Fantasy Baseball Today - Is Max Fried Back!? Hitters Picking Things Up & Pitchers Off to Weird Starts (4/24 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Max Fried fired a three-hit shutout on Tuesday (2:30)! ... Time to add Erick Fedde (8:17)? ... Elly De La Cruz is on pace for some incredible numbers (13:50). ... News (18:08): Gerrit Cole threw from 120 feet. ... Julio Rodriguez and Christian Encarnacion-Strand are picking things up (23:08). ... These hitters are off to nice starts this season (25:37). ... Pablo Lopez and Kevin Gausman are off to weird starts (28:52). ... Wilyer Abreu or Mark Canha (45:43)? ... Is Bailey Falter a thing (51:21)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (54:02). 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, @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/ 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 lead. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Hey there, welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday. April 24th. I am Frank Stample joined by Chris Towers today on the show.

We've got hitters who are heating up, pitchers off to weird starts this season, some interesting deep league outfielders, but there's only one place we could start. Let's jump in. All right, Chris, I was feeling generous today, and I will pass the Olive Garden Breadstick. Over to you. Yeah, we talked a little bit, was it yesterday?

I think we mentioned... Yeah, I think so. And how concerned we are with the way his season is going. And just like we did with Vinnie Pasquantino a couple weeks ago, we seem to have spurred the breakout out because Max Fried had by far his best outing of the season. Complete game shutout. Three hits allowed, six strikeout, zero walks.

It was against the Marlins. And we talked about this a little bit in yesterday's podcast where I think Scott made the point that we typically want to target skills and not matchups when we're talking about pitchers. Right. And so far this season, there are a handful of teams that it doesn't really matter if. the pitcher's any good. Everybody seems to be doing well against them. And the Marlins are certainly one of those teams. So that does make it a little bit trickier to look at what Max

Freed today, did today and say, okay, he's just Max Freed again. You know, velocity wasn't necessarily where you want it to be, but he pitched really well in spite of it, 14 whiffs on 92 pitches. He was incredibly efficient. But it's the Marlins. So I don't know how like,

I don't know how. how excited I want to be or I can be about this. I guess how excited I want to be is pretty excited, given how good Max Fried is when he's right. But all in all, obviously this is what we wanted to see from Max Fried. I don't know if it answers the biggest question that we have about him, because there's no answering the biggest question we have about him,

because the biggest question we have about him is can he stay healthy? But this does, I think, at least answer. answer the can Max Fried be effective at his current level? And clearly the answer is yes, whether he's going to be Max Fried for the rest of the season, I think is a very different question. But he did exactly what he needed to do to make us feel a little more optimistic moving forward. He was so incredibly efficient in this start. 92 pitches for a three hit shutout. And I think most notably, he didn't walk anybody, right? After issuing four walks in his last start.

And after that outing, Scott and I spoke about it. I'm not sure if you were on that podcast. But when Max Fried is at his best, he's barely walking anybody. So that's what kind of set off some red flags. Like, what's going on? He's walking people. So zero walks in this start. I did notice he changed the pitch mix a little bit too.

He scrapped the sweeper and the cutter. He threw more changeups and traditional sliders. I don't really know the difference between his traditional slider and his sweeper. But I just wonder if maybe he was trying to throw too many pitches this season. Like maybe less is more, just condense it, go with what you know best. And that's what he did in this start. And obviously it worked. And Max Fried was amazing.

I agree with you. I don't know. Where do we go from here? Does this mean that he's healthy right now? I guess. I mean, he looked pretty damn healthy in this start. And I guess there's an argument. for, hey, cash out after his likely best start of the season, right?

Try and trade him for another top 15 or top 20 starting pitcher. But the way that arms are just dropping this season, Chris, it kind of feels like you should just take your wins when you could get them. And I don't know that anyone is looking to buy Max Fried or, you know, buy high on Max Fried after this start. So I think obviously if you have them on your team, you feel much more reassured after this start. But I think he's just a hold.

think you just kind of stick with it right now. Yeah, like if someone offered you Jared Jones for Max Fried right now, I think I asked this question yesterday. You did. And Scott, I think said Jared Jones. I said I would rather have Jared Jones as well. I, I think I, honestly, I don't remember what I said. I might have not answered the question because the nice thing about asking the questions is sometimes you get to get away with not answering the difficult ones. And I would still take Max Free. over Jared Jones. And obviously I feel a little better about that now after seeing this. And maybe that's why I'm a little more willing to answer that question.

But yeah, I think that's the way I would do it. But I still think there's just, I think the point is there's a lot of uncertainty still around Max Friede, despite this very, very good start. I think we hope that he builds on it and moves forward. But it's one start. It's against the Marlins. are, I did this research earlier today for tomorrow's newsletter. There are six teams currently averaging 3.5 runs per game, 3.54 runs per game or fewer in April so far this season.

There have only been 23 teams in the last five years to average 3.5 runs, 3.54 runs or fewer in April. You do the math on that. It's about, you'd expect about five. five-ish, four and a half-ish teams per year. So there are some really bad offenses right now. And the Marlins, White Sox, and A's in particular feel pretty hopeless. So it makes it very hard to analyze pitchers who are going against any one of the White Sox, Marlins or Twins or A's right now.

And also the twins, you can throw in there. that's a semi-professional transition for your oh my goodness gracious player look at this guy professional broadcaster chris towers let's talk about eric fettie who had an awesome start at the twins it was six innings one run 11 strikeouts a career high for him to zero walks he had 17 swinging strikes on 95 pitches six of those came on the sinker five on the cutter five on the splitter he had everything working and much like max reed maybe less is more because Eric Fetty introduced a sweeper this season coming back over from the KBO and he faded the sweeper in this start. He went with just the cutter, the sinker, the splitter, and it was a good choice because his sweeper has been getting destroyed this season.

as you mentioned, entering this start. The twins were 28th in Wobah versus right-handed pitching, so they've been pretty bad. But now we're what, four or five starts into Eric Fetty's season. He's got a 273 ERA, a 114 whip, 10.3K per 9, a 47% ground ball rate. He's 29% rostered. I don't want to say he is a must add, but after a start like this,

I think he's probably one of the most, interesting waiver wire pitchers we've talked about this week. You just like, if you just hope for a rain out, he's like, his next start is against the raise. If he got pushed back one more day, you know who he'd face in his next start? The twins again. And I'd feel, I mean, the rays aren't a terrible matchup. And he's got the Cardinals after that who have been awful. But with the way the twins are hitting right now, you'd love to see him get them again. But no, he he talked about after the game how the splitter is such an important pitch for him because he added that pitch.

