Fantasy Baseball Today - Late Season Strategy! Bench Kade Anderson? Drop Slumping Stars? (9/4 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Rutschman got his revenge (2:54)! ... Kade Anderson has been bad (5:58). ... Cal Quantrill is making some noise (17:02). ... PCA homered again, and Skubal struggled (18:48). ... News (23:42): Ohtani was out Thursday with injury. ... Logan Henderson vs. Kevin Gausman (34:25). ... Start, sit or drop (40:12)? ... Who are the latest waiver wire names (45:31)? ... Let's play Scotty Doesn't Know and talk late-season strategy (53:20)! ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpens, and streamers (1:08:53).Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for the newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters

I'm fantasy baseball today on September 4th. I am Frank Stamphle joined by Scott White. Today on the show, what do we do with Kate Anderson? Start, sit, or drop these four pitchers. I want to talk a little late-season strategy when it comes to struggling hitters, some big names. What do we do? Do we stick with the guys who got us here?

Or do we potentially bench, drop some names? And a pretty light schedule. You know what that means. Scott, he doesn't know! I don't know the answer to the first questions you've already asked. Well, let's try and figure it out together. Let's jump in. In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.

All right, first and foremost, we'll get to Kate Anderson in a second. Oh, my goodness gracious. Adley Ruchman, the ultimate revenge game. You've got to respect it, man. Comes into Camden Yards, first time back in Baltimore. two for four with a double dong, and he needed it. 16 games now at Boston,

even after this game, hitting just 193 with three home runs, and the strikeouts, ground balls have been up. The quality of contact has been quite bad. We know that he has been battling this hyper-extended elbow, but clearly did not bother him here in this game.

So, Scott, if you have Adley Rutchman, I was updating my rankings earlier today, and initially I moved him down outside my top 12. I saw this game. I'm like, all right, let me just leave him inside the top 12. But would you be inclined to just go with a hot hand, just seeing the way that Adley Rushman has played aside from this game

and the fact that he's kind of banged up? What would you do with Adley Rushman right now? Is he the hot hand now? Just one game. Yeah, but two home or game. I mean, how much hotter does it get off the waiverware? I guess it comes down to, like, who specifically are you talking about, Mickey Gasper?

over Adley Rushman. Carter Jensen is hot, and we'll get to him, I'm sure, but he's already rostered in more than 80% of league, so I doubt that's an exchange many people can make. Right. I guess Alejandro Kirk has had a really good second half. I don't know what he's done in the past week or so. I haven't really mentioned his name much,

but I know his second half has mostly been pretty good, so someone like that, maybe? I got to be honest, like, if I have Adley Rushman and I was considering making a change, this game would say, okay, I guess I can't make a change. Because who knows if he's about to go off here? He may not, but he may, and, like, I'll feel stupid if I chose now to drop him.

So, yeah, I don't think, like, in theory, Adley Rushman is not the kind of, let's call him universally rostered. I'm sure he's close enough. Is not the kind of universally rostered player that I think is untouchable this time of year.

Because this is like a third straight year of disappointing production. I think our baseline expectation for Adley Rushman has to fall now. So I don't think he's somebody you can't think about replacing. But after a two-homer game, I'm probably not replacing him.

Yeah, Adley Rutchman is 87% rostered on CBS, so he's still rostered in many leagues. And yeah, I get it. I mean, before this game, we had the news that he's dealing with this elbow injury and that he's going to play through it for the rest of the season. He had a wrist injury before this, and he got off to a pretty good start this year,

but really has kind of tailed off. So I wish he could play every game against the Orioles. That would be amazing. But hopefully this is the start of a strong finish here in September for Adle Rutchman. All right, Scott, oh my goodness, Cade Anderson, he has been quite bad so far. The YouTube chat is not happy about it. I was reading comments before we started things up here.

And I guess a little transparency like, we're disappointed too. Like, you know, we all thought he was going to be good. And, you know, I have him on a few teams, and it obviously is not working out. I guess this could be a lesson for future days and future podcasts about potentially hyping pitchers coming up from double eight to the majors.

I mean, look, it worked for George Kirby. It worked for Brian Wu. It worked for... Logan Gilbert was pretty much good right away. I think Logan Gilbert did get a couple starts at AAA before getting called up, but close enough. It's certainly not unprecedented for... Clearly, the Mariners themselves. I just listed off a bunch of Mariners pitchers.

They made a habit of it. They don't like putting their big pitching prospects through their... PCL, which is a very difficult league to pitch in. Okay. So, first of all, if you can tell me a single person who when Kate Anderson got called up said, don't bother with them, then that person deserves a lot of credit because it's turned out to be a waste of time.

I feel like it's a waste of time. It was a waste of a roster spot. I am disappointed. I had him stashed for months in Tout Wars because 15-te-te-league, it's really hard to get starting pitching off the waiver wire. I needed most help, the most help in the starting pitcher categories. So I thought, okay, I'll go ahead and stash

Kate Anderson and maybe I don't have to spend truckloads of fab dollars on pitchers that I don't have a lot of confidence in anyway. And I'll be fine. Fortunately, I have a big lead in Tau Wars still, but it doesn't look like Kate Anderson's going to be help to me. So, of course, it's disappointing.

Secondly, like, what do you? do with him now? Like, well, let's just talk about how he's performing. He hasn't had like a disastrous start, like one of those two and two-thirds inning eight-er-runs start that immediately makes you say, okay, this guy's not ready for the majors, send him back down. He wasn't a start like Hedickson Paiez

of the Red Sox had a few days ago, for instance. But it's just been so underwhelming in basically every way. not missing many bats in this latest start. He, uh, you do two walks in five innings. Didn't he have another start with a lot of walks too, which was, and then on top of it all, in top of him just not looking very effective,

he's limited to about 80 pitches. He threw 71 and at 79, excuse me, in this start. So with a hard cap on how deep he's able to work into games, you need him to be dominant. He's been far less than dominant. He's shown no signs of dominance. So even though he has a good matchup coming up, he's facing the Rangers next week,

I think it's totally fine to drop Kate Anderson. I'm not saying you have to. I'm never in favor of a spite drop, but I don't plan to use them against the Rangers. Seemed like a pretty good match up here against the athletics in Seattle. Yeah. And that was kind of his last chance for me in the leagues where I picked him up.

He's just not demonstrating enough. So then the question for me is, and this I think is the most interesting question, what does it mean for him next year? What are we going to do with Kate Anderson next year? To me, it seems ridiculous just intellectually, to say this is a huge pitching prospect. the consensus top pitching prospect in baseball when he got called up. And by the way, you can't say

he was some flash in the pan who just clearly was clearly picking on players who weren't as experienced as. He was the top pitcher taken in his draft class. So from an evaluation standpoint, Kate Anderson has been highly regarded from the beginning.

