Fantasy Baseball Today - Jacob deGrom Update, Benintendi Trade & Waiver Wire Adds (7/28 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

If you support the show, please nominate Fantasy Baseball Today for The People's Choice Podcast Awards in the "Sports" Category: https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup/ It sounds like Jacob deGrom will be back next week (2:00)! ... Andrew Benintendi was traded to the Yankees (8:30). Does it change his value? ... What do we do with Riley Greene and Nathan Eovaldi (12:33)? ... Jose Miranda keeps hitting home runs (18:47)! Let's rank some middle infield adds. ... News and notes (33:54): Mike Trout has a rare back condition. ... Cole Irvin keeps crushing the Astros (40:00)! ... Andrew Heaney made his return (44:40). ... Matt Olson and Ketel Marte turned the power on in July (46:33). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpens and streamers (51:12). Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get 20% off Fantasy Baseball Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Man, we just had a crazy newsday. Jacob de Grom, Mike Trout, Andrew Benintendi, and we'll get to all of it.

Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, July 28th. Frank Stamphill joined by. Chris Towers, today on the show. We've got Big Jacob deGrom news. Andrew Benintendi was traded to my New York Yankees, waiver wire hitters, a plenty, two hitters who have bounced back

in the power department in the month of July, and much more. Hello, Chris. How was softball tonight? Our team is not great. So, you know, that's, it makes it slightly less fun. 14 to 2 loss today. So this Wednesday night team that we've put together,

I think the level of, competition on these Wednesday night leagues is a little higher than Monday because I don't know these guys can hit you know it's not fair I've I've seen multiple balls hit over the fence I don't I don't like that because I can't do that geez over the fence power huh are you still pitching like 250 feet but still are you still pitching yeah yeah a little bit oh man yeah you're like a you're like the softball version of Dallas Keikle I'm sorry Chris well my my ERA all right All right, all right. My ERA in the Monday Night League, I could, I could look it up if you want, but it's quite good, all right? Don't, no, no need to take shots. All right. Well, look, you

could take all the shots you want. Yankees just got swept by the Mets, good times. And speaking of those Mets, before we even get to, oh my goodness gracious, we got to talk about the big news of the day. Jacob de Grom looks like he will be back next week, Buckshaw Walter, rather, said that he does expect Jacob de Grom sometime next week, make his next start with. the New York Mets, Anthony Tacomo of MLB.com, suggested Tuesday in Washington is the likely target date for Jacob de Grom, who made his final rehab start here on Wednesday. He gave up four runs over four innings pitched. Not great results, but the biggest part of this was that he, quote, felt good physically, which you love to see, got his pitch count up to 67 pitches.

Chris, overall, your thoughts, Jacob de Grom looks like he'll be back next week, where to rank him, how to value him. What do we do? I'm trying to figure out the right way to phrase this. So like during spring training, we all got burnt by, or a lot of people got burnt by Jacob deGrom because we saw him in spring training.

He looked like himself. He made a couple of starts. Looked awesome. And so people moved him into the first round. And he went first overall, I think, in at least one NFC league. And that ended up burning people. Because just because Jacob deGrom is currently healthy

and able to pitch, does not mean Jacob deGrom will be healthy in three days or a week or two weeks or however long a timetable you want to make. And so that's the thing that's difficult about it is he is currently is seemingly as healthy as you could want him to be. By all accounts, he's hitting 100 miles an hour like he normally does. The stuff looks like it should. So I'm expecting Jacob de Grom to be Jacob de Grom, which means I'm expecting him to be,

if not the best pitcher in baseball, one of the three or four best pitchers in baseball. but how long he's going to be able to do that. I have no idea. And so ranking him, like, I'm probably going to rank him top 12 as soon as I see him. But I don't know. I have no idea. There's no, this is how it wasn't spring training.

There was no, there was nothing that any fantasy analyst could tell you about Jacob deGron that, like, there are, I think, in the course of doing this job, we spend more time thinking about this than most of your average players. And so we have a better sense of, you know, how to value players. That's our job, right? That's why you're listening to this podcast, hopefully. And so in, you know, in the overwhelming majority of instances, I think we, we can give you a pretty good sense. There's nothing that we can tell you about Jacob de Grom.

Like anything that you think about if you want to try to trade for Jacob de Grom, like that entirely comes down to your personal willingness to take on risk and whether it's worth it with your specific team to trade for him and take that risk on because the reward could be he's the best pitcher in baseball the rest of the way or he could make 12 pitches in his next start and be out for the year like that is it's all on the table and there's just no way of knowing there's no educated guess I can give you, this is, I think, you know, it depends on league size. In a shallower league, I'd be more willing to try to trade for Jacob de Grom or have him and hold on to him. But if it's a deeper league where the replacement level player on your bench and on waivers is lower, you know,

if Jacob de Grom has an awesome first start and somebody makes a godfather offer to you, you probably want to consider that because that's the kind of league where depth matters more. We each have Jacob de Grom, you Scott and myself, ranked inside of our top 24 starting pitchers for now. And you said if he looks healthy after your first star, probably get him inside of your top 12. I think I'm just going to leave him here in this range. This is kind of like the cutoff before we get into the glob, which we talk about a lot with starting pitchers, which is like 20 to 50. And it's kind of hard to differentiate those starting pitchers. Jacob de Grom to me is kind of like the tier in between.

because obviously when he pitches and he's healthy, he's the best pitcher in baseball. But there is so much risk involved with Jacob de Grom as you've highlighted that I'm just going to kind of leave him here as like a low end SP2, even though I know that he is valued much higher than that. So like, if you wanted to trade him, if you wanted to trade him for a trade you Darvish for him. That's my number 25 player or pitcher, Jacob Grom's number 24. I couldn't tell you not to or to do it.

if you wanted to trade him for Tony Gonsolin, who's my number 23 starting pitcher. Again, I just couldn't tell you what, like, I, he's an impossible, impossible player to value right now. It's just the long and short of it. It's kind of an unprecedented situation too. I mean, I'm sure if we go back throughout the history of baseball, we'll maybe find another situation like this,

but the past two, three, four years, he has been the best pitcher on the planet. Like, he's going through a historical, time right now. It's just he cannot stay healthy. And even recently during the All-Star break, you know, there was reported shoulder soreness, which you know, is he's dealt with a lot of shoulder and forearm and elbow the past couple of years. So again, I tend to play a little bit more safe. So if I have de Grom and he pitches well, you know, one, two starts, I would probably look to flip him for a top 15,

top 20 starting pitcher that I just feel safer about will contribute to something the rest of the season. That's just me. That's the the way I like to play. It's totally fair. Scared money don't make money, as they say. David Peterson, I guess this is kind of the other fallout here of this situation. You know, we kind of talked up David Peterson recently because he was pitching well and the slider has a tremendous whiff rate, good amount of swinging strikes.