He calls it a change up. Baseball Savant classifies as a splitter. But he talked after the game about how one thing that's changed from the last time he was in the majors was, he didn't have a pitch that could make his fastball play up. And his fastball velocity is up about a mile per hour from where it was the last time he's in the majors. but the change-up slash splitter does potentially make that fastball play a little better. And today it was what, four whiffs on the, five whiffs on the splitter, six on the fastball. So, you know, if you looked at the pitch level data before this start, you wouldn't necessarily have said,

okay, the key is throwing more cutters and splitters because neither of those pitches had been particularly effective at getting whiffs for him. But yeah, maybe ditching the sweeper, which as you said, 556 expected Wobay was getting crushed. Yeah. You know, maybe that is a less is more situation for Eric Fetty, who was getting a decent number of strikeouts before this one, but obviously this one, you know,

now he's up to 30 strikeouts in 26 innings as opposed to 19 and 20 innings before this. So, yeah, I feel okay about Eric Fetty. he's 29% roster. That could be higher, especially with Ray's and Cardinals in the next two matchups. Should be pretty good matchups there. But I think it's unlikely Feddy's going to be a must-start pitcher moving forward.

The one thing I will add to Feddy and props to Scott because he brought us up in the preseason, one of the players he loved, Eric Feddy. And something that he brought up was that before Feddy went to Korea to play in the KBO, he worked with, I think, the same pitching coach or some type of pitching coordinator who worked with Logan Webb. And when I was watching the highlights of this start,

it looked a lot like Logan Webb. I mean, his splitter and the sinker, it gets so much horizontal movement like moving away from left-handed bats. And that's pretty much the mold, right? For Logan Webb, he just, he has a five, six-mile-per-hour difference, and it's eerily similar to what Eric, Fetty did in this start. So, yeah, props to Scott because I know he brought up, you know,

that comp before or the fact that, you know, they might have worked together. It was something like that, but it really, yeah, their workout partners. It looked a lot like Logan Webb when I looked at the highlights. The most added starting pitchers on CBS right now, would you rather take Logan Webb, Logan Webb, imagine he was a free agent, that would be. Yeah, no, definitely Logan Webb. Only when I drop him. Uh, Eric Fetty or Mitchell Parker. Oh, I think I'd go Fettie. How about Eric Fetty or Ryan Weathers? I guess Ryan Weathers is most added because he was a two-star pitcher.

Yeah, I mean, Fetty should be two starts as well. I would go with, I guess Fettie just because his most recent start was good and Weathers' most recent start was pretty mediocre. Yeah, I think I would too. Edward Cabrera, I think we would take... Cabrera for sure. Yeah, take a shot on Cabrera there.

How about Keaton win? I think I would go with Fetty. might honestly just depend on what Keaton wins next matchup is. Yeah. Yeah, they probably are most likely just matchup plays moving forward. Last one for you, Bryce Elder had a solid start yesterday in his return to the majors, but it was against the Morlins. I didn't believe in Bryce Elder when he was an all-star last year. So I don't think there's anything in the time since then that would make me more of a believer.

So I'm fine going Eric Feddy over him, yeah. There you go. So Eric Fetney should be somewhere near the top of the most added starting pitchers by the end of this week on CBS.

Honorable mention to Ellie De La Cruz who continues his Torrid run one for three with a sock in a shoe his seventh homer his 12th stolen base

and on the season he's batting 295 he's got 22 runs scored 17 RBI in OPS over 1,000 his 150 game pace 45 homers and 78 steals

for Ellie De La Cruz and like 150 runs it's shit Not sure that he's going to get there, but cannot argue with what he's doing right now. He looks like one of the best fantasy players in the league. Just one of the best players. I saw him made an awesome defensive play too,

just running all the way out into left field. He is just so, so, so fun to watch. That is L.E. De LaCruz. Chris, I know we don't talk about standings often here, but I just thought some things were noticeable early in the season. The Astros are 7 and 17, 10 games under 500 for the first time in 8 years. and I think that says more about them than anything else

just how good they've been they haven't been 10 games under in 8 years just weird starts in the season for the Astros Dave made the American League championship series every single one of those years haven't they? I don't know if it was everyone Isn't it like seven years in a row? They might have. You might be right about that. I wonder

obviously they've dealt with a lot of injuries I also wonder if it's the Dusty Baker effect too I don't know. We'll see what the Astros do. It's a long season, obviously. And in the meantime, the Guardians are 17 and 6, the best record in baseball. So shout out to them.

I knew the Astros were struggling. Genuinely had no idea the Guardians were 17 and 6. That is actually, I didn't know that. You're just telling me this now. People who I meet, they ask what I do, and I tell them, they say, what do you think about this team? And then I have to think about it.

And I don't usually know the standings. Everything we do is so focused on player analysis that sometimes just the macro level stuff in baseball, I'm not even sure. I don't even know if I should say that on this podcast. They just must have like a one ERA for their pitching for their bullpen right now. Because like their starters outside of Beaver haven't really been that great. So it must just be that their bullpen has a 211 ERA. Their starters have a 379 error. I guess they've been pretty good.

You hold your tongue when talking about Ben. lively. We'll get to a little bit later on. Quickly promote a few things. The FB2 newsletter, sign up if you haven't already. If you're watching live on YouTube, you can scan the QR code. Chris has a great job and it gets emailed directly to your inbox every single day. If you scan that QR code, it takes you right to the website. Click on that FBT logo, punch in your email address, and it's easy as that. Let's take our first break. When we return, we'll have the news and notes right after this. The news and notes, Gary Cole extended throwing to 120 feet on Tuesday.

Aaron Boone said Cole could begin throwing off a mound sometime next week. He's on a 60-day aisle, so the earliest we could see him is late May, I believe, but sounds like everything's moving in the right direction for Garrett Cole so far. Rafael Devers was not in the lineup again on Tuesday.

Alex Coro previously said he expected Devers back for this game. He's played three of the last 13 games without going on the aisle. This is really dumb. It's a mess. Yeah. I have leagues where Devers is just in my lineup because either A, I thought he was going to be back on Tuesday like they said he was going to be. Or B, I have so many injuries on multiple teams that I can't afford to drop anybody.

