Fantasy Baseball Today - Kyle Bradish Had Surgery, Big Pitching Returns & Rankings Risers/Fallers! (6/20 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Kyle Bradish underwent Tommy John surgery and will miss the rest of this season (3:37). ... Hunter Greene has quietly had a breakout season (6:44). ... Cade Povich has been underwhelming so far (10:32). ... Tanner Bibee is on quite the run right now (13:58)! ... News (19:32): Aaron Judge was out of the lineup Wednesday. ... Gerrit Cole made his season debut while Bobby Miller made his return (23:07). ... Paul Skenes, Jarren Duran and Steven Kwan were among our biggest rankings movers (29:47). ... We had four big pitching duels on Wednesday (47:00). ... Why is Brayan Bello rostered in so many leagues (54:43)? David Hamilton has 16 steals in his past 31 games! ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (1:02:50). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Well, fantasy! Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hey there, welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, June 20th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers.

Today on the show, we had two big pitching returns, four pitching duels, hitting quixing. rankings, risers, and fallers. I told these guys beforehand, I always jam-packed the rundown. I legitimately think we can do a three-hour podcast with how much stuff I have on the rundown today, but we're going to fit it all into an hour, somehow, some way.

Some people would like us to do a three-hour podcast. Yeah, I shouldn't have even presented that as, like, a possibility in people's minds, because now we're going to get emails, come on, petition for three-hour podcasts. As much as we'd love to do it, it is a lot of work. All right.

No, I would not love to do a three-hour podcast every night. I want to put that out there. That would not be great. Our completion rate on that podcast would probably be like 10%. That is too much for a five-day-a-week podcast. What if we did two, three-hour podcast per week? I still got to write a 3,000-word newsletter after this. All right, let's start with the big news from Wednesday.

Kyle Braddish underwent Tommy John surgery with an internal brace, and he was first diagnosed with a partial UCL tear in his elbow back in February, but returned, actually pitched really well in eight starts, but then the injury resurfaced, and their GM, Mike Elias, said he expects Kyle Bradish to miss 12 to 18 months, which means we might not even see him in 2025 either. I don't think there is immediate urgency for the Orioles to try and acquire another pitcher. They have five in their rotation right now.

Burns, Grayson Rodriguez, Cole Irvin, Kate Povich, Albert Suarez. We'll talk about Povich in just a little bit. But it wouldn't surprise me if they make a trade at some point. Who that might be? I don't know. Jesus Lazzardo, Eric Fetty.

Does anyone else come to mind? I feel like those are the two easiest options to trade for right now. You said crochet and Fettie? No, I said Fettie and Lazzardo. I guess crochet is a possibility. Yeah, I think crochet. Yeah, I think Crochet would make a lot of sense, given cost and service time remaining.

But yeah, Lizardo and Fetty, all of those guys would benefit from a move to Baltimore, given it's a great home park and a fantastic situation backing them up. I would prefer, you know, Lizardo's better than Eric Fetty. I think I wish I felt more confident in saying that. I'm sure we all do. but yeah, it seems likely that this is a team that will trade for a starting pitcher. I would be surprised if Corbyn Burns was it, given that they had. I mean, that was before the season, but they've lost three guys to Tommy John surgery this season, right? That sounds right.

If not Tommy John, at least some type of elbow surgery. Yeah, Wells, Means and Braddish. Yep, that's exactly right. So, yeah, Kramer's on the IL right now. So, yeah, they could definitely use a, uh, another starting pitcher. I forgot about Kramer. So yeah,

they do have him coming back at some point. Anything to add on Kyle Bradish, I mean, there's nothing for this season, but from a dynasty or keeper perspective, this is about as bad as it gets because we basically miss out on this year and probably all of next year too.

Yeah, I mean, it's a bummer, obviously. He was pitching really well and especially well, considering his elbow wasn't right. So, disappointing, not entirely, surprising. Even when he came back and was pitching well, we were a little restrained in our

enthusiasm for him because it seemed like something like this could happen. He's going to be almost 30 next time we see him. Yeah, it's weird that Bradish is like a weird old guy. Someone you wouldn't expect to be as he's not old, but just based on how long he's been in the majors, it feels like he should be younger than he actually is. All right, that's the big news from the day. Kyle Bradish out for the season. Tommy John.

and internal brace procedure. Let's get into the rest of Wednesday's action. Can you believe it? Wow! All right, Chris, you are up first. Player of the Night. Yeah, let's go with Hunter Green, who in a lot of ways

has taken the leap that a lot of people have been hoping he would since he made his debut. And I feel like it hasn't really gotten the attention that it deserves. And part of that is because it's been very up and down. But the thing for Hunter Green,

especially lately, he had a couple of poor starts at the beginning of June. But if you remember, it was like one bad inning in each and he still ended up going six innings. He's actually managed to be pretty efficient. This season pitching deep into games pretty regularly.

And a big part of that is just significant improvements in the quality of contact that he's allowing. only four hard hit balls in this one. He has some of the best quality of contact numbers in the entire majors this season. 313 expected Wobon contact for Hunter Green. That's top 7% in baseball. 197 expected BA. 319X slug.

This is a guy whose biggest problem has been the long ball and really hasn't been an issue for him for the most part this season. So I don't know. I've been very encouraged by what we've seen from Hunter Green, but I feel like there hasn't been, at least before this start, much excitement around him. Where are you guys at on Hunter Green? Well, I think the reason there hasn't been much excitement about it is because there's so many alternatives at starting pitcher.

I mean, relative to the fantasy relevant pitching crop, his numbers don't really stand out that much. No, that's fair. But I agree. I'm encouraged by what he's doing. It's just a drop in the ocean, sort of. And to be fair, his strikeout rate has gone down to 26% this season. Walk rate up slightly coming into this start, I would bet.

After tonight, it's probably right around where it's been. So it mostly has come from his fastball, especially being much better on quality of contact. and that's a noisy stat. Yeah, I was going to say, I think you'll take that trade off though, right? I mean, like you were about to say, it's not necessarily sticky,

something that we can depend on happening, but we've seen that basically across baseball, guys trading off strikeouts for better quality of contact, however they're doing it, and Hunter Green is just another example. And one thing we're starting to see from him is a little more usage of that splitter. Remember, he added a splitter in the offseason, and early on, he basically didn't throw it.

He had added this curveball and splitter. The curveball remains very much a show me pitch. He throws it three or four times a game most of the time. But the splitter has been above 10% usage now, five straight starts. And this was a guy in Hunter Green who really was just a two pitch pitcher, his first two season. He threw his change up about 5% of the time each of the first two seasons. A splitter looks good. It looks the part.

