Fantasy Baseball Today - JOHN MEANS BUSINESS! Players On The Rise & Trade Ideas (5/6 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

John Means threw a no-hitter with 12 strikeouts on Wednesday (2:00)! How far should he move up the rankings? ... Is Robbie Ray good again (5:48)? Trey Mancini sure looks like he's back. ... We have a bunch of news and notes including Diego Castillo, George Springer, Anthony Rendon, Alex Kirilloff, and Joey Votto landing on the IL (12:30). We also have some updates on the top prospects in the game! ... Let's talk about players who have elevated their game recently including Jon Gray, Yusei Kikuchi and Adbert Alzolay (23:16). Bryan Reynolds or Andrew Benintendi? ... Should you consider selling low on Christian Yelich (36:29)? How about selling high on Walker Buehler? ... Is it time to drop Josh Bell, Victor Robles, and Gary Sanchez (47:20)? ... We wrap up with the rest of Wednesday's action, deep-league names, bullpen updates, and streamers (51:55)! ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank, @AdamAizer Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive. Centerfield. What is magnificent? Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality.

Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam. What is up, everybody? And welcome into the John Means edition of Fantasy Baseball today, presented by Sonos Ark, the premium smart soundbar for TV, movies, music, gaming, and more. Stay tuned for additional details about the Sonos arc later in today's show. Hey, Chris, just a heads up that if my internet cuts out at any point, you'll be riding solo. Are you ready? No, no.

I'm not Scott. Don't, don't do that to me. I will stop. If you drop out, I'm walking away. So we're getting 20 minutes of a podcast if your internet, drops out 20 minutes in. I'm sorry. I don't have the kind of lung control for that. I don't have the kind of breath control for that kind of thing. Anytime I've done a podcast by myself, I end up getting winded because I'm just trying so hard to fill all the dead air. Shout out to Scott White, man. He was

awesome yesterday. A lot of people tweeting in, emailing in, saying how much they love the podcast with Scott holding it down. And look for someone who just had to jump in and look at the rundown, I don't think Scott has ever looked at one of my rundowns ever. And I spend like seven hours a night, making them. So he actually had to look at one for the first time, but he did a great job with it. So shout out to Scotty and especially shout out to him. John Means. We're going to talk about him right here at the top. But a few other things on today's podcast, we will have players on the rise. We've got some trade talk. I've got some questions for Chris. Should you be selling low on Christian Yelich? We'll find out. We have the dropometer, but let's start with it. The man,

the myth, the legend. John really means business. No hitter. against the Seattle Mariners, Chris, the third, well, I guess fourth, no matter. Four. If you count Madison Pumpcarter. The first in 30 years for the Baltimore Orioles, John Means finished

with 12 strikeouts, 26 swinging strikes on 113 pitches, including 14 on that change-up. Chris, did you know that according to Fangraph's pitch values, John Means has the best change-up among qualified starting pitchers in all of

baseball. It's a... That makes perfect sense. Fantastic. So tell me what you saw from John Means and how far are you moving him up the rankings? So, let me pull up my rankings because I closed them after updating them right before the show because I'm an idiot. I moved John Means up to 41

in Roto. And like, you know, I've got Chris Paddock ahead of him. I should probably... Yeah, I'm moving up John Means to 40. I've got him actually right behind Eduardo Rodriguez. who I feel like we haven't talked much about this season, but he's having a really great start,

which is awesome to see. I've gotten behind Carlos Redaunt. That one I'm not sure about. Same with Julio Reyes, Lance McCullors, because I'm just not sure about the workload with those guys. But I do think they're all better pitchers than John Means. So I'll have them ahead of him. But look, he's a must-start guy.

You can't even consider sitting John Means right now. I don't care what the match-up is. And, yeah, his change-up has been absolutely ridiculous. He's ended 48 at bats with it so far this season. He's given up six hits. He's got 16 strikeouts. He's a 37% whiff rate with the pitch. It's just it's his best pitch by far.

It's been his best pitch his entire time in baseball. At one point, it was really the only pitch he had. But now that he's throwing, you know, a little closer to the mid-90s, not quite as hard as he was last season. He was at 93.2 today on his fastball. You know, the whole Arsenal's played up. and I think it's made him a really solid pitcher. You know, not a superstar, but

awesome performance today and just kind of cements what a lot of people, including hat-tipped Scott White, thought he could be coming into the season. Yeah, and I liked Means too. I tweeted this out earlier on Wednesday. It's, I don't know how this happened.

I think I was, I think I was affected by spring training, which is such a rookie move, right? but his velocity was down and I let that affect me. But I like John Means. We were talking about him back in November, December, and I liked what I saw. I think I even wrote him up at some point somewhere,

but I just didn't wind up with any shares. I have zero shares of John Means, which is unfortunate at this point. He's been fantastic. The ERA is 1.37. He's allowed three runs or less in all seven of his starts. I was a little bit more aggressive with moving him up, Chris. I got him at SP 34,

and he ends a group of Southpaws. He is at the back end of a group that includes Trevor Rogers, Carlos Rodon, Julio Aureas, and then John Means, which I think is a very fair spot to put him in. He's just ahead of Kyle Hendrix and Max Fried for me, though those guys have more of a track record. I think John Means might actually have a little bit more upside.

So I'm going to move him up to that spot for now. I will say he's still a flyball pitcher who pitches in the American League East against some really great lineups in some really tough parks and he has a 100% strand rate at this point. So there will be regression for John Means. He's not going to pitch to

a sub 2 ERA all season, but you didn't need me to tell you that. So shout out to John Means. He has been fantastic, but let's get to a few other standouts from Wednesday's action, Chris. Oh my goodness gracious. I mean, if you're watching on YouTube, I'm not going to be

too much about it, but decked out in the Yankees gear they've already taken two against the Astros they've been great games highly entertaining games and I love what I'm seeing but we're not talking about actually Yankees right now I mean yeah no the two wins against the Astros those are their biggest wins in like 12 years

so congratulations to the Yankees why you gotta do that Chris honestly it's their world series the Yankees going up against the Astros who are you rooting for the heat death of the universe you're rooting for you're like you're rooting for state

And let's be honest. You're rooting for Stan. Yeah, I'm moving for Stan. He was awesome today. But it's like, oh, the Astros cheated us out of a title. It's like, well, they cheated a lot of people out of a title. They weren't stealing signs from the Yankees hitters who had one combined run in the final two games of the series. So like, you know, they're not defending the Astros.

I'm just saying like, you're kind of. You know, the Yankees lost that series on their own too. All right. That's not, you know. Enough Yankee talk. I already, I just got five emails. I already see them in my inbox somewhere. Chris, who is your oh my goodness gracious player from Wednesday?

