Fantasy Baseball Today - Lorenzen No-HItter! Elly De La Cruz Struggles & Prospect Rankings (8/10 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Michael Lorenzen just threw the 14th no-hitter in Phillies history (1:22)! ... Seiya Suzuki came back with a big game (10:17). ... Emerson Hancock had a solid debut (14:26). ... How do we feel about Graham Ashcraft, Nick Pivetta and Michael Lorenzen (18:28)? ... Rank Josh Bell, Spencer Torkelson, Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Ke'Bryan Hayes (21:15). ... Elly De La Cruz has struggled in the second half (34:19) ... News (43:02): Ronald Acuña was back in the lineup after a HBP scare. ... Which prospects are moving up and down the rankings in dynasty (48:17)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (54:41). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  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/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. So it turns out the Phillies were actually the biggest trade deadline winner. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, August 10th.

I am Frank Stamphill, joined by all the Chris's Towers. and the Welsh. Today on the show, another week, another no hitter. Let's take a closer look at Elie de la Cruz, who is struggling in the second half, prospects, risers, and fallers and dynasty, and much more. Before we get started, help us out

by liking this video on YouTube and subscribing if you haven't already. And if you're listening on the audio side, download, follow, and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. Let's jump in. You can put it on the board. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. I just had to rub some salt in the wounds. That is the Yankees losing a series to the Chicago White Sox because they are just, they're so bad. Anyway, let's talk about the biggest player of the night. Michael Lorenzen tossed the 14th no-hitter in Philly's history. He did allow four walks.

He had five strikeouts, 13 swinging strikes, on a career high, 124 pitches in this game. He did allow some hard contact, but that's part of the game. He had some luck. some good defense behind him. Did lean into the changeup in this start, and it was pretty damn good for him.

Eight whiffs on that pitch, a 44% whiff rate. First two starts with the Phillies here. 18 innings pitched, six hits, two earned runs. It's been a great first two starts for Michael Lorenzen here, who on the season now has a 323 ERA, a 104 whip, well below a strikeout per inning. We know he more so pitches to contact than anything else. But Towers, I'll throw this one your way.

I brought this up to Scott recently. It feels like every year there's a couple of pitchers that just outperform their peripheral numbers all season long. Last year it was Martin Perez, and I know that you were anti-Martine Perez for most of the year. Michael Lorenzen kind of looks like that guy this year, where things don't kind of line up with the FIP and the X-FIP, but he's still pitching really well.

Your thoughts on the no-hitter? Look, regression comes for us all. You know, the big regression monster in the sky we will meet that at the end of all things. I don't know what to say. We've seen it with Martine Perez. He managed to do it for a whole season, and he's been one of the worst pitchers in baseball this season.

I don't necessarily think that's what's going to happen with Michael Lorenzen. I think he's probably a roughly average pitcher. He does a lot of things at a roughly average level. Strikeout slightly below average. But I don't like, this is one of those things where like what people want to hear is that Michael Lorenzen

will continue to pitch really, really well. And if you want someone to say that, I'm sure you can find someone who will say that. I am not that person. My process is going to be that if I don't think a player is good, even when they're doing well, I will say they are not good.

And sometimes it looks really dumb. Cody Bellinger might have hit another home run today, who knows. But you have to have a process, right? Bryce Elder's a good example of this. He was a guy that you and Scott, we had this big to do and you and Scott were like, well, maybe he's just different. Maybe he's just doing something sustainable and it's not showing.

And it's like, no, he's been stinky for a while now. I think Michael Lorenzen is not a particularly good pitcher. He's getting really good results right now. that's all I have to say. If I have to continue to be wrong about Michael Lorenzen, I will continue to be wrong about Michael Lorenzen. I was hoping you wouldn't ask me. And that might be perfectly fine.

He is 79% rostered. So he's really only out there in the shallowest of leagues. He's at the Blue Jays next week, a lineup that is scuffling big time. So it might turn out to be another good start here for Michael Lorenzen coming up. Welsh, I moved Lorenzen up to SP-65 on Wednesday when updating the rank. and just to put this in perspective for you,

the three names just ahead of him. Gavin Williams, John Gray, Aaron Savali. The three names just behind him, Jack Flaredy, Lance Lynn, Reed Detmer's. Does that sound like an okay range for Michael Lorenzen? There's a part of me that's like, who are all the guys above them? That's actually a pretty decent range of pitchers

that you've got there that are down in the 60s. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I've been on here for the last couple weeks, and I feel like whenever we kind of get to, especially when I've done the Friday shows and we've got to Michael Lorenzen. If it's a half-decent matchup, I kind of want to jump into it

because he's not particularly awesome, but he's just one of those pitchers that found the mix that worked, and he became more efficient. He actually had a decrease in Velo in this game, and then no hitter. He was down almost a mile per hour on the fastball, throwing stuff a little bit lighter.

But I also think this is like, this is a maintenance pitcher. This is a guy that is going to come up and down. He's going to pitch inside the zone. His pitch mix changed a bit this year. It wasn't even just like he leaned into the changeup this year or this past game. He had kind of switched up, stopped throwing a sinker, went to four seam. He only last year threw a slider 4% of the time.

Sweeper was 16, so you know, whatever they're really adjusting it to. But it's 24% slider this year. Changeup has gone down a little bit. Whiffs have gone down, but they're barreling up his fastball a lot less. That's the way, there's a weird thing. The EV is up almost five miles an hour on the fastball. Yet it's being barreled 2% less. So it's just quality of contact, being able to hit the zone.

The pitch mixes work for him. All factors work in. So I kind of get back to the same thing. Towers are saying, like, what do you want me to say? Like, that was awesome. This is a veteran pitcher who I have been kind of preaching a bit is a great matchup play. Am I going to play him versus the Braves?

Hell no. So go ahead. Have you guys looked at his game log this season? Yeah, I was about to say also eight of his last nine games, by the way, he has had three or less earned runs. He has been efficient of efficient over his last eight games.

I was also just referring to like who he's faced. This is, uh, comes back to the other. Who was the, there was Aaron Savale and the other, Zach Plyzac. I was going to do,

they were the Spider-Man meme for the guardians. And you remember Zach Pleasic had that awesome 2020 when he faced like the royals 12 times out of eight starts or whatever it was. And Michael Lorenzen's, kind of had a similar run here where if you like look at the game log he's had bad starts against the diamondbacks and braves he had one bad start against the royals one against the brewers one against the giants pretty much everything else has been awesome and it's like he really has not faced

any good lineups outside of like the diamondbacks braves and the rockies at home like it's it's been a and then look you play who's on your schedule right like that's that's what it is but you know, I think like he's very useful against the right matchup. I just don't think he's a 3-5 ERA or a 3-3-E-R-A, whatever it is. Well, back to the point, like, his expected stats show that he's not. He's in the force. But sometimes guys just beat those stats. Sometimes these veteran pitchers, they're able to figure out how to pitch.