And I don't know. I think we might be sneakily seeing a little bit of a Hunter Green breakout here. Yeah. I think the arrow is pointing up on Hunter Green. He's just inside my top 40 starting pitchers. And I'm kind of buying what's happening right now with Hunter Green. Scott, let's go over to you for your player of the night. Well, I'm going to do somebody you didn't have on the rundown,

and that's why I decided to pick him, because I think it's worth talking about Cade Povich. One of a hundred players I didn't have on that run. It's a little weird to talk about him before we talk about his opponent, Garrett Cole, but whatever. Kade Povich at the Yankees, he was following up a great start against the Braves, remember, a start that made us wonder,

oh, maybe there is something here. at the Braves last time, six shutout innings, six strikeouts, 14 whiffs on 89 pitches. Well, he kind of looked more like the Cade Povich from his first start in this turn at the Yankees. It was a tough opponent, I'll give him that. And, you know, he allowed one hit in four and a third innings, but he also walked five. He struck out only one.

That's the most concerning part. He got four swinging strikes on 94 pitches, all of them on the fastball. So the curve ball that was responsible for six swinging strikes got zero this time, even though he was throwing it 23% of the time. He was also back to throwing just 59% of his pitches for strikes versus the 71% of the time he threw against the Braves in his last start. So I'm not saying there's no talent here, but there's a lot of flaws. It's not a very good fastball.

He doesn't throw enough strikes in general. and I think his success in that start against the Braves was more just him lining up against a lineup that matching up against the lineup that happened to be in a really bad state really struggling offensively at the time and he took advantage but I don't think Cade Povich is so much worth our time right now

in fantasy especially given all of the great pitching alternatives the thing that's been surprising for him you know, when I was reading the scouting reports when he got called up, one thing that really stood out was he has good swing and miss pitches. He has a hard time generating chase. And that's been the, that was the issue today, certainly. And I think this was his third start, I think in two out of the three starts, that's been an issue for him.

You only had a 20% out of zone swing rate today. And the other thing that's surprising, though, is a lot of the scouting reports talked about, his change up being this really, really good pitch. And he just hasn't thrown it very much. 11.6% of the time entering today. He only threw eight of them on 94 pitches. I was pretty iffy on Kade Povich when he got called up. I didn't really see a lot to get excited about in the profile and then reading the scouting reports.

But a part of why I remain pretty low on him is just this looks like the downside of a lot of the scouting reports that I was reading where he just, for one reason or another, just can't generate whiffs on his breaking pitches outside of the strike zone because he just doesn't generate a lot of chases. It's kind of like Bryce Miller, obviously a very different overall profile, but a similar problem in that Bryce Miller just doesn't generate swings with his

secondaries. Would you guys be all right dropping Povich for a rookie counterpart, Spencer Schwellenbach, who had a great start yesterday? Yeah. Yeah, and I would have preferred Schwellenbach even before the start for Bovich, I think. Yeah, I think so too. All right, player of the night for me is going to be Tanner Bybee, who was amazing against the Mariners, six shutout innings, three hits, one walk, 12 strikeouts, had 20 whiffs on 93 pitches,

eight on the slider, five on the fastball, five on the curve, which kind of came out of nowhere, and two on the changeup. And he threw that curveball more in this start. 22% usage. It was only 7% entering the start, and it was different. The curve velocity was up nearly two miles per hour. According to Stackass,

had five less inches of vertical brake, so it feels like that was a more... Tighter, harder curve ball that he was throwing like that on purpose, and it was really good in this outing. So potentially another weapon here for Tanner Bybee, back-to-back starts with double-digit strikeouts, and over his last seven outings,

241 ERA, a 0.90 whip, 55 strikeouts, over 41 innings doing a much better job, limiting walks and hard contact during that stretch. I kind of feel like, this is the way things kind of even out throughout the season. Tanner Bybee should just be ranked close to where we had him entering the season. Borderline top 30 starting pitcher, at least the way he's pitching right now. What was interesting about Bybee in this start, you know, what we were talking about, about just now with Povich about how he doesn't generate swings and misses on pitches out of the zone. If I'm doing the math correctly, 19 of Tanner Bybee's 20 swings and misses came on pitches inside of the

strike zone. That's wild. I don't know exactly what to make of that moving forward, but he has had a lot of trouble putting batters away this season. He's someone who when you look at the underlying pitch level data, it seems like he should be a really good strikeout pitcher. And then his strikeout rate for the most part this season has been pretty mediocre until the last few starts. So hopefully this is the sign of him turning it around. It's a very promising stretch, super talented pitcher. I think there's a lot to be optimistic about.

I mean, he's over. What is he at now? He's almost 11K per 9 now, right, for the season. Yeah, seventh best among qualified starting pitchers. Yeah, remember he had 23. in his last two, 24 in his last two starts though. That helps. I can't believe.

I'm looking at the rankings now. I can't believe I'm the low guy on Tanner Bybee. I know I haven't been emotionally the low guy on Tanner Bybee. Yeah, that's interesting. Because I've gotten 39th and that feels pretty low. Why do you hate Tanner Bybee? I don't. I'm going to move them up to 31st after this podcast so I can be the high guy again.

stealing our thunder. All right, well, there's not a lot of difference between 30 and 50 still, I think. But great start for Tanner Bybee. Some people will point out, oh, he was facing the Mariners. Well, guess what? Other pitchers face the Mariners, and they don't have starts like this. So great outing for him.

He is another one trending up the rankings. Thanks to everyone for watching us live. Make sure to hit that like button and subscribe to the channel. If you haven't already, YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. and a quick reminder that you can always listen to fantasy baseball today and FBT and 5. That's our five minute podcast on Spotify. You can scan the QR code

that will take you right to the FBT Spotify feed. Let's take our first break and when we return, we'll hit the news and notes right after this. Welcome back in the news and notes. Aaron Judge was not in the lineup Wednesday after getting hit by a pitch on his left hand Tuesday. X-rays and a CT scan came back negative. He's expected to avoid a trip to the IL, currently day to day,

and was clearly unavailable completely on Wednesday because there were some big spots in the game where they could have used him as a pinch hitter, and they opted not to, which I think makes sense, given the magnitude of the player with Aaron Judge. C.J. Abrams... He's very large. Yes, yes, big guy.