Robert Ray. He has been really, really good over his last three starts. Got off to a little bit of a rocky start in the first couple, you know, coming back from that elbow injury. But today, nine strikeouts, six hits, three and runs. It wasn't amazing. But I believe this is three starts in a row without a walk. That is correct.

Robbie Ray. He had three in his first starts. six in his second. Last three starts, 23 strikeouts, zero walks over 18 and two-thirds innings. I don't know if he can keep doing this. I'm trying to see if I can find out whether this is the longest stretch he's gone without a walk. My guess is yes, at least in a long time. And look, we've always known Robbie Ray has electric stuff. If he can be even just like a below average control pitcher rather than, you know, worst in baseball or close, you know, we know how high the upside can be. And, you know, we're seeing it right now.

I'm pretty excited about Robbie Ray. And you go to his fan graft page and it doesn't look all that great. You see the 4.35 X-FIP and that leads you to believe, okay, regression is coming. His numbers are kind of wonky. The walk rate is inflated from that six walkouting that he had that you mentioned. He's been much better over his last three, which you also talked about. His strand rate is very high that's going to come down. So I see that the babbip is very low at 237. But he's also getting more ground balls than ever before. 44% ground ball rate. He had a 12.6% swinging strike rate entering this start. He just had 21 more swinging strikes on 95 pitches against the Oakland A's, which is a pretty damn good lineup. So I think that these underlying numbers are going to look

a little bit better come tomorrow when they factor in this start into everything. So I would actually be, I don't even know if he's a buy high because people probably don't realize how good he is. First of all, I think he's a must add. He's 63% rostered Chris. So I mean, that's first and foremost. I do think you should get him on your fantasy team. He's in line for two starts next week against the Phillies and at the Atlanta Braves. Not that those are great matchups, but I really like what I've seen. And if you can just, if someone's just giving him away because they're like, oh, it's Robbie Ray. He hasn't been good for years, whatever. I would love to get him on my team.

Yeah, and a couple things to note. One, he's still getting hit really hard this season, eight hard hit balls today. He did have one stretch in his career with one walk over three starts. He actually had only four walks over a five-start stretch in

July to August of 2019. He had a 430 ERA in that stretch because he gave up eight home runs. So, you know, the getting hit hard part, it's always going to be there. But, you know, then you look at that and the rest of the season he was not good. He had a 536 ERA, 26 walks and 40 innings.

So he's had a similar stretch before without it necessarily meaning anything. I don't want to say that it can't or won't mean anything moving forward, but it's very good to see what it means beyond that. We can't say yet. Would you rather have Patrick Corbyn or Robbie Ray?

Robbie Ray. I agree with you. I think. I've got to make that move in my rankings. I don't know if my ranking say it, but I was real, real optimistic about saying. You were very confident there. Yeah. I do think, you know, look, you were drafting Patrick Corbyn much higher coming into the season. I think if you can flip Patrick Corbyn for Robbie Ray right now, you should do. I did have Robbie Ray higher than Patrick Corbyn. Nice. That's actually, I have six lefties in a row between 52 and 57. And Patrick Corbyn's at the bottom of that group. Oh, man, I got to move Robbie Ray up then. I do like him.

All right, go out and get Robbie Ray. The, oh my goodness, gracious player for me, it's not really going to change much. There's not really anything actionable that you could do with this, but let's just highlight all the Baltimore Orioles at this point. We talked about John Means. I want to talk about Trey Mancini

and just give him a tip of the cap here because he's coming back from last year where he opted out. He was dealing with cancer, obviously, and it was a very serious situation. It still is. But he's better now. He's back in the majors,

and he's really coming around. He had a three-run, home run, against the Mariners on Wednesday. He now has six home runs and 25 RBI. That's a 120 RBI pace over 150 games. And the underlying numbers, they didn't look good. A couple of weeks ago, I looked at this, and I was like, all right, he's off to a slow start.

It's fine. I mean, it makes sense that he would get off to a slow start. 294 expected batting average, 540 expected slug for Trey Mancini at this point. So if you held on to him, give yourself a pat on the back because I think even if he's not the player he was back in 2019, even if he's like 80, 90% of that,

you got him at a great discount. So I really like what I've seen from Trey Mancini. The Champions League is close to crowning a champion with the second leg of the semifinals this week. The K-Galazzo podcast provides previews, recaps, analysis, and betting tips for Champions League and Europa League. Listen in as the team chats with UEFA team insiders to give their picks on which team takes home the Champions League title,

follow Kay Galato wherever you find this podcast. Some news and notes. Diego Castillo was placed on the aisle with groin tightness, which is unfortunate because he was pitching very well. I believe he had seven saves, seven of the Tampa Bay Rays, nine saves this season. So they were solely using him. Pete Fairbanks was activated and is 16% rostered.

Andrew Kittridge and Jeffrey Springs are. are the only other two names in the Tampa Bay bullpen that have a save this season. However, Andrew Kittridge actually started a bullpen game on Wednesday, so he will not be in line for a save opportunity. I think that last I checked, they were winning three to one,

which is still the case. They're in the eighth inning, so we might find out right away who is going to get a save opportunity for Tampa. My guess is there's no one person. Yeah, there's probably not one. But Pete Fairbanks is 16% rostered, Chris. Is there, I mean, should you go out and get them in category leagues at least?

Yeah. Anyone who looks like they might get saves is worth adding. You know, I think he's probably, you know, not a high priority. And I can't speak for anyone else. But at this point, I don't think I have the roster flexibility to be chasing saves on someone who's not a sure thing for the role. So, you know, your mileage may vary. It's hard to see in too many leagues, you know, me having the flexibility to chase Diego Custy, or Pete Fairbanks.

Would you rather have Pete Fairbanks or Tyler Rogers, Chris, who Gabe Kapler came out on Wednesday and said, Rogers could be worked into the mix for saves as Jake McGee continues to struggle? Fairbanks. I think he's just a better pitcher. Fair. Certainly for strikeouts. Fair Banks, enough. I have Michael Givens in a league that, like, that's,

a move that I'm making. I already have a claimant for dropping Michael Givens. I was speculating there. Daniel Bard came in and got another save on Wednesday, so I would be okay dropping a speculative reliever for someone like Pete Fairbanks or Tyler Rogers for that matter. George Springer placed back on the aisle

with a right quad-strain. Juan Soto remained out of the lineup Wednesday. Soto will only hit for the time being. He was on the aisle with a shoulder injury, so they don't want him playing the field and throwing yet. Chris, what is up with teams, even with Christian Yelich. Between Yelich, Springer, Soto, teams rushing back their star players, it's clearly not making

sense. It's like, why don't you just let these guys rest up completely until you try to bring them back? And we see it now with Springer. We see with Yelos. What's going on? Yeah, I mean, I L stents across the league are up. You know, obviously anecdotally, I think we've all experienced that with our teams, but I did see there were as many pitchers on placed on the IL in April of 2020 as, you know, in 2019 and 2018 April combined. Wow. And now that is a continuing trend that has been going up for a long time. So it's not, you know, it's not necessarily as stark as it sounds.

