a five pitch mix, but it in functionally, it's just four seamer slider or sweeper, I guess. He'll mix in a sinker. He'll mix in a changeup. He'll mix in a slider, but our curveball, what's the other break slider?

Either way, it's almost entirely those two pitches. And it gives me Ben Brown vibes where those two pitches are going to be enough most nights. And I think he probably has a little higher ceiling than Ben Brown. But if he doesn't show a reliable third or fourth pitch, I think there's going to be a lot of short innings, a lot of inefficiency and more flashes than anything that makes him a must roster pitcher. So worth adding, I would. potentially stream him against the White Sox if I didn't have a ton of better options, but I don't think it's going to be an immediate fantasy impact for Kate Horton. Golito or Horton?

Gialito. I agree. Yeah. I mean, who needs me? That was my next question, Scott. So thank you. I appreciate it. We had two complete game shutouts this weekend.

And I mentioned up top, improbable candidates here. Eric Fetty, a six-hit shutout at the Nationals. He did have eight strikeouts to zero walks in this one. Also allowed 15 hard hits in this start. And then Stephen Kolek of the Padres turned in a five hit shutout at the Rockies. Yeah, I mean, that will, it's not a great look for the Rockies there. Did have seven strikeouts to two walks in this one. Also allowed 12 hard hits.

So, like, awesome starts for both of these guys. But are you looking at either one? No, I mean, Kolek, there's nothing there. was a pretty good ground ball guy in the miners that's the best i get for him but he had his five starts i think it was five five or six starts before getting called up he had like a six 30 r a and there's there's nothing there for colec fettie uh you know he was decent last year uh particularly early on after he got traded to the cardinals he faded and had a lot of short outings it just wasn't that usable in fantasy anymore i i thought the whole thing the whole season the whole series

basically he overachieved and his start to 2025 kind of validated that point of view. And then he has a great start. So I don't see anything here that's making me suspect he's, he's turned a corner and is about to take off. So I am inclined to just, uh, just pass on it. Just pass on this Feddy start. Eric Feddy's as good as his next matchup and his next matchup is at Philadelphia. So, There you go. No interest in picking them up. Only other thing I'll mention with Kolek, he is RP eligible.

So if you're playing a deeper points league, maybe, but standard 12 team leagues, nothing yet on Stephen Kolek. Other names here, AJ Smith-Shawver, who we've talked a lot about recently, had a strong start at the Pirates, five and two-thirds,

one run, seven strikeouts with 13 whiffs on 97 pitches. And Shane Smith had a strong outing against the Marlins, six shot-out inning, seven strikeouts, 17 whiffs on 87 pitches. Maybe the best that Chain Smith has looked this season. He's at the Cubs. Obviously, you don't like that matchup. Smith-Shawver, home against the nationals.

Who do you guys like more between the two? For the upcoming week or just overall? Overall, I'm going to take, I'm going to take Smith Schallver. And the simplest reason is he, he's not on. the white socks, for starters. But he's also been a better batmisser overall, and he's now had a four-start stretch with like a 180-E-R-A. Like, he seems like he might be rounding into form here.

Still could stand to throw more strikes, but really I could say that for Shane Smith, too. Prior to this start, I didn't really see anything to get excited about with Shane Smith. he finally has a start where he misses a decent number of bats. Okay, we'll see if that grows in it more. He was facing the Marlins after all. But, you know, his, yeah, he pitches for the White Sox. He's been steady enough so far.

He deserves to be rostered at this point, Shane Smith does. But I think there's a little more upside to get excited about with Smith Shaver. How do you guys rank Smith Schaver, Shane Smith, Tomo Yuki Sugano, and Lucas Gilito I was about to say you just did but you got to flip those last two so I'll go Smith Schaver Shane Smith

Lucas Gialito and Sugano I might go Gialito at the top I don't feel super strongly about any of them although Smith Schaver does get the nationals this week

what was Gialito's matchup does anybody remember off the top of their head I can scroll I lost it so it doesn't matter I don't think I had it written in there Golito is home against the Braves this week I'll give Smith Chauver the edge but that kind of tells you where I'm at on all of them

where whatever the next start is might be the tiebreaker for all of them yep next group of starting pitchers we had Luis L. Ortiz, Michael Lorenzen and Andre Palante all had strong starts this weekend And Ortiz is at the Reds this week. Lorenzen at the Astros. Palante at the Royals.