You know what I mean? And I know that sounds silly, but it's like they figure out how to make what they have work. And sometimes the game is all about, you know, the, what's the new trendy pitch, sweep across the zone. We're looking for high velos. And this is a guy that just knows how to attack the zone. Obviously, he has good catchers behind him. Catchers might not even matter anymore.

He's the trash man. He is like bad matchup. He's an instant start. If he's going up against big offense, it's like you said, a bunch of Royals matchups that were in there, just a bunch of work in his favor. And he's not someone I'm going to trust

because I will tell you what, kind of similar to coming on here with Domingo Hermann. It's like, you look at these dudes. if everyone's like, you know, Vince McMahon walking out, like, here we go. Michael Lorenzen, two starts. I don't even care who he's facing. This is going to ruin your playoff run. So just pay attention.

Put him out there. This is the type of pitcher he's been all year and he might break those expectations all year. But no one's going to come on here and be like, hey, guess what? Big L for all of us. Michael Lorenzen is the lead. It's like, no, he's one of the top streamable pitchers that's out there. His next start looks like it's against the Blue Jays next week.

That's probably fine. Probably, yeah. How many pitches did he? throw he threw a hundred twenty four I could see some fatigue in his next yeah that's always a concern when you when you have a situation like this he also has gone at least seven at least seven innings and three of his last four starts he went eight in his last start nine today obviously five and seven if you want to go to the one before that six and two thirds so six and two

thirds are higher in four of his last five starts maybe they're gonna lean off a little bit but you know Philly's going for a run Last point on Michael Lorenzen here. This is kind of a weird way to talk about a player who just threw a no hitter. But, you know, we've got to be objective and tell you what we're seeing in the numbers. He is up to 122 and two-thirds innings this season. He threw 110 and a third last year. Hasn't hit 150 since 2015.

And that was the minors and the majors combined. So, and the Phillies have already talked about this, there is a chance he could wind up in the bullpen in the final month of the season. So just keep that in mind. I think it's a legitimately tough call to start him next week. I think at this point, like, Toronto is a pretty good matchup, but I think I would lean towards sitting. He does have an extra day of rest, but coming off 120,

like I could see it being an 80 pitch start. All right. Time out. Towers, let's go right back to your player of the night. My player of the night, we do pitchers so often. Let's do a hitter.

And it's a hitter that Frank and I have been hoping for good things from and have mostly not gotten them. Sayas Suzuki, who went three for four. It was his first game back in the lineup since Friday. There were some quotes about him. I was swinging at the wrong pitches. I didn't like my approach, so they kind of gave him some time to work on some stuff.

Three for four, a home run, a triple, a run score, two runs scored in an RBI today. Underlying stats for Sayas Suzuki remained pretty good. He still hits the ball hard. He's still got pretty good plate discipline, strikeout rate up a little. little bit, but for the most part, I still think there's a really good player in here. And it would not surprise me if Sayas Suzuki went on a little run in the second, or the last month plus, I guess.

Yeah, I've been waiting. Uh, the stack cast numbers have looked mostly good. The plate discipline for a lot of the year looked great for for Sayas Suzuki. The home run in this game, one 12.2 exit velocity, 423 feet. I mean, that's something you see from a legitimate power hitter, not someone who has 10 home runs on the season. So it's definitely been a weird letdown season for Sayah Suzuki. No excuses here. He's 55% rostered. I had him on the rundown, Chris, but I don't think he's a,

I don't think he's an ad yet. I think he's kind of a watch and let's see where it goes. The Cubs only play five games next week. And if he's kind of sitting out here or there, what, he plays four games next week or something like that. So I don't think he's an ad yet, but if he gets hot, then I think he's a name to remember.

What did you say his roster percentage? Was it in the 50s? 55, yeah. It was 55? Okay. I mean, you don't think he's quite in the specular. I'm trying to think of like the range of out. I mean, we did the whole thing last week of like Jasmine Cormick and all of them. Like he's not obviously in that large new bar by the way. Boom. Against tonight. Um, so he's not in that range, but like, is he that far off from that tier of outfielders that are sitting out there. Like when you, there's a part of me that would want to speculate because it's, it's dreamy that baseball's Sivan page. It's dreamy on the hard hit stuff. He's been a more patient hitter. You're waiting for him to. to connect. Sometimes offense is contagious when you're going for a playoff run type of thing. So I don't know. There's a part of me that's like, I don't know if he's that insanely far off from that. He's like near the top of the next tier after the Newt bars and

the Chas McCormick's and I don't know, even Riley Green. Like is you want Riley Green exponentially more than Sayah? I had, I think it's a similar skill set. I have Newt bar at 23 in the outfield rankings. This is in points league. I think in, in Roto, I have him around 30. And then McCormick I have at 32 and Riley Green I have at 40 say I have down at 64 so I think we're talking updates here I think he's closer to Riley Green in this situation I'm fine if he's a tier under him but I think you're looking at say on in the 45 range like could you just who's like in your 45 to 48 like who are those guys I'll say this from Riley Green to where I have say Suzuki it's players that are I mean that's interchangeable it's complete preference at that point uh for

example, my 43 through, let's just say 46. John Carlos Stanton, T.J. Friedel, Marcelo Zuna, Sal Freelich. Suzuki could get into that range. I could see myself getting into that with Suzuki, especially if we're going to start projecting out that maybe things are going to get hot. I mean, he does have hits in six of his last seven games, which is a positive, you know, strikeouts are still there and stuff like that. I don't know. Like, I think I might bet on him in that range of players. So I just like, not even mean to push back,

but in a, we're not ready to pick him up. I actually think maybe. Like, especially if any of those guys are in a struggle situation, maybe look at like a 30-day marker, pick one out and burn and churn

into 12 team. Deeper league may be even tougher, but for a team he's not. Example, I have Jordan Walker at 55 and he struggled immensely in the second half. If you wanted to make that swap, Walker for Say a Suzuki and try and catch lightning in a bottle,

I think that's totally fine to make a move like that. Welsh, Hello, Danger. It is rookie time Emerson Hancock with a pretty, pretty good performance in his first one. Hancock was coming in in the Bryce Miller mold from earlier this year, not touching AAA. Also, not putting up awesome results in AA. I'd be very curious if he got the same treatment. Bryce Miller had mentioned that, you know, they had instructed him in AA to just like throw fastballs into the zone. Make contact.

You know, don't worry about your swinging with stuff as much. And we saw inflated ERAs by a lot of those pictures, Taylor-Dollard, pre-lander, Barrowa, and Bryce Miller. Obviously, Hancock was their majority of the season, but we also saw the same thing, like a 4-3-2 ERA, but an almost 10K per 9 under one Homer per 9 so far in the year. So he comes out into this first game, has 11 swinging strikes up against the Padres, pretty solid. 26% CSW, decent, 24% whiff rate, not great, but the sinker had a 30% swing and whiff rate. Eight of 27 went for swing and whiffs and the cutter was pretty efficient as well. I think this is a good outing with Brian Wu on the IL. I think Hancock is a guy that they can

push and will push some innings in on. He's in this mold and as a couple people have noted, he's a little bit closer to the variety of a George Kirby than he is, let's say, the Logan Gilbert or maybe more the Luis Castillo type, that he's going to pitch to a little bit more contact. and if you've got a good defense and players are not jumping up on your pitches, he's going to jump into more strikeouts as we saw in the minor leagues. 26% outside of the zone swing percentage on the sinker,

which I'll take, 42% on the change-up. It's a three-to-four pitch mix for this team that knows how to work these pitchers. We see Logan Gilbert popping again. I think it's enough to consider what Emerson Hancock ended up doing, which was, by the way, looking at the box score.