Obviously we had 2020 in between, but yeah, this is, I feel like there are more players, you know, significant players on IL right now than anytime I can remember. And, you know, one thing that it could be, and this is usually something, something that you think about on a team level, but maybe this is applying to a lot of teams right now is injuries tend to beget injuries. And what I mean by that is training room time and training room staff are, there are finite quantities of that.

And so when you have a string of injuries, what can happen often is because players get, you know, less attention from the training staff who are paying attention to injured players, you know, you can get, you know, those nagging injuries that they just can't quite get back from or something like that.

I don't know if that's the explanation. I don't think anybody really has an explanation besides the fact that being in the season is the time when injuries happen the most. That is always true. Guys coming back from injuries or guys starting up their workload are more prone to injuries than at any other time. And so, you know, what you're seeing is probably a lot of guys got hurt at the start of the season, which is when injuries happen.

and then as they're coming back to activity, you know, they can get hurt again. I don't know if it's just bad luck. I don't know if it's, you know, a systemic thing. It sure seems like the latter. And yeah, it's been really frustrating watching Soto and Yelich and, you know, all those other guys come back for three days

and then go back on. Well, if you haven't had enough with the injuries yet, let's get to more. Anthony Rendon was placed on the aisle after he foul the ball off of his knee on Monday. Alex Kiroloff, another one. Just like Nico Horner, player we're excited about, playing well. Alex Kirillov placed on the IL with a right wrist sprain.

He's headed to a specialist for further evaluation. Miguel Seno was reinstated and batting eighth for the twins on Wednesday. Joey Vado fractured his thumb after getting hit by a pitch and will miss about a month. What are we thinking that they do here, Chris? Because my first instinct was Mike Mustakis to first, Jonathan India to third, Nick Senzel to second. Senzel has already played four games at second basis here.

So maybe more playing time for Tyler Naquin. Plus Shogo Akiyama is due back pretty much any day now. Yeah, I think that makes sense. You know, when Akeama comes back, you know, maybe he sees some time in center field and kind of cuts into what Naikwin can get.

I'm not really a Naquin believer anyway, so I'm not sure him getting more playing time really has all that much fantasy relevance. but it just stinks. You know, this one is just plain bad luck. Joey Fado got hit by a pitch. There's no systemic issue there. It's just, although actually hit by pitches are up league-wide.

I looked this up earlier because someone asked, 1.3% of all played appearances have ended in a hit-by pitch this season in 2020. It was 1.23%. In 2019, it was like 1.09%. So, you know, those sound like relatively small numbers, and they are, but, you know, it's a 5 to 10% increase from 2020 to 2021. It's not nothing, maybe. Cody Bellinger hasn't been...

Not nothing, maybe. Cody Bellinger hasn't been cleared to run at full speed. He remains week to week. Corbyn Burns's return timeline will be unclear until the end of this week. I already mentioned that Jake McGee note. Tyler Rogers is available. He's rostered in just 23% of leagues, so he could be worked into more save opportunity. needs for the Giants.

Steven Schrosberg is scheduled to throw a 35 to 40 pitch simulated game on Thursday. If all goes well, he'll likely need at least one more simulated game or rehab start before he returns. Buster Posey left Wednesday with a hamstring injury. Brandon Nimmo was placed on the IL with a left finger contusion. The Mets will likely go with Kevin Pilar in center field for those in NL only leagues. David Price has started throwing off a mound. He's only 31% rostered.

And Chris, we've been talking about TonyaSantis. Gonson a ton recently, rightfully so. I think Gonsland has a lot of upside. But it sounds like Price will be back before him. So should we stash David Price? Yeah, I'm not sure they're going to use him as a starter. Yeah, I don't know if they've said anything about that, but he was pitching out of the bullpen before the injury.

And that might be the role that they want him in moving forward. So I think I would prioritize Gonson. But if Price did end up, in the IEL or in the rotation, that wouldn't be the worst thing either. I think you could have some value. Julian Meriwether, hope you did not spend 30% of your fab budget on him in the first week of the season. He was transferred to the 60-day IL with that oblique injury. Rafael Dolis, who is currently in line for a save and has not pitched yet for Toronto, is only 31% rostered. Dolis is the closer. Jordan Romano pitched in the seventh inning on Wednesday. So if you need saves, go out there

get Rafael Doles. Johnny Quedo will be activated Sunday against the Padres. Quato is 59% rostered, had a 1.80 ERA across three starts earlier in the season. Roberto Perez placed on the IL with a fractured finger. Rugnett O'Dore placed on the IL with a left knee sprain. D.J. LeMayhew will head back to second base. Luke Voigt should be back early next week.

And speaking of Voigt, he had two more hits, including a home run on Wednesday with the Yankees' Triple A affiliate. Alex Verdugo was scratched from the lineup with lower back tightness, which continues to hamper him. Bryce Harper remained out with that wrist injury, which is lingering. Jake Oteresey is, quote, trending toward maybe needing a rehab start or two before being activated from the 10-day injured list.

Is this bad news for Luis Garcia? Chris, he's pitched really well. He had eight strikeouts against the Yankees on Wednesday. He has a 3.28 ERA. I would think so. You know, I would assume they're going to move Oteresey back into the rotation when he's healthy. So yeah, Garcia seems like the most likely to move out of the rotation at this point. But as anyone who was listening to the podcast three minutes ago now, everyone in baseball is hurt.

So there may be another spot in the rotation opening up before then. Who knows? Some prospect updates, not because, you know, I didn't have enough box scores to look through every night. But I've now started looking through AAA and double A box scores every night, Chris. I'm just losing my mind. But, you know, we want to stay ahead of the game in terms of. prospect stuff as well. Wanderfranco has five hits in his first two games at AAA, including his first home run on Wednesday. I could see mid to late May for Wanderfranco.