Any interest in those three? I could stream Ortiz at Cincinnati. I know it's a tough place to pitch, but that's not a bad matchup right now for starting pitcher. That's Ellie Deli Cruz has not taken the big step forward. We hope for strikeout rate is still pretty high. So I'm okay with Ortiz there, but it's not a must start by any means.

I mean, are we impressed by this start against the Phillies? One run and six, nine strikeouts against the Phillies on national TV. It was good. It was a good start for Luis Ortiz. Who's been great at missing bats all year? Is there anything else there? Because he gives up really hard contact. I think the average exit velocity in this start was 101.

one. And he also has strike throwing issues. So it's kind of just only miss bats. And if you're going to be good at one thing, I feel like that's the thing to be good at. But I don't, even as somebody who cites that stat maybe more than any other, I'm kind of viewing Louise Ortiz is pretty fringy for as good as this star was.

All right. This might be a deep league name here. Hunter Dobbins of the Red Sox, six shot outnings, six strikeouts have 13 whiffs on 81 pitches. And some of the underlying numbers look pretty interesting here. He's at the Tigers this week. I don't know. Is, could this be a dude? Hunter Dobbins?

I think there's a chance Hunter Dobbins is better than any of the like six pitchers from the previous two groups. I'm not saying I would add him ahead of AJ Smith Schaver or Shane Smith or even Tomoyuki Sagano. but I think Hunter Dobbins is legitimately pretty talented. He was someone who, I don't know if FanGraphs officially moved him into their top 100 prospects before the season, but there was an article, no, he was a pick to click,

someone that they think could be a top 100 guy next year, except, well, he's already getting pretty serious reps at the major league level, so might not have the opportunity. But I think Dobbins is, there's some talent here. He's got a decent fastball. He added a splinker at the end of last season that has looked pretty good.

I think Hunter Dobbins is moderately interesting. I don't think this one matters, but it was a great start. And I wanted to mention Will Warren at the athletics, seven and a third innings, one run, seven strikeouts had 12 whiffs on 87 pitches. It was the first time he went more than five innings in a start in his career, at least in his major league career. 25% rostered. I don't think we're acting on this, right?

But obviously, it was a great start. And I guess a name to watch, Will Warren? Yeah, there are some interesting things about him. He gets whiffs on his fastball. I think it close to, is it close to a 30% rate, I think I saw? Which is high for a four seamer. And he's got a sweeper with like 3,200 RPM. I'm surprised that pitch doesn't play better for him,

as ridiculous as the spin rate is. So that's interesting. We need to see him go deep with some consistency because most of his starts have been very short. But somebody to keep an eye on is Will Warren, I would say. And then the dropometer for these two names, Brady Singer, the ERA is up to 497. Eight, seven?

What was that a comment on? The ERA meter. Oh, right. Right, right. We got to give a number. Sorry. I thought you were correcting the ERA. because he said 0.97.

Okay. Yeah, I don't care about singer. I'll go 9. And then Luis Severino. Just a one-up, Chris. Luis Severino's ERA is up to 470. He got bombed by his former team, the Yankees, drop a meter on Severino.

Yeah, 8 or 9. 10. You probably had them just for the two-star week. All right. Let's try and run through the rest of this here. a quick thought on some of these polarizing starting pitchers if we can make it quick. But Gavin

Williams, five shot out innings, eight strikeouts, 13 whiffs, only one hard hit in this one against the Phillies. Like it's a tough matchup. Has anything changed in your mind on Gavin Williams? Even the good starts are like a 160 whip.