It was five innings, only two. hits, three walks, three strikeouts, that things can get a little bit better. Gave up a few hard hit balls, but it's nothing that, you know, a contact pitch are only giving up one ball over 100 miles per hour. We're going to kind of take. So I thought it was a good, um, a good, impressive performance to watch based on what the next matchups are that maybe you could stream them. Mostly a three pitch mix here for Hancock in his first start. Uh, sinker 59% usage, 21% on a cutter, 17% on the changeup. The overall numbers in the minors this year were underwhelming,

but if you look at his last 10 starts down at AA, 297 ERA 102 whip right around a strikeout per inning. This is a former sixth overall pick back in, when was he drafted? 2018, I want to say. 2020. So more recently than I even, I thought. 18% rostered. He's at the Royals next week, which typically is a good matchup,

though they have hit the ball better recently. Towers, any enthusiasm here for Emerson Hancock? Like we talked a lot about Chase Silseth over the weekend. I think I'd prioritize him if they're both available. Um, based on what he's shown. What's his matchup though? What still says matchup? I'll pull it up for you.

I'm just curious if there's something because I think this matchup is like prime for a guy like Hancock, especially a guy that's going to pitch to more contact and you could say that contact is not necessarily in the Royals game, uh, even though they are getting hotter. That's not something that they're going to thrive with that I think this matchup is good. Not, not even say, like, Silse is against the Braves, I think I would push this. I think it would be a big offensive team to not, to go against what you're saying. Just curious.

Yeah, and look, if it was May, who's their next matchup might not matter so much for me. But when they've only got eight or nine starts at most left, that's a pretty reasonable tiebreaker. Yeah. Chase Silsef is home against the race next week. An offense that is also scuffled recently. Yeah, I mean, it's not as good of a matchup as the Royals, but it's probably, not a terrible one now. So I would still go with Selseth. Yeah. Yep. I had three other pitchers written down in terms of waiver wire options here along with Hancock. Graham Ashcraft

continues to pitch well. Face the Marlins on Wednesday. Seven innings one run, seven strikeouts with 18 swinging strikes on 103 pitches. That might be more to do with facing the Marlins than just Graham Ashcraft being great. But Nick Pavetta continues to pitch well. He allowed two runs over five innings with eight strikeouts up against the Royals. and Mike Clevenger turned in his first quality start since May 17th. It's been a while. Six innings, one run, six strikeouts for him up against the Yankees. Welsh, how would you rank this group?

Emerson Hancock, Graham Ashcraft, Nick Povetta, and Mike Clevenger. And is this the lineup here? Ashcraft has got Cleveland, Povetta's got Washington, and Clevenger's got the Cubs up next? That is, so Ashcraft has two starts next week. Cleveland and Toronto. Povetta has two starts at the national. at the Yankees, Clevenger, one start at the Cubs. It's important to me because I do kind of think all these guys,

I think big pool. I don't want to say the word to get the check card. You know what word I'm what everybody's waiting for, but Scott's not here. I'm going to say it. But there's a big pool of players that sit in the same place that I think you really do have to pay attention to matchups here. So all that said,

I would prioritize these four by saying I would go Pivotta, Ashcraft, Hancock and Clevenger at the bottom. But the top two, maybe I even flip a little bit. That offense in Cleveland, pretty poorish. Clevenger's been getting a little bit going here with the strikeouts. But those are the top two. Then it's Hancock and then Clevenger at the bottom.

Povetta, by the way, since the start of July, a 265 ERA, a 0.91 whip. 53 strikeouts over 37 and a third innings with a 14% swinging strike rate. He's 63% rostered. Again, looks like two starts. week and he is a SPAR. Has RP eligibility if you play in a points league. So a nice little cheat code there for Nick Povetta. Part of the problem there is he's never going to get a quality start. He did start the game today Chris. Yeah. Oh, okay. I honestly didn't realize that. I thought they were still using the opener. Was it quality though? Five innings. Yeah. Okay. So I stand by it. So Ashcraft if you're gonna chase here in a quality starts league, you're chasing the quality starts. That's a big important piece. Maybe Ashcraft, maybe that's the thing that puts

him one spot above Povetta in that grouping there. But I don't know, man. It's a good matchup for Hancock coming up next week. Don't sleep on it. All right. Let's take our first break. When we return, we'll talk Waverwire hitters. Ellie De La Cruz, what's going on? We'll talk about it right after this. Welcome back and a quick reminder to download and follow our five minute podcast, fantasy baseball today and five wherever you listen to this podcast. Let's talk WaverWire hitters. And I've got four corner infielders in shallower league. Spencer Torkelson. He's been really streaky this year. He has flash some power.

He did that again here on Wednesday. Two for four with a double dong. He's up to 17 home runs. But his previous 18 games before this, he hit 169 with a 518 OPS. Very streaky. Josh Bell went two for four with a double dong as well, hitting very well since lots of wells in there. Since joining the Marlins, it's been great for Josh Bell.

Christian and Carnacion Strand. Looks like he's starting to heat up. Two for four with his third home run and has homered in two. two of his last three games. And Kibrian Hayes went three for five with his seventh home run. That's back to back games with a home run, back to back games with three RBI.

And oddly enough, Kriyan Hayes is doing what we've asked him to do. He's hitting less ground balls this year than ever before. He's still hitting the ball hard, but he's still just not hitting for much power. I just, I don't know if that's in the cards for Kibrian Hayes. Towers will start with you.

How do you rank this group? Torkelson, Josh Bell, C.E.S. And Kibrian Hayes. I think I rank it Bell Torkelson, CES, Hays. Bell has been awesome for the Marlins. It's a rare time when the Marlins bought low on a player. They usually like to give Obiselle Garcia large contracts coming off career years or whatever. So smart move.

And this was one where the underlying number suggested that he should perform a lot better than he had been so far. and now we're starting to see a little bit of that. And that's the case with Spencer Torkelson as well. And look, that doesn't always work. You know, sometimes you get a Bobby Witt second half breakout, but sometimes guys just for one reason or another, underperform. And Torkelson has been that guy pretty much all season. You know, I feel like at every point in this season,

every time we've talked about Torkelson, we've probably mentioned, yeah, the expected Wobah much better than the actual numbers. And, you know, he's hitting the ball hard and all the end, it just hasn't worked out for him. You know, I try to look into the underlying, you know, the underlying underlying numbers, like the batted ball, you know, the way he's hitting the ball, you know, in the air on the ground. He hits a lot of fly balls.