And I think it's unlikely they just got him completely wrong. it's reasonable to give rookies call-ups a grace period. But at the same time, there hasn't been that glimmer of potential like we saw with Chase Burns when he got called up last year, for instance. Or, I don't know, Trey I Savage, I think, had more than a glimmer of potential, but Bubba Chandler had a glimmer of potential. Maybe that's not a good example because he hasn't had a very good rookie season either.

but you get what I'm saying. Kate Anderson in three starts hasn't given us anything we can point to and say, yes, I see why this guy was so highly regarded. Even though the results have been disappointing, I see it. I haven't seen it. So that's my biggest question. Presumably he's going to be

have the inside track on a rotation spot for the Mariners next year. What kind of draft, is anybody going to be talking them up as a sleeper? He'll still be a prospect. How high is he going to show up on next year? prospect list. I'm really interested to see because it has been that underwhelming. And then the next thing to talk about is I think where you wanted to go.

What does this say about prospects in general, prospect call-ups in general? I think that it's the sort of thing that is never going to have 100% accuracy. You're often going to miss in a major way. And I'd rather miss this way. I'd rather miss, okay, I paid a few fab dollars to stash a guy for a few weeks. He got called up, but didn't work out. I'd rather miss that way than I just completely ignored that guy because I got burned by the last prospect callup, and he was a monster who completely changed the standings in my league

in favor of the guy who did pick him up. We called them lottery tickets, meaning you shouldn't expect it to pay off, but if it does pay off, it does so in a way that is life-changing or in this way, in this case, league changing. And it's always a guessing game, though. It's always hunches and it's always, it's always a roll of the dice. Yeah. I think that's fair. Look, we say that about a lot, pretty much all prospects that they are lottery tickets. And it's just, it's a mystery box. It's taking a shot on the unknown, on upside player, a player that we haven't seen before. And it's like, where else are you going to find that on the waiver wire?

In some leagues, if you play in a shallow enough league, I mean, your waiver wire might just be robust. And perhaps, you know, prospects aren't for you. And it doesn't make as much sense for you to be aggressive on prospects in leagues like that. But typically, if you go into 12-team roto leagues or deeper, the waiver wire isn't like that. And so you want to take shots on players you haven't seen before. and guys who are highly regarded prospects. And again, not every prospect is going to hit. I totally get that.

And I think perhaps I will take the plane here, Scott. I like to hype up prospects. I understand that. Like, that is a thing that I like to do. I mean, this is a new player that is joining the player pool. And for many of them, they have awesome numbers in the miners. And I am personally excited to see what these players can do. It doesn't always pan out for fantasy.

But I personally get very, very excited when prospects get called up. It's you and everyone. It's you and everyone else, Frank, is the thing. And, like, again, why wouldn't you hype up a $30 million jackpot? You know, like, it's so rare to find league-changing talent on the waiver wire mid-season that, of course, you have to hype it up. But, like, contextualize it properly. Play responsibly, as they say. it's unlikely your life is going to be changed,

but it could be changed. And it's so rare to find that kind of potential on the waiver wire. Yeah. Especially this late in the season. But I really hyped up Kate Anderson two weeks ago the way I started that episode. I don't,

I think you're being hard on yourself because when I think, because I didn't get that impression. I don't think Kate Anderson, this is Frank Stamphill's guy. No, no. Look, everybody. He's been his flag in him in a way.

Everybody was excited about it. Like, I totally get that. But, you know, I did go above and beyond. Look, I'm frustrated to, as I mentioned, I thought about, I told Scott beforehand, bringing an egg with me on today's podcast and just like cracking it over my own head and having egg on my face while we talk about Kate Anderson.

But neither here nor there. The conversation for next season, he still has probably three or four starts. Let's see what he does in those. And obviously that will shape what we think about him in the off season. But I think perhaps this could be a lesson for future years, a lefty that's coming up that doesn't have overpowering stuff.

And so far, we only have a stuff plus metric for his first two starts. His stuff plus is at 98. 100 is league average. So that's all we have so far on Kate Anderson. But there have been other lefties that have got called up that don't throw hard and have a wide array of pitches. I think you made the max free comp. I still think that's on the table for Kate Anderson.

And I don't want to overreact too much long term. But for this season, I don't think. that he's very, I don't think he's usable. And so that's fine. Like, you're not using him next week against the Rangers, even though it's at home. On paper, it's a good matchup against the Rangers lineup, but they are fifth and Wobugg against Lefty. So I'm, I'm just not using him there. And I think that you can defend dropping him. So that's- What's Ian Seymour's stuff plus? It's 1. It's 103. What was it last year? It was 95 when he was very useful down the stretch last year. Like, it's, you know, I'm not a big believer in Stuff Plus anyway. It's not the end-all be-all, but I'm

just trying to provide as much context as humanly possibly, you know? And even if you watch him pitch, it's not like, wow, Kate Anderson has the most dominant stuff I've ever seen. Yeah, but he's got a deep arsenal. He has good command of it. Like, I'm not going to rehash the scouting report. It's just, and I get, you don't want to, you don't want to say it's hopeless and just a guessing game, but there's a big risk of overcorrecting here, too.

and like you don't want to just swing wildly between two extremes and constantly changing your approach and never land on an answer that's going to yield the highest rate of success. All right, that was a lot of talk about Keane Anderson, Scott. Who would you like to talk about? So my player at the night is Calquantrol. He probably does not have a very good stuff plus rating. I don't think he's that good.

he's been around a while, but holy cow, has he gotten good results lately. Here on Thursday, seven shutout innings against the raise, two hits allowed in those seven innings. That means in his last eight starts now,

Cal Quantrell. Cow Quantrell, of all people, last eight starts. 125 ERA, 0.76 whip, even 8.5K per 9. Not with a very good swinging strike. Great.

again, I don't think he's this good. I don't know why he's been this effective. And it always feels like in these cases where a not-so-good player has a crazy good run, the moment you start buying it and using him is when it all comes crashing down. But his next match-up is against the Mariners in Seattle. The best lineup to pitch against,

the best place to pitch. So I'm pretty high on Calquantral for next. week. I think he's worth picking up and streaming, certainly over Kate Anderson, who may well be his opponent. Yeah, that would make some sense. They both line up for that same matchup next week. Yeah, Cal Quantrell, he is 43% rostered. He is a spark for those who play in Head-10 Points Leagues. We do have a long track record of Cal Quantrell not being very good, but he's pitching well right now. and yeah, it's a good matchup next week in a good environment to pitch in in Seattle.

So he is definitely in play. He is an option. That is Cal Quantrell. Want to give a couple of shoutouts here. PCA, another one, his 39th home run, and that was the difference in this game against the Brewers,

obviously very important games there in the NL Central, and now has 15 home runs in his past 27 games, up to 39 home runs total, 32 steals. He's got to start running, Scott, because I want to get a 40-40 season here. We have 21 games to get one homer and eight steals.

So, all right, PCA, let's pick up the steel pace a little bit and get that 40-40 season. Too busy homering. Yeah. Can't steal when you're homering. That is fair. Remember that happened to, I think it was Corby Carroll a couple years ago in the first half. He had like no steals, but he was just hitting a bunch of home runs. So there's something to that.

I mean, you legitimately cannot run if you're just hitting home runs all the time. I don't want to mention Terrick Scuba here as well. Just an uncharacteristic start against the Cardinals. Five and two-thirds, ten hits allowed, two runs, six strikeouts to one walkie, he had 13 whiffs on 102 pitches. And 10 hits allowed his most since July 22nd, 2024. So over two years since Terik Scuba has done this. And only one of the 10 hits had an XBA below 450.