Yeah, he clearly has control issues, but I get more encouraged with each start because now his sweeper he got nine whiffs just on the sweeper in this start. It's up to a 53% whiff rate for the year. He's had eight strikeouts or more in three of his last four starts. It's not like I'm eager to put Gavin Williams back in my lineup,

but it's like, okay, he's making progress. He's getting closer to who I thought he'd be. And the upside, I think, is high enough that I'm willing to wait it out. But he's got to stop walking so many guys for sure. Too talented to drop. There might come a point where the light goes on. but it's not there yet. Max Meyer had a quality start through six

and then came out for the seventh and he fell apart at the White Sox, six and a third, five runs allowed, five strikeouts here and over his last three starts, it's an 880 ERA and a 189 whip. What are we doing with Max Meyer? Hold, start, bench.

Hold for sure. What's the next matchup? Tampa Bay. Home against Tampa, yeah. Well, that's a terrible matchup. He just got kicked around by the white socks, though. He pitched well in this one, and it was both, it was very, very frustrating to see both Max Meyer and Sandy O'Conterra just kind of fall apart in their last inning. Here's what I've noticed about Meyer, the last three starts, where it all took a turn for the worse.

He started out throwing his slider, clearly his best pitch 50% of the time. He was leaning on that. It was a world beater. and then for whatever reason he's faded at the last three starts, including 33% of the time against the White Sox here, like drastically reduce the usage of that pitch. And like it's clearly not working for him. I don't know if something's going on with the slider that's making him fade it,

but got to get back to, got to get back to lean in at that slider, Max Meyer. You were a different pitcher like that. Rookie Sasaki had a rough outing at the D-Backs, four innings, five runs, two walks to zero strikeouts on the season. 22 walks to 24 strikeouts. He's still 91% rostered, 50% started,

home against the athletics this week. 50% started. Do you just bench him? What are we doing? I am, I'd be okay dropping him, I think, in most contexts. I just, there's a point where it could all click, and maybe it'll be like a Jason Dominguez situation.

where it's like, oh, shoot, he just had an 11th strikeout game. I wish I hadn't dropped them. But if I'm tied on roster space, like, I can't, it's hard to envision a time in the next several weeks where I'm actually putting Sasaki in my lineup, which is why the even more than the 91% roster, the 50% start is that, surprisingly. Like, there hasn't been a single start yet where it's been worth it, right? Was he a two-start pitcher this week? I think he was.

Maybe that, but, yeah, there was an article. on the athletic talking about like the new plan for Roki Sasaki and it was he's going to throw his fastball less hard to try to command it. And like this is a fastball that's not great at 96, 97. It's going to be pretty bad at 94, 95. I would prefer not to drop him just because we know how talented he is, but he doesn't look at anywhere close to being an impact pitcher. Like if you were ranking every pitcher based on how they've pitched this season, I don't think Rookie Sasaki's been one of the 110 best pitchers, 100 best pitchers in baseball. Like he's been bad,

but process underlying everything. He's barely got more strikeouts than walks. It's blind faith if you hang on to him in a way that it's not with a couple other pitchers who are struggling. We just mentioned Sandy O'Connor. Just kind of like left in too long here against the White Sox. But, you know, it was four runs over five and two thirds. His ERA is up over eight. He only threw 57% of his pitches for strikes.

Same question. I mean, are you holding Sandy? Are you benching him? He's home against Tampa this week. I'm holding. Not starting him, but I'm holding. I think this one was better overall. There's really just one bad pitch to,

to Elko actually but other than that it wasn't a terrible outing so I'm hopeful that he starts to turn it around but yeah it's been it's been really rough right now and then Bryce Miller man he just I do not think he is right he struggled again

against the Blue Jays five innings seven runs he's allowed four plus earned runs and three of his last four starts the ERA is over five it's a 154 whip he still 72% started and at the Padres this week, I don't think there's any way you could start Bryce Miller right now. I don't think there's any way you can drop them, but I don't think, I think we're to the point where you just sit him until he comes around. I had expressed a starter two ago that I thought really the main thing that seemed to be off for him was he

wasn't throwing strikes at nearly the rate we've seen from him at the past. He's always been an elite control guy, Bryce Miller. But that hasn't been the case the last two. starts 65% strike rate in this starts 67% last time or I may have reversed that but the point is it's been good uh he's been throwing a lot of strikes a strike rate like we've seen from bryce miller in the past and still the results are terrible so um and there's been talk about him pitching through injury not just like conjecture but he's made reference to stuff he's going through physically and so uh that i think should be the prevailing theory right now is that he's just not healthy.