So I'm just got a role with Raphael Devers. Tristan Kossis has been diagnosed with a fracture in his left rib rib cage and will be out, quote, a while. And it's obviously a rough go for one of the top breakout options this season. Bobby Dolbeck started at first base on Tuesday. Yeah, I mean, this offense, like, Rafael Devers needs to get back real soon because no Caussus, no Devers, no Trevor's story for whatever that's worth.

This, this looks like a pretty brutal lineup for the, I mean, Saddam Raphael is batting leadoff with a 469 OPS and will your Brayu's batting cleanup? Whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, he's having a good season so far,

but like, that's a, that's a tough, tough place to be. Yeah, They had Rob Reff Snyder, Emmanuel Valdez, Bobby Dalbeck and Pablo Reyes

all in the lineup here. It's not what you want. No, it is not. Nolan Jones was removed from the game due to back stiffness. He's been so bad this season. It wouldn't surprise me if he's currently playing through something.

He dealt with a few injuries throughout spring training too, so maybe that's just part of the reason for the slow start with Nolan Jones. Cody Bellinger left Tuesday's game with a right rib contusion. He ran into the outfield wall. on a catch attempt out there and x-rays were negative,

but Bellinger is apparently dealing with quite a bit of soreness. My guess is he could get a few days off here. Hopefully he doesn't land on the IL. Lane Thomas was also removed with an apparent leg injury. Fun fact, he's third in baseball with 11 steals. And once he got removed from the game, I had a few people in the mentions talking about James Wood. And so I don't know if that will happen, but...

I'd be shocked if... If Lane Thomas... goes on the IL, there's a non-zero chance. So we'll see. Josh Young will have his fractured wrist examined on Friday. Merrill Kelly was officially placed in the IL with a right shoulder strain retroactive to April 20th. Tommy Henry was recalled from AAA. Justin Steele went through PFPs on Tuesday.

He also threw a live batting practice on Sunday. Steele could be cleared for a rehab assignment soon. Kyle Hendricks was placed in the IL with a lower back injury, retroactive to April 22nd. Yeah, his ERA was killing him. Killing my NL Labor team. I was so thankful that I could just put him on the I-L before this start happened. Ryan Malkassel remained out of the lineup Tuesday with knee-sornis. Heston Kirstad was in the lineup in right field.

He was batting eighth, and I believe it was 0 for four with at least two strikeouts from what I saw. It might have been three. Taiwan Walker will return to the Phillies rotation Sunday against the Padres. No word yet if Spencer Turnbull is out of the rotation. I guess his start on either Wednesday or Thursday might determine that. DJ LaMayhew started a rehab assignment Tuesday and said he expects to play. Oh, I know. He started a rehab assignment, but then I didn't update this news item.

He left the rehab assignment, and he's heading back to New York to get test done. So not good for DJ LaMahue. Tosh Bradley is expected to report to AAA later this week to begin a rehab assignment. And the Cubs DFAed Garrett Cooper and recalled our old friend Matt Mervis in 8. 18 games at AAA this season. He was batting 288 with five home runs, 14.6% walk rate, 23% strikeout rate. He was hitting the ball extremely hard.

It also came with a 14% swinging strike rate. He got to start here on Tuesday. He went 0 for 3 with a strikeout. I don't think there's anything actionable yet, Chris with Matt Mervis, but I think he's a name to watch. Oh, absolutely. I mean, he's got huge raw power

and put up some pretty good numbers in the minor league level. And, you know, it's one of those situations where the play discipline was pretty awful when he got called up, 32% strikeout rate. The underlying stuff was like bad, but in a sort of normal way, right? Like 77% zone contact rate is not good, but it's not so disastrous that you think he can't overcome it. So I, yeah, we'll see with Matt. Matt Murd. All right, let's talk about some hitters who are starting to pick things up. Julio Rodriguez.

Remember when everybody was freaking out, one for three with his first home run, one 10.5 exit velocity, 435 feet, and over the last seven games, Julio Rodriguez is batting 452 with one homer, four steals, and a 1068 OPS. I know we've preached this before, but patience. It is a very long season, and we know Julio Rodriguez is uber, Uber talented. Cal Raleigh is red hot all of a sudden, two for four with his sixth home run.

He's homered in four of his past five games. Christian Encarnacion Strand is picking things up. He went three for four with a double, two runs and two RBI. Over his last seven, he's betting 321 with a homer, eight RBI and an 892 OPS. Byron Buxton hit a clutch home run in the ninth inning. It was 110.5 exit velocity.

Over his last seven games, he's betting 333 with a homer. I also noticed the plate discipline for Buxton. Not that he's ever been a stand up there, but one walk to 25 strikeouts. That is not going to get it done. Chris, anything you'd like to tack on here for Buxton, CES, Raleigh, and Julio, who are turning things up. No, I mean, I think CES and Byron Buckson are the two that you'd have the most concern about, if anything, because Buxton was so bad last season.

CES is so unproven. but I think the upside for both of them is still so high that there was really no way I was going to consider dropping either. Buxton, I guess, because you got him so late and he hasn't really done anything that there was a chance you could drop him and nobody would pick him up immediately. But I don't want to give up on a guy with, I mean, legitimately 35 Homer upside because of a bad three weeks. So, no, I, I'm happy to see all of those guys doing well in whatever time frame they have done well. Encarnacion Strand, if we're talking about Buxon's plate discipline, just worth mentioning, CES has one walk to 26 strikeouts as well.

That's not great. That's not really his calling card, but he's still hitting the ball really hard, and the expected stats look pretty good for Encarnacion Strand. So I think your by-low window, I don't know that it's already closed, but it might be closing. So if you want to try and get Encarnaccio on Strand, you might want to try and do it right now.

Hitters who are off tonight starts, who we haven't really talked about this season, Riley Green. Shout out to you, Chris. Two for three with a walk and a double dong, three RBI. He's only batting 247. That comes with a 402 on base percentage. He's got 20 runs scored, a 908 OPS, 21 walks on the season.

You know, they moved them up to lead off spot, and he looks like he has just completely embraced that spot. But Esok Paratus also off to a nice star 2 for 4 with his sixth home run here. Also has 16 RBI and 873 OPS. Notice his pull rate is actually down quite a bit from last year. Everything else looks the same. It's a ton of fly balls. The quality of contact is not good.

But we're going on, you know, seven months worth of Esauk Paradis doing this now. I think we just kind of got to trust it at this point. Logan O'Hoppy also off to a nice star two for four with a double. a run and an RBI. He's betting 329 with an 876 OPS, hitting the ball hard, expected stats look good. Just an opportunity to talk about these names. Chris, we haven't really mentioned it yet,

but O'Hopi, Paredes, and Riley Green. Yeah, in Green's case, the one thing that's interesting is he's actually cut the strikeout rate a little bit, but the batting average and expected batting average have both plummeted. So he's not hitting as many fly ball, as he did last season.