So most of these hits were deserved. Scott, was there anything in the profile? or anything you saw that made you nervous about a, I can't even say bad because he only gave up two runs, but an uncharacteristic start from Terrick Scoobel. I didn't see anything that made me nervous. I think it was just one of those days. His previous two starts were great,

and of course he's been on a great run for a while now, so no worries. The updated numbers for Terrick Scoobal with the Dodgers in six starts, he's a 303 ERA 118 whip. That number is a little high. 43 strikeouts to eight walks over 35 and two-thirds innings. But still three earn runs are fewer in 14 of 15 starts since returning from injury.

That is Terrick Scoobel. And I have a couple of programming updates here before we hit our first break. And for the weekend, obviously Labor Day weekend here, we will not be live on Sunday night due to Labor Day, but instead we do have a pre-recorded podcast dropping at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, where we recapped that first NFBC draft

that was done a couple of weeks ago. We had Casey Bubba on to join us from the Bubba in the Bloom podcast, so it was me, Chris, and Bubba. We broke down like the first two or three rounds. We looked at Bubba's team where Paul Skeens went in that draft. So it was a very, very interesting conversation, starting to get the wheels turning for next year.

And our usual FBT Express episode will drop on Saturday, and that will be previewing next week's action. So be on the lookout for all of that this weekend. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back, Fantasy at Baseball today. Let's run through the news and notes. Shohei Otani was out of the lineup on Thursday

as he battles a pair of injuries, the left knee discomfort. He's also dealing with a right biceps issue. And Chris pointed this out on Wednesday night that Otani looked pretty bad in the batters box and, you know, perhaps contributed to him getting the day off here on Thursday. Interested to see where this goes, Scott, because obviously I don't think he's going to pitch again

in the regular season. Like, maybe he can make a relief appearance in the postseason here and there. But, you know, these injuries seem like they're legitimately affecting Shio Tani at this point. Yeah, they do. I know I retweeted this quote. Did I not retweet it?

I thought I retweeted it. Now I can't find it. Anyway, Dave Roberts, basically said, I saw what everyone else saw out there with Shohay Otani's swing on Wednesday. And I'm paraphrasing very much here. I saw what everyone else saw. And, you know, we might need to give him a break to get his swing right again.

Because, yeah, it just seems like he's, in a way, we haven't seen with all of Shohay Otani's previous injury, the twice torn elbow ligament that he just kept hitting through it and it wasn't a problem at all, he seems to be affected mechanically now by this one.

And that's something we're not used to. I doubt we see him pitch at all the rest of the season because I think in order for the Dodgers obviously pursuing the three Pete here to get, like they need Shohay Otani

right as a hitter. I think if they're going to complete that repeat. They probably don't need to. Their pitching is so dominant that they might just be able to ride that to a championship, but it makes it a lot harder if Otani isn't hitting like Otani can. So we may see him take a few days off down

the stretch. I don't know. We'll just have to see how it goes. I can't imagine sitting him in fantasy at the moment, but you know, if sitting a day turns into sitting multiple days, then that's something we may have to consider. And then there's the bigger question. What does it mean for him being drafted next year?

I don't know if you guys got into this on that pod that I wasn't a part of. I was invited to it. So I shouldn't sound, I shouldn't sound like I have sour grapes or anything. But my initial thought is that Aaron Judge and Shohei Otani will still be my top two players next year in some order. they have obviously Otani and Judge their season was kind of marred by injuries but when healthy they still looked really good and they have crazy good track records but

I said it before on the podcast the other day I don't like it wouldn't surprise me if there's far less consensus in the early rounds than there usually is because there have been so many players so many of those players, the mainstays there, whose seasons have been marred by injury, who are just disappointing production,

and yet they're still in their prime, they still have crazy good track records. What do you do with them? It's not just Otani and Judge. It's Ronald Ducunya, it's Gunner Henderson, it's Jose Ramirez, it's Julio Rodriguez, who hasn't had the big second half

we're always counting on. It's so many players. And it's going to be wild, I think. I'm going to be disappointed if a consensus emerges, if too tight of a consensus emerges, because I think there's a lot of room for argument in the first two rounds next year, beginning with Judge and Otani.

Well, in that draft that we recapped, neither of those players went first overall. It was Pete Crow Armstrong, who went first overall. And that's going to be a hard sell for me, because, like, normally, we don't do the... We don't, fantasy analysts don't say, oh, the guy came off a career season. Well, let's just bet on him doing it again. That rarely happens.

And Pete Crowe Armstrong was a guy who had a lot of naysayers coming into the year, and we're just going to put that all aside at the expense of Judge and Otani. I would have a hard time doing that. As somebody who was heavily invested in Pete Crow Armstrong this year and has enjoyed the fruits of his MVP season. I don't think I could take him number one overall. I think that's fair, but I just think that there is no clear top pick in fantasy.

So I think it's okay for PCA to be in that mix, especially when he's as young as he is and has made the improvements that he has, has power and speed, the best defender in baseball, so he's going to play every single day. And then, you know, those guys are getting older. Like Otani and the judge are entering their mid-30s.

They both dealt with. with injuries this year. Like, I think it's a real conversation. Not for the first time for either of them. No. And it didn't scare us away previously. I feel pretty confident saying I'll have Pete Crow Armstrong in the top five, but I don't think I could have number one.

Joe Ryan tossed a rehab start on Tuesday night. Three innings, one hit, one run, four strikeouts to zero walks. He got up to 42 pitches. I know the twins could use him right now. So he's working his way back. probably at least one more rehab start. Maybe he's back after that if they want to really kind of push the envelope there.

Connor Griffin is expected to return on Friday. He has gone 3 for 11 in three rehab games and in 59 games this year, 276, 5 homers, 20 steals. I did mean to check his roster rate. I'm pretty sure it's over 80%. Connor Griffin is 82% rostered. So I can't really tell anyone to go out.

Adam, let's check Yahoo. Yahoo. I don't know what's going on with my Yahoo. But like, the screen looks all messed up. I can't really see stuff. 69% rostered on Yahoo. So it could be out there in some shallower formats. And, you know, could be an impact player down the stretch.

That is Connor Griffin. Nathan Valdi threw a successful bullpen on Thursday. He's working his way back from right posterior elbow inflammation. Cey Don Rafael was out of the lineup after leaving Wednesday with a quad injury. Kyle Stour has left Thursday's game with left hamstring tightness. He's been on the IL twice already this season, once with an injury to each hamstring. So I don't know, man. We gotta get some stretches in there, Kyle Stowers. Jacob Webb, who took a line drive off of his right arm on Wednesday, is still experiencing soreness. The hope is that he will avoid the IL. And of

course, the Cubs had a one-run save opportunity here on Thursday. Daniel Pellantz, he was unavailable. Jacob Webb was unavailable. It was Ryan Zephyrjohn who pitched a clean eighth inning, and then the lefty Ryan Rawlison who got the ninth inning, and he picked up his second save of the season. J.T. Ginn is dealing with some fatigue,

soorness, and will not start this weekend as previously expected. So pretty unfortunate for anyone who used J.T. Ginn in a weekly lineup league this week, you will not be getting a start from him. Ryan O'Hern is aiming to return from the I.L. next weekend against the Cubs. So September 11th through 13th.