You know, the question is, how's his defense? Can't tell you. I didn't watch the game. I just looked at box scores. That's a little joke, Frank. Yeah. For continuing with the raise there, second base slash outfield prospect, Vidal Bruhan had a, you know, sweet and savory. He had a sweet and Savory. The guy has serious speed. He has stolen a bunch of bases in the minors. He had a home run and a steel on Wednesday. Giant's outfield prospect, Elliot Ramos hit his first home run at AA. Tiger's outfield prospect, Riley Green, hit his first home run at AA. Red's pitching prospect, Hunter Green, this guy throws gas. He had eight strikeouts through a bunch of pitches over 100 miles per hour on Wednesday. Marlin's pitching prospect and their first round pick in 2020. Max Meyer had five shutout with five

strikeouts. And I think there's a lot to be excited about with Max Meyer. Raising the bar, presented by Sonos Ark. Let's talk about a few players, Chris, who have elevated their game recently, and we'll start with John Gray. Continues to get it done, going up against the Giants on Wednesday, six endings, two runs, only two walks, eight strikeouts, the ERA is 3.12, the whip is 1.17. He's 68% rostered. He might be out there in some shallower leagues. The problem, two starts next week, both at home against the Padres and the Reds. Yeah, I don't think you're going to use him in those two starts,

which is disappointing because he has made some changes that are fairly interesting. The biggest being throwing his slider more, he's throwing about 37% of the time. That's the biggest change that we're seeing from him. And I would hope that he'll continue that trend. I think today it was 41%. He got a bunch of swinging strikes with that pitch today. So, you know, that's always a good idea when you throw your best pitch more. But, yeah,

I don't think you can start them against the Padres and Reds in a two-star week at home. It's just too hard to pitch a course field. I wouldn't do it in a categories league, but I think I might do it in a points league. Maybe. Maybe, yeah. The back end of your rotation. Obviously, don't start them over any stud one-star pitcher. But, you know, if you do need a two-star pitcher in a points league. I could see throwing John Gray out there. Yeah, it's basically just gone full Patrick Corby and throwing his slider a ton this season, which has definitely helped. How about your boy, you say Kukuchi, Chris, he just bad luck loser on the other side of that no hitter against the Baltimore Orioles, seven innings, three runs, seven strikeouts. Very surprisingly, every time I look at

this, I just can't believe it. I don't know why. He has consistently gone deep into his starts. You say Kikuchi, seven innings now in three of his last four, 56%. 6% rostered. Problem for him. He's at the Dodgers next week. Yeah, I don't think you would want to start him there, but I still have him right around the 60 range at starting pitcher. I still like what he's done. You know, he got he got babipped a little bit today.

He hasn't been getting as many strikeouts as he did last season. So, you know, there are still definitely some things that he needs to improve on. But I just generally like the profile and I like the stuff and these flashes that we're getting. you know, hopefully mean he's, you know, going to go on a nice little run soon. Would you rather have Kikuchi or Robbie Ray? I think Ray. I think so, too. Would you rather have Kikuchi or John Gray?

Kikuchi. I think so, too. Let's talk about another starting pitcher who has looked really good since he's been recalled for the Chicago Cubs. Adbert Aouselai up against the Dodgers on Wednesday. The Dodgers. Five innings, two runs, one walk, seven strikeouts, 12 swinging strikes on only 79 pitches, continues to pitch off his slider, Chris, a lot like Corbyn, we mentioned,

John Gray, 42% of his pitches on Wednesday were that slider. He now has 20 strikeouts to just four walks over his last three starts. 32% rostered, so he is widely available. Would you rank him behind all the other pitchers we've mentioned thus far today? John Gray, Cacucci, Robbie Ray. I would. He doesn't really pitch deep into starts consistently. It is fascinating that the curveball was his go-to pitch last season. It was really, really good. He allowed a 174X Wobo with that pitch last season, and he's completely abandoned it. He has thrown seven curve balls all season and the slider, which he only threw 7% of the time last season. He's now throwing 47% of the time. So definitely still a lot of tinkering going on with Aliselae. I don't know if, you know, maybe, maybe, Maybe he could work both in and, you know, maybe see what happens there. But I think he's probably just limited enough to, you know, he's really just fastball slider right now.

Last season was really just fastball curveball. So I think he's probably just going to still be kind of a five innings now, you know, maybe some decent strikeout numbers, but, you know, probably not a must start guy. Yeah. And I do think he's more valuable in Roto or category leagues more so. than points leagues because he's just not going to give you that volume in terms of innings pitched. Last week when he made a star, Chris, I actually made the comp to a to Nelson-Lamette Light from last year. Lamet really just relied on those two pitches. He obviously

throws much harder and his slider is just better. So he's not going to be as good as Lamette was, but can he be Lamet Light, Adbert Ows-Lay? I think so. And that's, that's worthy of being rostered in 12-team category leagues in my opinion. Let's look at some hitters. Brian Reynolds, who We haven't talked about much recently. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about a few pirate hitters that were performing well, but let's get back to him

because he kind of just looks like he's back. I think we just sweep 2020 under the rug, which we should do for a lot of players, obviously. Reynolds hit his third home run of the season on Wednesday. Actually came off of U. Darvish. 291 batting average,

849 OPS. The guy has a 31% line drive rate according to Fangraphs. He's 67% rostered. Chris, do you think that number should be higher? probably not because he is a very good average hitter I mean 290 XBA in 2019 296 in 2021 2020 being the outlier at this point you know he he should hit for like 290 or something around there the problem is he's got 26 homers in 879 plate appearances that's like a 20

homer per normal season pace and that's kind of that feels kind of like the upside. He's not going to drive in a ton of runs. He has four stolen bases in his career. I just think he had it all up and he's kind of a one trick pony in a bad lineup. And so there's nothing wrong with having a Nick Marcaicus around, you know, back when the latter part of of Nick Marcagis career when he was hitting for average every year, but not really doing anything else. I just, I don't know if there are too many leagues where he's available where he's, you know, worth starting. Yeah, and I would probably his best format is a points league and it's just tough there because

you only start three outfielders and I mean, chances are you have three outfielders that are better than Brian Reynolds. Yeah, and he does strike out a decent amount. You know, it's, it's one of those guys who, like, he's about league average. It's not, it's not a problem, but it's not like he is getting penalized for that. Yeah, it's not like he's a, you know, Luis Arayas who, you know, has even less power. so he's not as good as Brian rounds, but he's not making an orderly amount of contact.

Well, do you like someone like Andrew Benintendi more than Brian Reynolds, Chris, because Benintendi, I brought him up recently, but we just kind of talked about him in passing. He now has 10 hits over his last five games, including two homers, a steel, six-run score. He's batting near the top of the Royals lineup where it's not a great lineup, but they're scrappy. They're getting it done.