He's traded some fly, or not hitting as many line drives. Excuse me. He's not, he's traded some line drives for both ground balls and fly balls. But he hits the ball really hard, really consistently. And he's getting on base a ton.

I thought that a points league would be his worst format. But based on what he's doing so far, maybe that's not the case. But I still have a lot of faith in Riley Green being a very productive hitter. And Logan, Poppy. I mean, he's one of those guys that what he did last season was impressive enough on the surface. But then if you remember, he missed like, what, three months with what we thought at the time was a season-ending shoulder injury. And he was hitting for a ton of power, if I'm remembering correctly early on.

He came back and was still super productive. The shape of that production was slightly different. but he's clearly an incredibly talented young hitter, especially for a catcher. And I think he's top eight at the position for me after Francisco Alvarez's injury. So expectations are very high for Logan O'Hoppy. Last thing I'll add on Riley Green, and I'm not saying that he's Juan Soto, but he's kind of doing the Juan Soto thing where he's just walking so much.

And although he hits a lot of ground balls, his barrel rate is super high. And what I've always said about Soto is that when he gets the chance to do damage and put a ball on the air, that's exactly what he does. And Riley Green is doing that. Like, when he gets a pitch that he can elevate, he's just doing damage on those pitches. And it's just really nice to see. I think any time you get a hitter in the American League Central where it's lots of cold weather

cities and they still get off to a good start, I'd feel really good about having Riley Green right now. Let's talk about some pitchers who are off to weird starts this season. Papa Lopez. We spoke about the White Sox and how great of a matchup they should be. And then Papa Lopez comes out and just has a stinker against this team. Four innings, three runs allowed,

six strikeouts, only five swinging strikes on 76 pitches. He gave up some hard contact. Looks like he did not have any of his secondary pitches. He just went fastball heavy in the start through it 61% of the time. His velocity was also down. I saw afterwards. They said there's no concern physically.

It might have been related to the weather is 52 degrees. in Minnesota in this start. And, you know, just on the season, he's had two great starts, three not so great starts. It's a 439 ERA, but all the peripheral stats to look really good. It's just kind of been a bit of a weird start for Pablo. Yeah, there was a lot of concern because I think the last fastball he threw in this start was 91 miles per hour. That's not good.

That's not good because I think the first one he threw was like 96 or something. So yeah, that's a, that's a significant. significant difference. But yeah, after the game, both he and the manager said that he was fine. Physically, there was nothing wrong. The quote was like it was a mentality slash conviction issue. And that's why his velocity was down.

I don't necessarily know what to make of that. But if they're not concerned, I'm not going to be concerned. I think weird is the right word for the way Pablo Lopez season has gone so far because it hasn't been nearly as effective as last season. And you look into the underlying numbers for the arsenal and nothing really looks out of whack like the whiff rates, the quality of contact, all for the most part looks very similar to what it was last season.

So I don't really have any reason to think he pitched over his head last season. I don't really have any reason to think that he's suddenly a significantly worse pitcher. So my concern level on Pablo Lopez is extremely low. Kevin Gosman turned in a quality start, but also kind of a weird one. Six and two thirds innings, three unearned runs, only two strikeouts to one walk, four swinging strikes on 99 pitches. Just leaned all the way into his splitter in this start. Kevin Gosman did 52% usage, and it was not a good pitch for him.

This was his first time throwing more than five innings in a start the season. He's got a 5.57 ERA, a 150. WIP. He dealt with the shoulder in spring training. So this might also be start of like, it might be an extended spring training for Kevin Gossman, I guess you could say. But I feel like he's just gone through these, I guess, kind of wacky or inconsistent stretches because he's a splitter pitcher. And a pitcher who relies on that pitch that much, these things could kind of happen sometimes. Yeah. And it's not just that he's a splitter pitcher, but he's really, for the most part, one of the most extreme two pitch pitchers in baseball.

And that might just leave him with a narrower margin for error than some of the other pitchers in his range. And maybe coming back from that shoulder injury, he's just not 100% there yet. Not to say that he's not 100% healthy. It just like you said, he's working his way, his arm strength up. Maybe he's, you know, where he would normally be at the end of spring training. And I can't say I have no concerns given the shoulder issue. and the fact that his velocity has been down.

It was down again in this start after being up in his most recent one before that. So it's concerning. I think I lean towards Kevin Gosman being a by-low candidate, but I wish I could say that with more conviction. If you can turn Max Fried into Kevin Gosman, would you do it?

I'd rather have Gosman, yes. All right. Let's talk about Grayson Rodriguez. He was hit hard at the Angels, four and a third innings, 11 hits, seven earned runs, but he had seven strikeouts to one walk and 14 swinging strikes. So like these others, quite a weird start. He hadn't allowed more than three earned runs in a start since July 17th of last year. But it was lots of hard contact in this one.

And looking into Grayson Rodriguez, I don't really understand what's going on. I feel like we've had a conversation about this, Chris, the slider cutter kind of thing that he's throwing this year. and it looks like he's ditched his slider from last season, and he's throwing a different version of the cutter. The cutter was really bad for him last season. The velocity on this cutter is down almost three miles per hour, but the spin rate on the pitch is up. So I wonder if he's just kind of blended his slider and his cutter together,

and this is the pitch that Grayson Rodriguez has come up with. Maybe it's the Corbin Burns effect, who is now his teammate and on the pitching. staff and obviously he throws an amazing cutter. What do you make of Grayson Rodriguez's season so far? So one thing that I had seen when he made his last star, Chris and Rodriguez, was,

I think was Craig Goldstein from baseball prospectus had pointed out that their version of, I think they have their own like proprietary stuff slash pitching quality slash arsenal stat. And their version of, of that was picking up on two separate pitches. They were picking up on both a cutter and a slider. And that's probably the explanation for why the cutter velocity is down from last season,

is that baseball savant is still classifying both pitches as a cutter, but they're probably different pitches. But yeah, I mean, the cutter was a pretty bad pitch for him last year when he threw it, which wasn't all that often. It hasn't been a very good pitch for him this season either, a 390 experience. expected Wobah, lowest whiff rate among his pitches. So I don't know. I think he is,

Grayson Rodriguez, that is, is still kind of figuring out what the best approach is. He gave up four batted balls on that pitch today, 101 mile per hour average eggs of velocity. So I remain optimistic, but there are, it's been a rougher ride than we hoped, given that Grayson Rodriguez looked like he was,

that he had figured it out in the second half. of last season. And I think it might just be the case that he's not quite an ace yet is maybe the way I'd say it. That he's a really good pitcher, top 20 in fantasy, but probably not a top 10 guy. There might be a buy low window here because the ERA is 445. The FIP is 357. It's a 336 XFIP 10.8K per 9. So everything under the hood looks pretty good for Grayson Rodriguez. Would you rather have him or Max free. Oh, I think I'd rather have Grayson Rodriguez. Yes, I had Grace and Rodriguez ranked ahead before this start. I'm not going to change that. Okay. Michael King had a rough start in course field, three and two-thirds innings, six runs allowed, four of those were earned. Three more walks in this one.