He is 56% rostered. He is returning from a quad-strain. And I thought he would miss close to the rest of the season, but we might get a full two weeks out of Ryan O'Hern. So I would be interested in adding and stashing him for those final two weeks, especially in a Roto League. Five outfielder's corner infield spot. Ryan O'Hern was very good earlier on in the season.

Brendan Donovan is still. experiencing concussion symptoms and has not yet been cleared to return. Ben Brown has been ruled out for the remainder of the season with a stress reaction in his neck. I do think he is a name we need to remember as a potential sleeper for next year. He was really, really good this season with the Cubs when he pitched. And here is a name we have not heard in a while. Anthony Santander has been facing live pitching and could be ready for a rehab assignment next week. Five percent rostered. Do you have any Very deep league interest in Anthony Santander. Sure, very deep league interest.

Like, AL only. Yeah. But that's about it. And the Marlins' DFA at Leo Jimenez. They recall Davison de Los Santos, who is a name we have mentioned for years now. It would be nice if they just give them an opportunity. Let's see what he could do.

23 years old and 102 games at AAA this season, 27, 21 homers, 70 RBI, 18, Steve. in 838 OPS, hits the ball hard, but not the ideal launch angle off the bat here for Davidson de la Santos. 3% rostered. My guess is probably just a short side platoon, Scott. Do you have any interest in De La Santos?

Yeah, a ton of chase in the profile, too. It's so hard for these right-handed hitting first baseman to carve out a role in the majors unless they are. tip-top prospects with near flawless hitting profiles. And, look, Davis and De Los Santos has power, just like Christian and Carnaccion Strand did. And I don't know, who are some of the others with this profile we've talked about recently?

It seems to come up often. And so it doesn't surprise me that Davis and DeLos Santos hasn't found his footing yet. Despite his production in the miners, he never showed up that high on prospect rank lists. I think the Marlins could create an opportunity for him if they wanted to, particularly if Kyle Stowers miss his time. Fair. But I'm just not sure how motivated they'll be to do that.

Yeah. Look, it's just a name to watch for now. I don't think you need to add him outside of like maybe NL only leagues. But again, he's the guy that's had productive seasons in the minors. Let's just give him some run in September and see what the guy could do. And then if it doesn't work, all right, at least we tried with Davis and Dela Santos. and by we, I mean the Marlins, not those playing fantasy. We had ourselves a pitcher's duel out in Chicago.

It's time to doodle. Logan Henderson up against Kevin Gosman. Henderson, seven innings, two runs, seven strikeouts to zero walks. Unfortunately, gave up that two-run home or two PCA. But another dominant start, 13 whiffs on 102 pitches here. The change-up was awesome for Logan Henderson, as it usually is. It had 10 of his 13 whiffs, and it's now three earned runs or fewer in all 15 starts the season.

He has gone six plus innings innings in three of his last four. So that was a talking point and a concern for a good while there. But along with the great production, Scott, we are now starting to get legitimate, consistent length from Logan Henderson as well. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I guess it's not crazy. but this is my fear being eliminated for Logan Henderson. We could all see every time he got to starve for the Brewers,

he got a good result. I think there's still just one miss in his entire Major League career so far. But the outings tended to be short. Obviously, the Brewers kept sending him back to the miners for a while there. And it just seemed like maybe Logan Henderson wasn't, you know, with the two pitches, with the short outings, maybe he didn't profile as a true starter, somebody who they could count on to be a workhorse

and a fixture at the top of their rotation. And obviously, the last month plus has put that concern to rest. He's continued to be effective. He just did it against the top offense in baseball. The Cubs, yes, they are now the top offense of baseball over the nationals. And he did it against the Dodgers a few weeks ago. it doesn't really seem to matter who the opponent is for Logan Henderson. He always comes through.

And now that he's providing real length, as you say, I got to think of him as a must start. All right. On the other side, we had Kevin Gosman, seven innings of one-run ball, nine strikeouts. He out-duled Logan Henderson, 14 whiffs on 103 pitches. Splitter was awesome. 12 of the 14 whiffs there. His fastball, while it did have. 18 called strikes. That is a massive number.

Also had nine hard hits against the fastball. 96.7 average EV. And six starts with the Cubs, 437 ERA, 114 whip, just over a strikeout per inning. He's just been so inconsistent from start to start. 95% rostered is Gosman, 69% started. He is at the Brewers next start. So he gets the same offense two in a row. Milwaukee's a good place to pitch to get strikeouts, you know, being indoors and all that. but facing a really good offense two times in a row.

I don't know about using Kevin Gossom, but it's hard to say that coming off a great start. What do you think, Scott? Yeah, I don't know what changed. I don't know. Like, he had his normal pitch selection, normal velo, pretty much normal movement. Got a much better result.

He's been, we talk about this a lot with Sunny Gray, but Kevin Gossman has had kind of a confounding career. too from an analysis perspective. A huge prospect faltered for like eight years to begin his career, then suddenly became an ace with the Giants and remained an ace for like half a dozen years. And then fell off in a way that's hard to understand. So I don't think I'd start him next time either. Who'd you say the matchup was for Gosman?

At Milwaukee, so same line up two and a row. But this might, if I was on the verge of dropping him, this might prevent me from doing it. Because if he does something similar against Milwaukee next time out, well, then I really got to think about starting Gosman. Yeah. All right, let's take our final break. When we return, start, sit, or drop these four pitchers. I've got some waiver names. We'll talk some late season strategy.

All of that right after this. Welcome back, Fantasy at Baseball today. Start, sit or drop these. four fringe pitchers. Jose Soriano, not great at the Guardians. Four and two-thirds, three runs, three walks, two strikeouts here. And in six starts with Toronto, 436 ERA 145 whip. His last 22 starts overall.

456 ERA, 145 whip. He's still 92% rostered. 61% started at the athletics next week. Scott, start, sit, or drop, Jose Soriano. I'm closer to dropping him than starting him. In fact, I'll go ahead and say that in most cases, you can drop them. Yeah, I think so too. Like when Jacob Lopez and Painter are still around 60% roster,

I mean, that's just, that's a no-brainer. That's an easy decision there. Yeah. And even if you just need a streaming spot, I mean, it was a really good April for Soriano. It's been very mediocre to bad since. Tanner Bybee, a rough outing here against the Blue Jays, four innings, five runs, five walks, four strikeouts.

And the velocity was down a little bit in this one. He only allowed one hard hit, but struggled to throw his pitches for strikes, only 55% strike rate. And, you know, strikeouts are way down this year. Still 82% rostered, 53% started at the Orioles next week. Scott, what do we do? Start, sit or drop, Tanner Bybee. Again, I'm closer to dropping him than starting him.