He's not starting this week. He actually pitched in relief here on Wednesday. And assuming that DeGrom comes back next week, I don't think that there will be a spot in the rotation. So if you added David Peterson, do you think it's a lot? okay to drop him now. I think it's fine. Yeah, I think it's unlikely. You know, injuries happen and so it's entirely possible he could be in the rotation at some point very soon, but I think based on what we know right now, yeah, he's dropable. Yeah, I think in any standard 12 team league, if you play an NL only, you might want to

hold on to him just to see how it, how it plays out there, maybe even a 15 team roto league, but if someone else emerges, I have no qualm with dropping David Peterson. Let's move over to the other side. The New York Yankees are acquiring Andrew Benintendi. You know, they get swept by the Mets. They go out and they just have to make a move right away. It's panic season. They traded for Andrew Benintendi.

They gave up three prospects. I hope I'm saying these names correctly. T.J. Sykema, Beck Way, and Chandler Champlain. Three very interesting names. Sykema and Wei are top 30 prospects in the Yankees organization. Champlain is not currently ranked inside the top 30. to MLB Pipeline on MLB.com. So far this season, Ben Attendee is batting 320.

That's the fifth best batting average in all of baseball. Only three homers, four steals, so kind of empty batting average for fantasy purposes. 785 OPS is fine. Good plate discipline, 10% walk rate, 13% strikeout rate, definitely helps in points leagues. His home run to fly ball ratio is just 3.2%. And I think, Chris, everyone's mind will say,

well, now he's going to Yankee Stadium. he's got the shore porch, she's going to pull the ball. If he played all of his games in Yankee Stadium this season, according to Statcast, he would have six home runs. So double the amount that he has now.

It's not a crazy amount. You look at just the way that he's played in his career. He sprays the ball to all fields. I don't think this really changes his value much at all. If anything, I think it'll help with counting stats. I can see him slotting in fifth in that order and should help with RBI and run scored. Yeah, there was a period where he was

hitting the ball in the air more and hitting it to the pull side more and that was really bad because he was playing in Fenway Park and he's not someone who has a significant amount of raw power and so he was just hitting a lot of Valueless fly ball so you know if if he had that approach right now and he was making the kind of contact that he had right now maybe you could see Andrew Benintendi having a really good stretch with the Yankees where he you know hits eight home runs the rest of the season and is more useful than that. But I think generally speaking, a lot of his success right now is coming down to the fact that he's hitting the ball to all fields.

He's kind of just hitting for an empty batting average. He's hitting kind of, I don't want to say soft line drives, but he's not hitting the ball with authority. He's someone who, you know, he's like a 279 expected batting average. It's pretty good. That's in the 89th percentile. But, you know, it comes with a three, what is it, 403 expected slug?

percentage. So, you know, not hitting the ball with authority there. I just, I think, and I think he has a 16% pull rate on balls hit in the air this season or fly balls. So there's just, there's not much opportunity for him to take advantage of the short porch and right field the way he swings. Benintendia is someone I think has been playing over his head for most of the season. I don't think the trade is going to cause him to stop playing over his head. I think it was just inevitable. He'll be a good source of batting at. average, that's probably it. His sprint speed is now in the 54th percentile, so I don't think he's going to start

running a lot more, although the Yankees have been a bit more aggressive on the base path this year than in the past. But generally speaking, I think, you know, what you see is what you get. And he's a sort of one category guy. And that one category is batting average. So there are team builds where that's valuable. And I would think in points leagues, he's probably higher ranked than you would think, just because he doesn't strike out very much.

He's got a decent walk rate, but not someone who I expect to go nuts here after the All-Star or after the trade deadline. I think if anything, it's a slight boost in his value, but not nearly as much as people might think just because he's a lefty hitting in Yankee Stadium. If anything, I think it's probably just a better real-life baseball move for the Yankees.

You know, you get a contact hitter, lefty in the lineup, kind of break things up a little bit. So it'll help them, but I don't know that it matters much from a fantasy perspective. Let's move into Wednesday's action. Finally. Oh my goodness gracious.

Oh my goodness gracious. And today we are going with negativity, unfortunately. Chris, oh my goodness gracious for you. Yeah, we're going negative. And I'll start with one that's really disappointing. Ryan Green went 0 for four with three strikeouts on Wednesday.

Excuse me. Udarvish pitched really well. He continues the pitch really well, had 11 strikeouts in this one. Riley Green had three of them hitting on the leadoff spot. And over the last 18 games now, he has a 37% strikeout rate. 30 strikeouts over his last 18 games, he's hitting 208. He seems a little overmatched right now. The quality of contact metrics are decent overall,

but in the month of July, they've been a little worse, as expected Woba has dropped from 372 in June to 323. in July, which is still decent, but given the strikeout rate, you know, it's, it's hard to see him getting to those numbers. So I still love the potential. I still think Riley Green has a fantastic future ahead of him. But, yeah, seems a little overmatched right now. I think it's the way to put it. And we've kind of moved back into the more traditional track for a prospect, where the first time they come up, they struggle, and it takes time, make adjustments,

and hopefully if Riley Green or any prospect is the player that we think they are, then eventually they'll bounce back and they'll get back on track. But we've seen it a lot so far this year, especially last year, just prospects coming up and struggling their first time in the majors. And I think it's no surprise that the same thing

is happening with Riley Green right now. Chris, would you look to drop him right now? A few of the most added outfielder's, We've talked about Stephen Kwan recently. Andrew McCutcheon has been very good over the past month or so. Those are really two names that are pretty widely available. What do you think about dropping green for one of those? In a points league, I think it'd be okay.

I think in a roto league, I would rather hold on to green. I just think there's a little more upside there if he does figure it out. But in a points league, like McCutcheon's plate discipline, you know, definitely helps. So I think that'd be fine in the shallow. formats. Yeah, I agree with that. I think in shallow leagues, we talk about this a lot. It's, you know, you can kind of just ride the hot hand and hopefully one of those hot hands that you pick up just, you know, turns out to be a breakout for the rest of the season's second half. Having said that, I would just prefer, my preference would just be to hang on to Ratley Green.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's probably the answer, right? It's just kind of park him on the bench for now and yeah, let's see. But I don't think you can start him based on what he's doing. Right. Yeah, let's see what he does over the next couple of weeks and hopefully Riley Green could get back on track. Oh my goodness gracious for me is Nathan Avaldi who did not have a great start here on Wednesday against the Guardians and he has really struggled in three starts since returning from the IL. 10.38 ERA 208 whip. Only eight strikeouts and 13 innings pitched and I'm not sure that he's completely healthy Chris. You see it in the velocity being down 1.6 miles per hour on the fastball in this start. It was 2.4 on the curve 2.3 on the cutter. Overall you know the ERA is

4.32 for the season now. Granted, the underlying numbers are pretty good. K-minus walk rate, ground ball rate, swinging strike rate. All very good, actually, for Avaldi. So what do you do with him? He's 94% rostered. Is he another one? You just kind of park on the bench, or

willing to drop him for one of these pitchers that is emerging right now? So there are some interesting names out there. You know, Reed Detmer's as someone we've talked about. Nick La Dullo. Braxton Garrett was one of them, although he got hit pretty hard by the Reds today.