He now has three plus walks in three of six starts. He's up to five point three walks per nine on the season. His career before this season, three walks per nine. So I keep saying and thinking that the walks are going to get better and the control is going to improve for Michael King. I don't know if there's much we could take away from this specific start in Corse Field, Chris. Yeah. But I still have to think that there is going to be some kind of regression on the control here. The thing that's so hard about this, though, is, and I agree, we shouldn't take anything from almost any start at Corse Field.

Remember, Ryan Feltoner had 10 strikeouts in a course start a couple weeks ago. he hasn't come anywhere close to that since. Cores is a weird place to pitch. And even if you have a seemingly good matchup, it's not really about the quality of the hitters that you're facing. Your pitches do not move the same at elevation. And so I don't want to take anything from this. I just, the thing with Michael King is,

I don't know how much his career numbers matter in projecting forward, right? like, okay, he had a 7.4 walk rate last season, 8% in 2022. He wasn't starting. I mean, like he was for a month, but he wasn't going as deep into games as he's being asked to right now. He wasn't doing that while being expected to continue doing it for the next five months after this, which is a, there's a big difference, I think, between getting to September and saying, you just got to make it through your next five starts.

and getting to being in April, making five starts and knowing, I got to make 28 more if I stay healthy. And so it's, I tend to think that what we're seeing from Michael King is more like what he is as a starter than what he was as a reliever. And I'm pretty uninterested in him. I don't know if I necessarily say I can drop him, but I'm not viewing Michael King as a difference maker. He's outside my top 60 starting pitchers,

and that was before this start. Okay, I still have him top 40. I've got a rankings update coming Wednesday, and I think I was just a high guy on Michael King coming into the season. He is going to drop down a little bit for me just because he has been so inconsistent this year, and I can't dispute that at this point, and there just have been so many starting pitchers

who have elevated their game since the start of the season. So he'll drop down a little bit. bit, I will say if anyone is on the verge of dropping him, I would just try the ultimate bylaw offer and just see if I can get Michael King for next to nothing. By the way, before we move on, you didn't mention it in the news and notes, but I don't want to get too deep into the start, or into the start, into the podcast without mentioning, for Ambervall Desmey pitch this weekend. Yes, that was, I believe, threw a bullpen either yesterday or Sunday.

Yeah, and they mentioned he might start in that Mexico City series against the Rockies. Don't even return. Yeah, the start with Michael King here jogged my memory of that from earlier today. And to be clear, if Framber Valdez returns this weekend, do not start him. No. Because the Mexico City ballpark is, I think about 2,000 feet, maybe 2,300 feet higher in elevation than Coorsfield. and is also a really small park relative to course field. Coursefield is actually the largest park in the majors.

There were, I think, 11 home runs hit in one of those two games last year. I think there might have been like 15 in the two games combined. So don't start Framber Valdez, but I wanted to make sure we didn't go too far into the podcast without mentioning that Framber Valdez could be back this week. Yes, and that is definitely fair. I'm just going to throw the last four names that I have on this list at you because I want to keep things moving after this.

but Luis Severino, a quality start at the Giants, continues to not have his slider. The underlying numbers are still pretty good, though, and he's getting lots of ground balls. I wonder if this is just a different version of Severino that could be good, but just not as good as we've seen in the past. James Paxson doesn't look anything like the same pitcher from the Red Sox last year.

He has 17 walks to 11 strikeouts over 20 and a third innings, and he's still 93% roster that feels like that should not be the case. Like, I think I would drop James Paxon for Eric Fetty if I could. And then two other names, Christopher Sanchez and Andrew Abbott. They both had rough starts going up against each other. Sanchez, the control is a little bit worrisome

because outside of last season, he was not a good control pitcher. And so far this year, it's up over four walks per nine. But man, everything else still looks really good. So I think I'm buying Christopher Sanchez and Andrew Abbott. I just don't trust it. I think you could go ahead and drop Andrew Abbott and not really have any concerns about it.

Would you drop him for Fetty? Sure. I mean, I would drop him. I guess if there are any leagues where Edward Cabrera is available and Andrew Abbott is on your roster, go ahead and do that first. But yeah, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with dropping James Paxton as well. Sanchez, I think I was maybe a little more skeptical of him than you and Scott work.

coming in, so I'm a little more inclined to be concerned about the control, but I wouldn't be actively looking to drop him right now. And Severino, I guess part of my struggle is that I am maybe anchoring to the person that Luis Severino used to be. And, you know, he had that incredible slider and was one of the best strikeout pitchers in baseball. And maybe he just can't be that anymore, but he can still be an effective pitcher. But it just, I don't know, man. It feels like was last year or was it two years ago, the year when Noah Cindergarde got off to a decent start,

had a decent ERA, but wasn't getting any strikeouts. And it was just, that's what it feels like, where like, yeah, maybe he can still be effective for stretches, but I don't have much reason to believe that, Luis Severino is like a must roster pitcher moving forward. I would agree with that if the strikeout rate was lower, but so far it hasn't been terrible.

8.7K per 9 and a 58% ground bowl rate. Yeah. If he holds those two rates, he could still be good. Yeah, I guess there's an aspect of like damning with faint praise and saying that like, I guess he could be like, Ranger Suarez. Yeah, which could be a useful pitcher. A top 50-ish starting pitcher, right? He doesn't have the control that Suarez does.

So that's the thing is that you're looking at a, it's like an 11% K-minus walk ratio, or at least it was entering today. I don't know what it is after today. I don't know. Maybe I'm being unfair to Luis Severino because I want him to be something else and maybe I'm holding that against him.