I think he's streamable. And I think Jose Soriano is streamable too. But in shallower leagues, I don't know that you have to hold on to any pitcher who is merely streamable. Like, I'm not dropping Bybee in a 15-team league. I'm not dropping Soriano in a 15-team league. But speaking to the size of leagues we usually speak to,

I think Bybee is fine to drop. But, you know, I would have said that a month and a half ago, too. Yeah. So I think pretty easily you would drop those two for, let's say, like, the top five names on your sleeper picture list for next week. Would that be all right to do? Let me take a glance at them. Yep. Yep. Those names, you know, it's kind of cruel not to mention the names. The names are Jacob Lopez, Andrew Painter, Tyler, Malley, Walbert, Urbrenia, and. Come on, Scott. Hayden Westnest.

Broadcasting 101, we're teasing it so that they seek out the other content. Yeah, well. Well, there you go. You gave it away anyway. Drop Tanner, Bibi, and Jose Soriano for the top five names on Scott's sleeper pitcher list. Jake Bennett turned in a quality start at the Orioles, six innings, three runs, seven strikeouts, zero walks, two homers allowed in this one. He was okay.

I thought it was interesting that he only threw 68 pitches in this start. been consistently in the like 80 to 90 range in terms of pitch count. He's 82% rostered, 57% started. He gets the Angels next week, and they are 26th in Wobah against lefties. So start, sit or drop. Jake Bennett, home against the Angels. I lean towards start, I think. I like what he's done over his last three starts.

I feel like he's gotten back on track. I think he was kind of chasing strikeouts for a while. there after we kept commenting, yeah, he's doing well, but the strikeouts aren't nearly what they were in the miners. So he started fading his sinker, throwing at only 15 to 20% of the time, did that for about five starts. Didn't it go well? Last three starts, sinker usage has been up, the highest yet at 37% in this one. Got a quality start. And actually with a decent strikeout total. So what do you know? I think Jake Bennett works, but West does it works best as a ground ball specialist. And I think that matchup next week is good enough to consider starting him.

Though he is merely streamable himself, it's a good matchup coming up. And the last name on this list is Shane O. Mac, cannot play the drop. Bad start here. Four runs over five innings. He was at the Rangers. And only five wists on 72 pitches, nine hard hits in this one. He has not gone more than five innings in any of his last seven starts. 92% rostered, 58% started.

He's at the Braves next week, where he has an ERA over four on the road this season. Starts, sit or drop Shane McClanahan. I'm not opposed to dropping him. I don't see how it's that different from Tanner Bybee. I feel like the closest corollary here is actually K. Casey Meis in that, yeah, he started out great Shane McClanahan, at least in terms of run prevention. But the underlying numbers made me uneasy all along. And, you know, it was hard to go against the name value of a Shane McClanahan or Casey Mize when they're basically providing good results.

But it doesn't surprise me that it's started to fall apart for them late in the year. Let's run through some waiver wire hitters here and Zach Gelloff stayed hot two for five with a 16th home run. He is 71% rostered. He is definitely on Scott's sleeper hitters list for next week. We mentioned a bunch of A's hitters yesterday.

They have six home games next week and obviously a lot of them perform much better at home. So if you play in a shallower league and Zach Gelloff is available, change that and use him next week. Louis, anything you like that, Scott? He is among my sleeper hitters,

but it's interesting after we had that conversation about the athletics, six home games, a bunch of Ritees, which helps Lawrence Butler especially. The way I start picking out sleeper hitters for the upcoming week is I go through every team's matchups. I got a grid I print out here showing every team's matchups and I just put a G or a B next to them

or I got this weird like infinity sign that I put next to ones that are neither good nor bad. G means good. B means bad, squiggly means whatever. I put a B next to the athletics. They're not among the five worst hitter matchups, but I did put a B next to them. I don't think they're favorable matchups for hitters.

And so I'm kind of breaking my rule by putting some athletics hitters in my sleeper hitters because I usually don't pick sleeper hitters that have a B next to their schedule. But, you know, the home aspect of the athletics matchup and the fact that so many of their hitters are so hot. Now, Gelloff, who was cold, seems to be heating up again. Yeah, I'm willing to break that rule.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's kind of course field light. So I think we can, you know, make some exceptions here. And I don't know, Scott. I'm looking at the pitchers that line up for next week there. Dylan sees, obviously Dylan Cese is amazing. But then it's Jose Soriano. There's a TBD for Wednesday.

I don't know who you have projected for the Blue Jays on Wednesday. And then it's Kirby, Brian Wu and Bryce Miller like, I'm not really worried about those guys right now the way they're pitching. Okay, see I see C's Kirby and Wu and I think those are three pretty good pitchers and usually when half the schedule

is good pitchers, I put a B. Now, since they're struggling again, they didn't make my five worst matchups, but I still see those as less than favorable matchups. All right, running through some other names here, Luis Robert, already making an impact with the Orioles. He went one for three with his 11th home run. He went one

for five with two RBI and his first Orioles start on Wednesday. And over his last 23 games, 284, 7 homers, OPS over 900. 66% roster. Scott, do you think that number needs to be higher at all for Luis Robert now with the Orioles?

Well, I mean, 66% is so low. I think it could have been higher with the Mets even. They were not playing Robert, Robert with the utmost consistency. But now he's, what, It's two for two in terms of making starts for the Orioles. I'm going to guess, given the state of their outfield,

he's going to play every day. And so, yeah, I would say it needs to be higher than 66%. I don't know that it needs to be like 80%, but sure, it could go up. Herberto Hernandez hit another home run his 23rd, and over his last 20 games, he's hitting 264, 7 homers, two steals. OPS is around 1,000, and he is barreling up the ball quite a bit.

on the season he has 23 homers and 10 steals 40% rostered six home games next week. Scott, what do you have written down on that paper there for the Marlins? Well, how's it looking for them next week? I have a lowercase B, which,

so the system, I guess, is a little more complicated than I just laid out, but I didn't want to bother you with the details. Lowercase B means it's kind of bad, but I'm not sure I want to call it bad. I want to revisit it if I don't find enough bad match. Up.

Yeah, they have, it's mostly because they're facing the Dodgers the second half of the week. And that probably includes Glass now on Yamamoto. Yeah, I didn't strongly consider Roberto Hernandez as a sleeper for next week. Who do you like more rest of season, Luis Robert or Hernandez? I think Robert, but not by a lot. Christian and Carnacio Tran finally did something this week. It doesn't help that he set out two of three games in Cores Field, but he did hit his eighth home run here.

And overall in 39 games, 269, 8 homers, 30 RBI, and 822 OPS. He is 33% rostered. The Orioles have six games next week, only two lefties on the schedule. I'm kind of worried about the playing time moving forward with CES. There's him, there's Kobe Mayo, there's now Blaze Alexander. I think Alexander has kind of thrown a wrench here in CES and Kobe Mayo. Yeah, that's true. It has happened that way, and it's unfortunate.

But if they still had a week against a bunch of lefties, I have to consider them. Their splits are so good against them. Yeah. One deeper name I have here is Brett Bateman of the Blue Jays. He went three for five with a run scored. He plays every day against Ritees. He has been leading off against Ritey's.

