Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Jose Berrios Traded to the Blue Jays! - Emergency Podcast (7/30 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

The Blue Jays needed another pitcher and they got their guy in Jose Berrios! Should you be worried about his value in Toronto? The Twins received a great prospect haul in Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson. The Braves also made a few smaller moves acquiring both Eddie Rosario and Adam Duvall. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  CBS Sports and Westinghouse are teaming up to give away a 55" TV, portable power station and air purifier over the next month. Go to cbssports.com/homerun to enter. 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

Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam. The Blue Jays needed a front-line starter, and they got their guy. Welcome into an emergency edition of Fantasy Baseball today on Friday, July 30th. Frank Staple joined once again by Scott White. Jose Berrios traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for a great prospect hall. Shortstop slash outfielder Austin Martin, former first round pick from 2020, and starting pitcher Simeon Woods Richardson head back on over to, the Minnesota Twins. Let's start with the

Jose Barrios side of this, Scott, and he's having another great season, 3.48 ERA, 1.04 WIP, legit workhorse. He has the seventh most innings pitched since the start of 2018. With all that being said, I do think this is a negative

park shift for him going from Target Field to Rogers Center. Now they are back in Toronto, and it is a tough division. So what do you think about this move for Jose Burrios? Well, it's interesting because you describe Burrios as a front line starting pitcher. And I feel like there's been a debate raging in fantasy baseball,

basically his whole career, whether he's even that. I mean, his numbers are solid. They've been regularly solid. But the 348 ERA he has now is a career best. The 104 whip he has right now is a career best. The best he had previously was 114. he's never had 10 strikeouts per nine innings.

I mean, the main thing he does well is consistently go six, seven innings, which certainly has value. But if those ratios, you know, those ratios are right at the border of it, of being helpful and hurtful, you know, over that number of innings. And what's really helped Jose Barrios, too, is pitching in such a neutral environment. Target fields maybe lean slightly toward pitchers, but it's one of the fairer venues, I would say. And now he goes to Toronto, which is always favorite hitters.

And in fact, the entire A.L. East, with the exception of Tampa Bay, the A.L. East is mostly, those parks are mostly built for home runs. It is the, in terms of venues, it is the division that's most, most skewed towards. hitting and specifically home runs. And Brilloes isn't like an extreme fly ball pitcher, but he's not a ground ball pitcher. And so you take his moderate strikeout rates that he's always had, because again, never 10K per 9 with his, you know, moderate fly ball rates, he's had in his past, in what we would consider good years for Jose Barrios, he's had a 451 X fit before, a 432x fit before, a

428X-fit before, always outperformed it with the ERA, of course. But is that going to happen now that he's going to a division full of hitters parks, I guess is my concern? Or is he going to go from being this mid-3 ZRA guy? And really, historically, it's been more like a high-3-ZRA guy, to a low-4 Z-R-A guy. Because if that happens, well, then he's certainly not a front-line pitcher, right? And in fantasy, he may be, you know, not much of an action.

asset anymore yeah I have some concern I have some concerns I wouldn't describe it is like severe alarm but I have moderate concerns about this this kind of I think ruining is too strong but this severely severely impairing Barrios's value yeah it definitely affects him and look he's not a frontline starter for fantasy purposes he's always been on the border of low n SPT-E high-end SP3, and that's fine. You're right. He's more of an accumulator than anything else.

But the Blue Jays, they just needed someone that can give them quality depth, right, outside of Hyun Jin Ryu, which they don't really have. Robbie Ray has been awesome this season, but we'll see if he can obviously continue with that production. According to Stadcast, back in 2019, so the Blue Jays have not played in Rogers Center,

in Toronto since 2019. According to Stacast, Rogers Center ranked first in home-run park factors. Target field was 26th. So I don't want to poo-poo this too much, but there is a real possibility that this hurts Jose Berrios's fantasy value moving forward. And he is under team control through next season,

so he will be with the Blue Jays for 2022 as well. Let's talk about some of the prospects here that they get in return, that the twins get in return. Austin Martin, a top 20 overall prospect in baseball, first round pick in 2020, as I mentioned. He was the fifth overall pick, and some people regarded him as the second best player in that draft behind Spencer Torkelson. Yep.

At AA this season, 281 batting average, only two homers, nine steals. The power has been underwhelming, but a 424 OBP, power, again, not there, Scott, but I kind of just think he has it for some reason. He just has like this it factor, Austin Martin. Well, it doesn't seem like evaluators have been turned off by the lack of power this year. and it was in a way kind of expected. I don't think quite to this degree, but the power was the part of his skill set that was kind of behind,

specifically on the offensive end, kind of behind the rest. And power's so easy to cultivate. I think even with the environment changes in baseball this year, it's just if a hitting prospect is lacking power, that's the thing I worry about least. And the fact that Austin Martin is so good,

unbelievably good at managing the count. I still think the ceiling is very high here. Consensus top 20 prospect, basically. So, you know, I'm not out of line in saying that.