He hits the ball a lot to the pull side in the air. That can drop your babbit, but it should lead to more power than we've seen from him, especially with how hard he hits the ball and how consistent he hits the ball. So I don't really see much of a reason. why Spencer Torkelson shouldn't be quite a bit better than he has been so far the rest of the way. And I do think there's a there's a chance that we get a pretty big final couple of months from Spencer Torkelson. And we're looking at him at him as a big breakout candidate for 2024. I wonder if he's a guy who will always underperform his maybe not always, but at least this year,

underperform his expected numbers because of the ballpark. Because of the ball. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Um, whereas like, like, Brian Hayes is a very different situation because Brian Hayes big issue he hits the ball either straight away or to the opposite field 75% of the time. For Torkelson, that's 54% of the time.

So it's just it doesn't really, it's not fair to say it doesn't matter how hard you hit the ball if you hit it the other way or to center field because you can still hit the ball up. But like Eric Hosmer is a good example of a guy who always hit the ball really hard,

always had pretty good plate discipline. but never quite maximized it because not only did he hit the ball on the ground a lot like Brian Hayes does, but when he hit the ball in the air, he tended to hit it to the opposite field. And so that makes it much harder to maximize your power. And I do think of Brian Hayes is a situation where he's not, this isn't just bad luck. You know, I still think like he could get some tweaks and figure it out. But like, this is who Cabrion Hayes is. Welsh, how do you rank this group?

Encarnacion, Torkelson, Josh Bell, and Brian Hayes. So I'm Bell at the top. I agree with everything we talked about. This change has been phenomenal for him. My difference is, I'm going to keep Hayes at the bottom, too, because I'm not going to really talk about him. We already just did that. I kind of agree.

I think if you're going for stolen bases, I think actually Hayes is closer to the guy that's third, but I'm going to swap. I'm going to go Strand over Spencer Torkelson right now. One other thing, I mean, I'm a Spencer Torkelson fan. He's the prolific power hitter. here, but I just can't get over the inconsistencies. I think he's hit over to 250 once this whole season in a given month when you look across the board. One of the thing, I mean, Strand is starting to pick it back up. All these guys, a funny enough fact, all these guys have higher expected batting

averages than their actual batting averages or some are sustainable. Christian and Carnacea on Strand, which is nice, is sustainable 270 batting average of 273. But here's like a little tiny defining factor as well. Torkelson doesn't have a split that works in his favor. He is hitting 225 and 226, respectively, lefties and righties. Or maybe I inversed it. But either way, he's not like good in one area where you can split play him or we know we can put him in matchups.

I don't like that just simply because he's porish against both. So if he has a big pickup, okay, where is it going to be? It's going to have to be something that we're just relying on. an underlying factor that he's going to start picking it up. Strand is pretty poorish against lefties, but he's not that worse than Torkelson. He's not playing a whole lot, but he's hitting 286 against Ritey's. We're seeing the power start to come in. Hard hit numbers are there. You do worry about playing time. I'm going to go, I'm going to go Bell, then Strand. And then I do think Torkelson and Hayes are a little bit more interchangeable. If you wanted to play stolen bases, I think you can do it,

Because where you're giving up, maybe your power numbers in Torkelson, you're also giving or you're taking it. You're giving up pretty significant batting average. And we're just in August. And it's just like, okay, he's just going to pick it back up for the last month of the season. I don't feel confident about it anymore. All of these other guys better bets on the batting average side and have similar skill sets kind of across the board. Maybe I'm just playing the hype beast here, but I'm still going to put Encarnacio and Tran at the top, man. It's just in that, look, that lineup has scuffled big time recently.

but it's still a great ballpark to hit in. And he's heating up. And obviously, we were all pretty excited about Encaronacios Tran for a lot of this year. But I would put Josh Bell second on this list. I think it's pretty close between those two. And if you do play on CBS, Encarnacio Tran, recently gained first base eligibility. So does have first base and third base moving forward.

MJ Melendez is someone who is heating up. He went two for four with a double dong here, and he's up to 12 home runs on the season. Quite the moonshot here, 445 feet for MJ. Melendez so far in the second half batting 281 with six homers two steals and 891 OPS this is a player I was excited about this year it obviously has not come to fruition towers let's just say you're in a 12 team league one catcher league the back end of the top 12 has been obviously pretty rough Dalton Varshow Kaber Ruiz you know Cal

Raleigh's kind of picked it up recently but would you take MJ Melendez over any of those names right now yeah rally's an interesting one because he he's actually walking quite a bit this season, and most one-catcher leagues are, at least on CBS, their points league, so that definitely helps. I'm fine with,

like, if you're frustrated with one of those low-end guys and you want to take a flyer on Melendez and see if he can get hot down the stretch, I think he's a super talented player who, you know, his outfield, the fact that he plays the outfield is,

is going to give him an edge on a lot of these guys. But, you know, I wouldn't drop. William Contreras or Henry Davis or Wilson like none of those guys but like there's there's a lot of interchangeability outside of the top probably nine or ten so if you want to just play the hot hand I don't think that's a bad thing

an interesting one is Salvador Perez who since the start of July has been awful I mean I just assume he's been playing through injuries all season it's I think he's had like three different things that have kind of bugged him this year and he's just kind of playing through it but he's been so bad for so long. I don't know if I would actually just drop Salvador Perez, but I couldn't. If you have another roster spot to just mess around with,

maybe pick up Melendez and start him for the time being. I don't know. You remember we talked about this last week, I think it was too, when we were having the discussion about like Yanir Diaz and everything. And I kind of came to the conclusion to just say, listen, if you're in leagues where these guys, you know, the cow rallies, the Yanir Diaz or whatever, they're available, then those should be the ones

where you just interchange with the hottest bats. And you can just, obviously, you don't want to waste if you have like waiver or, you know, moves, like three or four moves in a specific week. But maybe on a week to week basis, you can just interchange those guys. So if, you know, Melinda's picking it up, sure, I think he could justify in there because what are there? Seven or eight, like solid catchers that we're not going to move off of. Then there's a couple that maybe have some name value. So I think Melendez belongs in the area where it's like, sure, if you want to put him in there, you can do it, knowing that there's similar-ish catchers out there that you could pick up. The next two names here, I think in slightly deeper league,

Zach Gelloff, one for four with his sixth home run, he's played 22 games so far. He's performed really well. 250 batting average, six homers, six deals, and 875 OPS. He's hitting the ball hard, he's barreling it up, even in that huge ballpark, only 33% rostered.

And Jose Siri, two for four with a double dong, he is now up to 23 home runs. Welsh, will come to you on this one. Any enthusiasm for Zach Gelloff or Jose Siri? I do have enthusiasm about Gelloff. Gelloff is just one of those guys. I do think there's some underlying stuff that over a long stretch as teams start to adjust that could come back down,

but I'm just not sure it's going to happen over the next like seven weeks or anything like that. He has proved to be one of those monsters on the counting stat standpoint. He's under 100 plate appearances. He's got six homers, six stolen bases. That's great. What are the worries? Well, 30% K percentage. Not fantastic.