And he has started against seven of the past 11 lefties on the schedule as well. He's hitting 3.30. He's got three steals. It's really, you know, contact, a little bit of speed. There's no power here. Pretty deep league names, Scott, but do you have any interest in Brett Battenen? I don't think so. I would much rather see Sean Keyes get those starts, but so far it hasn't happened. Yeah.

I think there's more bite to Keyes. keys have teeth. No, that's true. Waiverwire pitchers. Brandon Young turned in a quality start. He had 17 whiffs on 98 pitches, and 10 of those came on the splitter. He is home against the Guardians next week.

That's a pretty good matchup. And Quinn Matthews, he struggled with the walks, but he kept runs off the board here at the Dodgers. I remain intrigued, but, man, he just doesn't throw enough strikes, in my opinion. So far, I mean, it's very early on in his career. That's Quinn Matthews. He also has a pretty good matchup at the Giants next week. Scott, can I interest you in either?

Brandon Young, home against the Guardians, Quinn Matthews at the Giants next week. They're both kind of interesting. I considered Quinn Matthews from my sleeper pitchers. I actually did include Brandon Young and my sleeper pitchers after seeing this start with that favorable matchup against the Guardians. The 10 whiffs on the splitter, I don't know where that came from. it had a 24% whiff rate coming in,

which isn't that great for a splitter. Usually it's the slider that's responsible for his whiffs. I didn't see what was different about the splitter. Maybe something will come out later that I'll explain it. But if he does have a second weapon there with the slider, then makes it a little easier to buy into the success Brandon Young has had this year. And I have one definitive drop. It is time to say goodbye to Luis Castillo.

Six earned runs over four innings in six starts with the White Sox. 752 ERA, 171 whip. He's still 47% rostered. You can definitely drop Luis Castillo. He was dropped in my Tout Wars League, which is a 15-team Brodo League. So that pretty much means you could drop Luis Castillo anywhere. Let's get into... Scotty doesn't know.

Scott, he doesn't know. Scotty doesn't know. Oh, Scotty doesn't know. All right, Scott. Are you ready? Honestly, you've done really good. I don't even know. I might have to rename the segment.

You've kind of known a lot this year. I think just last time. I think for the most part, I haven't known much. I think the time before you got either one or two right, too. Ah, maybe. All right, let's jump in. I have not homered since August 18th. And over the last 30 games, I am hitting 136 with a 609 OPS and a 38% K rate.

Ooh. Have not homer since August 18th. Last 30, 136, 609, 38% K rate. Uh, well, I'm going to say Julio Rodriguez. Scotty doesn't know. Oh, Scottie doesn't know. The answer is Munataka Morikami, who went 0 for 4 with three more strikeouts on Thursday. And I mentioned his numbers over the last 30 games.

He is still 99% rostered, 89% started, 6 games next week. Scott, you have the White Sox with the fourth best hitter matchups for next week. There's, it looks like one lefty on the schedule for Morikami. And I think this kind of opens up that conversation about late season strategy. like Morikami burst onto the scene. He's been awesome for most of the year. He hasn't looked the same since returning from injury. Are we at the point, Scott,

if you're in a head-to-head playoff matchup where, hey man, Murakami's ice cold, let me just go with the hot hand. Let me start Thai France over Morikami just because Morikami's been really bad in the second half. Yeah, that's a good example. It helps that Marikami plays the deepest position, and there are players as good as,

Thai France available on the waiver wire in a high number of leagues at that position. And my judgment, my answer here is also impacted by the fact I'm kind of skeptical about Murakami and have been all along. Clearly, he can hit the ball hard. He can put it over the fence when he makes solid contact. But how often is he going to do that? Wasn't an issue early on has become much more of an issue here lately in a way that I can't say surprises me. Could be that the hamstring injury messed him up mechanically, and that's why he's been so cold, and that could change. I'm not saying we've seen the last of Murakami as a fantasy asset. But if you have an alternative as good as Thai France, who, spoiler alert, is my top sleeper

hitter for next week. I think it makes sense. All right. Next up, in March slash April, I hit 248 with 10 homers and a 999 OPS. From May on, I have hit 236 with 10 homers, six steals, and a 729 OPS. So the first month, 10 homers, from May on, 10 homers, and a much lower OPS, 729 OPS from May on. First two months, 248, 10 homers, and a 99 OPS? March and April. So March is like, whatever.

There's five games in March. March is part of April. That's one month. In April, 10 homers 999 OPS from that point forward. For 36, 729. March is part of April. Okay, so he had a big April, but with a low batting average. And then he's been pretty blah since then, is what you're telling me?

Yes, sir. Who could it be? Man, who were we just talking about? I don't know. I'm going to say I don't know what I want to say I am going to say Okamoto

Scottie doesn't know Oh scotty doesn't know The answer we were looking for is Mike Trout who's actually gotten worse in the second half 43 second half games 242 two homers four steals 677 OPS The expected stats are terrible

during that stretch. 231, 3601XBA, 361X slug. And he's another name, 99% rostered, 83% started. I think we're kind of latching onto a very hot start that faded pretty quickly. And he does have six road games next week. He has an OPS over 900 on the road this year. But similar questions, Scott.

Like, what do you do with someone like Mike Trout? Do you, I'm not saying you cut him, but would you bench him in a three outfielder league? at this point. So these are harder choices than I thought you were going to present me with. Man, I didn't know he had cooled off that much. I got to be honest. But I was skeptical coming into the year how useful he'd be in fantasy moving forward. And you know what? His batting average and OPS for the year pretty much right in line with last year, pretty much right in line with the year that made me so skeptical. However, strikeout rate is.

still 26% much better than the 32% from last year. So in theory, he either overperformed last year or is underperforming now, just based on what we're seeing with the strikeout rate. And the expected stats say he's underperforming now, for what it's worth, more than he overperformed last year. Okay, so I've probably filibustered enough. I'm not opposed to sitting trout in a three outfielder league. Five outfielder, I don't think I could justify it.

All right, and the last name, well, not name, last clue that I'll give you here, player number three, my OPS over the past three years has gone from 993 to 841 to 67. Woof. 993 is so high. Like, whose was that high? And then they were still pretty good the next year, 841, 993. That's so high.

It's very high. And a pretty impossible number to reach. Like, I kind of, like, Gunner Henderson kind of fits, but I'm not sure it's him because it's so high. Let's see, three years ago, it was 24, so it wasn't Ronald Zucania's big season, so it's probably not him. There was another name that came to mind, but then I lost it. Man, I'm going to feel dumb when you say the answer.

I felt dumb when he said the answer for all these. I always feel dumb. 993. Freaking high, man. I don't know. I'm going to say Gunner Henderson because I don't want to waste everybody's time. The answer is Kyle Tucker, who is still 98% rostered. That is astounding to me.

And in fact, his OPS has got even worse in the second half. 590, sub 600 OPS in the second half here. I just forgot how to play baseball. It is confounding for Kyle Tucker. Scott, I think he's droppable. He's 98% rostered. I think he's dropable. He's bad.