CJ Abrams was scratched Wednesday due to a wrist injury. He suffered on a collision Tuesday. Abrams will undergo an MRI. Walker Bueller was placed in the aisle due to hip discomfort. Hip discomfort. He was hit by a comebacker on the hip during Tuesdays started. I think it's a good refresh for him, try to get his mind right, figure out what's gone wrong, what he needs to fix everything,

and maybe he can bounce back once he returns. Yordon Alvarez has missed two straight with a personal issue. Jazz Chisholm was scratched from the lineup due to right hamstring tightness. Nolan Aronado left Wednesday's game after getting hit by a pitch on his right elbow. X-rays came back negative. Aronado said he expects to return on Saturday. Nolan Jones was scratched Wednesday due to an illness. Kyle Gibson was scratched from his start due to back tightness. The Cubs are designated Jan Goams for assignment and signing Tomas Nito to replace him as the backup catcher. Tyler Black was recalled by the Brewers, just not sure where he's going to play,

how much he's going to play. In 28 games since being sent back to AAA, Tyler Black. Tyler Black, was batting 250 with four homers, eight steals, and an 802 OPS. He's 15% rostered. Scott, do you have any interest in Tyler Black in deeper leagues? Not a lot. Not a lot, though short of James Wood, I'm not sure there is a prospect call up that would generate a ton of enthusiasm from me. I guess there's a couple other Shane Baas, if he's still considered a prospect.

Noel V. Marte, obviously, he's in the minors for different reason. But anyway, Tyler Black, you know, in those deep roto leagues, if you need some speed, maybe it could work out. But it's a big maybe. Eduardo Rodriguez will likely begin throwing off a mound within the next week after the latest imaging on his left shoulder showed almost 100% healing. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. cut all of his hair off. Perhaps this will help him hit for power, we hope. And on Thursday. The opposite, Samson.

Yeah. On Thursday night, you'll be able to watch the Giants take on the Cardinals at Rick Wood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the United States, and the former home of the Negro League's Birmingham Black Barons. The very first place where Willie Mays played professional baseball. Yeah, very cool moment, very much so looking forward to that. Again, you can catch that. I think it's 715 first pitch on Thursday night.

A quick prospect update, rather a few. Jason Dominguez is dealing with a moderate left oblique strain, which sounds like he'll miss at least one month of the season. And the Yankees promoted Augustine Ramirez from AA to AAA, a 22-year-old catcher-slash-first baseman who has had a pretty massive season in the minors, batting 290, 16 home runs, 13 steals, and a 9-42 OPS.

Is everybody in the organization a catcher-slash-first-baseman or just in the minors? Yeah, they are thinking about moving Jason Dominguez. No, I'm just kidding. Let's stick with the Yankees. And it was a big night for Pippews. pitching returns. Garrett Cole was solid in his first start

against the Orioles, four innings, two runs allowed, five strikeouts, only had six whiffs on 62 pitches. It's right around a 10% swinging strike rate. Gave up some hard contact. First start of the season, I don't know if we want to read too much into the results, I think,

more so than anything, we just want him to come out of the start healthy and be ready to go his next turnaround. If you're worrying about the velocity, it was down 1.6 miles per hour, This is still kind of his spring training phase, so I feel like normally we see velocity down that much early on in the season. I don't know.

Maybe I'm making excuses for Garrick-Cole. What did you guys think of his first start of the season? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to take anything away from it, really, because it's one start and a lot of things can happen in one start. He did not look especially sharp. He gave him a lot of hard contact. He wasn't throwing hard as hard as normal. I was debating when I was doing my big rankings update on Tuesday.

He's about to come back this week. How much do I need to move up this obvious, well, one Spencer, well, wait, did he go down? No, sorry, this obvious top two starter coming into the year before the injuries. How far do I need to move him up the rankings? And I couldn't move Cole higher than 27th, which felt wrong. but I just wanted to play it a little bit cautiously given that this is kind of an unusual injury situation and it's hard to tell how he's going to respond to it.

It's not an elbow injury we're used to hearing about, but that's usually not good, a novel elbow injury for a pitcher in baseball. rehab assignment look fine. You know, we'll see. We'll see what the next couple starts look like. I'd say if he's, if all is, if his first four or five starts go this way, then I might hit the panic button.

But after one start, you know, there's just not too much to take away from it yet. I think the way I'd put it is, and I moved him to 25, so right around the same range. And I have him at 24. So we're right in, we're all in the same spot. I love when that happens. We don't talk about it. I didn't look at your. rankings at all, and we end up the exact same spot.

I would say this. There's not much short of a re-injury or like seven miles per hour down on his fastball that would have moved him down. If he had come out averaging 95, 96 with his fastball, or I guess he averaged 95, he had come out average 97, 98 with his fastball and struck out 10 in five innings. I might have been inclined to move Garicol up a little more aggressively, but based on what we saw tonight, I think it's a holding pattern. I think expectations should be still pretty high, but obviously not necessarily what we would

expect from a fully healthy Garrickle. And we will find out on tomorrow's podcast for sure if Garikol is a two-star pitcher, but that's what it looks like right now on CBS at the Mets and at the Blue Jays for next week. So if that is the case, are you guys starting Garrett Cole? Yeah, of course. Two starts. Yeah. All right.

Bobby Miller, not so great in his return in Coors Field. Arguably the worst landing spot to come back from an injury. Six in a third innings, five runs allowed, three walks to two strikeouts. He allowed one homer in this one. Nine hard hits. The velocity was mostly fine. Fastball down a touch. The slider was down 1.2 miles per hour.

Really just kept it simple. with the pitch mix, fastball and changeup accounted for 79% of Bobby Miller's pitches in this start. He is, he's only 28% started, and it looks like he might be at the White Sox next week. Doesn't get much better than that. Yeah, I'll start.

What did you guys think about the return? I mean, obviously, it wasn't great. I don't like that all of his whiffs came on the changeup. But it's course field. Yeah, it's so weird. Fastball, even though he threw 49% of the time. Field, okay, yeah, that's, that obviously makes it harder to gauge. So, again, I'm not going to make a huge deal of one star for Bobby Miller, but I wanted it to go better.

Yeah, on the whole, I think I'm pretty encouraged by the fact that he was able to pitch as deep into the game as he did. Now, it was only 79 pitches. You know, there's a lot of pitching to contact, whether it was on purpose or not. you know, the 30% changeup rate, 49% fastball rate, I think the biggest thing there is it's just course. The ball doesn't move. Like literally the ball does not move the same way.

And so, you know, especially on breaking balls, if you can't get the same snap on your, on your slider and curveball, you might just be better off not throwing them. So it's- And he basically didn't. He threw 79% fastball change up.

It's hard, I think in any good or bad. I think analyzing whatever happens in course field is pretty much a Foles, Aaron, right? Remember two, three weeks ago, Frankie Monta's had that huge start at course field where he threw his slider like 30% of the time and it was this,

and it was like, had never thrown it more than 15% of the time in a start or something like that. And it didn't matter. He went back to not throwing his slider. He went back to being pretty mediocre right after that. Coursefield is, it just belie, it, I don't know if that's the right word,

so I'm just going to go away from it. Don't analyze anything that happens in coursefield. is the way I'm going to say it. Last question on Bobby Miller, would you buy low if you can or maybe stay away because it was a shoulder injury and those are pretty iffy?