Yeah, I mean, that's where I'm at until we actually get confirmation on it. It's a speculation, but it kind of feels like that's the way things are leaning right now. Starters at these starting pitchers, Clay Holmes, is he just a must-start pitcher now? Because, you know, he's got a quality start in three of his last four. He's allowed three-earned runs or fewer in seven of eight. The ERA is down to 274. Home against the Pirates this week. I mean, I think that's a pretty easy start.

Do you think Clay Holmes is bordering on a must-start pitcher now? I, you know, this is kind of like, this is kind of reminding me of Eric Fetty a little bit, where I love the guy going into the season, and he's getting good results, but not in ways I totally trust. And so I guess he's trending up. Is he a must-start yet against the Pirates, sure.

But no, I think I'd still play matchups. The swinging strike rate is terrible. The ground ball rate is much worse than we saw in relief. It's still good ground ball rate overall, but it's not that elite Frumber Valdez-like ground ball rate. So how is Clay Holmes getting his outs? I don't know. What's the average,

what's the eggs of velocity looking like for him? I would imagine it has to be pretty weak for him to have had success so far. The quality, like the expected wobon contact is basically the same as when it was, when he was a reliever. It's not that great. It's not that great. you know, a lot of, but obviously, maybe not obviously, but ground balls tend to be hit harder than fly balls.

So a lot of times you see ground ball pitchers have higher exit velocity readings. And it's, it's not necessarily a deal breaker. But if his ground ball rate is going down and his exit velocity is going up and his swinging strike rate is way down, I don't know. The walk rate isn't great either. He's getting it done. And it's not quite as. there's more to like here, I think, than there was for Eric Fetty when he was succeeding early last year,

but it's still not enough for me to call Clay Holmes a must start. This is one where it's not a fluke necessarily, but it feels very volatile. Like it feels like it could come apart pretty quickly. Luis Castillo has been a bit underwhelming and he had a rough one against the Blue Jays, five innings, five runs. Only three strikeouts here. And his velocity was down in this start. He averaged just 93.6 miles per hour on the fastball. Last year, that was 95.6 for Luis Castillo.

The whiff rate on that fastball has been trending down for years now as well. Do you start him home against the Yankees this week? It's tough because at home, I think you just kind of want to auto start Luis Castillo, but Yankees tough match him. Yeah, this feels like Kevin Gosman last year where like he might be able to like veteran guile his way to a. presentable ERA, but it's pretty clear that there's been a dramatic change in skill set and talent level for Luis Castillo. And I do think there's a chance things just fall apart on him.

I can't say he's a sell high candidate with an ERA close to four and a whip of 1.4, but I am not expecting Luis Castillo to be a must-start pitcher the rest of the way. Jack Flaherty over his last three starts has an 856 ERA and a 168 whip. Fastball is just getting clobbered this season. 64% started on CBS. He's at the Blue Jays this week. Start or sit Jack Flaherty. I lean towards start because that's a pretty good matchup.

Agreed. And like the secondaries are still good. And he's got off to a great start, remember. So I don't want to overemphasize what's happened the last couple times through. but it is I am my faith is diminished to the point that he's not

must start anymore mostly I just like the matchup you know what I'm gonna plant a flag here I saw someone say we agree too much recently so I'm gonna disagree I think Jack Flair is gonna be just fine

must start pitcher moving forward I think he's gonna figure it out all right Ranger Suarez had a great start at the Guardian seven shoutout innings with five strikeouts his first start back

obviously was much worse and then he improved here. He is home against the Pirates this week. Only 37% started. So if you've got Suarez, I mean, now's the time to use him, right? Pirates? Yep. Sure.

I mean, big contrast between first and second star for Rangers Suarez. So that makes me a bit leery. But yeah, I think coming off the strong effort against the Guardians, it makes sense to start him against the Pirates. Zach Eflin was solid in his return from the IL at the Angels five innings, two runs, five strikeouts. He is only 27% started and home against the nationals this week. You start off at Zach Eflin.