He's like really bad. That's another one that next year, it's like, man, extensive track record still he's going to be 30 next year him Vladimir Guerrero is another one I saw people um yeah I saw people wondering about him

it's going to be crazy next year man because like the thing is plate discipline has been about as good as ever for Kyle Tucker just the eggs of velocity's down a little is the bat speed down for him Let me see if I can pull that up real quick.

It says loading, loading bat tracking, loading it. Bat speed's not down that much. 0.7 miles per hour, average bats speed. I don't know. He's obviously had a bad year, and he had a bad second half last year. It really is just the numbers at home, and I've brought this up all season. I can't understand it at all. He's hitting 185 with a 547 OPS at home.

264 with a 798 OPS on the road, which still would be down for Kyle Tucker's standards. But if you told me that he was just a 265 hitter this year with an 800 OPS, and he gave you, I don't know, 25 homers and 15 steals, 10 steals, whatever it is, it's a disappointment, but it doesn't completely crater the way that... You're not talking about dropping them, if that's the numbers. Yeah, exactly. Yes. These numbers at home, it is just, it is insane.

Gosh, I am not looking forward to ranking players. I've got to be on it. I've never looked forward to it less because I just feel like I'm going to be pulling my hair out. I think Kyle Tucker's a strong bounceback candidate for next year. I don't think he's a strong bounce back candidate for September, though. Well, that's the thing. If I think he's a strong bounce back candidate for next year,

why couldn't he bounce back in September? You're going to feel really dumb if he has, the September like the one Matt Olson had during that bad year, what was it, two years ago? You're going to feel dumb, Frank. I don't want you to feel dumb. I can't feel dumber than I already do about Kate Anderson. Like I get in a three outfielder, shallow head-to-head,

especially points league where your bench, you want a bunch of pitchers there. Every, every hitter on your bench feels like he's dragging you down. I can get dropping Kyle Tucker in that context, because in that context, you can't start them. Yeah. But that's probably the only context where I'd drop them. Yeah. All right, so that was Scottie doesn't know.

Scotty doesn't know. Oh, Scottie doesn't know. And this was supposed to lead into a bigger conversation about what to do with big name hitters who are producing. And again, I think this is more relevant for those playing in head-to-head playoffs where, you know, every week matters so much, could decide whether or not, you know, you advance in the playoffs, you win your championship.

So it's hard to just put like a general answer on it because obviously like every player is different, Scott. But what would you recommend for, you know, just using these three names as examples. And, you know, even Christian Walker, we've mentioned a lot recently, Josh Naler who has a downseason. Like guys who were either definitively drafted inside the top 100 or got off to good starts,

would you be okay, just maybe swapswold? some of those guys out for sleeper hitters at this point in the season. Oh, yeah. I mean, the examples you're giving here, so, I mean, think about the examples you're giving. Like, Kyle Tucker has struggled all year. It's not just like something that recently started. It's been all year. Yeah.

Mike Trout, it's not like he was a high draft pick this year. There were a lot of skepticism about him, got off to a hot start. You don't have to think of him as, like, one of your stalwarts. Christian Walker. He wasn't even drafted in a lot of leagues because he was so bad last year. So again, he's not like a stalwart. I thought this conversation was going to be more like,

and I don't know how he's been doing recently. I'm just pulling an example out of the blue, but let's say Ellie de la Cruz has hit 150 with no homers over his last 20 games. Do you sit him for the playoffs? No. Yeah. Can't do that.

So, for example, there are three other. names that I have that are sub 700 OPSs in the second half. Jose Ramirez, Ben Rice, and I mean, Vlad Jr. has been bad all season, so he's kind of more like the Kyle Tucker example. Right. I mean, J. Ram and Ben Rice, like, sub 700 OPS in the second half. Do you, do you bench those guys right now in a head-to-head playoffs? So I think, I need to look into this more, but isn't there some suspicion that Jose Ramirez isn't totally healthy? He's coming back from the fractured hamate bone, right? I mean, that's the only thing that would make sense.

His underlying metrics haven't really changed all that much. Yeah, and we talked a lot about how the broken hamate bone it can take a while for power to return. There have been many examples to the contrary, especially recently, so I think that worry has died down a bit, but Jose Ramirez may have been one who was snake bitten by it. I don't think there's any chance with Ben Rice that you sit him because, like, he's catcher eligible,

and there's still nobody I'd want starting more at that position, knowing the upside. And I think Ramirez has helped a lot by the fact he's third base eligible, and there aren't a lot of great alternatives there either. So, yeah, those two, especially Rice, they remain must start in my eyes, but I'd have a hard time sitting Ramirez, too. I have other bats who have struggled big time in the second half, so I'll just ask you, throw out the name you tell me, drop or bend, or just you could say continue to start.

So, you know, start, bench, start, sit or drop, basically. AJ Hewing, 499 OPS in the second half. 499. Um, I think, uh, bench in five outfielder leagues, drop in three outfielder leagues. Brandon Marsh, 510 OPS second half. Drop. Otto Lopez, 572 OPS second half. Eileen start at either of the positions that he plays.

but if you have a great alternative, I'm not opposed to sitting him. Jonathan Aronda, 594 OPS. You could drop them in head-to-head, but in Roto, probably closer to start even than bench. Christian Walker, who we've talked a lot about 598 OPS second half. Drop. All right, and then the other names I had were the big ones. I guess I'll throw it out for Vlad Jr.

I mean, not so sure that if you have Vlad Jr., you're playing in your head-to-head playoffs, but what would you do with him? I yeah I would try not to use them would I go as far as to drop them I probably wouldn't drop them but I I would be okay benching him especially in the first base there's so many good players yeah

yeah I I almost feel like you have to bench him at this point but I'm not opposed to dropping them in the shallower leagues all right again that was that was Vlad Jr if you're looking for hitters to stream for next week some replacements Scott's best hitter matchups for week 25. We have the Nationals, Tigers, Cardinals, White Sox, and Padres. Be sure to check out his articles and our FBT Express episode as well. Wrap up with some leftovers on the hitting side. O'Neill Cruz continues to impress since returning. He went 0 for 1, but he had three walks,

a run, RBI, and his 26th seal. Roman Anthony hit another home run in five games since returning. He has 10 hits, two homers, five runs, and he has let off in each. Pete Alonzo, hit his 33rd homer and in the second half, 305 batting average, 12 homers, 29 RBI, 954 OPS. Carter Jensen finished a single short of the cycle over his last eight games. He's hitting 400 with five homers. Jack Caglione, 2 for 4 with a double and 2 RBI.

Last 30 games, 383, 7 homers, 32 RBI, 3 steals, OPS over 1,000, 4 Cags. And Corey Seeger, 1 for 4 with his 14th home run in 30 games since returning 294, four homers, 853 OPS. Scott, anything you'd like to add to the hitting leftovers?