That's something I think has to come down. expected batting average is lower. But you got a 13% barrel rate, so high barrel rate stuff, almost 92 mile per hour average exit velocity. And this is kind of what I saw a lot of him in the AFL this past year. He's seeing a decent amount of fastballs, but it's not like it's 60 something percent. It's 54%.

The problem here is the damage is being done pretty predominantly on fastballs right now. So we'll see when the league starts to adjust. But he might be one of those dudes. There's someone on top of my head. I'm kind of forgetting right now. But those guys that even you don't want them to hit 2.30 or anything like that. But if they're still accumulating the counting stats, like Gelloff, he's not going to lose playing time in Oakland.

He's going to get to be out there. He can steal. He could hit homers. The average just might kind of sink. I think you can ride him out a little bit. It kind of reminds me of like pre-breakout Marcus Simeon. Like a guy who just, you know, if it's, you'd hope it's 20 plus homers and 20 plus steals, but, you know, if it's high teens over the course of.

of a full season that still plays. You know, look, he's on a 35 homer pace right now. And the raw pop actually looks pretty good, but I don't think that's sustainable. But like, it wouldn't surprise me if he was a 25 homer,

18 stolen base pace kind of guy. His minor league numbers, even when you take out Las Vegas, are quite good. You know, he was a high 800s OPS bat his entire minor league career. Yeah. And they like him defensively, too.

He shined defensively in the A.F. That's something that's going to help him get out there. One other thing that's fun, 28% ground ball rate. So get the ball in the air, dude. It's something we saw him doing there. He is pulling the ball. He's getting in the air. You're seeing those numbers kind of stack up,

which is creating a little bit more of a floor for a guy that does have a swing and miss problem. It's over 30%. So we know. But again, this is the type of year. Go into Gell off. If it starts to come back down, I think you can move off of him.

But that's where my excitement is because it's middle infield, impactful counting stats that also, I think you can. can easily move off of. Hopefully you've got some other guys sitting out there. But my enthusiasm, Siri is putting up great numbers, just really poor batting average. Geloff is definitely the one I'm more targeted on. If I could put on my old man traditionalist baseball fan hat for a second year, I was watching the A's game earlier and this dude is oozing confidence right now. Like, he stepped up to the plate. He just, he had this look like, yeah, I'm going to hit a home run. He just had it. And, you know, that's not.

something you could quantify, obviously, but he is playing with a lot of confidence right now for a kid that just got called up. So just something I noticed while watching. I thought you were going to start talking about bat flips or something like that. Like you pointed to the crowd and you're like, I don't like to see that. I mean, that actually would be a fan of. So totally fine with that. What do we make with L.A. Dela Cruz? Let's quickly talk about him. We've been getting some emails, some tweets asking what's going on with L.A. Dela Cruz? Well, we kind of tried to tell you, we didn't know it would be this bad, but, you know, we knew there would be an adjustment. period here. He is still a rookie. He did have two hits here on Wednesday. He also had two more

strikeouts so far in the second half. Ellie Daler Cruz is betting 182. Does have five home runs, not running as much. One steal, three caught stealing, a 41% strikeout rate in the second half. He's chasing. There's lots of whiffs. He's actually done a good job lowering the ground ball rate, which is something we did want to see. He's still hitting the ball hard, but Towers, no player is going to succeed with a 41% strikeout rate. I mean, this is above peak levels of Joey Gallo from back in the day. So until he can readjust and get those strikeouts down, I think we're going to continue to see some struggles from Ellie Dela Cruz.

You are muted, sir. The bigger concern for me, yeah, everybody drink. The bigger concern for me with Ellie, one stolen base attempt in his last 21 games, that is, I mean, that was the one thing that we thought for sure would be there no matter what. Well, he's, you know, since the All-Star break, he's got a 250 on base percentage. Five of his, what, 26 times on base have been home runs to one has been a double, one has been a triple. There just have not been a lot of opportunities. And this is the problem when you're talking about a volatile skill set like this is just the highs are going to be incredible.

He's one of, if not the most physically tooled up player in baseball. He's also got, you know, more tools than skills right now. You know, there's a dichotomy between tools and skills. And skill is the refinement of the tools, and he's not there yet. And so, you know, we talked about it when he was doing really well. He was still hitting the ball on the ground too much. He was striking out too much. You know, it's, I think.

this was always within the realm of possibility. Like you said, we didn't expect it to be this bad, but the range of outcomes for L.A. De La Cruz is incredibly, incredibly wide. And I get why people wouldn't have wanted to sell him for anything but a top five player when we were talking about selling him. I absolutely do because that was also within the range of possible outcomes. We're just, we're seeing, you know, craps.

You don't want to roll a seven or you do want to roll a seven. Whatever the bad thing in craps that can happen a couple of times in a row. Sometimes that happens. I played craps one time. It was like four in the morning. I don't really remember it for reasons.

I've never played. I need someone that knows it. I've never played it either. I kept doing this one bet that the dealer kept telling me not to and he was clearly getting annoyed and I kept doing it and kept winning. He kept getting more and more annoyed.

So that was fun. But I have no idea what that bet was. Anyway, the point is sometimes bad things happen. And we're seeing bad things happen for L.A. Dela Cruz right now. And it's just you have to think about things, especially with a player like this, and Anonial Cruz and Anthony Volpey coming into the season in Jorm Walker, especially young players with big skill sets. You have to think about them in terms of the range of possible outcomes

and what you're willing to stomach when things are going poorly. Because we saw it with Volpe, we saw with Jordan Walker, they're volatile. They can get sent down. They can scuffle. They can drag your team down. And you have to figure out whether you're willing to stomach that in order to chase the upside that can come with these players. And I think also, oh, yeah, go ahead, Frank.

I was going to say, and that's something Scott has talked about a lot this year in that specifically this season, we've seen prospects struggle more than previous years, right? Where, you know, for a while there was like every prospect that came up looked like they were awesome, right? And it's, this is a good reminder that more often than not, prospects look like this. They look like Volpe. They look like Jordan Walker. Then they do a Julio Rodriguez from last year or a Michael Harris from last year. That is kind of like the outlier, the exception to the rule when it comes to prospects. And I think we're just getting a good reminder of that.

Well, but the other thing is, sorry, just to jump in is like perspective. He's also hitting 262 with a 27 homer, 47 stolen base pace. over 150 games. So it's like, you also have to keep the total picture in mind that like having LA Dela Cruz has been worth it on your team so far. Well, from a dynasty, a long term perspective, where do you see the plate discipline kind of settling in here? It's a near impossible question to answer. But from what you've seen and watching LA Dela Cruz, right now it's a 6.6% walk rate, a 34% strikeout rate at AAA this year, a 14% walk rate with a 27% strikeout rate. where do you kind of see that settling in, I guess, long term for, for Ellie?