I've compared him to Anthony Rendon in the past. That's kind of the offensive upside I can see Austin Martin having. And, you know, he's capable of playing a lot of positions. Centerfield, shortstop is what he's playing.

played most of the minors, but maybe he winds up at third base. It could be, we don't really, he could be somebody who ends up with a lot of versatility when he gets to the majors, too. So as a dynasty asset, Austin Martin's great. Certainly as a major league asset, Austin Martin's great. I never imagined the Blue Jays would trade him for anything, much less a guy who may not be so suited for them. You know, obviously they need innings and they need, they need, they need, they need,

inning's covered but as I pointed out it may not be the best environment for his particular skill set so very surprising to see that and then it's it's not like they stopped there they also traded simeon woods Richardson who was a consensus top 100 prospect coming into the year he's also been underwhelming at double a 576 a r a one-five whip but you know plenty of strikeouts. Good stuff. I don't I don't hear a lot about how

his stock has fallen really in the eyes of evaluators either. I'm sure I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't have been included if he didn't have bad numbers at AA. I don't know. But I still consider him one of the best pitching prospects in baseball.

And the twins got him back too for a year and a half of Burrios. I mean, I think they, I hesitate to say they did even better than the Marlins did in that Starling Marte deal, because that was literally just two months of Marte for somebody who's semi-proven in the majors already. Yeah, I don't think this quite measures up to that, but it is a really good return much better than I expected for Bereas. Yeah, great return here for the Minnesota Twins. Take notes, Washington. Not that I want to beat up on Washington too much, right? They

I lost Max Scherzer, Trey Turner, and Russell Westbrook all in the same day. But, man, like, I don't know. This seems like a great package based on what Jose Burrios has done in his career compared to what obviously Max Scherzer and Trey Turner are going to do for the Los Angeles Dodgers. By the way, if you're a Twins fan, I know, you know, it's, it kind of sucks. So like, whatever, you're going through a rebuild, but there's a lot to be excited about with all the young pitching prospects and just prospects in general that they have on their team. between Jordan Belazovich, Yuan Duran, Matt Cantorino.

I know he's dealing with an injury, but they get Joe Ryan from the raise, and now Simeon's, Simeon Woods Richardson, Austin Martin. It's an exciting time for the Twins farm system. We did have some smaller trains, Scott, here, regarding your Atlanta Braves. They acquired both Eddie Rosario and Adam Duval to help boost their outfield. Rosario straight up for Pablo Sandival. I don't know what's going on there.

I don't know. It's so weird. Okay, so Cleveland's packing it in, so they trade for an aging pinch hitter. Like, I would say it's as naked a salary dump as I've ever seen, trading Eddie Rosario for Pablo Sandoval. But Rosario's salaries $8 million this year. I guess he's already been paid about half of that, right? That would make sense. And they sent cash considerations to the brave.

So how much money are they even saving? I don't know. I don't know. Now, Rosario's been bad this year. he's he's always been a low OPS guy because he just walks so infrequently but 685 OPS usually you know he's around 800 has been better the past two months at least in terms he's hitting for average again not really sure where the power's gone but you know I don't know like pretty much stock even for him I think he's better than he's shown so far if he does does bounce back. I don't, I wouldn't credit it to him going to the Braves. I just think it, he was due to bounce back anyway. Uh, so, so that's the same. Uh, Adam Duvall. Did you, did you, did you mention that one? Are we doing this one at a time? Adam Duvall. Go ahead. Yeah,

he's 64% rostered. He's 22 homers on the season. And one among the NL leaders in RBI are just bonkers. He and Jesus Aguilar both, even though the Marlins are, offense is terrible. They were driving in all the runs there, I guess. Yeah, we've already seen how Adam Duvall does in the Braves environment. It's better. It's better than the Marlins environment. Adam Duvall, you look at his splits home and away,

which is often true for Marlins hitters since they open that stadium. Definitely better on the road. Let me pull those up here. So at home this year, Adam Duvall's hit 199 with a 629 OPS on the road 259 with an 877 OPS. So getting him out of Miami can only help. That said, he's been around long enough that we know what he basically is. Batting average between 230 and 250 with a low OBP and a lot of homers.

So, you know, I don't, I think his value improves going to the Braves. I don't think it's like, oh, my gosh, if he's available in your league, you got to run out pick them up now. There's clearly, there are clearly limitations to what Adam Duval can provide. I think the most interesting angle here with the two Braves outfield acquisitions, having just

acquired Jack Peterson a couple weeks ago. So that's a brand new outfield, right? Who's the center fielder? Yeah, they all have, they all, they've all gotten a little bit of exposure to center field, but none of them is a center fielder

and I'm not sure I'm not sure that's going to be the greatest thing for the pitching staff. Adam Duvall is a surprisingly good defender in the outfield. I kind of hope he ends up being the one who goes to center field. I think the worst choice would be Jack Peterson, actually. But it also kind of makes me wonder if that's going to cut into their playing time just to get like Guillermo Haradia in there just for defensive purposes and making the occasional start still.

I don't know. Yeah, no, that's definitely possible. And a good point that you bring up. Eddie Rosario, by the way, still a few weeks. away. He's on the aisle with abdominal and oblique injuries. So he's an absolute butcher in the outfield. He's not going to be in center field. So they'll figure that out hopefully, but potential for losing playing time with some of those brave outfielders. All right, we're going to wrap up for Scott. I. And Frank, thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball

today. We're probably going to be back later on. Bye-bye.