I think I would be okay dropping of Aldi for Lodolo or Detmer's. I don't think you necessarily have to, but he's always been someone who he throws really hard, but his fastball isn't great. Well, right now he's not throwing that hard. You know, average 95 with the fastball or 94.7, something like that today. 94.7, yeah. And he's just, I don't think he's going to be able to be effective in that velocity.

Because he's, you know, he's been iffy at times when he's throwing 97, 98, 99. So it's going to be something to watch over the next couple of weeks to see how his velocity starts specifically to see how the velocity looks. Because right now, I don't think you can start Nathan Volta. I would prefer not to drop him, though. I don't think you could start him right now either. You know, talking about his underlying numbers, it kind of, made me think about, I guess the mistake that I made with Sean Mania entering the season where

I looked at all these underlying numbers and they all look good for Sean Mania, but ultimately does give up a lot of loud contact. And if you look at Nathan Avaldi, sixth percentile in hard hit rate allowed this season, I mean, he's giving up a ton of hard contact. So yeah, that's always been the case with him. Yeah. While the underlying numbers look pretty good for Avaldi, he is getting hit quite hard in a division in a ballpark that obviously is not. not great to pitch in. So I think I would opt to hold as well, but in shallower leagues, like if Aaron Ashby was available, he's 60% roster. I would make that swap. I think that's fine. Yeah. I would be willing to do something like that as well. Oh my goodness gracious. Just a series

that happened here. The Astros just got swept by the A's. How? Why? It's, Chris, I don't, I don't, you can't explain stuff like this. I don't. Baseball. Yeah. That's just, that's, that's all it is. It's just sometimes weird things happen in baseball. I mean the you know the best team loses 60 plus games a year including several to really bad teams. It's it happens. Yeah it is I saw that this is the first time the Astros have been swept in a three game series dating back to last September. So has not happened a single time the season and then of course happens against the Okunay's of all teams. Let's move into waiver wire hitters names that we continue to talk about. It's just Chris, what do you think?

Like, is it a disservice that we just keep talking about the same names? I don't know. I guess maybe it's better to ask the listener, but like, these guys are doing something

every day and they are still widely available. Like Jose Miranda, for example, three for four, hit his ninth home run. It came off of Corbyn Burns. He's less than 50% roster. It would be doing a disservice

to not talk about Jose Miranda at this point, like when he's having good games. That being said, I think one thing you run into at this point in season is like roster rates just don't move.

as quickly. You know, there aren't as like waiver wire, fab, it's not as competitive as it once was. Teams have, you know, dropped out or lost, you know, aren't paying as much attention. So yeah, I think there are going to be situations where guys are red hot for a month. And if that happened in April, they'd probably be 90% rostered. But, you know, Jose Miranda, his overall numbers still looks sort of iffy. He's getting hot at a time when there's not as much competition for waiver wire hitters. So yeah, I think it's partially a reflection of the fact that, yeah, the roster rate's not going to move as much. Although he is now up to a 281 average with a 799 OPS for the season, Jose Miranda. So that's pretty good. Yeah. And for a long while, I know he was doing it

against lefties, but again, I mean, home run off of Corbyn Burns. It doesn't get much more impressive than that. Yeah. We will get to Miranda again in just a little bit. Routy Telez could be out there in some shallower leagues, maybe some points leagues, he's 74% rostered. He went two for four with a double dong, had six RBI on Wednesday. He's now up to 20 home runs total and potential finally being

realized here with Routi-Tales, at least in terms of the power, because the batting average has dipped quite a bit. He's down to 230 overall. Chris, what do you think? In a shallower league, BRI dropping like Joey Vado, Max Muncie for Routy Tolez?

Yeah, I think that's fine. Yeah, I don't think it's like a must, but it's okay to ride the hot hand when those, when, you know, those guys aren't hitting well. The thing about Rattie Tellez is he's had now, let's see, looks like this is his fourth multi-home run game of the season, including two since that two home run eight RBI game that he had in early May. Coming into tonight since that eight RBI game, he had a 691 OPS. That includes two, two home run games. So, you know, he's certainly capable of hitting for power, but it's, you know, he, I guess is a streaky hitter if you want to say that or, you know, it's kind of a one-dimensional

power hitter. So there's no reason to believe that just because he's, you know, hit a couple home runs today, that that's going to mean anything for tomorrow. Yeah. I just think, comparing him to Votto and Muncie in particular, it's, there's similar skill sets, I think, all around. It's lower batting average. He's actually doing it. Yeah, he's the one who's hitting for the power. So, yeah, I think in shallower leagues, that's fine to make that swap. If he is available in your league.

Third baseman mentioned Jose Miranda, another big game. He is 46% rostered. He's got seven home games next week. Alec Bohm went two for four with two runs and two RBI. His fourth straight multi-hit game. And Chris, I know he was one that you said that you're paying attention to. Let's see what happens here in the second half. in July, 439 batting average, two homers, 11 runs, 12 RBI, 1,100 OPS for Alec Bohm, 50% rostered,

and then No-Wen Jones. Another big game here on Wednesday 3-4 for 4 with two doubles, three runs scored. He's batting 306 overall in the early going, hitting the ball hard. He's got a 19% barrel rate, very small sample size. I get it. I'm pretty sure I asked either you or Scott this question yesterday, but how do you rank these three? Miranda, Boe, and No.

and Jones. I think I would go Miranda. I think I would go Jones and then Bome. I think so too. I'm trying to remember yesterday. I think it was a I don't think it was Bome. I think it was someone else in there. But yeah, I think it was a similar group. And you know, Bome like the underlying numbers are very good in the month of July. He has a 374 expected batting average. He's hitting the ball hard 90.1 miles per hour average average eggs of velocity. And he's not striking out. You know, this is what the good version of Alec Bohm would have looked like. But, you know, the overall numbers, it's mostly just an empty batting average. And I'm not sure that the power is going to be there. On the other hand, I don't know, because he hits up all hard. It's a 67th percent exit velocity. And his launch angle is 10.4 degrees, which is almost double what it was last season. So he is doing the thing that we hoped he would.

you look at the barrel rate and it's identical to last season. He still, you know what? He's, while the launch angle is up, Chris, I think a lot of it is line drives, which is not a bad thing per se. Obviously, that's, you know, very conducive to batting average. But it still just limits his power potential. Yeah, his fly ball rate is 18.2% last year. It was 16.5%.