I'm not motivated to buy low. I mean, somebody's about to drop them, but I can't imagine anybody's really like panicking about Bobby Miller after this start. I will say he's just one of those guys who like, for all the hype and for all we've, expected from him, his results in the majors have been pretty just okay.

And so there might be a buy low opportunity. I mean, we have guys, we have people ask if they could drop guys that we don't think they should ever drop all the time. So maybe there's a buy opportunity for Miller. All right. Let's get into our latest rankings, risers and fallers. Reminder that you can always find our updated positional rankings on the website, CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball slash rank.

rankings. And you could also find them on the CBS Fantasy app. As usual, we'll focus on three players each who either moved up or down this week. And we will start with Scott, you are up. I am up. Okay, Paul Skeens. Let's talk about him. I was pretty aggressive ranking him as soon as we learned he was coming up to the majors. But I think it's time to take it to another level. I think it's time to rank Paul Skeens like a true ace. And so that's what I've done. I've moved him up to 15. Why do you hate Paul Skeens? Do you have them higher than that? SP7, baby. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Last time we talked about him, way to entirely steal my thunder there with that take. So the last time we talked about him, I think I had moved him up to 15 already.

And I said it would take very little to move into the top 10 based on how bunched up everyone is. Just screw it. He's got a 30% K minus blocker. Well, that's what I thought I was saying. I thought I was the one saying screw it. I got him ahead of Max Freed. No, I don't actually. I have him behind Max Fried.

You have him ahead of Max Fried. Yes. I think the overall point is that we all have Skeen's top 16 at starting pitchers. So we're pretty much all in. And right behind him is a very, very interesting way of alighting the fact that apparently Frank hates Paul Skeen's the most. has his SP 16. You weren't supposed to say anything. I just want to say like

wherever the exact number is, the reason I'm ranking him as an ace is because like obviously he looks amazing. His best pitch is one that wasn't even really touted in the minors. He didn't throw it. Yeah, he started throwing it this year. And the pirates have already done

such a good job managing his itings by basically having April service as spring training that I think he's going to be fine. in terms of workload. I do actually have Garrett Crochet now right behind him at 16, a guy we worry a little more about the workload. And, you know, Pablo Lopez has dropped behind them both at 17. So we're, look at that.

I'm covering three moves and one here. Okay, the next player I'm going to talk about is Jaron Duran, who coming into today was the fourth best, yeah, the fourth best outfielder. No, no, I'm sorry. I said it wrong. Jaron Duran coming into the day was the fifth best outfielder in points leagues behind only the obvious top four of Aaron Judge Juan Soto, Mookie Betts, and Kyle Tucker.

Betts is obviously going to drop out of that top four now that he's on the IEL. But Jaron Duran was the top outfielder behind them. And I imagine he's still there after the performance he had here on Wednesday. I don't rank him that high because we're ranking. him at his hottest right now. He's batting well over 300 in June. It's still a profile that doesn't generate a lot of power.

So it's highly batting average dependent. At least in five by five leagues. I think the reason he's so high in points leagues, especially as doubles and triples page pace is huge for Jaron and obviously those count for something in points leagues in a way they

don't in roto. But it's a batting average dependent profile. A lot of speed there too. but not much home run power. And so I did move him into my top 20, but I kept him behind Stephen Kwan, who is also a batting average dependent player, who I think is going to hit for a lot more batting average.

He's up to, what, 397 after today? Yeah. Not that that's going to stay that high, but I think he's going to hit for a batting average, a higher batting average than Jared Duran moving forward. But top 20 now for Duran. And finally, Ryan Jeffers, a faller here. I don't know if you guys have noticed,

but the last couple weeks, he's only played like every other day. And Christian Vasquez doesn't deserve to play that much, but you know what? Ryan Jeffers hasn't been hitting well enough to force his way into the lineup more either. So major playing time concerns there. The production has dropped off.

I moved him from 5 to 10 in my catcher rankings, and I wonder if that's too high. I had a whole little reshuffling here. I moved Logan O'Hoppy up to 5th, so they kind of swap places in my catcher rankings. Wilson Contreras, I moved him back into the top 10 since he's going to be back from the aisle soon ahead of Ryan Jeffers. But yeah, Jeffers was the big faller there.

And, you know, it's shallower one catcher leagues. I don't think he's beyond dropping if you want to pick up a hotter hand. I do want to add on Jaron. Have you guys looked at his spray chart? No. It's a weird profile for a left-handed hitter. It is just the left field fence at Fenway. He's just putting dents in that thing.

He's got 17 doubles at home. Wow. And I think all but one double this season, all but two doubles this season, have been the opposite way. You're looking at pretty dead average plate discipline in both strike out and walk rate this season. And better than average expected quality of contact numbers.

So I think, yeah, Jaron Duran, I mean, I liked him a lot. I was drafting him everywhere. Where'd you move him in outfield? Top 20. Okay, yeah, I have him 17 in Roto. Probably need to move him up in points. I'm not sure exactly how high I moved him there. But yeah, a lot to like about Jaron Duran right now.

He's top 20 in points as well. So do you have him ahead of or behind Riley Green? I believe I have him behind Riley. Just ahead of Riley Green in Roto. I have them ahead of Riley Green in both formats. Okay. I have him behind Green and I already said I have him behind Kwan too. Yeah, Kwan will just transition there.

He's one of my biggest risers. I moved him to my number 12 outfielder in Roto. Oh, wow. Presumably pretty similar in points. And part of it's just, yeah, 12 in points as well. And part of it's just there aren't any good outfielders. There's like eight good outfielders. fielders right now and two of them are on the IL, I believe.

Mookie Betts, we've moved well below there, but Kyle Tucker may never return from this shit injury. I don't know what's going on there. He was supposed to, he was supposed to, yeah, no, I'm joking. He was supposed to miss like two days and it's been like two weeks and counting. But yeah, like Stephen Kwan, it, he continues to hit really well. I saw a like, can you believe it's June 20th and. Stephen Kwan is hitting 397.

It's like, well, he missed a month. So, you know, that's part of it. But he's been fantastic, is the point. Is expected batting averages like mid-330s? Yeah, 339 right now. Expected slugging percentage is actually expected ISO over 100 for the first time in Stephen Kwan's career. He has five home runs in 458 games last year. Yeah.