And I'll grant that that might be unfair. So I was pretty skeptical. Like just going into his Fangraphs page before I got there, I was expecting to see something completely different, but the fact that all the underlying numbers are pretty good, I don't know. He might just be a different version of Severino that's serviceable, but just doesn't have as high of upside as he once did.

Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll get to some of the hitters here on Fantasy Baseball today. Welcome back in. Let's talk about some WaverWire hitters and names that we've brought up over the past couple days, but they are both still widely available. Willie Ara Breu went one for four with his second home run. He's off to a nice start with the Red Sox,

278 batting average, two homers, four steals, an 862 OPS. He's hitting the ball hard so far, and the plate discipline is okay. He's walking, but also has a 29% strikeout rate. And Mark Kana, back-to-back games with a home run for him. He is up to five homers, batting 260, 932 OPS.

He is walking a ton, a 14% walkout. rate. Both are under 30% rostered, Chris. If we're talking about a five outfieler league, who would you rather add between Abraeu or Mark Hanna? Probably just depends on what your team needs, right? Like if it's an OVP league, I think Cana's a fairly easy choice. But if you need speed, especially, then a Brayu is obviously going to be a better option there. He has played 47 games at the major league level so far. He's hitting like 300 or something overall, but I don't expect that to continue. You look at the underlying. numbers, they're not nearly that good, but, uh, his 162 game pace is 12 homers,

22 steals in the majors. And he hit lead off for the Red Sox today. And he might, you know, continue to remain at the top of that lineup for a while or at least near the top of the lineup. So yeah, I think Willie Arbray is probably under rostered at 24% in any categories league. He probably, uh, deserves a little more love. Sure. Could any of these deep league hitters be a thing. Lawrence Butler, a name we have not talked about. He went one for four with his second home run. He's batting 190.

He's got a 634 OPS. He plays for the Oakland A's, one of those really terrible lineups. He also has a 94.5 average exit velocity. The expected stats are awesome. It could just be small sample noise, but based on just basing our decisions on the underlying metrics, things that we look at for every hitter.

Lawrence Butler looks pretty damn interesting. Mike Talkman had a big game, two for three with a double dung for RBI. He has started four straight games for the Cubs who are dealing with some injuries right now. Trevor Larnick of the Twins is hitting well since being recalled. He went two for four with his second homer, 110 exit velocity, 433 feet. He's always had lots of power potential, just has not been able to make contact enough, but he's getting an opportunity to play right now. And Joe Adele, two for three with a double, a run, and an RBI.

he's only started three of the past five games. He really hasn't played that much, but he also had a big game on Monday. He went one for three with a sock into shoe. He's got two homers, five steals so far. He's batting 3.14. The quality of contact is very weird right now for Joe Adel. Could any of these deep league outfielders be a thing, Chris?

Would you be looking to add any of them in like a 15 team league, Adel, Larnick, Talkman, Lawrence Butler? I wouldn't think that, of those guys are really worth adding in most formats. But Butler has the very interesting quality of contact metrics that you pointed out. He's hitting the ball really hard. He's super tooled up. And he had, I think, pretty good minor league numbers, if I'm remembering correctly.

Let me look it up. I was looking up his quality of contact last year in the minors. And it was pretty good, like 90 mile per hour average. Exit velocity, like 1.10, 11, max. X-Egs Velo. He's clearly got tools. And yeah, he's played 89 games between AA and AAA

in his career. He has 21 stolen bases, 15 home runs. That's pretty good with a useful batting average and honestly not that many strikeouts. So, I don't know, he's been so bad that, like, I can't

say, yeah, go out and add Lawrence Butler because there's the opportunity cost, right? And he's not going to be added in most leagues, so you don't have to. Adele, his numbers in AAA are consistently kind of incredible. It was like a 940 OPS last season, 24 homers and 80-something games. Quality of contact is really good for the most part this year. Like you said, weird.

He's not hitting the ball hard in terms of average age of velocity, but hard hit rate is okay, barrel rate's okay, line drives really high. the thing right now, though, is he's gone from like disastrous, oh my God, we can't play him contact rates to just kind of mediocre. It's 39 plate appearances, though. So I don't want to overreact to that. But underlying, you know, plate discipline metrics and swing decisions and all that stuff, that can tend to stabilize fairly quickly.

and so I think the in-zone contact rate is up to like 80% right now. It was below, it was like 71% last season or 71% for his career. So I want to believe that Joe Adele can be a thing. I'm not going to say he is a thing currently, but he is giving us reasons to be optimistic for the first time in a long time at the major league level, maybe the first time ever. Who are you most likely to speculate on?

If you just have a roster spot in a deep league, out of this list. Is it Joe Adele? Is it Lawrence Butler? Sure. But that might be my own sickness that I'm just always been a Joe Adele guy. All right. Let's slide over to a few waiver wire pitchers from Tuesday's action. We already spoke about Eric Fetty, who is very clearly at the top of this list, followed by Kent and Maeda, who had one of his better starts of the season. Five shutout innings with five strikeouts, had 12 swinging strikes on 88 pitches and

did change up his pitch mix in this start. He led with the slider. He threw a 34% of the time. His velocity was also up. It's been way down. Not that he ever throws the ball hard, but we're talking 89 miles per hour on his fastball, and it was up quite a bit in this start. And then some names in deeper leagues.

Ben Lively has pitched well in two starts with the Guardians. Bailey Fulter has allowed a total of four earned runs over his last four outings, and he went seven plus innings in this one against the Brewers. One run allowed, eight strikeouts with 14 swinging strikes. Jordan Wicks turned in a quality start against the Astros, surprisingly. Six innings, two runs, four strikeouts for him.

His change-up actually has been awesome this season. I just don't know if he has anything else. And Tommy Henry, who was recalled for the debacks, it was six innings, one run, six strikeouts for him. Anything here, Chris? Tommy Henry, Jordan Wicks, Bailey, Kentomaieta. I think for the most part, you can write these guys off,

but, like, Lively has consecutive starts with seven strikeouts. The Guardians are notably a very, very good pitching development team. I didn't see anything in the data today that suggests that he's a different pitcher than the guy we've seen and been uninterested in for the most part before.