Exactly. Yeah. He hit a lot of line drive last year. He's hitting even more this year. But it's still a lot of ground balls. and a lot of line drives, but those aren't necessarily going to go over the fence. Yeah.

I agree with your ranking. I think Jones, Nolan Jones is kind of this mystery box right now, and I just think we might have more upside than Alec Bohm. Bome is a fine player, but I just don't think that he'll be able to tap into any of that power upside. The biggest mystery for Jones, really, is just that the Guardians haven't really faced many lefties

since he got called up, so we don't know how much he's going to play or what he's going to do against them. So, you know, he's hitting 306 overall, very good early numbers, but, you know, it's a question still. That's not to say he can't hit lefties or won't play every day, but it's a question. All right, some utility batters, the guys that you can use all over in your lineups, Luis Arias, not Ramon Arias. You know, Chris, I didn't realize that they were brothers until just recently. And I feel...

I didn't realize that until literally three seconds ago. I felt so dumb because if you actually look at them, they look very serious. similar. And that makes sense. Luis Arias and Ramona Reyes. But Luis, with the Brewers, went one for two with two walks and hit his 12th home run, back-to-back days with a homer. He's got a modest six-game hitting streak. Obviously, someone that Chris and I liked quite a bit coming into the season, has not really lived up to expectations. Badded ball data, not really great either for Luis Arras. Josh Rojas had another solid game here. He went two for four, hit his sixth home run. He's betting 283 overall. And he's having a pretty big July. He's hitting 361.

in the month, two homers, eight doubles, 11 RBI, six steals, 58% rostered. I guess let's just throw Ramon Arias in this conversation as well, Chris. Players that you can use all over the place, how would you rank those? Luis, Ramon, Josh Rojas. I would go, in Roto especially, I think Josh Rojas is the top pick because of the stolen bases. He's got 11 of them and 272 plate appearances. You put that out over a full season and you're probably talking, you know,

really 20, 25 stolen base potential there. So I think he's the most interesting one there. And then I think I would still go Luis Arias over Ramona Arias. I hope that doesn't make things awkward at family dinners. But, you know, I still, I do think Luis Arias, his contact profile, his pull profile, you know, still gives him a little more room to be a more consistent hitter. Although Ramon Arias, you know, has a pretty similar profile. So the fact that he's hotter right now, I think it's okay if you want to go with him over Urius,

because I don't think either of them is like a foundational piece for your team either way. So riding a hot hand when you're talking about sort of fringy guys like that is perfectly fine. Yeah, I agree. Rojas for me in Categories leagues, actually looking at head-to-head points per game this season, he actually is averaging the most, Josh Rojas so far. Yeah. But I think Arias' skill set, he walks quite a bit. Oh, which one? Luis Arias, it's a good point.

I think his skill set is probably the best for points league. So I would rank him at the top, and then Rojas in Categories League's. Second Baseman. Oh, man, there's so many. I mentioned it. Like, there was just, like, so many Waverwire hitters that did something here on Wednesday. Gavin Lux went three for four with two RBI, and we've talked about him a lot recently. Since the start of June, he's hitting 3.38, three homers, eight doubles, four triples, two steals.

So just kind of all over the place right now with the extra base hits 71% rostered and no one gorman he went two for four with a sock in a shoe his 10th homer his first seal batting just 229 overall 32% strikeout rate for gorman only has 15 at bats against lefties does not play every day let's say you're in a points league chivalreleaks chalower league gabin lux or nolan gorman I think I'd rather have gabin lux the the counting stats are so bad for him I mean, yeah, he bats ninth. Yeah, you said since, since June, he's appeared in, let's see, 45 games.

He started 41 of them. Let me see. I'm trying to do some quick math in my head. The Dodgers have played 48 games in that stretch, so he started 42 of 48. So basically every day, you know, that's 94% of their games or something like that. So that's, you can't really complain about that. Even then has 162 game pace in that stretch where he, He's hitting 326 with a 904 OPS is 72 runs, 11 home runs, 50 RBI, 7 steals.

That's pretty bad. That's Andrew Benintendi-esque. I can't help but think Gavin Lux as a player who might actually benefit from a trade. There aren't a lot of guys who you would think like, hey, man, get them off the Dodgers. And it might really help their value. but because Lux isn't much of a base stealer because he doesn't have a ton of over the fence power, you know, his counting stat production is pretty limited. But on a different team, Gavin Lux might be a number three hitter.

You know, legitimately might be the number three hitter on a Washington Nationals team, which would mean, you know, no reason that I mentioned them, but would be, you know, more opportunities for RBI, even worse offense, more plate appearances. et cetera. So, and I think he'd run more on different teams. So Lux is a player who I think is really difficult to, to figure out how to value right now, because I think he's clearly taking a step forward and he's turned into, I mean, he's not like a five-win pace for the Dodgers. He's turned into like that borderline all-star that they were hoping for. It's just for fantasy. He remains a pretty unimpactful player. In category leagues, we spoke about this earlier in the season, Chris, when, you know,

he was stealing all these bases that Jorge Mateo. was a must roster player in category leagues. And then he went through this low where he was striking out a bunch and batting average really, really dipped. But in July, he's hitting 263. He hit his eighth home run here on Wednesday. He has 24 steals.

So, I mean, that speed with power that doesn't completely sink you, I think it's pretty enticing. The problem, he's hitting 215th overall. He's the 158th overall player in Roto leagues this year. So I just wanted to point out that if he's available in any categories league

and you need speed, just go check to see if Jorge Mateo is available. If Jorge Mateo's name was Alberto Mondesi, would he be rostered in every category's league? Correct, he would. Because Mondesie, like, I guess you would hope for better

than a 213 average and a 620 OPS, but it's certainly not a guarantee, but Mateo's on like a 45 stolen base pace with double-digit homers, most likely. Yeah. That's not. I mean, if he was hitting 240, that would look a lot like what you expect from

Alberto Mondesies. So, yeah, I think, you know, he probably does need to be roster in all categories leagues. I saw him on the waiver wire and one of mine the other day, and I didn't pull the trigger. And, you know, I don't need speed as kind of what it comes down to is how much do you want to sink the rest of your categories just for some stolen bases. but we put up with a lot for stolen bases in fantasy and categories leagues. So yeah, I do think like a 37% rostered rate sounds a little low. You're probably tired of hearing about him, but we'll just mention.