What about that is we saw. stories this spring about how the guardians wanted him to embrace striking out more for the sake of doing more damage and you could say oh look it's happening he's doing more damage it's not really reflected in the exit velocities so I'm not sure if those power gains are going to sustain

but bottom line is like he's a like Luis a rise level contact hitter and deserves to be treated like that. He actually, how many steals does he have? Fewer steals than I thought. I was going to say he actually steals bases on like a ride. He's hitting for all these,

all these home runs. Look, he's not going to have a thousand OPS. I don't, like, there's probably going to be 200 points of OPS regression for Stephen Kwan the rest of the way. But an 800 OPS bat in this climate is still a very,

very good one, especially when it's at the, top of a what has been a fantastic lineup, at least a fantastic top half of the lineup. I don't know if you guys have seen Jose Ramirez is on pace for like 150 RBI. And Josh Naylor might be on a similar pace after a homering twice today. So yeah, I think there's a lot to like about Stephen Kwan right now. Everyone else I'm talking about here is a rankings faller. Jared Jones, I think, I don't know if we got two over our skis, if he's just,

running into some trouble and needs to work on some things. But I've got him down to SP 29. There's a lot of fungibility between honestly like 20 and 30. So it wouldn't take much to move him up. But, you know, we're seeing the control regress. That was the issue for him in the minors. Hasn't been getting the same whiffs. Lefties are crushing him right now. So a lot has gone wrong for Jared Jones. I still like the upside. So I don't want to bury him. But had to move him down. And then I'm just going to, everyone's going to yell at me and whatever. It's fine.

Anthony Volpe has not been very good since like the third week of the season. And the timing is very interesting because he went three for four with a walk today. Since April 16th, he is hitting 248 with a 295 on base percentage, a 378 slugging percentage. And Anthony Volpe's expected Wobah is actually worse. than it was last season. Now, because of the changes he's made to his swing profile, becoming more of a line drive and all-fields hitter, I think it's reasonable to suggest that he could outperform his expected Wobah

after underperforming last season. But I do think we have to have a discussion about Anthony Volpey, who right now just kind of looks like a runs specialist, and that's valuable. But I'm not sure this is like a difference-making fantasy player. I'm not sure there's that much separation between Anthony Volpe and someone like Andres Jimenez. If he's going to be a two-50-ish hitter like he has been for most of the season. Now everybody yelled at me.

Does anybody regard him as much less than Andres Jimenez? Because I mean, they're both like top 15 short stops in my mind, borderline top 12. Yeah. I think everybody, I thought everybody was more treating him like a top 10. top 12 type and I think Jimenez is more top 15ish but maybe I'm wrong I will say it's surprising his numbers just just as somebody who has him in a points league and knows how consistent his points production is week after week I'm I've got the the week by week breakdown pulled up now he's you know like between 15 and 25 every week that's great so I don't know how he's producing so

many fantasy points yeah he's on pace for almost 500 this year Yeah, in Roto League since April 16th, and that's a super arbitrary time span where it was basically he had a really good game on April 15th and then went hitless on April 16th. So I'll admit, I'm doing an arbitrary timetable here. He's the number 20 shortstop in Roto in that time. Maybe it's probably higher in points that the runs are certainly helping. But the pace since then, 248 average, 103 runs, that's awesome. 11 homers, 53 RBI, 25 stolen bases. I just think he's probably more of a middle infielder

than a starting shortstop for fantasy, I guess. All right, again, that was Anthony Volpe. I will very quickly run through the three names that I have. Mani Machado down to my 12th ranked third baseman. And this is more so just moving names ahead of him that have produced all season long. Alec Bohm, Jordan Westberg, Spencer Steer, Michael Garcia.

All four of those players are, averaging three plus fantasy points per game or our top 70 players in Roto this season. Mani Machado is not doing any of those things and nowhere close to it. So maybe he turns it on at some point, but I think maybe this elbow recovery has kind of flipped his season on its head. You did mention one player who moved down in my rankings though. Mikel Garcia has been pretty bad. He's like averaging 3.2 fantasy points per game.

Yeah, maybe so because it was a solid start, but 392 OPS in the month of June so far. That's bad. It was 650 in April. Decent May, 773, but the strikeout rate has gone up. He stopped hitting for power after he was early on in the season. I just, I think we might have gotten, we might have gotten fooled by Markell Garcia having a strong start to the season. Chris, full season statistics. are more predictive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. And right now he has 47 run scored 39 RBI, 17 steals. Mm-hmm. It's a pretty good player. Yeah, yeah. He has since the 11th game of the season. So first 10 games, he was awesome. Since then, he has a 625 OPS.

That's pretty bad. It is pretty bad. I don't think Manny Machado is much better, though. I'll tell you that. Oh, no, I'm not always. arguing about Manny Machado versus Michael Garcia. I was off Mani Machado in the spring, and I felt pretty dumb about it early on,

and now it's looking okay. I'm keeping the faith of Machado. I haven't moved him down at all. There's just not enough in the underlying numbers to suggest he's a fundamentally different player, and I think he's going to get very hot this summer. That is possible, but I also think the players that just moved ahead of him

are also really good players. So it's more so just me trusting those guys and what they've done so far this season compared to Mani Machado. Randy Rosarena, down to Outfield 26 in Head Dead points, Outfield 24 in Roto. Maybe he saw that I lowered him in the rankings. He had a great game here.

Two for three with a walk and two steals. Actually hitting pretty well in the month of June. So maybe I jumped a little bit too quick at it, but this has been going on for like a calendar year. We just spoke about this the other day, Scott. So Randy Rosarena was someone I dropped. And someone I moved up was Ronaldo Lopez up to SP 44. And he had another solid outing here on Wednesday, five shutout inning, six strikeouts,

11 whiffs on 93 pitches. Perhaps there's an innings cap. There's a shutdown at some point. But we've said the same things about Luis Heel and Garrett Crochet. And we've moved those pitchers up much further. Deservedly so. They are better pitchers than Ronaldo Lopez. But he's been really good for.

most of the season. So I think he was worthy of moving up in the pitching ranks as well. Let's take our final break. And when we return, we had some pitching duels here on Wednesday. We'll talk about it right after this. Welcome back in.

We had four pitching duels on Wednesday. It's time to do. We already spoke about Hunter Green. He was at the Pirates. The other side, Mitch Keller was great. Seven shutout innings, two hits, two walks, seven strikeouts in this one. back to tweaking the pitch mix.

That's what Mitch Keller does. He likes to tweak things around and mix up the pitch mix. And he threw his curveball more in the start. And it was a pretty good whiff, a pretty good pitch for him in this one. Last eight starts for Mitch Keller, a 154 ERA.99 whip doing a much better job, limiting walks and hard contact.

Scott, anything to add on Mitch Keller? I love Mitch Keller. He just defies explanation. And when he's good, he's really, really good. and he's been really good for a month and a half now. So, yeah, I mean, I'm enjoying it.