Yep. Yep, that's fine. Start him. And then Matthew Boyd, I don't know, might just be good. He was at the Mets this weekend, six innings, two runs, eight strikeouts, zero walks. And he's 79% rostered home against the White Sox. I mean, obviously got him in there, right? but I don't know, I kind of, I think Boyd might be maybe one level higher than just that kind of boring streamer group that we usually talk about.

Yeah, and I've gotten a lot of grief for Boyd this year too because he's maintained a low ERA, but everything else looked pretty bad for a while. Last two starts, he's thrown a lot more strikes. So control had been had been bad. The walk rate had been high. but the last two starts the strike percentage is way up I don't think he's walked anybody in either of those starts

and with that has come a lot more whiffs on the fastball and change up especially those two pitches play off each other well that's the whole idea and if if Boyd is able to miss bats with his fastball

like the missing bats historically hasn't been an issue for Boyd that's kind of like why this year when it started out so low I was like, okay, this is, like, we know where Boyd usually goes, and that's when he's missing, Pat. So what's going to happen when he's not? But now that he is, and he's throwing a lot more strikes, I don't know, I'm more open to the idea of him needing to be rostered. And at least for now, you could play matchups with him.

And he's not in the rundown, so I'll go ahead and bring him up because I think it's a similar situation. Griffin Canning just turned in maybe one. One of his best starts in an overall strong season, two hits against the Cubs over six innings, two hits one run in six innings, just a second six innings start. So he's had trouble going deep into games. But one thing that's different in Griffin Canning's profile beyond just the top line numbers, ground ball rate much higher, 53%, way, way higher. I don't know what's led to that.

We've talked before about how the slider, that's been a good whiff pitch for him, and at times he's thrown it more this year. But that hasn't been consistent. The biggest change appears to be just that he's keeping the ball on the ground, and that's going to help to limit damage. The whip might run kind of high, especially if the walks continue at the rate they have. But I think Griffin Canning, I think it's time to give him a little bit of credit to, not that I think he's going to be this good all season.

but if that ground ball rate stays up, he'll be plenty startable with the right matchos. All right, let's wrap up with some leftovers here. And on the pitching side of things, Jacob de Grom, 10 strikeouts start here, Tanner Bybee, seven innings, one run against the Phillies,

Garrett Crochet, great start against the Royals, seven innings, one run, nine strikeouts. And Zach Wheeler on Sunday night baseball, seven shutout with eight strikeouts. Chris, all these guys are, pretty good. Anything to add on DeGrom, Bibi, Crochet, and Zach Wheeler?

DeGrom, I think, is good. I think he's very, very good. I don't think we're going to get the best pitcher in baseball upside from him. And, you know, even in a start where he was cooking, man, 21 swinging strikes on 90 pitches,

the pitch rate just got a little bit too high. Where in the past, starting the next inning with 90 pitches, that might have been viable. I don't think the, the Rangers are going to really run that risk with Jacob Begrom. So I think it's going to be, it's just been a lot of, not for like, he's been good. It hasn't been too frustrating.

It's just like he's not that guy anymore. And then I will say, I think Tanner Bybee's a saw high candidate, even with a 380RA. I just don't see a lot going on that's good for Tanner Bybee. He seems to be transitioned to more of a pitch to contact profile going away from his four seamer leaning on cutters and sinkers a little more. And I just, I'm not saying he can't be good, but I don't think he can be great like this. So I'm, I'm pretty pessimistic about Tanner Bybee moving forward. I think he's like right now a true, a true talent high three ZRA pitcher.