I would like to add that Carter Jensen might be Mr. September, the kind of start he's off to this September with three straight great games. He's seven for 12, three home runs, two doubles, a triple,

only one strikeout, which, you know, strikeouts have been a big problem for Jensen all year. And I say Mr. September, because what got us so excited about him was his performance last September when he first got called up for the Royals. So we'll see if it continues. I said yesterday

that even though he's been the 10th best catcher overall, there probably isn't a point this season where Carter Jensen has been one of the 10 best catchers to start. He might be one of the best 10 catchers to start right now. All right. On the pitching side, had Hunter Brown who turned in a quality start against the White Sox, six innings, two runs, seven strikeouts,

14 whiffs on 101 pitches. And he has been better over his last eight starts, 268 ERA, 117 whip. And Michael Waka turned in a quality start against the Marlins, six innings, three runs, seven strikeouts, 20 wifts on 96 pitches. Waka's been good lately, man.

Quality start in three straight, and nine starts in the second half, 251 ERA, 0.92 whip. 47Ks over 57 in the third. So the K rate not great, but the results have been there. Look, he's been good all year. This has been, like, I could have kept him for $17 in the Scott White Dynasty League and didn't like an idiot.

Had to fill catcher with JT Real Muto instead, like an idiot. $17 sounds like a lot, I know, but 2014 team had to head points league. It was not really not much. Anyway, what I wanted to say about Waka is that the last two starts have really caught my attention because he's missed a ton of bats in both. A lot more four seamers, a lot less sinkers. And I find that interesting that there is a correlation

between that pitching change and the number of whiffs he's getting. Curiously, the velocity was up one to two on everything. Two starts ago, the first of these two starts, back to normal, and this one, the velocity, still got all the whiffs with that change and pitch selection. So, I don't know, something to monitor. If he has a big strikeout September and keeps throwing a lot of four seamers, that might change our evaluation for Waka next year in a good way. All right, the call to the bullpen for the pirates.

Mason Montgomery got the ninth inning with a three-run lead. He picked up his eighth save, 62% rostered. That number needs to be closer to 100%. Montgomery is the closer for the pirates, and he is awesome. For the Blue Jays, Louis Varland allowed two base runners, also struck out two for his 32nd save. For the Red Sox, Oroldus Chapman got the ninth with a three-run lead, and he allowed a two-run homer, but he picked up his 31st save.

For the Royals, Nate Pearson recorded four outs across the seventh and eighth innings with a one-run lead. He picked up his fifth hold, the Royals tacked on three more, but it was Stephen Cruz who got the ninth inning, and he closed it out there with a four-run. lead. So they've been, you know, sometimes they used Cruz earlier in the game if it's a bigger spot and sometimes piercing will get a save. But I still think Cruz is at the top of the leverage ladder there for the Royals. For the athletics, Scott, I know you're excited about this one. It was not

Elvis Alvarado who got the ninth inning. It was Hogan Harris who picked up his 14th save. There were two lefties and a switch hitter coming up in the ninth inning. So perhaps that factored into it, but Alvarado hasn't pitched since like the 29th or the 30th, so it should have been available. Alasero Montes was the first of the left-handed hitters. I think he's going to be an automatic out against lefties, basically. So I get it, but it's just frustrating because it seemed like, you know, Alvis Avarado last week had saves on back-to-back days.

It's like, okay, they're turning it over to Alvarado again. I've twice put in sizable bids on him and Towers and won him each time because it looked like he was the closer and then there's an immediate pivot. I think it's just a one-off with Hogan Harris here with the lefties coming up but

can't say for sure. By the way, did you see who closed for the Cubs today? Got to say for the Cubs? Ryan Rawlinson. Yeah, they're left-hander. That's interesting. Because that's a situation lately where it seems like nobody wants to close games.

Jacob Webb's been faltering. Jacob Webb got hit by a comebacker yesterday, so I don't think he was available for injury reasons, but he hasn't been good either. Daniel Palencia has been worse. He's been terrible since coming back too. So yeah, the Cubs bullpen is definitely one to watch. And then for the Cardinals, Riley O'Brien,

who I just raved about yesterday, got the ninth inning with a one-run lead, and he gave up two runs. He was charged with his six-blown save and his seventh loss of the year. So, bad job, Riley O'Brien. To stream or not to stream on Friday, we have Walker Bueller up against the Yankees,

Shane Drohan at the Reds. Ret Louder is home against the Brewers. We have Jared Jones against the Angels, Shane Boz against the Red Sox, Zebby Matthews at the White Sox, Merrill Kelly at the Astros, and Cader Montero at the Guardians. I am going to recommend

not with much enthusiasm, Shane Drohan and Cater Montero. And you could think about Shane Boss and Zebby Matthews, but I don't think either is actually that good. And they have tough matchups, red socks and white socks. The only one I have actual confidence in is Shane Drohan. But if you need some other names,

I would go Boz, Matthews, and then Cader Montero in that order. on Saturday we have Anthony Molina of the Giants He's at the Mets Actually got a bunch of swinging strikes in his last start Zach Thornton is home against the Giants Martine Perez at the Phillies Usay Kikuchi at the Pirates

Andrew Abbott home against the Brewers Chris Bassett home against the Red Sox Max Scherzer is at the Royals Seth Lugo home against the Blue Jays Anthony Kay home against the twins Pretty bad Man it's not fun to stream pitchers right Now, unless it's Jacob Lopez or Andrew Painter.

That's about it. Okay, so who will I pick from Saturday? Maybe Max Scherzer at Kansas City. So they've got a couple hot hitters right now. He was good, really good last time out. But not in a way I totally buy, or even kind of buy. Otherwise, I mean, Seth Lugo against the Blue Jays, it seems like it could be a quality start.

but you're betting on Seth Lugo being better than he's been for most of the year. I would throw out there, Max Scherzer and Zach Thornton. Thornton has got good results. Yeah, Thorne's a good one. I don't really buy it, but the Giants are really bad against lefties, so I'd be all right using him. And then on Sunday, we have Brady Singer home against the Brewers. Tyler Malley is at the Phillies,

Walbert Arania at the Pirates, Jackson Job at the Guardians, Christian Scott, home against the Giants, Randy Dobnack, home against the Blue Jays, Gage Jump at the Mariners, Bailey Ober at the White Sox, Andrew Alvarez at the Dodgers. I trust Tyler Malley right now. I don't think the Phillies are the greatest matchup,

but I just think he's been, I think he's really bankable. Probably the third best pitcher after Jacob Lopez and Andrew Painter, who you could find on the waiver wire in a high number of leagues. I think Walbert Arania is pretty trustworthy, even though that matchup at pitch.

Pittsburgh isn't the greatest. So Sunday is probably the best day to stream. Christian Scott against the Giants doesn't sound terrible, though I wouldn't expect a win. Do I want to go back to the Randy Dobnack well after he burned us last time, and Blue Jay's a good matchup, and he's a high ground ball pitcher,

so it could go okay. Yeah. I feel good about Mali, Arania, and Scott, but that's about it. Not Dobnack, yeah. Nobody wants to get behind Dobnack, but me. poor Randy Dobnack. Yeah.

All right. I think that'll do. We're going to wrap there. For Scott, 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 next week. Bye-bye.

Out of the shadows of Paramount Mountain, Atts, Tyrus, and Gileas, battle against the evil giant deathatter. You better not be another miniboss. You better be the final one. Golden Axe. New series streaming September 16th on Paramount Plus.