I hope you are too. Next, no, I'm not, because I don't have them anywhere, Scott. I was not in on Mitch Keller this year. Next pitching duel was Matt Waldron at Ranger Suarez. Waldron, seven innings, one run, six strikeouts, had eight whiffs on 104 pitches. He leaned on that knuckleball, and it was quite good in this start. Back-to-back seven-in-quality starts for Waldron.

Last eight outings, a 182 ERR. a 0.89 whip. And Ranger Suarez, six innings, one run, four strikeouts, had 10 whiffs on 94 pitches. One earned run or less in 10 of 15 starts this season.

I know we've said maybe he's just locked in. He's hitting his spots. Everything is working out for Ranger Suarez. Probably going to regress. It hasn't happened yet. So maybe it still might, but yeah,

it's been a obviously great season for Ranger Suarez. Chris, anything to add on Waldron versus Suarez. I think there's probably a decent amount of regression coming for both of them, but I mean, Suarez is, I think, a top 24 starting pitcher for me now. Yeah. And maybe that's not high enough for some people, but... Welcome to the club, Chris. The skill set still does not suggest ace production. You know,

the strikeout rate is fine, but probably a little inflated. I don't think he can sustain this. I think it's a low 3 ZRA and good whip on a great team. And that's a really good pitcher. It's not an ace. And I don't think he will be, but he's really good. But you used to say mid to high 3 ZR. Sure, yeah.

And now you're saying low. Yeah. I think, yeah, we're seeing more. It's winning you over. And then Waldron is just. Yeah, I mean, that's basically my take on him too. And then Waldron, it's not a surprise that he's pitching better when he throws his knuckleball more, I would suggest he should probably throw it even more than he does.

But, you know, at 45%, it seems to be a very effective approach for him. And again, I don't think it's an ace, but mid to high three ZRA, I think we can roll with Matt Roger moving forward. This has got to be some rare consistency for a knuckleballer, though. I mean, I haven't reviewed the game logs for every knuckleballer in history, but it's, You know, you can count the successful, like the knuckleballers who are like really impactful pitchers. It's a short list. Yeah.

And I, three in our lifetimes. So who are we talking about? Ari Dickie? Tim Wakefield and I think Phil Necro was still pitching when we were all born. Maybe not Frank. But he pitched forever. Yeah, I mean, Phil Necro, I almost called him Phil Knuckleball. Phil Necro is obviously the best ever.

I mean, I don't even put Tim Wakefield. He retired the year before I was born. I don't even put Tim Wakefield in that category because he had like two great seasons and for the most part was just kind of an innings-eating swing man. But Waldron is, he has, he's got that velocity like Dickie had. And yeah, I think he's, you know, I'm a little distrustful of him just because he's a knuckleballer,

but I'm also excited about him. Pitching duel number three. You mentioned the name, Tage Bradley. He was up against Joe Ryan, and Bradley went six innings, two runs, only three strikeouts. He allowed 10 hard hits in this game. Underlying numbers,

it looks like he did not have his best stuff, but he still managed a quality start, and he's allowed two runs or less in six of eight outings. Joe Ryan on the other side, six innings, one run, five strikeouts, had 19 whiffs on 94 pitches. Ooh, I just realized this was a revenge game for Joe Ryan. Very nice.

He has gone six plus innings in 11 of 15 starts and has had a great season. Scott, anything to add on Taj and Joe Ryan. Yeah, I mean, we've obviously seen better from Taj Bradley with the whiffs and the strikeouts. This twins matchup wasn't a cupcake. So the fact he gave you a quality start, I think is encouraging. And yeah, like I said, I have him ranked ahead of both Hunter Brown and Matt Waldron rest of seasons slightly. So I like the upside. And pitching duel number four, we had Freddie Peralta up against Tyler Anderson.

He can't keep getting away with this. Yet he does. Freddie Peralta, six shutout innings, had eight strikeouts, 18 whiffs on 101 pitches. And Tyler Anderson, seven innings, one run, five strikeouts, had 13 whiffs on 99 pitches. The change up, the cutter. They were both working, both awesome for Anderson. He has allowed one earned run or less in nine of 15 starts. he has a 248 ERA

with a 510 ex-fib. That is Tyler Anderson. Chris, anything to add on him and Peralta? Yeah, I think his ex-ERA is near five as well. So it's not like he's limiting

hard contact to an absurd degree. He's giving up a ton of walks, which is not what he was doing in 2022. This looks like much more of a mirage than Tyler Anderson's very good 2022. And, subsequent results

proved that 2022 was already a mirage for Tyler Anderson. So it's fine to ride it while he's going well. I'm not even sure of that. It's going to blow up in your face. I will not believe in Tyler,

even if he's doing this until the last week of the season. Yeah. I will not believe in him unless the skill indicators catch up to the production. So like, if he becomes

skill-wise a different pitcher. Which they aren't. Right. They're not, and they haven't been all season. But I'm saying if you play this back three months from now because I've changed my stance on Tyler Anderson, it's because he's missing a lot more bats and he's walking a lot of fewer guys and all that stuff. But like take it one start at a time.

And if you want to start him against Oakland next week, I think that's perfectly fine. And if he gives up five runs, I think it's also perfectly fine to drop Taylor Anderson, I also think it would just be fine to drop Tyler Anderson. If you're in one of the 20% of leagues where Hunter Brown or Tosh Bradley's available, go drop Tyler Anderson. Yes, I agree with that completely. We will put Scott's analysis to the test tomorrow when we see if Tyler Anderson is a sleeper pitcher for next week or not going up against the Oakland AIDS.

I mean, it probably will be because I'm having to wade through the sludge to come up with 10 sleeper pitchers. Yeah, now I get that. Tyler Anderson, by the way, 74% rostered. That leads us into the Waverwire pitchers. And him along with Brian Beow, who bounced back. I think we need to see more, obviously. It was a really bad stretch. But a quality start at the Blue Jays, six innings, two runs,

six strikeouts for Beio. He's 71% rostered. Looks like he might line up for two starts next week. Andrew Heaney, a quality start against the Mets, six innings, three runs, nine strikeouts, had 15 whiffs in this one. And he did change things up through his slider a lot more. And it was awesome.

So perhaps something changing here for Andrew Heaney. And Kyle Hendricks looked great in his return to the Cubs rotation. Up against the Giants, five and two-thirds innings, one run, eight strikeouts, 14 whiffs on 75 pitches, completely changed a pitch mix. He threw less change-ups, more curve balls, more four-seem fastballs. And it was a legit four-pitch mix that worked very well for Kyle Hendricks. Go ahead, Chris, whatever you like to add. I do not understand the enduring appeal of Brian Beyo in the eyes of the fantasy baseball community.