They're playing really well. They're one of the best underdog stories so far this baseball season. he's batting 287 and he's 63% rostered. So do you like Benintendi more than Brian Reynolds? Yeah, I do. He seems to have, you know, fix a lot of things that had gone wrong for him last season. I mean, well, you know, really back to 2019 as well.

He has a 279XBA. That's his second highest for his career highest since 2018. Has his highest X slug. His average sprint speed, which was way down last season, which was really concerning because it had been a trend, has bounced back to about 2018 levels. And so I think he can continue to be a pretty decent source of batting average and stolen bases.

I'm not sure you're going to get more than 15 homers from him at the high end. But if he steals 20, 25 bases and hits 280, that's a really valuable player who's probably worth starting in all leagues. I kind of view him kind of similar to how I view Colton Wong, actually. Both should be pretty good batting average in OBP sources with a little bit of pop, but better speed.

I think he's 4 and O on his last four stolen bases attempts. I think he was 1 in 4 to start the season. They've been letting him run a ton. He's got nine stolen base attempts. Yeah, I was going to say that. He's not fast, but he's on a team that just lets everyone run.

He only had 13 stolen base attempts in 138 games in 2019. He's already got 9 and 27. So I think that's going to be a part of his game. And I would set the over under at 20 right now. Yeah, it's looking good for Ben and Tendi, particularly in those category leagues if you do have them. And you held on to him through those early season struggles.

Last outfielder I wanted to talk about, more so for deeper leagues. But Ivisail Garcia, feels like he's just someone you pick up whenever he's hot. And right now he's hot. He went four for four with three RBI on Wednesday. He has 10 hits over his last five games as well. and surprisingly, Chris, when I looked into the stat cast numbers, 295 expected batting average, 515 expected slug,

a 54% hard hit rate, which was in the 91st percentile. Ivis I.I.L. Garcia, he's going to play every day. Christian Yellish is on the shelf. He's only 26% rostered, but I do think in leagues where you start five outfielders, you probably want to get him on your team. Yeah, I agree with that. I think I might rather have him than Brian Reynolds, actually. Whoa, whoa. Come on, Chris. I know, I know. But one thing is, obviously, Garcia is kind of surprisingly fast. You know, it's, he kind of seems like a guy who's best suited for, you know, maybe more like a DH role at times.

But he's 91st percent on sprint speed. And he's attempted five stolen bases this season. He stole 10 in 2019. I think there's a chance that he could be a 2015 guy. hopefully they keep letting him run and he should be I know he's hit under 242 the last four years so it's kind of hard to buy it but I think he'll probably be helpful

in batting average I actually you know I was doing the waiver wire piece for one of the days last week and he was one of the guys I wrote about and he was like 36% rostered at the time and I was like man I was Garcia's on the waiver wire in any of my league because he would be starting

for every single team I have, given how bad my outfields have been. So, yeah, I think he's a really solid player. Actually, I've always liked have his anniversary of the last couple of seasons, at least. That was Raising the Bar presented by Sonos Ark, and everybody knows I have not seen any movies. That's about to change.

I have recently re-watched Avengers Infinity War this time with my brand new Sonos Ark soundbar, and it was awesome. It sounds like being right there in the middle of the Battle of Wakanda. It truly was amazing to watch and here. And the Sonos arc has multiple uses as well. When the TV is off, feel free to stream music,

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It's pretty interesting, right? So you just walk around, It measures the dimensions, and it basically figures out precisely how to fill out your home with that surround sound feel. So it's very intuitive. It's awesome. Lastly, the Sonos Arc, it looks great. I've seen other soundbars that look bulky and they take up all the space. I just placed it on top of a shelf, which is just below my TV, and it blends right in.

So if you're looking for a way to enhance your home theater, make sure to check out the Sonos Arc. Head to Sonos.com to learn more. We're going to take a quick break. but when we return, we're going to talk about some potential trades. I have some ideas for Chris. I know his trade chart either came out on Wednesday. It's coming out on Thursday. It's coming soon.

It might be here already. We'll talk about it next on fantasy baseball today. So Chris, I brought up recently, well, not recently, earlier in the podcast, that should you actually consider selling low on Christian Yellich? Someone tweeted at me and asked me this on Wednesday, and I don't think it's such a terrible idea. Knowing what we know now, there's no idea of a timeline for Christian Yelich.

It sounds pretty bad based on the quotes that I read on yesterday's podcast where he basically said, I can't keep doing this and they need to figure out a way to get him right. I don't know what way that's going to be. You know what it reminds me of? What are you thinking?

Aaron Judge, between the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 where they're just like, we don't know what's wrong with him, but he's hurt. And we can't figure out why. I think he turned out to have a fractured rib or something, Aaron Judge, at the time.

Someone brought up to me the comp, David Wright, which would be pretty scary as well, because David Wright's, I mean, basically, the whole back has a neck thing, right? I think it was a back. I think it was maybe like a back and neck combined, but obviously that whole kind of situation is combined there. But I was thinking, I'm in my home league. We start four outfielders, it's head to head points.

My outfield is Michael Brantley, Eddie Rosario, Brian Reynolds, Nickenzel, it's not great. It would look better if Christian Yelich was in it, obviously. Would you entertain trading Yelich for a Trent Grisham or Austin Meadows type, Chris, where those are top 15, top 20-ish outfielders? And obviously you're selling Gellich for 70 cents on the dollar. But if you need help in the meantime, I mean, he could be out a month. He could be out two months.

We just don't know. yeah i mean before the season that might have been 50 cents on the dollar you know given if you just take the auction value or fab values that we had uh

yellows was right around a 35 to 40 dollar player for me and meadows was probably like 19 i wouldn't feel great about it and in your position when you have you know four guys who you're okay starting i think i probably would rather not do it but i can

totally see the reasoning for it behind it. You just don't know what Yelich is going to be at this point. You know, he hasn't produced since 2019. Obviously, it's two, you know,

small sample sizes, but the injuries have been a real problem. And he's currently hurt. That's the biggest thing. If he wasn't currently hurt, there's no way I would do it. Or if he was currently hurt, but he was going to be back in a week.

Yeah. No, I agree with that. The uncertainty, it's tough. You know, it's a dice roll. I think Yelich has much more upside than either of those guys.

but there's a non-zero chance that Yelich is basically nothing the rest of the season. As wild as that sounds. Yeah. And someone actually offered me Randy and Rosa Rana already for him, but it's a points league and that's really not where a Rosa Rana excels. So I'm not going to take that. I offered him to someone for Kyle Tucker. I would have done that trade.