So I don't, like I said, I don't really have much reason to be interested in any of these guys. But lively, the two seven strikeout outings in a row is interesting. so we'll see what happens there. And then Falter gets the Rockies away from Cores next week. So that's probably not a bad streaming option in Pittsburgh. I'm not going to say that I think Bailey Fulter is going to be someone you're happy to have on your roster for long,

but he could very well be very useful next week. I don't know what he does with his fastball. But whatever it is, it's been working so far because the results on balls and play entering the start, 81.7 average exit velocity, a 0.095 batting average against a 1119 slugging percentage. It's only 91, 92 from the left-hand side, but maybe it's just like a weird arm slot thing or where he commands it. 13 whiffs today. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that there's much there, but it's been a really interesting start at least. Let's get into some other pitching leftovers. Tanner Howk has a quality start in four of five out. outings this season. He was at the Guardians. He went six plus innings with two runs allowed,

four strikeouts in that one. Ryan Pepio now has a quality start in three of his last four outings and he was up against the Tigers where he allowed one run over six innings. Logan Gilbert continues his great start. He was at the Rangers. It was six and two-thirds shutout with six strikeouts for him. And Logan Webb has tossed four straight quality starts of at least seven innings. And he was up against the Mets. It's eight shutout innings, four strikeouts. Did surprisingly have 15 swinging strikes on 106 pitches.

13 of those came on the changeup. I know last week, Scott expressed a little skepticism. Maybe that's not the right word. A little concern that we haven't seen many whiffs on the change up the season. That changed big time in the start for Logan Webb. He's just such a unique pitcher, Chris. there's nobody else like Logan Webb right now. The fact that he pitches backwards,

the change up is his most used pitch. He gives up so much hard contact, but all of it just goes right into the ground. He's just a really, really unique pitcher. Anything to add on Webb, Gilbert, Pepio, and Tanner Halk. Yeah, I mean, we talk a lot about like regression to the mean. I think sometimes people take that to mean like a rubber band kind of thing where like it bounces back.

Like, I'm trying to, I was trying to make an analogy and I lost it. But basically you shouldn't necessarily expect when someone's super low at something for them to bounce back and make up for it, right? Like if a guy has a 15% whiff rate and he usually has a 30% whiff rate, you shouldn't expect a 45% whiff rate

to get him back to a 30% whiff rate. I guess that's the way to say it. But sometimes it does happen. like Logan Webb was not getting whiffs with his changeup at all coming into this start. 10.9.7% whiff rate with the changeup entering today. And then he got 13 whiffs today and his change up with rate is probably going to look pretty normal after this one. He's a top 12 starting pitcher in fantasy. Yeah, partially because of some injuries, but partially because he's really, really good.

Pepio, I cannot figure out. I don't know where you're at on Ryan Pepio, who, is not in our starting pitcher rankings. I imagine he will be after this start because I think he got his fifth start and will be SP eligible. But we've been getting a lot of questions like, why isn't this guy in your SP rankings?

And it's because we literally cannot rank Ryan Pepio as an SP until he's eligible. So that won't happen until this week's updates for us. But we're going to have to make some tough decisions on where to rank this dude. And I really can't figure him out. because his four-seem fastball has been by far his best whiff pitch. So far he got four of his eight whiffs with it.

That's really hard to keep doing. It's hard to have a 40% whiff rate with a fastball. Really, really good whiff rates with fastballs are like 30%. And so I tend to view Ryan Pepio as something of a sell high candidate. The command hasn't been as good as it was last year. He's getting more strikeouts to make up for it. But I don't know. I really struggle with him.

I think I view him as a South High candidate, though. What's weird about Ryan Pepio is that his changeup was always his calling card. And he's kind of faded it so far this season with Tampa Bay. And it could just be a Tampa Bay thing where he's using this slider slash cutter thing more this season. And it looks pretty good. And as you mentioned, he's getting whiffs with the fastball. And the underlying numbers are okay. It's like a high three's FIP and XFIP.

and if he just pitches to that, I think people would be happy with where they drafted him. It was like around 280P. Just eyeballing the starting pitcher ranks, and again, things are going to change on Wednesday. I think the 50 to 60 range with other names, Tanner Howe, Cutter Crawford, Jack Flaherty, kind of in that range.

Does that sound right to you? Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I think I probably have him lower than that right now just looking at like other guys who are eligible at both and maybe I need to move him back. Maybe I need to move him up because like at 69 to 70 I've got Brandon Fott, Charlie Morton, Hunter Brown. I think I'd rather have Ryan Pepio than all those guys.

So I think I can slot him into at least the 60s. But like him versus Edward Cabrera, I think is really interesting. I suppose I'd rather have Pepio. I think so too. but I think Edward Cabrera might have more upside. He might. It's one of those things. I feel like every comp we make with Cabrera,

we say the same thing. He has more upside. He has much more downside. I think Pepio has some downside too. We haven't seen him do it for that long. But just the fact that he pitches for Tampa Bay and probably doesn't have as much injury risk as someone like Edward Cabrera.

I think that's fair to say. That's fair. Let's be watching leftovers. Did you know the Arizona Diamondbacks lead baseball? in run score. They had another big game here on Tuesday. They put up 14 runs on 15 hits. They hit three homers. Christian Walker, two for four with his fourth homer. Lordis Gouriel, three for five with a double three runs scored. Pavin Smith had a huge game, two for five

with a grand slam, six RBI, and no Corby in the lineup. We were talking beforehand, Chris. It's a terrible feeling. For anyone who drafted Corbyn Carroll, you go to the box scores, you're scrolling through, you see, wow, the deep. Debacks have 14 runs. Corby and Carroll must have a huge game. He's not in the lineup. Didn't have a game at all. It's a terrible feeling.

Stephen Match was the opposing pitcher. He got clobbered, obviously. He gave up seven earned runs. I don't think there was much to take away from, like, Pavin Smith obviously doesn't matter, right? Like anything, any takeaways from the D-backs lineup so far, obviously they've been awesome. Might be kind of matchups related.

I know they faced the Rockies the first week of the season and just absolutely crush them. Yeah. They've been putting up some massive, massive games. I think this was their fourth or fifth game with at least 10 runs. It's weird because you look up and down the lineup, though, and like nobody's having an incredible season outside of Catele-Marté. And Lordis-Gri-L is having a weird season because he's hitting 300. He's got a ton of RBI.

Does he still lead baseball in RBI? Not sure. If not, he's got to be up there. He added one more today. He's up to 22 for the season. But he's only got an 852 OPS. And that's the second best OPS in the lineup. So it's weird that the Diamondbacks are crushing people to this extent without like,

it's not like the Orioles where you look and everybody's got like a 900 OPS or better. It's kind of a weird start. But I think they're a good lineup. I don't think they're the best. Offense and baseball, though. Your league leader in RBI so far, Marcel Ozuna, 27 RBI this season. In 22 games.