Yeah, that is an impossible question because there's a lot of factors. Like, I didn't believe that O'Neill Cruz was going to make the adjustments that he did in a very short period of time. And then what did we not get O'Neill Cruz for the year because of an injury? So we didn't get to like really look through that. I will say that I think the steps of what Ellie Daly Cruz has done through the minors is very telling about him. Because you say like he's all tools. You know, he's all these tools right now and there's no refinement. Well, that's like what the minor league process is about.

It starts to build and put in that refinement of these players. And we saw him make adjustments. I've like I've harkened back to this a lot in recent years, but I used to, um, I was a big defender of Raphael Devers when he was a minor leaguer. And some loved him. Some didn't like him. And he had this knack of being like, get to a level, struggle and then dominate. Now he goes up. Struggle.

Dominate and just come. And that's, and you're getting to see development in front of your face. Ellie's just been a little bit different because he's just, you know, mashed and mashed. Then the Ks didn't worry about the K percentage. And but then we saw him make those adjustments. So that's something I'm willing to bet on. But there are concerning things. And that's it's hard for me to gauge like what will change.

I was going to throw this in. Ellie has four pitches that he's seen that he has a 40% or higher K percentage against. And you could be like, oh, okay. What is that like a cutter or something? Well, the K percentage is a four scene fastball, a. a curve ball, a slider, and a sweeper. All 40% are higher K percentages.

You don't like to see that with the fastball, though he obviously can mash those pitches. It's going to take a little bit of time, but his tools are so much so that I'm making the bet that he can do it. But I am a little bit baffled if you get bombarded by like, what's going on? What's up with it? This is all we talked about.

People were chastised online if they questioned that Ellie can't be the next Ronald Acuna. This is what this is. This is baseball. The short attention span of like, what this guy is now is the player is so silly. And it can burn you. I think it's gonna burn fantasy owners

in some respect where people are like, well, I just need the now. And it's like, okay, well, the now's gonna be here in a month and then you're gonna be complaining about it. L.A. De La Cruz is a great talent. Dynasty, this is a great opportunity on the buy, except he's still super high because he's L.A. De La Cruz.

We don't know who the total package He stopped running. What the hell happened there? The power? What happened in the beginning? This is this is a long adjustment period that I think an offseason is going to really put into perspective going into next year The best thing I can say redraft hold on to your butts Jurassic Park and go buy in Dynasty if anyone is selling low because I'll always bet on insane tools like this That's the weird dichotomy of it as well. I love L.A de the cruise. We love L.A. de la Cruz, but we had to talk on here and say, hey, guess what? I don't really love L.A. D. Dele Cruz in redraft. He's not the most exciting player for me in a redraft perspective. I would sell him to get stuff back. And that doesn't mesh people with people's brains. They're like, wait, you don't like him? No, I love him. Love him in

Dynasty. He's got to learn some stuff and we're seeing it happen right now. All right. Again, that is L.A. Daler Cruz. Let's take our final break. And when we return, we'll hit some news and notes. We got some prospects, risers and followers. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back. And a big thanks to everyone watching us live. We do appreciate being here. It's past 1 a.m. Eastern time. And if you haven't already, please like this video and subscribe to the channel on YouTube. Some news and notes. Ronald de Cunia was back in the lineup after a hit-by-pitched scare on Tuesday night. Tyler Glass now played catch Wednesday, and the Rays remain optimistic. He'll return Saturday against the Guardians.

Cedric Mullins could return Friday against the Mariners. He's been out since mid-July with a right groin strain. Nathan Evaldi threw a bullpen session Wednesday consisting of 15 to 20 pitches. He's scheduled for another bullpen Saturday and has been out since late July with a right forearm strain. Luis Robert ex-brained right pinky. X-rays came back negative. Merrill Kelly left Wednesday start due to a right leg cramp. He threw six shutout innings before leaving that start. Met's manager Buck Showalter said there is a chance. Edwin Diaz will return this season. not sure that makes much sense for a team that's not competing this year, but, you know, the guy probably wants to get back out there

and he's kind of, you know, chomping at the bit. He's 32% rostered if you play in a league with an open aisle spot. Edwin Diaz, a name's stash. Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, said he hopes JD Martinez could return Saturday. He had a cortisone injection in that hamstring on Wednesday. Chris Bryant said he's uncertain when he'll be able to return, remove the splint, rather, protecting his fractured left index. finger. He's been on the IL since July 25th with that injury. Charlie Blackman turned in full

workouts on the field Monday and Tuesday and could be cleared to begin a rehab assignment. Marco Luciano was set to rejoin the Giants on Wednesday but pulled his hamstring on Tuesday night. Tough break there for Luciano. J.P. France will rejoin the Astros rotation this Saturday against the Angels. It is unknown whether he will remain in the rotation after that start. A.J. Pollack was placed in the aisle with a left oblique train and we did have some prospects that are either getting called up or just got called up. The A's are promoting outfield prospect Lawrence Butler a 23-year-old who's having a strong season in the minors. He hit 284 with 15 home runs, 21 steals, and an

825 OPS. He's 2% rostered, widely available. Welsh, we saw him out at first pitch Arizona. I remember the Fall Stars game. This is a left-handed bat. He hit an opposite field double. He was flying around the basis. This guy has legitimate speed. Your thoughts on Lawrence Butler. Boy, I love the thought if he were to be like actually be a first baseman if he's qualifying there. Very impressive last year under 20% K percentage this year. Hitting 280, five homers, eight stolen bases in 22 games. These are all AAA numbers. In double a digit homer stolen bases. K percentage was still under 20. He's a crazy athletic

guy. Definitely has the feel of more of an outfielder. But if he's playing first base, It's all the better. This is a nice bet. Funny enough, the gap between a guy like Tyler Sotstrom and a guy like Lawrence Butler might be a lot closer than you think based on what a lot of ranks might show. Lawrence Butler is definitely a guy to take a look at if you're chasing some stolen bases. If he's qualifying a quarter infield for you and deep leagues. So he is outfield eligible right now on CBS. But his minor league pro page does show that he's played some first base. Right. So like there's a chance. I'm trying to pull up. He's seen in that respect. I, I, I don't know where they're going to play them. I assume they're going to play them in the outfield. But still, even in the outfield, big athletic guy, big barrel hard hit numbers. He's a guy that's going to put up like 113, 114. It's just going to be about will the contact maintain. And the K number is going down.

It's very encouraging. Two older prospect promotions, the Phillies called up Weston Wilson, a 28-year-old who was providing big power and speed in the minors this year. He had 25 homers, 23 steals, his very first at bat in the majors. He hits a home run. He actually finished the game with that home. homer, two walks, a stolen base, so sock in his shoe in his first game. And the Rangers are promoting J.P. Martinez, who is a 27-year-old out of Cuba, who they signed back in 2018. He's also having a big season in the minors, 311 batting average, 12 homers, 36 deals, 993

OPS. Towers, I don't know if you know anything about these guys, because I didn't know anything about them before looking them up here on Wednesday, but they were doing some things in the minors. Your thoughts? Yeah, the thing I wanted to check with Martinez is what position he played because maybe it was calling him up for the young injury, but he is strictly an outfielder, so I don't think that's what it is. I mean, he was a pretty big deal at one point, top 100 prospect, but now he's a 27-year-old who's finally starting to hit at AAA.