Jamer Candelario had another big game on Wednesday. He went three for four with two RBI. Three straight multi-hit games for him. He's hitting 300 with five homers, a 974 OPS in the month of July. Deeper category leagues. You need a corner infielder, utility bat. Candelario is someone who got hot. last year this time of year.

So somebody, I am watching in those deeper leagues. Before we hit the break, just a reminder, again, final week to nominate fantasy baseball today for the best sports podcast category in the People's Choice Podcast Awards. Again, the link to help us out is podcastawards.com slash app slash signup and then toggle down the sports category. We have a QR code in the top right corner if you're watching us on YouTube right now. Pull out your phone, scan it. Oh, I lied.

It's actually not there. It's there right now. Pull your phone out, scan that, and it'll take you right to the link again. The sports category, and you can nominate fantasy baseball today. The link is in the podcast and YouTube description as well. We'll take a break and be back right after this. The news and notes, the other big news item that came out on Wednesday, unfortunately, has to do with Mike Trout,

who's been diagnosed with a rare back condition, and the Angels head athletic trainer said that the issue will likely be something that Trout deals with for the remainder of his career. Trout did kind of downplay the injury and said he expects to play again this season. I don't want to blow this out of proportion, Chris. It does seem pretty worrisome, and someone like David Wright kind of creeps into the back of your mind,

and hopefully this does not happen to Mike Trout because he is a generational talent, and we want to watch him play for as long as he possibly can. But I think moving forward his days of maybe being trustworthy, as a first round pick might be over. And in Dynasty leagues, you kind of just have to temper your expectations and his availability moving forward, if that makes sense. And I wouldn't be surprised to see, you know, the angels try to move him off of center

field, which is something that they talked about. Obviously, Shoheyotani makes it difficult to move him to DH full time. I'm not sure Trout would necessarily want that anyway. but, you know, there is, I'm reading a piece from the Los Angeles Times about it because, yeah, the initial reaction when the Angels trainer said that it might be something that he has to, you know, deal with the rest of his career. Like, there's a quote from Trout. I think it's a little exaggeration.

I appreciate all the prayer requests, but my career isn't over. Was from Trout. And then here's a quote from Dr. Allen Bayer, an orthopedic surgeon, an executive medical director of the Hoag Orthopedic Institute added that repeated. repetitive overuse like batting at the major league level could also trigger trout's issue. However, Bayer also explained that an injury like trout doesn't mean he's doomed to having this flare up every season. It's typically treated with anti-inflammatories, rest and physical therapy, and can be managed with adjustments to his training regimen. So the fact that it's not necessarily an injury you see a lot in baseball players, from what I'm reading it, you see it more in contact sports.

I think that framing was what made people kind of freak out, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going, like, just because it's rare doesn't mean it's especially concerning. And I don't know, it's obviously a concern. I don't want to downplay it either. But hopefully it's nothing too concerning. Yeah. And it's, look, I'm not going to. to do the injury-prone thing with Mike Trout, but we just, the facts are that he has missed a lot of time over the past five years, basically. And these injuries haven't necessarily been connected. You know, last year it was a calf injury, which frankly could happen to anybody. Now he's dealing

with his back thing. It's just, they're adding up. It's one thing after another. And I understand the frustration if you drafted Mike Trout in the first round this year. Hopefully he's good to go and has a long prosperous career. Vinnie Pass Quantino was out of the lineup Wednesday due to right thumb discomfort. Justin Turner returned to the lineup after missing five straight with an abdominal issue. Harrison Bader is expected to be shut down for a matter of weeks as he's dealing with plantar fasciitis in his right foot. With Andrew Heaney returning, more on him in a bit. Mitch White was optioned back to AAA. A's reliever Danny Jimenez will begin a rehab assignment at AAA on Friday. The A's continuously go to Lou Trevino. Maybe they're trying to showcase him for some

kind of trade. He hasn't been very good. So, I don't know. We'll see if Danny Jimenez can reclaim his closer roll. It was AJ Puck today. So, you know, that was probably because Trevino had pitched a lot recently, but I wouldn't mind seeing A.J. Puck get an opportunity. Yeah, I agree with that. Joe Adele was out of the lineup due to bruising and stiffness on his arm. Tyler Wells left his start due to back discomfort. And I believe I saw he's likely bound for the IL. And if that happens, could be an opening here for D.L. Hall to get called up for the Orioles. And I know he's been great over the past month or so. He said he was like tipping his pitches.

And Scott recently wrote about him in the prospects on the verge. I actually think it came out on Wednesday so you could go look that up. But his most recent start, he got rocked. So it's up and down a little bit. But maybe D.L. Hall gets an opportunity with Tyler Wells going on the aisle. Alex Fayetteau will require season-ending surgery on his right hip and some other prospect news. Rangers third base prospect, Josh Young, is scheduled to begin playing at rehab games Thursday in the rookie level Arizona Complex League as the designated hitter.

Young has been out since February after having surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder. And, you know, Chris, it wouldn't surprise me that if Josh Young hits the ground running and, you know, over the next month or so, he's just hitting very well, maybe he gets an opportunity with the Rangers later on in the season. I'll just throw it out there as something to pay attention to. Yeah, I mean, he was someone we thought had a pretty good chance to break camp with the team before the injury. So, yeah, I'd love to see that. He had a 1088 OPS at AAA last season, only 35 games. But don't think he has a ton left to prove in the minors, except that he's healthy. Yep.

And you mentioned this earlier, but Red Sox chief baseball operator, Hein Bloom, told reporters that it is, possible first base prospect Tristan Kossis contributes later on this season. He is hitting just 252 with seven homers and 818 OPS in 44 games a season and has missed time with that ankle injury. But coming into the year, I mean, he was regarded as probably like a top 20, top 25 prospect, Tristan Kossis, hit tool, power, and obviously a pretty good division to hit in there in the AL East. So if he or Josh Young gets an opportunity later on in the season could see, see both of them being WaverWire additions. Speaking of the Waver Wire, let's move over to pitchers.

Kyle Gibson puts together a quality start up against the Braves. He goes six innings, four hits, two runs, four strikeouts. In this one, he had 12 swinging strikes on 96 pitches. Cole Irvin, the Astros killer. Five straight quality starts, he goes seven innings, two runs, four strikeouts against Houston. In four starts against them this season, he has a 1.79 ERA. I can't explain it, but shout out to Cole Irvin. He's getting it done.