That's like a, I don't know, 175 RBI pace. He's picking up where he left off. Lorda Scuriel is tied for second with Adolice Garcia and Salvador Perez so far, who has 22 RBI. He's having an awesome season. He looks like 2021, 2022, Salvador Perez again. Yeah. One last thing I'll point out on the debacks.

If you have a lefty who's going up against them, a fringe lefty, just think twice about it because entering this game, they were second in baseball in Wobah against left-handed pitching. My guess is that number is going to go up after crushing Stephen Matts here in this game. Some other hitting leftovers, Mike Trout tied for the league leaden home runs. He went one-for-four with his ninth home run, and it was a lead-off homer, kind of a throwback game here for Mike Trout, moving him up to the lead-off spot.

Gunner-Henerson. He hadn't hit lead-off in a couple of years. Was Taylor Ward not available for this one? No, he just typically bets third, I think. Okay, yeah, I don't know what that was, but that's, I mean, it's one spot in lineup, but I wouldn't mind Mike Trout hitting lead off moving forward. You know what was interesting?

I was watching that game. I hadn't realized Miguel Snow was playing third base for the Angels. Oh, yeah. They were showing him doing defensive drills, and he's making all these crazy plays already at third base. He lost 60 pounds this off season. He's a completely different human being. It's quite the transformation.

Gunner Henderson continues his strong start, one for four with his seventh home run. Eloy Jimenez had his best game of the season, two for three with a sock and a shoe. Not that we're expecting him to steal bases, but I guess it's nice if you had him in the lineup. And speaking of stolen bases, Bryce Terang, he was back to running on Tuesday,

one for two with a walk and two steals. He is up to 12 stolen bases, which is tied for first in baseball. I don't think that Bryce Terang is going to maintain a 319 batting average or an 847 OPS. But I am starting to buy a little bit more because he's hitting the ball much harder than he was last year.

Not that he's hitting the ball incredibly hard, but 88.6 miles per hour for a middle infielder that's actually pretty damn good. And the expected batting average is 268. I don't, so I buy it a little bit more than I did maybe the first week of the season, let's say that. Yeah, no, and he's the kind of guy that like, he doesn't need to average 92 miles per hour to be an effective player with his speed and with his contact ability, 15% strikeout rate as well.

If he's just decent with the bat and he puts the ball in play and he gets on base, he's going to be a valuable player in a Roto league because of those stolen bases. And I just, it was, it did look a little bit like it was just he had, I don't know, six steals in the first eight games or whatever it was. and then he slowed down, but he's picked the pace back up over the last week or so. And that's a really good sign that he's going to continue running. So yeah, I think Bryce Terang has to be rostered in all category leagues right now, I think. It could wind up being a weird kind of 260 hitting 10-homer,

35 or 40 stolen base hitter this year. That's not really a player we see often, but that might be who Price-Durang is. There might not be that much difference when him and Andres Jimenez. who is not running very much right now, unfortunately. Yeah, but probably more speed from terrain, but less power. But yeah, I think that's not far off. Some bullpen updates for the Guardians.

A manual class A struck out the side for his seventh save. For the pirates, David Bednar got the ninth with a one-run lead. He struck out one for his fourth save. That's three straight scoreless outings and back-to-back days with a save. I don't know that we're fully in the clear yet, Chris, but obviously I am feeling much better about David Bednar. Yes, very much so. For the Tigers, Jason Foley pitched a clean ninth for his seventh save for the Yankees.

Clay Holmes struck out two for his league leading ninth save. For the Royals, James MacArthur closed out the final two innings in a one-run game for his fifth save. He's been pretty damn good for the Royals. For the Cubs, weird one. I don't think we need to look too much into this. Yenzi Almonte entered with two outs in the eighth inning. runners on first and second with a four-run lead. So technically a save situation.

He got Alex Bergman to ground out, and then he pitched a scoreless ninth for his first save. I still think the next traditional save opportunity will go to Hector Nerris. For the White Sox, Michael Kopeck got the eighth with a three-run lead. Facing 9-1-2 in the Twins lineup, he gave up a two-run homer,

and then it was Stephen Wilson who got the ninth with a one-run lead and gave up two runs, took his first blown save, and second loss. it's just a little frustrating, Chris. I understand teams want to use what they consider their best reliever

in a high-leverage spot. Maybe that's what they considered here with Kopeck, but the White Sox are already a really bad team and they're not going to get many save opportunities. So just every time they use them in the 8th, it's kind of a slap in the face for fantasy. In fairness, I expect that he would have gotten the 9th as well.

He might have gotten through it because he has had already three multi-inning outings. Two that were one in two-thirds innings. One, that was a two-inning save against Cleveland a couple weeks ago. So I'm not too worried about that.

Obviously, I don't love that he blew the save and I guess didn't blow the save, but didn't get the save, I guess would be the way to say that. I also noticed that like the win probability charts for this one. had the White Sox at like 95% in like the seventh inning. And I don't know if there's any situation where I would say that the

white stocks should have a 95% chance of winning until there's like two outs in the ninth inning. And even then. And even then. Yeah. For the Rockies, Justin Lawrence got the ninth with a three run lead. He gave up a hit, but picked up his first save of the season. I feel like this is the Rockies first conventional save opportunity all season long. They're also six and 18.

So it probably doesn't matter. And I am seeing now that in those West Coast games Carlos Estevez and Camillo DeVal each picked up their fourth save for their respective teams. To stream or not to stream for Wednesday

and I think we said yesterday Clark Schmidt against the A's. Yeah, that's fine. John Gray against the Mariners. Yeah, that's okay. Sean Mania revenge game at the Giants.

I could see that one being decent just because of where it's at and the Giants aren't a great lineup, but I'd prefer not to. Jareel Rodriguez at the Royals, maybe? That's a tough matchup, and he's probably not going to give you five innings. So I have trouble buying into that one.

Spencer Turnbull at the Reds. I don't love the situation pitching in Cincinnati, but I've been really impressed with him. So I could see that one being pretty good. On Thursday, it's not as small of a slate as we usually get. I think there's 10 games on the schedule, but just not many great options here at all. I really don't feel comfortable giving anybody out.

I guess if I had to choose one. I could see a decent Soroka start at the Twins. Yeah, maybe. And then if Rafael Devers is still out for the Red Sox, Tristan McKenzie did have his best start of the season in his most recent outing. I still thought he was pretty unimpressive, but the Red Sox could be a decent match.

up if Devers is out. So if you truly need to stream someone, I guess those would be the guys. All right. We're going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.