I don't know how much to take away from that. So my thought would be that neither of these guys matter. Weston Wilson and JP Martinez, they're older. there are PCL guys in addition, or Martinez is, sorry, I don't think Wilson is, but, you know, didn't really do much before this season. So I would be surprised if either of these guys matter too much. J.P. Martinez, by the way, he is a smaller dude, five foot eight, but it just kind of reminds me of a Dolis Garcia a couple of years ago, right? It's just a guy that came up, he was older, I believe also out of Cuba, and obviously hit the ground running here. I'm not saying that's

automatically going to happen, but that was just where my mind immediately went. Some prospects, risers, and fallers in Dynasty, these are per the Welsh's prospect rankings. And Welsh, I'm just going to throw a bunch of names your way. You can hit on all of them. You can hit on some of them. Maybe the ones that stand out to you most here. The biggest risers that I noticed here, Sebastian Walcott with the Rangers is a name that a couple of weeks ago or maybe a month ago. There was some guy that was tweeting Towers and I, every single day to get him in the CBS database. And I was like, who is this guy?

Sebastian Walcott. But he's doing it. He's a 17-year-old. You moved him up to 34th in your prospect rankings. He's hitting for some power and speed right now in the Complex League. Everson Pereira recently promoted to AAA. You moved him up to 54th. Blaze Jordan, who is a, I believe, an outfielder, third baseman?

Third baseman, right? You're going to be first base outfield. He can kind of qualify at all those. Yeah, you moved them up to 67th. Let's start with those three. Walcott, Pereira, Blaze Jordan. These are all names that are inside of your top 70 prospect rankings. Yeah, and I put it in the private chat. You don't have to, but it's also on my Twitter if you want to check it out. I saw Walcott the other day smash a homer at Camelback Ranch up against the White Sox.

And he is a special talent, funny enough, not to get tropey with it, but there is an L.E. Day, La Cruz, nist to him because he's got some big old swing and miss in his game. Sliders have been a problem. I've seen him just take a whole bunch of sliders, but he's, destroys mistakes he is crazy athletics getting around six foot four he's out of the Bahamas he is a nutty talent that I think a lot of places you're gonna see rewind that you're gonna see him in the top 20 so bang just easy barreled power takes it over left field right there he has been destroying this league he played in the Dominican Summer League this year me or any other outlet you're gonna see Walcott crazy up list so that's a guy you know if he's in open

systems that you can pick up He is a big old talent. He's still growing too. Like I said, I think he's grown since he's been out here, but he's around 6 foot 3, 6 foot 4. It's a nutty skill set that a lot of people like. So I'm very big on him, but he's a decent ways away. Everson Perrera, throw him out that my buddy James Anderson has been higher on him than I have.

But you've seen hard hit numbers according to Rotowire, 33% hard hit he's had on the year, hitting over 300. The Ks I worry about, they can get a little bit higher. but the Yankees have said there's a possibility he could come up this year. And that was one of the reasons they hadn't made some of the trades that they could have was per Pereira. And he's a guy that kind of just fits that mold across the board. I worry that the contact issues are going to be bigger than what some other people are betting on. And Blaze Jordan is just a guy of kind of been waiting to see if he maintained his batting average.

I think he'll play in the AFL this year. You know, he was a 14-year-old YouTube star for hitting crazy, insane 500-foot homers. And he's turned his game into being more of a contact hitter. And as you pointed out, hitting over 300. This is a young guy that can be a middle of the order player. So I moved him up pretty significantly in this most recent update. Hey, music to our ears, Towers, because you have Blaze Jordan in the Scott White Dynasty League. I have Sebastian Walcott.

So, yeah, let's go. You are muted, sir. I didn't realize Blaze Jordan was having that good of a year. I'm very happy to see that because he's been someone I've stashed away for a couple of years. years? Some names that you have falling down the prospect rankings right now. Three that were drafted last year, Dalton rushing with the Dodgers, Elijah Green with the nationals, Gavin Cross with the Royals. It's not all good here, Towers, because you have Elijah Green. I have Gavin Cross. So we do have some risers and some fallers. Two other big names that have struggled for quite some time. Robert

Hassel, Jack Leiter. So five different names here Welsh. Rushing, Elijah Green, Cross, Hassel, lighter, all falling down the rankings. Yeah, a quick, quick little hits. Rushing is, I would say, it's a little bit more about how high I was on him. But he's at high A. He's 22 years old and he raised his K percentage by like 9%. That's really worries him. He has insane power.

He showed it off last year in A ball, eight homers in 28 games. He's got 9 and 74 this year. Walks have been up. So I'm just a little bit worried. So that was a little bit more about like where I had him ranked over. Elijah Green, he's been injured. He just started a rehab assignment back. He was a top pick.

is tooled through the freaking roof, but having like a 40% K rate it has never changed. It's never got better. So I had to relent again. That's part of my rank. 43% strike array for Elijah Green. Yeah, it's not going to work.

Like that guy has 30 home run power, 20 plus. He could be a 30 30.30 guy. Physically impressive, 6 foot 4, 220. It looks like a, you know, wide receiver like D.K. Metcalfe out there. But he's striking out 40% of the time. You know, that might be what D.K. Metcalf would strike out

if he were playing baseball right now. So that's not going to work. So I had to move him down based off of where I had him. You know, hassle has never developed like I thought. So I moved him down. Lighter just wanted to speak on from what I was told, there was real thoughts that they thought they were going to get lighter this year. Like they, he was going to pitch in some capacity to help this team this year.

But it went so south that he's on the developmental list, which means a team has taken him off of any organized baseball. Sometimes it's to control innings. But I think this has been more about this battle between him pitching north and south versus East and West. And he's still learning to be a pitcher. And I think he's out here working. And he's not going to come up this year.

And the ERA is still five. And the command is not there. So they need to fix something. I think he is insanely talented, but the numbers have just not worked. So some of these fallers are more about my stubbornness. And if people know and follow my ranks, I can be stubborn about just being like, this guy's done. You know, because I am paying attention to talent.

A lot of these guys I am seeing. So those are just a few of the ups and downs. And one guy you didn't mention, just want to point out, Ivan Melendez is a monster. He is someone you should go pick up in an open world. Diamondbacks, 27 homers. He is a guy that is going to be helping sooner rather than later, former college bat out of Texas. Go get yourself some Ivan Melendez if he's still out there in the open world prospects. And Wells, where can people find your prospect ranks?

In ThisLeak.com just goes to my Patreon. I got that up there. They can check it out. Just updated the other day. Dynasty ranks coming up soon. Do them every month. Every month is going down on the. prospect rank. So I'm a maniac.