If I could get Kyle Tucker for Christian Yelich right now, I would do it. But I moved Yelich down to the 12th outfielder in my rankings just ahead of Judge, Trent Grisham, Byron Bucksson, Chris Bryant, so I'm going to leave him there for now, and we'll see what happens with the timetable. But if you are desperate for an outfieler, I don't think it's a crazy thing to entertain. Walker Bueller, Chris, let's talk about him.

He was at the Cubs, six innings, two runs, eight strikeouts. He has now thrown six plus in all six of his starts. So, I mean, he's made me look foolish. Thus, you know, to this point, I was kind of worried about what the workload is going to look like. And I guess there's still a chance that, whatever, we got a Phantom I.L.

Stand at some point just to limit Walker Bueller. he's looked very good. He's got a 3.13 ERA, 0.94 whip. However, it comes with a 4.51 expected ERA according to Stackast. His 47% hard contact allowed is in the bottom 14%

among starting pitchers. Would you sell high on Walker Bueller right now? Man, Walker Bueller's having such a weird start to the season. I really, I am not quite sure what to make of it. Basically, he's

getting a lot fewer strikeouts. He's getting fewer swings and misses in an era where strikeouts and swings and misses are at record highs. And it seems intentional. He is not throwing as hard as he was last season. His velocity is about one mile per hour down. But for most of the season, his spin rate has been way up.

Tonight was actually a little bit down from where it's been over the course of the season, but he's kind of pulled the 2020 Trevor Rod, Trevor Bauer trick of throwing with lower velocity but more spin. and I don't I think it could go either way I think he could find the strikeouts and just absolutely dominate

or he's getting hit really hard like you said you know today only five hard hit balls but you know he's kind of like a this is the weird thing with the XERA because in the past if Walker Bueller had a 3.00 FIP and a 3.03 FIP with a 313RA I think we'd just be like Walker Bueller's awesome. He's having a great start to the season.

Yep. But that XERA, he's getting hit so hard that you almost, it does add a nagging doubt in my head. But I think more than likely, more likely than not, he's going to be great moving forward. I think more likely than not, he's going to be a top 15-ish starting pitcher moving forward. So I don't think I would sell high on him.

I can see the case for it. But I, I'll stick with my priors on him. And the fact that he's pitching deep into games, I mean, only one start over 96 pitches. So it's not, you know, workhorse stuff. But he's been efficient. Yeah, he's been efficient.

He's been, you know, very good. So I think I would still expect that to continue. And Chris has Walker Bueller ranked as his SP 15. I have him at 13. Scott has him at 13 as well. The problem with trying to sell high on him is, what do you sell high for, right? If you're looking for another pitcher in return,

And it's, I would take either Brewer's pitcher for him if I could, if I can get Corbyn Burns or Brandon Woodruff, but I would imagine you probably can't. I would take, would you take Lucas Gialito, Chris, who kind of has some underlying issues of his own right now. I would rather have Gileo than Bueller. I agree with that. How about- By the way. By the way. What do you got?

Would you like to know who's closing for the race? Oh, man. Let me just, I want to think of like the most random reliever. I'm going to say Fernando Rodney. Not Fernando Rodney. Am I far off? Jeffrey Springs. Okay.

I actually tweeted his name out earlier today as a possibility. He is a lefty who had a 708 ERA in 20 and one-third innings. Last year in a 640 ERA in 2019, but he's been very good to start this season. I'm not exactly sure whether the matchups, like it's the bottom of the order plus David Fletcher, who's a righty.

There's only one righty among the three hitters he's scheduled to face. So I don't know exactly if it's just a matchups thing. My guess is that it's just a raise being raised thing. Yeah,

he is 1% rostered on CBS. That is Jeffrey Springs. In for the save for the Tampa Bay raise now that Diego Castillo is on the IL. I guess in looking deep, deeper categories league. Sure, take a shot. But I think this is now

when we get the real the raise mix and match bullpen that we all kind of expected. I think that's kind of what it's going to be without Diego Castillo on the team right now. A few other potential trade candidates, Chris, I want to bring up Sunny Gray

now has looked great for two straight starts. Seven shutout with eight strikeouts against the White Sox on Wednesday. Only had nine swinging strikes on 90 pitches, but last two against the Dodgers and White Sox. 19 strikeouts, just two earned runs. Would you look to sell high on Sunny Gray?

He does have that back injury history. So you worry about that. I mean, his production in his career has been pretty inconsistent. It has been inconsistent, but really,

you know, over the last, dating back to 2017, really, he's mostly been very good with the exception of one really bad year with the Yankees

where he talked openly about, you know, basically they wanted me to be a pitcher who I'm not. So I'm not necessarily looking to sell high on him. I think he can be, quite good moving forward.

I think the strikeouts are legitimate. The swing strikes are legitimate. He won't throw a ton of innings, but I think he can be, you know, 150 innings with a 3-5 ERA and a bunch of strikeouts. Just as Jeffrey Springs did get the save, by the way. Nice. We'd rather have Sunny Gray or John Means.

I believe I have Sunny Gray ranked higher. I have Sunny Gray ranked just ahead as well. I have Sunny Gray at SP 28. I have John Means at SP 34. Someone in the YouTube... Someone in the YouTube chat before we started asked if they should drop Jose Al-Tuvae. Do not drop him.

And in fact, I think you should be buying low on Jose Al-Tuvae, Chris. He was dealing with a COVID situation earlier. He's kind of been scuffling since then. He is batting just 247, but that comes with a 308 expected batting average. I believe I still haven't ranked

as my fifth second baseman in my ranking. So if you could acquire him, I would definitely look to do so. Yep, 100%. He looks a lot like the guy he was in 2019. Strikeout rates back down. He has a 273 Babbup.

I don't think that's going to sustain. I think he's, his XBA, I think, is more like 280. So, yeah, I think Jose Al-Tube is absolutely fine. And I think you should try and go at him if you can, or trade for him. Would you trade Sunny Gray for Al-Tube? Or do you think you can get Al-Tube for less than Sunny-Gray? I would be fine with doing that.

Okay. I don't know. Yeah, I'd be fine doing that. You know, it depends on your team situation. But if you're one of the six people in the world who has an excess of starting pitching, I would do that. Or if you have an excess of anything, really, if it's outfielder, there's a lot of outfield injuries right now.

So if you can offer up your outfield depth to someone who lost Soto or Springer, well, Soto is still playing. He's just not really playing. Or Christian Yelich to try and get Altovae? I would look into doing that. But for some context, I haven't moved Altuve down at second base. I think he actually, he has fifth right now. I can't remember if he was fifth entering the season.