Hmm. I mean, I'm maybe putting a little more on the track record here. I don't like what I've seen so far, but I also know previous two years it started out rough and then he finished very strong both times. So I think he's, like, I think he's going to find it. I guess I'm going to make the same case for Bybee that you made for Jack Flaherty. Not that I think he has ace upside, but I think if you drafted him to be a solid number three. And I think in the long run, I still trust him to be. that. Pitching leftovers part two. We had great starts from Logan Webb, Joe Ryan. Actually,

Joe Ryan out-douled Logan Webb in that start. And then Nathan Avaldi continues to dominate seven shutout innings with seven strikeouts. Anything on Webb, Joe Ryan and Avaldi. So Avaldi has, this might be the best version of Avaldi. He's in his mid-30s. He has a long track record. best case scenario, the ERAs always ended up in the high threes, even as he's had dominant stretches. But this has been so dominant. Like, he's looked like one of the best pitchers in baseball to this point. And he has changed his arsenal this year.

A lot, yeah. Yeah. More curve balls, which has been his best pitch this year. It's had more break than in years past. So it's been a better curveball. And he's thrown in. more. More cutters as well. They've kind of, he's kind of achieved close to an equal balance between those two and his, his, his top two pitches, the fastball and the splitter.

So it's, he's had a more varied arsenal and among the pitches he's thrown more is his, what's now clearly his best pitch, the curb ball. And so that might be contributing to his success here. Control has been good, probably impossibly good. It's 0.8 walks. per nine so far. So he's going to have to regress them obviously as low as the ZRA is and the control would be the main way that happens, I would think, because it's just, it's too good to be true. But with those arsenal changes, I'm willing to, I'm willing to hear the possibility that

this ends up being a career season for a VALD even at his advanced stage. Again, that's acknowledging career season formed at this point is like a 374 ERA. But still, I could see him. having like a 3.30-ish ERA by the time this year is done. It could happen. All right. And then some hitting leftovers. No slow start for Francisco Lindor. He had a sock and a shoe on Friday. He added another steal on Saturday and then another home run on Sunday. Gunner Henderson is waking up. He had two home runs this weekend. Aaron Judge, a double dong on Saturday. And then a four-hit game on Sunday. He is now batting 409 with a 4-94 on base

percentage. Rafael Devers four hit game Saturday, homered on Sunday, and he is now up to seven home runs and an 888 OPS, pretty much where we need Raphael Devers to be. Sounds like what they really need to do is make that guy upset. And maybe he'll keep, maybe he'll just keep getting better. Yeah. Elliot Ramos is turning things around. He homered on both Saturday and Sunday. Christian Yelich, almost every time he's homered this season, he's also stolen a base in that same game. It's happened already four times this year, which is just interesting. Paul Goldschmidt, two for four. He wants to hear you say it.

That's right. Two for four with his fourth home run for goalie and then three more hits on Sunday. He's now batting 349 with a near 900 OPS. Freddie Freeman is just a monster right now. Four for four with his ninth home run on Sunday. He's hitting 475 in May. And then Kyle Schwerber, a double dong. And look, contract year for Schwartz.

Guy is he's off to a tremendous start so far this season. Doesn't he like typically get off to pretty slow starts too? Am I remembering correctly? Isn't he like like June is like consistently his crazy month? June is usually the crazy month. It's like it's like Lindor and Judge last year where we're getting them without the slow starts. Yeah, Chorber doubling down on what worked last year. Going away from, you know, a little more fly ball heavy approach,

hitting a lot fewer pop-ups as well. Pop-up rate over the past two seasons has kind of, I think it's half of what it was in 2022 and 2020-23. So, yeah, he looks about as good as ever. It's going to be fascinating to see what his free agency is like. Yeah, because he's a little bit older too, right? He's 33-34, each only, but he's just an absolute monster who also comes up huge in the club.

He's 32 right now. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see what the contract looks like. like from him. Some bullpen updates from the weekend for the Tigers on Friday, Canley pitch in the 8th and then Will Vest pitch in the 9th. Do you guys think there is a clear, like, pitch in here? Or is it just like 50-50 between those two, basically? I think we've been seeing Vests a little more in the 9th than Canley.

So I would give him the edge, but it's not clear cut. For the Pirates on Friday, David, was using the eighth inning facing 9-1 and 2 in the Braves lineup and then Dennis Santana actually picked up the save. He gave up two runs in that outing, but kind of interesting usage, right? And then Santana also worked the ninth in a tie game Sunday that ended up getting the win because the pirate scored to win it. But notably, this coincides, the sudden favoritism of Santana coincides with a managerial change. And I wonder what that means for David Bednar. It seems like Donnelly prefers Santana.