This was a guy who was never a top 100 prospect, has not had an ERA below four at the major league level. Who is this? Is this Bayo? Brian Bayo does not get strikeouts, does not really have great control, gives up a lot of home runs. Why is this guy 71% rostered? I don't know. Like if you didn't drop him yet, then as a result of this game, okay, I guess you don't drop him. But I don't get it.

I don't understand what, like, he hasn't been useful at all for fantasy for the last two months. There was a time last year and probably the year before when I got pretty excited about him. And I wonder if that's just had a permeating effect. Like sometimes, I don't want to overestimate my influence or anything. but usually I underestimate it. So I had him as a bus this year. I've been out on him for a while, and obviously his performance so far,

this start notwithstanding has not won me back over for all the reasons you went through. Yeah, like the underlying numbers aren't great. I just, like, I think he's fine, but I think he's probably a number four starter in real life. and that's not usually a guy who holds a 71% roster rate with an ERA over five. Yeah. No, he's been bad.

And I liked him as a sleeper coming into the season. He has a great change up. And there was talks of him working on his slider with Pedro Martinez in the offseason. And he throws hard. Yeah. So I thought there was a chance, but I've had him outside my top 80 starting pitchers for the past, I don't know, two, three weeks, something like that.

So like we said earlier, if any of those, like Tage Bradley, Hunter Browns are still out there. Obviously, you should drop Brian Beow for any of those names if you could. Was there any interest in any of the other names? Andrew Heaney, Kyle Hendricks. I mean, not yet. Let's keep an eye on Andrew Heaney because two of his last three starts have been this way with a bunch of whiffs. Actually, it's two of his last four starts.

I must have missed a start in there. So, you know, there's still a lot of bad mixed with the good. but if his fastball and slider continue to play up like they did in this start, and I know they were up about a mile per hour, then there's a chance he could turn into something fantasy relevant again. More ways from that. Conhundred's was pretty useful last year. I don't think he's just dead.

Well, I read the recap of this start because I wanted to see, okay, he had been in the bullpen, was he working on stuff, that then he was able to put into practice here and his return to the rotation. And that's not the impression I got from the quotes. Apparently, he was just thrown whatever Miguel Amaya called, and he was surprised by how many curveballs Amaya called and how many fastballs up in the zone,

which Kyle Hendricks fastball is not the sort that's supposed to play up in the zone. So it may have just been an element of surprise there. I'm pretty, I'm not interested. I'm a little bum that he's not in the bullpen anymore just because it was really fun to watch him come out of the pen and just really ramp up and hit like 88. You know, like really hot.

Just max effort. Some waiver wire hitters. David Hamilton continues to produce two for five with the RBI and his 30th steal. Last 31 games, he's betting 3.30 with three homers, 18 runs, and 16 steals. 16 steals in 31 games. That is awesome stuff for David Hamilton,

who has 3.50 plus steel seasons in the minors. Zach Gelloff has homered two days in a row and is hitting better in June, batting 245, four homers, three steals in 820 OPS. And Brendan Donovan looks to be heating up last 14 games, 309 batting average, two homers, eight RBI, one steal. How would you rank Hamilton, Gelloff, and Brendan Donovan? I mean, you've got to put Hamilton at the top right now. He's just been so prolific.

They moved him up to number two in the order. I suspect there'll be regression and batting average. And obviously sitting against left-handers isn't great. But he's providing so many stolen bases. And I don't want to get burned by writing him off the way I did Bryce to rank. So I'm going to say Hamilton's clear number one here. Gelloff, of course, has more upside. But it's two games where he's showing it.

And I just need to see a lot more. And Donovan's whatever. Yeah, I would rank them in that order as well. Hamilton Galoff, Donovan. Is it a hot take to say I'd rather have Hamilton than Saddam Raphael? That was my next question. No, I rank Hamilton ahead of Raphaelah. Okay.

I like the way Raphael is trending. I think we're all in agreement there. The only thing I worry about with David Hamilton is, will he play every single day against lefties? Because he has not been good against lefties so far. his career. He hasn't played much against them. Yeah.

But the way he's hitting right now and the way he's running, yeah, I think he absolutely is the top option of those names. Two outfielders, Jorge Soler looks like he's coming around, one for four with a grand slam, his ninth home run. And in June, he's batting 298, three homers, 14 runs, a 929 OPS. And Miguel And Duhar keeps hitting three for four with a run in RBI. He is up to a 330 batting average.

Only two homers, a 780 OPS. Who do you guys prefer? between Solair and Anduhar. Solair. Yeah. Would you drop Brent Rooker for either? Because last 21 games before this one, he had a multi-hit game here on Wednesday.

Rooker was batting 182 with a 645 OPS and a 43% strikeout rate. I think dropping Rooker for Solair is probably fine. It's fine. But I think I'd rather have Rooker. They're not dissimilar. It's just Solair gets hurt all the time. and I'm sure Rooker will heat up again.

He's the sort of player who's going to look bad when he's cold, but we've seen a year and a half of good power-hitting production from him. It should be sophomore now, right? What's up? Don't worry about it. That's fine. It was a bad joke. You were turning Rooker into Rookiee and saying.

Yeah. Oh, gosh. That's all I was. It's a stretch. We're at the one hour mark, so I'm just going to bounce around a few different things quick. There's so much rundown left, Frank. What were you doing? What were you guys doing talking about the same players for five minutes straight when I was just trying to get through the rundown?

God, we haven't even spent 15 minutes on Gary Crochet yet. Gosh. And it's time to feed the cats. What's going on here? There's so much going on. Anyway, I had some hitter questions. Basically, do you buy what's happening with any of these players? And I realize it's a one game sample for Sean Murphy, who went four for four with a

double dung, but it has been a bad season for him. Very small sample size, obviously derailed by injury. Wyatt Langford, he since returning last 19 games, 275 batting average, one homer, 13 RBI, six steals. And Jackson Merrill, last 12 games, 333, five homers, two steals. I guess with the latter two is, are you buying in on those two?

And with Sean Murphy, what has gone wrong this season? well I think he's just been he's spent so much of it hurt first of all and not as consistent playing time as you'd like for a player of his caliber everything looks awful on a stack cast page exit velocities down the plate discipline's worse all the expected stats horrible but you know he was good his last season in Oakland he was great his one season with the Braves and he just had a game where he homered twice and hit three balls in in excess of 106 miles per hour. So I'm hopeful he's coming around. I didn't move Ryan Jeffers behind Murphy, but just based on this one game in those shallow one catcher leagues where I said you could consider dropping Jeffers,

I think it would be fine to drop him for Murphy right now if Murphy happens to be available. I'm actually not sure what his roster rate is. I think it's like 88%. I never moved Jeffers ahead of Murphy. I still have Murphy as a top 10 catcher. So I have not really moved him much at all since he got healthy. I just, I think he's off, but I think he'll be, I think he'll be good.