If he was sixth, I think I had here one spot behind him. So I haven't moved him down at all. Yeah, I actually have Altuve fourth. You have Altuve fourth. Scott has Altuve fifth with Cotel Marte just ahead of him. If Cotel Marte were healthy, I would have him ahead of Jose Altuve as well. Let's fire up the drop o meter here, Chris. And Josh Bell has sat two of the last three games,

Both of those were against lefties in favor of Ryan Zimmerman, which I can't really blame the Nats. This is this weird kind of crossover between real-life baseball and fantasy baseball, where there are decisions that managers make that I agree with, but they just kind of suck for fantasy. Josh Bell is batting 148 with a 516 OPS. His average launch angle is negative 1. Can you drop Josh Bell, Chris?

7? I'm trying to figure out how low is too low to drop him he's still in the 20 range but I would definitely rather have Jared Walsh than him I'd rather have Ryan McMahon than him I'd rather have Nate Lowe than him so he's 21 for me right now

I just moved him down yeah Nate Lowe had two more hits on Wednesday he's batting over 280 now just continues to match how about Trey Mancini I mentioned earlier rather have him than Josh Bell I think so Yeah. Yulee Gereal.

He's not right now. Yulee Geryel is off to an amazing start too. Would you do that? I have Gerell just behind Bell, but, yeah, I think I'd rather have Bell still. But if I needed someone to start right now, it'd be Gouriel. Yeah. What about Victor Robles? What do you do with them, man?

I have him in a 15-team five outfielder league. It's a daily lineup league, and I still throw them out there. It's just, that's probably the deepest form. Matt and I can't drop them there, but I think anything shallower than 15 teams, Chris, you can probably drop Victor Robles. Yeah, there's just, he's not doing much well right now. There's nothing. There's, he's walking.

All right. That's about it. But his sprint speed has actually gone down each of the last two seasons. He was at 95th percent on 2019. He's at 78th percentile each of the last two years. He has really not. rated out well defensively. That probably is a small sample size thing,

but it could also be indicative of a drop in, you know, athleticism, which would be, you know, not a great sign for a 23-year-old who said he spent his off-season, you know, working on being more limber and a little quicker.

And he's won for four on stolen base attempts. He has four, just four attempts in 26 games, which is a problem in its own right, because that only puts him at like a 24, attempt pace, even if he was stealing bases. Well, didn't he steal a bunch of bases in spring too? And that's part of the reason we were getting excited.

Obviously, he was supposed to lead off too. That didn't last very long. So I think in 12 team, five outfielder, Roto category leagues, if you can afford to hold on to Victor Robles or you could probably get him for dirt cheap, there's nothing in the underlying numbers that say he's going to be better. But I still think he can steal. 15 to 20 bases. So if you're real desperate there, maybe you just try and get them on your team. But anything shallower than that, I'm a right dropping him.

Last name, Chris, Gary Sanchez is 2, 429 over his last 12 games. He is batting 175 overall. And he has only started three of the last eight games. L, boom, hang it right on my Yankees hat. I tried to talk myself into Gary Sanchez being a thing. It's not happening. My, I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm brave enough to drop him. Really?

I know that's not really the necessarily the best way to play, but I guess in a 12-team points league, he's probably dropable because you really only, there should only be 12-catcher's rostered in a 12-team points league unless there are guys on IL. And I have him 10th. That makes him pretty dropable. So I'll say a 7 on him.

Mitch Garver is 78% rostered compared to 83 for Sanchez. Garver is hot again. I would make that swap. Sean Murphy's hot all of a sudden too. I know the overall numbers don't look good because he just got off to such a dreadful start. But Sean Murphy's 76% rostered. Would you make that swap, Chris? One catcher, points league?

Maybe. You know, Murphy, I have at 21. So there's a pretty big gap there. But, you know, maybe like Francisco here who's hitting really well. I might do that. All right. So yeah, you can get rid of Gary Sanchez. Some deep league names that you might want to know.

Brandon Crawford, he's been around forever. I mean, people might think he's not exciting. I really don't think he is. But he did go one for two with two walks on Wednesday. He hit his sixth homer, stole his third base of the season. He now has an 837 OPS. His expected slugging percentage is 5'10, which is the highest for him in the statcast era.

He's just 11% rostered. So in the deepest of leagues, Brandon Crawford is playing well right now, probably helped out by Corse Field the past couple of games as well. William Contreras, brother of Wilson Contreras, had two hits, including his first career home run. On Wednesday, he will be filling in mostly

for Travis Darno as long as Darno is out. 12% rostered is William Contreras. Josh Naler has multiple hits in three of his last five games, including two home runs. He's only 8% rostered. These last two, I mean, the deepest. of leagues. We're talking NL-A-L-only. Matt Duffy

had two more hits on Wednesday. He's betting 300. People might not even know what team he's on. He's on the Cubs now. He started seven of the last eight games. He's one-per-scent rostered. I mean, it's cheap exposure to a lineup that's playing pretty well right now. So,

all right, Matt Duffy's playing. And, Hian Jung-Yang, who started for the Texas Rangers on Wednesday. He was at the Twins, only went three in a third, one-earned run, eight strikeouts, 15 swinging strikes on 66 pitches.

It wasn't much of a strikeout pitcher in the KBO. He's 1% rostered. He's in line for a two-star week next week if he remains in the rotation at the Giants and at the Houston Astros. Again, the name there. Heung Jung. The rest of Wednesday,

Shohei Otani, going up against the Tampa Ray is hosting them, five shutout, one hit, six walks, seven strikeouts. Every time out, Chris, He's unhittable. No one's hitting him, but he also walks the world

and he strikes everyone out, too. Yeah, he's got a 21% walk rate, a 37% strikeout rate, and a 50% hard hit rate allow. It's been a strange start for him. I don't know what to make of him. He's been hovering in that like 50 range and starting pitcher for me,

but like I said on Monday's podcast, I think I'd much rather use him as a hitter right now than a pitcher. 100%. Marcel Ozone is heating up. eight hits, including three home runs over his last seven games. Max Fried returned to the mound for the Braves. He was at the Nationals, five endings of one-run ball with six strikeouts.

He had 10 swinging strikes on 72 pitches. He only allowed three hard hit balls. A really nice return for Max Fried. John Carlos Stanton. Uh-oh. Where is it? Here we go. John Carlo.

Non C. Poirlo Sto Paulo. The guy's hot, man. When he's hot, he's hot. Three more hits, including his eighth home run of the season. now has an 11-game hitting streak, and John Carlos Stanton is betting 314 with a 953 OPS. Tip your cap to the man. Casey Mize, I can't really figure this one out, Chris.