Bednar may not have been available on Sunday. He had pitched the previous two games. Maybe not. But then you have the day before where he were eighth and Santana the ninth. Yeah. I mean, good point about the managerial change there. Yeah, could be something for the pirates. For the debacks, I mentioned earlier that the.

Dodgers just had this huge comeback win in the ninth inning. Most of that against Kevin Ginkle. He was charged with five earned runs. So I assume that the next save opportunity will go to Shelby Miller, but what do I know? For the Marlins, Hazers Tonoco has been picking up some saves for them recently. He leads the team with three, but it kind of feels messy, right? And they're not very good. It is messy and they're not very good.

But I was picking him up in some leagues where he's available. I think he's the new front runner for the Marlins, given the way. I know before this, he worked another situation where a closer would typically work, and Foshae has been working earlier in games. I don't remember the exact situation. Obviously, it wasn't a save situation. But there have been a few outings in a row that kind of reinforced the idea, Tanoka's the top guy in the Marlins bullpen, at least for now.

For the Cubs on Saturday, Porter Hodge picked up the save. Brian Presley was not used in that game. Not surprised because had that terrible outing last week. And then Porter Hodge was used on Sunday in the eighth inning with the game tied. He was charged with three runs on three hits, took his first loss.

Cubs bullpen is just a mess right now. Yeah, I mean, it would be that none of these guys are good and they got to go out and get a closer. That might be the most likely explanation. Yep. And then for the Giants on Sunday, Ryan Walker got the 10th inning with a one-run lead. He allowed two runs, one of those earned.

took his second blown save and second loss. You know, his ERA is over six. His whip is 150. Camillo false numbers are much better. I just, I don't know how many more times they need to see this happen before. Well, I've noticed too with Ryan Walker,

the arm angle has, it's not as low as last year. It's gone up a little bit. It's closer to where it was two years ago when he was just kind of an ordinary reliever. So I wonder if that's fast. factoring into the results now. And that's something that's fixable, obviously,

but, and maybe it'll get fixed. But in the meantime, they could just go to Camilla Duval, who's been amazing so far. And obviously, has a longer history closing than Ryan Walker. So it seems like, it seems like they might as well just do that. Like, even if, even if they still believe in Ryan Walker and think they can bring him around, like, why keep risking games waiting for it to happen when you got Deval right there? Yeah.

All right, let's wrap up with to stream or not to stream. On Monday, we have, ooh, Justin Verlander home against the debacks. Colin Ray gets the Marlins. Ryan Gusto is facing the Royals.

Jake Irvin at the Braves, Tanner Halk at the Tigers. Ray is probably at the top. I don't mind Verlander as a two-star pitcher, but if we're just talking about this matchup, I'd probably try to avoid it. Man, how,

if, you know, he followed up that one really good start with a pretty mediocre one the next time out, so I can't get excited about that. I think it's Ray and then maybe Gusto versus Kansas City, but I don't really love that one.

So don't love the Monday matchups. All right. And then on Tuesday, we have, hmm, Jack Lighter gets the Rocky, He's in Texas. Ben Brown is home against the Marlins. Andrew Abbott home against the White Sox.

Brian Beaux is at the Tigers. Yeah, that's the one. Abbott. Yep. Abbott against the White Sox. And I added him to the Sleeper, the week eight sleeper pitchers list because he became a two-star pitcher pitcher with Hunter Green being removed from the rotation.

And the first of those starts is against the White Sox. So, yeah, I like him as a weekly. streamer too. I don't mind Ben Brown versus Miami and Jack Leiter versus Colorado. I know he's been very bad since coming back from the IL, but Stephen Colick, that's his name? Stephen Colick, just had a complete game shutout against the Rockies. I think Jack Lighter's more talented than Stephen Colick. And this is the Rockies first start out of course field. So yeah, I like that one. Yeah. We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning fantasy baseball today.

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