Yeah. Merrill, I will point out that during this stretch where he's homered five times and seven games, wow, five times. He has eight home runs all season. He's homered five times and seven games. He's put the ball in the air 62% of the time, which on the one hand is kind of, necessary for this like it's it's an essential cause of the symptom right i don't know if that makes sense but you get what i'm saying like you're not going to hit homer five times in seven games unless you're putting the ball in the air a lot but that's what he needs to do to keep putting to keep hitting

home runs uh his his spray angle his fly ball rate none of that was optimized for power and that's been an issue dating back to the miners so if it's the start of the trend okay maybe we're on to something with Jackson Merrill, but it's just way too early to say that. For what it's worth, it was starting to turn around in the second half of last season at AA. And so I'm buying Jackson Merrill just generally. I think he's a super talented hitter. I don't think he's going to be a huge power threat, but if he can be a 20 homer pace guy, I think it's a really, really, really valuable skill set. So I like Jackson Merrill quite a bit. Some quick leftovers. I'm going to throw five pitchers your way, and you let me know if anything stands out.

Three of them pitched pretty well. Hunter Brown, Garrett Crochet, Cole Regens. Two of them, not so much. Subpar outings for Kevin Gosman and Terrick Scuba. Anything that stood out for Scuba, Gosman, Reagan's, Crochet, Hunter Brown. Yeah, I really could not find anything to get concerned about with Scoobel. And I know it's three of his last five outings, four earned runs. Three of his last, three of his, his three worst outings this year have come in his last five outings. So I understand why some people might be ringing their hands over him, but I'm just not seeing anything. I think, you know, he ran into a couple homers in this start against the lineup that's heating up. And I think he's going to be fine. Still got a ton of whiffs.

The pitches, the profile, the pitches still look similar. I think he's fine. Gossman Mid He might be He might be I'm I'm Losing faith in Gossman

I moved him down to SP 36 And honestly that doesn't feel low enough Like I think Part of it is just We've seen now Three different times I think where he's had a double-digit strikeout effort

Or maybe a nine strikeout effort At least And every single time It's just led to nothing And so I kind of just think we're at the point with Kevin Gosman where, yeah, he's still capable of those flashes. But doing it consistently is not part of his skill set right now. And given the shoulder and the velocity being down and just the way his fastball is getting hit, I just don't see much reason to be excited about him. All right.

One hitting left over I wanted to mention was Josh Naylor, who had a pretty massive game three for four with a double-double. and 4 RBI. He's still batting just 237. The XBA is 272. So I think the batting average will get better. His bad-up is 2-14. That just seems way too low. I mean, the line drive rate is down a bit.

Ground balls are up a bit, but it doesn't explain why the bad-up is that low for Josh Nailer. So I would expect better batting average, and obviously everything else has been amazing. The home runs, the RBI, and obviously the rest of the county stats with Nailor. Can I comment on one player real quick? Sure.

We have to skip over here. Danesby Swanson. He had a sock and a shoe on Tuesday and then homered again on Wednesday. Hopefully, if you lost Mookie Betts, you targeted him in a buy-load trade because he might have a month here where he kind of produces a mooky bets sort of way. It seems to be heating up. All right. Some bullpen updates for the Pirates.

David Bednar pitched a clean ninth for his 16th. For the Padres, Robert Suarez bounced back from his blown save on Tuesday. He struck out one for his 18th. For the Cubs, Hectorneras getting a few days off after a pretty rough stretch for him. It was Colton Brewer, who got the ninth with a one-run lead. He walked two, but picked up his first save. On Tuesday, it was Keegan Thompson who picked up the save for the Cubs. For the Nationals, Kyle Finnegan struck out two for his 21st save.

That's tied for the second most in baseball. For the Orioles, Craig Kimbril got the ninth with a one-run lead. He gave him up exactly one run. He took his fourth blown save but wound up with the win. For the Rays, P. Fairbanks, unavailable because of that hand injury he suffered earlier in the week. Phil Maeton got the 10th inning with a one run lead. He struck out one for his second save. For the Rangers, Kirby Yates picked up his 11th.

For the Astros, Josh Hader picked up his 10th. And for the Brewers, Trevor McGill, I so. badly wanted to say Tyler McGill. I don't know. I type Trevor McGill every time I'm writing about Tyler McGill. Remember when I used to always say Austin Nola for Aaron Nola? That was the most embarrassing. Trevor McGill picked up his 15 save and he has been money for the Brewers. Hey, hey, I think you left out the most concerning relief performance of all from Wednesday. What is that? Clay Holmes of your Yankees. It's been been pretty bad.

Been given up some runs here. I think five in his last three outings took the loss, I believe, in this one, right? Yeah. And his strikeout rate is not closer caliber, and we've seen bumps in the road from him every year. Yeah, what was interesting in this one, he'd gotten way too sinker heavy recently,

and he went completely the opposite direction today, only through five of them on 18 pitches, did not solve the issues that he had. been having of late. I think he's fine. I think Clay Holmes is really good. I'm not too concerned. But yeah,

it's been a little bit of a rough patch and Yankees fans are not reacting well. I mean, the bullpen is the biggest weakness for the Yankees pretty clearly. And I could see them upgrading from Holmes at the deadline.

I don't know who exactly that would be, but I could see it happening. To stream or not to stream for Thursday. And Yeah, not the greatest day. I would, gosh, if you had to choose, I would say Spencer Arrigetti at the White Sox, Logan Allen against the Mariners,

Zach Lattel and Simeon Woods Richardson are facing each other. I think those two might be the best, and that's damning with faint praise. Yeah, Lattel's been so bad recently. He might be the one who loses his job to Shane Baz here soon. I don't want to start any of them. Andre Payante. That's always my go-to

when I don't want to start anybody. He's going against the Giants. He'll get a lot of ground balls. Maybe he'll get a quality start out of him. Well, if you thought Thursday was bad, here's Friday. Not good. Jose Cantana at the Cubs.

Andrew Abbott versus the Red Sox, Trevor Rogers versus the Mariners, DJ Hers at the Rockies, Colin Ray at the, the Padres. I wish it wasn't at the Rockies for DJ Hurst because I could be talking about.

He might be my pick anyway. He's fastball change up. I could see a good Trevor Rogers start, but I'm not expecting it. DJ Hers at Colorado Friday is the ultimate boomer bus play.

I could see him striking out double digits and allowing two hits or I could see him being pulled after two innings because he allowed three homers and eight runs. Yep. I agree with that. And I agree as well. We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris.

I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Bye.