60% rostered. Looks like he is at the Angels next week. Marco Gonzalez bounced back with a quality start after two rough outings. He was up against the Rangers, seven innings, two runs, five strikeouts in this one. 12 swinging strikes. We don't normally see that from Marco Gonzalez. He's 63% rostered. Looks like he has two starts against the Angels and at the Yankees next week.

and it turns out that Braxon Garrett needs to face the Pirates every time out which we kind of speculated we didn't know how much we could trust it he was at the Reds on Wednesday he gave up five runs over five innings pitched most of that came in the first inning still had eight strikeouts to one walk

so you'll like to see that underline numbers still look pretty good for Braxon Garrett he's 61% rostered looks like he is in line for two stars next week Reds and Cubs as well Chris anything you'd like to add on these for Gibson, Irvin, Marco Gonzalez, and Brexon and Garrett. Yeah, Irvin, Gibson, and Gonzalez are all kind of different flavors

with the same type of pitcher, and none of them are particularly interesting flavors. I don't know if I would necessarily just say that they're vanilla, but, you know, maybe a vanilla with like a slight caramel swirl or something. Nothing that I'm too excited about. They're like those jelly beans, Chris. You ever had those, like, nasty jelly beans? the I mean yeah I guess just the regular flavor jelly beans that aren't normal fruit flavors I think are pretty gross

Braxton Garrett might be I feel like this is a very I feel like this is a very Scott White type of analogy that I'm going on you know Braxton Garrett might be like a probably not like a high-end gelato but could be like an E. you know, Reese's pieces kind of thing. Like not the best ice cream you've ever had,

but one that, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to write them off just because it was humid and you decided to eat it out outside and it melted really quickly. You know, I don't necessarily want to write them off just yet. Like you said, four runs in the first inning, settled down after that, still had 13 swinging strikes on 87 pitches, which is a solid rate. 10 on the slider, the slider still looks like a very good pitch.

So I'm not going to drive. Brax and Garrett, and I think I, I find him certainly more intriguing than the Gibson, Irvin, Marco Gonzalez group. Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. He's 61% rostered. It could still be out there, but of this group, I would probably rank them Garrett, Irvin, Gonzalez, and then Kyle Gibson. In deeper leagues, Jansen Junk makes a strong first start of the season. He pitches for the Angels, by the way. He was at the Royals. He went five shutout with eight strikeouts to just one walk. He had 11 swinging strikes on 86 pitches.

Notice his slider velocity was up 2.7 miles per hour in this start compared to, I think he either made a relief appearance earlier this season. That actually might be compared to his velocity from last year because he's barely pitched. Either way, it's clear the angels are, you know, maybe it's an organizational thing, but they're throwing these harder sliders, re-detmer's, and now junk is doing it as well. Minor league career is kind of iffy, not great, Chris. but 1% rostered. Pretty intriguing start.

What do you think? I'm not particularly interested in. I'll keep an eye out, but the only thing I really want to say is that it feels wrong that, like he doesn't throw hard, 92.5 miles an hour, but it feels like a guy named Jansen Junk

should be throwing like Jamie Moyer out there. You know, like it's disappointing. Yeah. More like a Marco Gonzalez type, right? Yeah, yeah. That would be a more, you know, a more appropriate. approach to the craft.

Yeah, you know what? Slider looked pretty good in this start, so I don't know. Something we'll follow in deeper leagues. It looks like he might go up against the Oakland A's next week. So in those deeper leagues, if you just need a streamer, might want to do it with Jansen Junk. Andrew Heaney made his return to the mound, and he was up against the nationals.

He went four shutout, one hit, three walks, four strikeouts. He had 12 swinging strikes on just 71 pitches, and threw his fastball a ton in the start, 76%. and the velocity was up a little bit on that fastball, up nearly two miles per hour on his slider. 76% rostered could be out there in some shallower leagues. Chris, what are you doing in terms of rankings

when it comes to Andrew Heaney? Where do you plan to move him up to? I have him 70th, and eyeballing it, I could move him to like 60. So behind Sunny Gray and Martine Perez and Tyler Anderson, I think that's the right range. I think he has more upside than those guys, but, you know, obviously the issues he's had

staying healthy so far make it, you know, pretty, pretty risky. So not someone that I would necessarily drop someone that I feel really good about. In a redraft league, would you drop Michael Kopeck for Andrew Heaney? I wouldn't be surprised if Hini was better than Kopeck rest of season, but I think Copac has similar upside and is less of an injury risk. So I would probably still rather have Copac.

Yeah, in a points league, Copac, actually, no, I don't think he has SPARP eligibility. Does he? Hmm. I don't know. Let me pull that up. I feel like he should. Yeah, actually, he should, based on last year, right?

Yeah, he does have SPARP eligibility, so. Yeah, I would hold on to Kopec over Hini and a point. Points League, but, you know, in categories, I don't know. We spoke about Kopec yesterday, just weird season, not really getting it done. I would make that swap if it's available in that format, in a Categories League. Big power month for these two, Chris. Music to your ears. Catelle Marte went two-for-four with his 10th home run, and in July, he's hitting 288,

six homers, 14 RBI, a 1023 OPS, really kind of selling out for power like we've never seen before, Chris. a 56% fly ball rate in the month of July, 13% barrel rate, just putting the ball in the air a ton, and it's been working out for Kutel Marte, also making a ton of contact. And then Matt Olson, when 1 for 3 hit his 20th home run,

in July he's hitting 250, pretty standard, Matt Olson, eight homers and 864 OPS, hitting the ball harder, 92.4 mile per hour, average exit velocity. I feel like it was just kind of a matter of time for these two. like Olson and Katel Marti. Olson especially, like there was no, I mean, I never really lost faith in either of these guys. But Olson, I don't know if I ever moved him down in my rankings.

So yeah, I had no concerns about him. Marte, it's like such a shame that that first month was so awful because it really colored the perception of his season because he's had an OPS over 900 since the start of May. you know early he wasn't hitting for much over the fence power in that time only three home runs between may and june but was hitting for a lot of batting average was hitting for a lot of extra base hits otherwise and now the power's there so i think he's an awesome awesome hitter and i i hope he continues to stay healthy you know the the hamstring injury has you know he's still deaching primarily right um so you know it's

been a little disappointing. Like he's not running. I don't think you can expect that from him at all this the rest of the season, but he's a great hitter. You know, there's my, my faith in Cateel Marte never really wavered. He was playing second base here on Wednesday, so probably bouncing back and forth between second and D.H. But you are correct. Since the start of May, Catelle Marte is hitting 310 with eight home runs, three steals, 22 doubles, and a 934 OPS. That was entering Wednesday. So it's only going to go up after what he did here in this game. He's awesome.