All right. Let's wrap up here with some leftovers from Wednesday's action. We start with some pitchers here. Kevin Gosman has scuffled a bit recently, but he's back on track at the Guardians. Seven shutout innings with six strikeouts for him. Chohei Otani turns in another quality start, six innings, one unearned run with five strikeouts. Bobby Miller, you want to talk about scuffling recently. His last eight starts, a 6.25 ERA entering this one. It goes six shutout with seven strikeouts at the Diamondbacks. And Hugh Darvish makes it three quality starts in a row. He was at the Mariners, six innings, one unearned run with four strikeouts.

Towers, any thoughts here on Darvish? Bobby Miller, Shohei Otani, and Kevin Gosman. Yeah, the one thing, I don't know if you guys noticed this, but Shoahotani got checked out by the trainers again in this outing. I think that's three straight. Yeah, that's crazy. He was fine. It was right towards the end.

of his start and he ended up being fine. He made the final inning. But it's just like, man, it feels like, you know, obviously the previous couple of times has just been cramping. And maybe that's all this was. Maybe it was just a minor issue. But it's like it's like, it's like on the, on the razor's edge right now with Shohei Otani.

Also just in terms of how he's pitched. You know, the velocity's been down. The results haven't been quite as good. He's still obviously a terrific pitcher. but yeah, that was the one thing I noticed. And then Bobby Miller, it's just kind of been a weird year for the Dodgers. It's an organization where it feels like everything goes right for them so often. And this year, especially with their starting pitching, especially the young starting pitching,

they just have not been able to plug and play guys the way they have been in the past. You know, Gonsolin, I don't even know if he's going to stay in the rotation with the way he's been pitching. If any of the young pitchers had lived up to expectations, Tony Gonsland might already be out of the rotation with how he's pitched. You actually might see. Bueller really does come back in September because he just threw today, I believe, at live hitting, they may be piggyback Gonslin and Bueller because you don't want Bueller to go deep. So to your point, he might lose some of that long term, you know,

being able to go six or anything like that. Yeah. And so it's been a weird season. You know, I still like Bobby Miller long term, but clearly this. season has not been, you know, super great for him or, you know, Gavin Stone or Michael Grove or Amishian or any of the other guys that they've cycled through that we had some excitement levels about. But given their track record, probably going to take an opportunity to buy low on some of those guys next year. Yeah, Bobby Miller is an interesting one. And I'm,

interested to see by season's end, what does everything look like with him? Because the stuff is there. The guy throws extremely hard. I pointed out his curveball. He threw a more in this start, his curb ball has been disgustingly good. 156. 42% whiff rate. Yeah, 156 batting average against a 42% width rate. So he's definitely got the talent. It's just now a matter of putting everything together for Bobby Miller.

He feels a little like early Walker Bueller where the results were much better for Walker Bueller. The results were always really good for Walker Bueller. But it was like he had so many pitches that it was like trying to figure out what the best mix of them was and tinkering with that. you know, he throws six different pitches if you count the two different fastballs. So that's also one of those things where it's like it might just be a little difficult to develop that kind of pitcher

at the major league level. The call to the bullpen, a few updates here for the Reds, Alexis Diaz entered the ninth with the game tied. He gave up a run, took his fourth loss of the season. For the Marlins, David Robertson picked up his 17th save. For the Rockies,

Justin Lawrence entered in the 10th inning with a one-run lead the Manford Man on second base. He gave up two runs, took his fourth blown save, and fifth loss of the year. For Oakland, Trevor May picked up his 12th save. For the Cardinals, Jojo Romero is a lefty in the pen. They've, I think they're settling in with him as their high leverage reliever. He came in in the seventh inning.

He recorded four outs. He struck out three of them. Giovanni Gallegos did get the ninth inning for his ninth save, so perhaps some mixing and matching here until Ryan Helsley is back for the Cardinals. For the Tigers, Jose Cisnero entered the ninth inning with two outs. He did give up an RBI single,

but picked up his second save of the season. Alex Lang has struggled recently. Jason Foley is on the bereavement list, so that's why they went with Jose Cisnero in that one. For the Red Sox, Kenley Jansson allowed a solo homer but picked up his 25th save. For the Mets.

I guess Brooks Raleigh was unavailable. He recorded five outs on Monday, but here we are. You know, two days later, it feels like he should have been out there. Adam Adavino started the ninth inning with a two-run lead. He gave up a solo homer,

then a single, and a walk. And so he was relieved by Phil Bickford, who got the final three outs for his first save. Met's bullpen kind of feels like a mess right now. Yeah. The New York mess. There you go.

For the Braves, Reisel O'Glaeasias gave up two hits, but picked up his 22nd save. For the Blue Jays, Eric Swanson pitched in the eighth inning with a one-run lead at the time. Tim Mesa, a lefty started the ninth. He recorded two outs before Jordan Hicks came in,

got the final out for his 11th save. Hicks has three of the last four saves for the Blue Jays. For the White Sox, Gregory Santos, pitched the final two innings, did not allow a hit. He picked up his third save. And I wrote Evan Phillips' name in here and nothing else,

because that means he was probably on the mound against the debacks. What do you do, Frank? I don't know. My computer is like frozen. Yeah, here you go. He picked up his 16th save of the year. To stream or not to stream.

And on Thursday, it's a terrible list. It's not really much going on here. I think yesterday I said, Zach Lattell against the Cardinals, if you're, I don't know. It's the only one I looked out and I was like maybe. I'd have to be really desperate. I mean, like, it wouldn't surprise me,

it wouldn't surprise me if Reese Olson had like a nine strikeout game. The twins still have, I think, the highest strikeout. rate in major league history outside of the 2020 season. And he's had some big strikeout game. So that wouldn't surprise me given the matchup. Yeah, the twins against right-handed pitching this year, a 27.7% K rate that is the most in the majors. On Friday, we are looking at, I don't know, back to the well with it to, you know, picking on the twins. Christopher Sanchez maybe. He's pitched all right.

Vieto versus Sensi. Gosh, both of these days are terrible. Oviedo is, we talked about this on Sunday, but he's just been like the most hit or miss pitcher in baseball. It's like, I think he has 11 starts with six innings and no more than two runs allowed. And 11 starts with at least four runs allowed. I'm pretty sure that's what the number is. There's names in here that you want to take, but it's like Detmer's versus Houston, nope. Ryan Nelson maybe versus Padres, nope. I don't, the matchups are really porous.

I think it's Sanchez. And if I were really playing with fire, I might go Oviedo. just see if I, you know, roll the dice. See if I landed on that seven or not that seven. Reds have been or whatever, you know, snake eyes, whatever, whatever you're trying to get or not trying to get, you know. Famously don't know craps on this podcast. Yeah, and the Reds have been pretty stinky for a while.

So I think that's okay. Last 14 days, the Reds are 21st in Wobah. So they are scuffling, I guess. But, man, Thursday and Friday, not good days for streamers. We'll find out tomorrow. maybe Saturday and Sunday bear a little more fruit. We're going to wrap there for the Chris's Towers and the Welsh. I am Frank.

Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-stop rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.