At the Red Sox, two straight quality starts now, six innings, one run, but four walks, three strikeouts in this one. He's not getting any swinging strikes. He's still 55% rostered. He's in line for a two-star week next week, at home for both, against the Royals and against the Cubs. Would you have any interest in Casey Mize in that spot? Royals and Cubs, I think only in probably points leagues deeper than 12 teams.

I'm so disappointed in the way this season has gone for Casey Mize so far. He just isn't getting whiffs. He's not, you know, he doesn't have control right now. And it's a 441 ERA and a 534 FIP. So I think that kind of tells the story of how uninteresting he is right now. there could be a moment at any time where the, you know, the light switch flips and he just starts mowing guys down, but we need to see some evidence of it.

You know, there could be like a Dylan cease moment, the last couple of starts. That could absolutely happen with Casey Mize. He absolutely has that kind of talent. But based on what I've seen right now, I don't have much interest in him as a two-star pitcher. Would you rather have Robbie Ray, John Gray, and Yusay Kukuchi over,

Casey Meis? Yes, definitely. How about Adbert Alzali? Probably. The call to the pen. Let's get you some bullpen updates for the Cincinnati Reds. T.J. Anton pitched both the eighth

and the ninth inning in a tie game. Lucas Sims pitched in the 10th in extras and he picked up the win. Chris, if you had to guess who gets the next Reds save opportunity? Anton, Sims, do little. I don't think it's going to be Garrett

because he's suspended, although he's appealing. So I have to guess. Yes. A preference would be to not guess, Frank. Are you sure I have to guess? You have to guess or else I will be mad at you. Anton?

I hope so. I love to get that. I really don't know. Because they see, like, I just think he has too much value in a multi-a-any role. It is the problem. Like, the ability to have him go out there and pitch three innings in a close game is super valuable. So why don't they just pitch him for the seventh, eighth, and ninth?

Sounds all right to me. I mean, I've always wondered, like, you know, You could get like 120 innings out of a guy like that. That'd be really interesting. But I would guess it's him based on the usage today, but I don't have any confidence in it. For the Rockies, Daniel Bard picked up his third save, but he walked two and allowed an unearned run.

His ERA remains 8.10. For the Cardinals, Alex Reyes, got his ninth save. Still has not allowed a single run this season. Will Smith got his sixth for the Braves. Arollish Chapman got his seventh for the Yankees. And look, I have been obnoxious today with the Yankees talk. I understand that. But I really do think this is the best I've ever seen, a Rollis Chapman pitch.

He is painting the corners, 101 miles per hour. He's throwing a splitter now. He looks ridiculous. Yeah, the velocity is back after he dipped a couple of times. The last few seasons, he threw four of the five fastest velocity pitches today, all of them at 101 miles per hour. And yeah, that splitter's been dominant. him so far and you know maybe people you know maybe hitters will adjust to it but

it's not like our oldest Chapman needed a splitter to be a very good pitcher so like if all of a sudden people figure it out and start mashing it he can just go back to throwing a hundred miles per hour with a terrifying wipeout slider I think after his season ending two years in a row in the postseason by allowing home runs he's like all right I need to figure something out I have to add something to my arsenal and and that's That's what he went with, and right now it's working. For the Phillies, Jose Alvarado picked up his second save.

Hector Nerris has been used a lot recently. So I think that's two days in a row. Yesterday it was Sam Coonrod. Today it was Jose Alvarado. For the Rangers, Ian Kennedy picked up his ninth save, and he might be the best closer value of anybody this season. I mean, he was... He got like 17 strikeouts to three walks or something like that.

Yeah, he was picked up as a free agent right before the season started. because everyone on that team got hurt. So, and Ian Kennedy's been great. James Carinjack, Chris, are you starting to get worried? He picked up his third save for Cleveland. Emmanuel Class A pitched on both May 2nd and May 3rd. Cleveland took the lead in the top of the 9th. So it might have been a situation where Karen Chack was already warming up.

I wasn't watching that game, so I can't really save for certain. But are you worried at all here, Chris? I mean, Emmanuel Class A hasn't given up a run yet this season. He hasn't. I don't know if he are an earn run. I don't know if he's... I don't know if he's better than James Carincheck. I would...

Karen Chek certainly gets more strikeouts. I will definitively say that Class A is not better than Karen Chek. No, yeah. I don't... I think he's probably not. But I'm not sure James Carincheck is much better than him. There's very different types of dominant reliever. So, no, I'm not worried.

Like, his most recent outing, he got a save. There's been no signs of trouble with him. So my assumption is Emmanuel Casay is still going to be the closer moving forward. And this was probably just, like you said, he was warming up already when they took the lead. But, you know, we'll see. For the Padres, Mark Malancing picked up his league leading 11th save. And for the Oakland A's, Lou Trevino allowed three runs. It wound up being, no, three hits, five earned runs.

He took the loss, blown save. he pitched in the eighth inning, actually, on Wednesday. So Oakland continues to be a bit of a headache here as well. To stream or not to stream, let's start things off with Thursday, Chris. Choose three of these. Spencer Turnbull at the Boston Red Sox, John Gantt versus the Mets, Mike Fires versus Toronto, John Lester versus the Braves, Drew Smiley at the Nationals, Madbum at the Marlins,

and Andrew Heaney versus Tampa Bay. Okay, I will go with Madison, Bum Garner and Trujini and there's no good third option I guess I would go with Drew Smiley versus Washington I think Scott said John Gant Maybe John Gant's one of those guys who kind of always pitches well

And nobody ever gets excited about him But he's a career area is 366 He just doesn't have good control and doesn't get a ton of strikeouts So there's definitely blowup potential there. To stream or not to stream for Friday. Zach Davies versus the Pirates. Wade Miley at Cleveland.

David Peterson versus the Diamondbacks. Matt Shoemaker at the Tigers. Austin Gomber at the Cardinals. Anthony Desclofani versus the Padres. Chris, if you thought the last group was bad, this one is worse. Davies Shoemaker and you know what?

I'll go with Desclophani. I don't love having to do that against the Padres, but I think he's good. So I will roll with him. I would take Wade Miley ahead of the, of Zach Davies, actually. The Pirates, they're scrappy, man.

They get some hits. Zach Davies is pitching really poorly right now. Wade Miley is pretty good. I do not feel strongly enough about Zach Dames to argue one way or the other. I wasn't really just disputing you. I was kind of throwing in just my two cents for a while like Wade Miley. For Chris, I am Frank.

Thank you all for listening. And watching fantasy baseball today, we'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.