From a points league perspective, he's got a 14% strikeout rate during that time. And those doubles mean a lot more. As many walks of strikeouts. Yeah, he's been awesome. He's been very, very good. The opposite has been true of this hitter. Anderson went two for five with a run and an RBI on Wednesday, but the power has really slowed down. He has just one home run since May 24th. Since May 24th, one homer for Tim Anderson. What's going on with

him? Home run to fly ball ratio, way down the season, 11%. That's been up over 16% each of the past three seasons, not hitting the ball nearly as hard as he has in the past. Over the past 28 days, Tim Anderson is the 30 second ranked shortstop in 5x5 roto. Chris, what do you think about what's going on with Tim Anderson? And would you look to buy low as we approach the trade deadline? We definitely look to buy low on Tim Anderson. You know, I think the thing with the pat, like he's such a good bat for batting average that the fact that he's hitting 245 in the month of July.

I almost don't even think about that. You know, I guess like his batting average is like probably, like 260-ish, 2-55-ish since he came back from the injury, eyeballing it in late June. So, you know, maybe there's some lingering effects of that. He is striking out a little bit more this month, although you're talking about like an 18% strikeout rate versus 14% before that. So I don't think there's really much to be concerned about there. Excuse me, I think I have a little bit of a hiccup.

But I don't know. I think it's probably just one of those things with Tim Anderson. and I feel pretty confident that he's going to figure it out. But, you know, his approach, which is, you know, hitting the ball to all fields, hitting a lot of line drives the other way, you know, might not be super conducive to hitting for as much power. And you're seeing this season, he is hitting more line drives, fewer fly balls. So that could just be, I don't know if it's a conscious tradeoff that he's making,

but that he's just, you know, a little less dialed in for power right now. All right. Let's move over to the fact that he's 30 seconds short. stop over the past 28 days. If anybody's concerned about that, absolutely bylaw and Tim Anderson. I agree. What do we do with these pitchers? Lucas G. Lito was meh, once again. It was in Coorsfield. Five innings, three hits, six hits, rather, three runs, four walks, four strikeouts, a two point a whip here in this start. He did have 12 swinging strikes on 104 pitches, velocity down once again. The fastball averaged 91.8 miles per hour in this start. That was 93.8

Miles Prower last season. His last 11 starts, including Wednesday, 6.80 ERA. 11 starts for Lucas Chelito. And then Kevin Gossman had a clunker against the Cardinals, four and two-thirds innings, eight hits, five runs. I was so astounded when I saw this. 385 Babbup against Kevin Gawson in the season. And he allows a decent amount of hard contact. You know, he's like 48th percentile. That's fine. I mean, he gets a lot of whiffs. He gets a lot of strikeouts. It's actually a little bit better than it was last year. He has allowed over 10 hits per nine this season. So his whip, his batting average against, is abnormally high.

It's just very weird. So obviously not the same class of pitcher, but what are you doing with Gileto first and then Kevin Gosman? Maybe look to buy low on Gosman, or are you actually concerned here? Have the Blue Jays been? Sorry. Yeah, Blue Jays. Why, I just, he is on the Blue Jays, right?

I'm remembering that. Okay, I just had a complete brain fart about it. Have they been especially bad defensively this season? I don't. I was just gonna pull that up. I think so. I'm pulling it. I'm looking at fan graphs right now. They've got them their defensive value is sixth in baseball. So that doesn't seem to be the explanation. Um, they are in terms of defensive runs saved third best in baseball. Yeah, because I got maybe, you know, I was thinking maybe there's some explanation there with why Josea Bereas has been so in it. In effect. but doesn't seem to be the explanation. I don't know. Yeah, I think that's mostly just bad luck. Like, Gosman strikes me as a player who can run a high babbip without it necessarily being bad luck.

But even there, you know, 388 babbip allowed is just, that's not outside of maybe the worst pitcher in baseball, that's not really within the range of normal outcome. So I would think, even if he was a high Babbup guy, you're probably looking at that being like 50 points higher. His expected ERA, his ex-FIP, his FIP, all suggests he's been still very good.

So I'm not really all that concerned about him. How about this, Chris? His 385 Babbup, the highest among qualified starting pitchers, even higher than Patrick Corbyn. Yeah, that's not surprising. I mean, I mean, that's crazy.

Part of that is probably that he has the, I don't know if he has the lowest home run to fly ball ratio of any starting pitcher, but I would guess, yeah, he was entering today. So that's probably related, but then you look at Merrill Kelly, who has the second home run, lowest home run to fly ball ratio. His babbip is 110 points lower. So I think Kevin Gosman's really, really good. I think he's an ace.

I think that bad luck explains most of what's gone wrong for him when things have gone wrong. For Lucas Gialito, Chris, I dropped. them down to, maybe this is too aggressive, but SP 43 in my rankings, it's... I dropped him to 40. Yeah, this is now more than half the season where he's pitching to a near 7 ERA, so I don't think I have it

in me to drop him in even the shallowest of leagues, but I just don't think you could start Gileto right now at all. No, I can't drop him. There's too much of a track record here of him being very good, but like this isn't a scenario like Kevin Gosman's, you know,

recent funk where it's just seemingly explained by some bad luck or some bad variants. He has a 512 ERA and a 448 expected ERA. He's got the worst expected Wobon contact of his career. He's got the highest hard hit rate of his career since he was 21 and 2016 in a small sample size. So Lucas Giulio is just worse. It had pretty much everything right now. His velocity's way down.

I just, I don't, I wonder if he's just not right physically right now because He certainly doesn't look right. Some pitching standouts. Let's get back to some more positives from Wednesday. U. Darvish has now gone seven in four starts in a row. He was at the Tigers. He went seven, two runs, 11 strikeouts in this one. Max Scherzer on his 38th birthday through a gem against the Yankees.

Seven shutout with six strikeouts made Aaron Judge look quite foolish a few times in this game. Corbyn Burns struggled early but settled down for his eighth. double-digit strikeout game of the season. He went six-ennings, three runs, 11 strikeouts to zero walks. And Luis Castillo, in what could be his final start with the Reds, went seven-innings, three runs with eight strikeouts

against the Miami Marlins. Chris, anything you'd like to add on Castillo, Burns, Scher, Darvish? Yeah, Darvish and Castillo both look really, really great right now. And their history suggests that that's not necessarily predictable. and that a good stretch does not necessarily have to be followed by more continued good pitching, but I feel pretty confident in both of them right now. You know, Darvish, it just kind of seems like he might be a guy who just gets out of whack sometimes because he's got seven or eight different pitches,

and he has to find the right feel for the right mix at different times. But I don't know, it always seems like he figures it out eventually. With both of those guys, I moved them up to SP25 and 26 respectively. Yep, same range. in my rankings. And look, if you told me you wanted Castillo and Darvish over Montas, Logan Webb, Framber Valdez, I wouldn't argue with you. I think they're pitching that well right now.

Pitching standouts part two, Adam Wainwright with a strong bounceback at the Blue Jays, seven innings, one run, eight strikeouts. Terrick Scouble, back-to-back quality starts. He went six innings, gave up two un-earned runs with just two strikeouts to three walks. And Zach Allen, now three solid starts in a row following a, little rough patch for him. He goes five endings, two runs, five strikeouts against the Giants.

Anything on those three gallons, scubal, Wayno. There was a report that the lot of tigers were willing to listen to offers on Terek Scoobel, and there was a lot of incredulity about that. I kind of feel like there's a lot of smoke and mirrors with his success right now, and I don't, I mean, they'd have to get a really good return. Yeah.

But I don't necessarily dislike the idea of selling him, and then that goes for fantasy too. You know, I think there's a lot of talent there, but he's still a work in progress. And even the good start today, only four swinging strikes. I just, I don't know if he's going to be consistently impactful moving forward. You know, I think a move for scuba might actually be better for his value, which is a weird thing to say because Camerica is a good park to pitch in. But the tires really have not done a good job developing starting pitchers. No, not at all.

If he went to a team that, you know, is more, you know, well-renowned for that, like, I don't know, the Dodgers or the Astros, for example. I'm just pulling teams out of, you know, out of that, out of the hat, I guess you could say. But yeah, if he went there, like, that would probably be great for Scoobiles. I dropped him to 43 at starting pitcher. I'm pretty, you know, in that glob for sure, but pretty skeptical. Charlie Morton, another subpar outing at the Phillies, five innings, five runs, four of them were earned, five strikeouts. I was not watching this start. You know, I did the bit earlier in the season, Chris. And now anytime Charlie Martin does anything bad, I have so many people in my mentions on Twitter,

it's fine. I mean, it's, it's fun. We'll go along with it. But I really have not watched a single start since like earlier in the season because of that. He really just had a rough inning. This is the, this is the one that like nobody wants to hear this from us. Yeah, I know. Nobody wants to hear that this was just bad luck and that Charlie Martin just had one bad inning. But like, that's what happened. He had four. hard hits against him. All six of the hits he gave up were singles. He had two errors in the same inning. One was, you know, self-imposed. He tried to pick off Bryce and Stott and threw the ball away. And it was just like a snowball effect, which the one thing I will say about Charlie Morton this season is,

it seems like once things start going wrong, they just really kind of spiral out of control. So, you know, there's his margin for error isn't as wide as it once was. Yeah. So like that's partially on him. He clearly, look, that's why none of us have him ranked as a top 15 starting pitcher anymore. Yeah. You know, he's like 26 or 27 for me, but I still feel pretty confident in him. His previous nine starts before Wednesday, 307 ERA 0.99 whip, 75 strikeouts over 55 and two-thirds innings pitch. That is, that's great. I mean, that's that's Charlie Morton. So rough start here on Wednesday. I'm sorry. Hitting left over is Yerdon Alvarez went one for two with his 29th home run. Julio Rodriguez went one for four with a three run. Go ahead home run.

Back-to-back days with a home run. I would say the wrist looks pretty good. Adoles Garcia went one for three with a walk and his 15th steel. Stalling Marte went two for five with a walk-off RBI single. Now has multiple hits in five of his last six games, has the batting average up to 300 for the season. And Tyro Estrada had a solid game. Went three for four with his 14th steel.

14 steals. That's a pretty good total for Tyro Estrada. Hitting 262. Not really anything you could do with this. He's 84%. rastered. I think if you have Ashrada, just continue to roll with him. He's been pretty good. The call

to the bullpen for the Padres. I'm worried. I'm officially worried here, Chris. Taylor Rogers entered with a one-run lead. He gives up two runs on three hits, takes his seventh blown save and fifth loss. The underlying numbers still look very good for him. But at some

point, the Padres are going to have to try something different because he is just blowing saves at a rapid rate right now. Luis Garcia once again pitched in the eighth inning of this game and would not surprise me if, you know, maybe the next couple of weeks. They take Rogers out of high leverage situations. It's just been a really rough go recently. He had a 4-11 Babbup entering this game since the start of June.

So, yeah, like you said, the underlying numbers still look really good. So it's hard for me to be too concerned. But obviously, that only matters if the Padres share that fit. faith, and this is a team that's not been afraid to be aggressive. So I wouldn't be surprised if they made a move. For the White Sox, Liam Hendricks was unavailable. Kendall Graveman in a one-run game, gave up two runs on three walks and one hit. He takes his fifth blown save of the season.

For Oakland, Lou Trevino unavailable, A.J. Puck picked up his second save. For the Diamondbacks, Mark Melanson, gave up a hit and walk, but picked up his 14th save. For the Mariners, Paul Seawald and Diego Castillo, both unavailable. Matthew Festa picked up his second save. For the Reds, Hunter Strickland gave up a hit

but picked up his sixth save. He is just 5% rostered. I don't think that he's very good, but he's clearly the closer for the Cincinnati Reds right now. So if you are desperate for saves, widely available is Hunter Strickland. For Tampa Bay, Colin Pochet,

in for the save in a one-run game. He gave up a solo homer to Jorge Mateo. Pete Fairbanks, then picked up his first save in extra innings. For the Orioles, Jorge Lopez in a tie game in the 10th inning. He gave up two runs on two hits and two walks.

He took the loss. For the Red Sox, Tanner Halk entered with the game tied in the ninth. Gives up a solo homer to Josh Naler. He took the loss. And for the Guardians, Emmanuel Class A entered with that one-run lead, and he struck out one for his 21st save. To stream or not to stream for Thursday,

Graham Ashcraft versus the Marlins, Jordan Lyles versus the Rays, Brady Singer at the Yankees. Cutter Crawford versus the Guardians, and Justin Steele at the Giants. Graham Ashcroft versus the Marlins. Next question. I'm kind of intrigued by Cutter Crawford. He's pitched well recently, but I get it.

I'm kind of writing these in as we go right now, but let's do this together. On Friday, we've got Dean Kramer at the Reds, Jose Katana versus the Phillies, if he's still on the team. Madison Bumgarner at the Braves. James Caprillion at the White Sox And That is It I mean In shallower league

Strowman at the Giants Cobb versus the Cubs They could be available Yeah if Cobb or Stroman are available I think they're useful They're probably the best of those options But if not I would probably just prefer to avoid this group I think Kintana versus Philly could be good, but again, if he's on the roster, which, you know, there's a decent chance he won't be.

Yeah, if I had to choose one of these, I would say Kentana as well, but I don't love it. We're going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.