Fantasy Baseball Today - Mailbag! Deep Dives, Relievers to Stash & More (7/5 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

If you support the show, please nominate Fantasy Baseball Today for The People's Choice Podcast Awards in the "Sports" Category: https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup/ Chris and Scott are answering your latest Fantasy Baseball questions! Should you be worried about Jose Altuve and/or George Springer? When should you go for it in a dynasty league? Which relievers are we looking to stash ahead of the Trade Deadline? Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get 20% off Fantasy Baseball Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hello and welcome to Fantasy Baseball today. I'm Chris Towers here with Scott White.

It is July 5th, Tuesday by the time you're listening to this. But by the time we're recording, it's still, I guess, very early on July 4th. So, hey, if anything happens on Monday, as far as news goes, we might be a little out of date. Sorry, we're getting the day off. I think we've deserved it. We're going to have Scott back on the show in time for Wednesday's episode. Frank, actually. Sorry, did I say Scott Frank back on the show in time for Wednesday's episode? See, it is late at night. You're already on the back on Wednesdays. Yeah, oh, man. You don't even know.

We're going to have Frank back on Wednesday's episode, like I said. But for today, we're answering your questions in a mailback, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. You can leave your reviews at Apple, Apple Podcasts, and we'll answer your questions there as well. And as always, you can hit us up at FBTPod on Twitter. I'm at C-Tower, CBS. He's at CBS Scott White, I think at Rodo underscore Frank. If you want to hit Frank up to get your question to answer. But for now, let's start off with a question from Drew.

Drew asks, was looking into trading for Al Tuve to make a run in a keeper league where he can't be kept. Then he looked at his baseball savant page and, whof, how do you evaluate established sluggers who may be aging but are still producing, even if the advanced metrics don't back it up. Al Tuve's case, middle ink power, aging hitter, dead ball, will Jose Al Tuvei keep this up? I think it's an interesting question because, you know, we've got a couple questions like this. There's one about George Springer as well. his quality of contact metrics are down pretty much across the board.

In addition to Jose Al-Tuvae's, Jose-L-Tuve, has a wob of 387 as an expected wob of 375. So I do want to say, Drew, you're probably overstating the extent to which Jose-L-Tuves metrics aren't great because, well, yes, his average eggs of loss, he's in the seventh percentile. His hard hit rate is in the 13th percentile. That's bad. But the thing, Jose-L-Tuvies never hit the ball hard.

And so I think that's the one thing that you have to keep in mind is, all players skill sets are different. And there are certain things about certain players that for one reason or the other, they are outliers. And I think Jose Al Tuvei, obviously. This is a guy who is probably a future Hall of Famer.

His career is an outlier. Being a 5'5 foot 6 future Hall of Famer, probably an outlier. But in his case, he is someone who maximizes the limited raw power he has by pulling the ball in the air a ton. You look at his home runs,

he's got 16 of them, all but four of them, have been hit pretty much to the dead pole side. And so that's the case where we've gone through this with Jose Al-Tuvan in the past, where we thought his skill set was declining. It clearly has. He's not hitting 340 anymore. But I look at Jose Al-Tuvan and I still think he's a high-level performer at the second-based position.

What about you? Oh, yeah. I have him as number two at the position rest of season. And yeah, I mean, I understand looking at the Stackcast page, seeing some blue sliders and saying, woof. But I do think one of the things I find kind of irksome is, and in a way, it's because Stackcast is so good. But it also encourages this lazy evaluation method where I see it all the time on Twitter. Somebody just post the sliders on the player Stadcast page. And here you go.

That's the player. And obviously there are a lot of, there are a lot more factors that go into making players productive or unproductive than just that. I think it's most valuable to look at that kind of stuff when, you know, you're talking about players who aren't that established. And it gives you some idea of what they can do in terms of raw ability. But Jose Altuve, I mean, we've seen this play out for so many, so many times with him already and he's having another great year.

So I just want to worry about it with him. Now on the kind of other side of that would be someone like George Springer, who is very well established. I was really high on George Springer coming into the season. He's been, I think it's fair to say, even by most people's standards a little bit disappointing, let alone the high standards I had for him. 831 OPS.

He's on like a 30 homer pace, but the counting stats haven't been quite as impressive as I hope they would be. And he's someone who the underlying stats are also not as impressive. as they typically are. His expected Wobos 346, that's the lowest of his career matching 2018. And it's even worse than that if you keep in mind that the,

you know, most players are underperforming their expected metrics because the ball is not traveling as far. So I do think it's possible to be a little concerned about Springer. Are you concerned at all about George Springer? Not really.

I wouldn't say not at all. But, you know, in that line, which I still think is a good lineup. I know they don't break particularly high and run scored, but we've seen Vladimir Guerrero trending the right way. We've seen Lordus Guerriel trending the right way. And I think pretty soon we're going to see George Springer trending the right way. And as long as he stays healthy, you know, I don't know that he's going to live up to his elite per game production of a year ago. But, I mean, what do you have to choose from in the outfield?

And I think, if this is the low point for him, what he's done so far, then you don't really have that much to worry or complain about. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think, like, look, he's got eight stolen bases, which is a nice positive that you weren't really counting on either. So that's nice. It's kind of like you said. I think this is probably closer to the low point for George Springer than anything else.

He's got an 831 OPS. I think I'd take the over for the rest of. of the season. So not particularly concerned about that. And I think the thing to keep in mind about the stat cast data and this is something that I try to remind myself of and try to remind our listeners of regularly is that it's it's a snapshot of a moment in time. You know, this is what George Springer has done, you know, in terms of his quality of contact metrics. It's not who he is or who he will be. And so it's important to keep in mind that players get hot and players get cold.

Like in the in the classic sense of the way we pre-saver metrics, the way we talked about it. And you know, this guy's locked in or this guy's just lost out there. Like that does happen. In addition to, you know, the the random fluky events where guys just have bad luck and all that stuff where I think we kind of, we kind of think of think of that more in terms of the way that player's production fluctuates, but both are true. And so when it comes to guys like George Springer

and Jose Al Tuve, like the stack has stuff matters, but unless it's like a dramatic, dramatic change, I think you have fairly wide error bars. And so George Springer, like, he doesn't look as good as he did last season, but he doesn't look bad.

You know, his max eggs of I've elizzo is still 92nd percent. I'll average eggs of ELO, right in line with last year barrel rate's a little lower but not like not terrible so i think you generally want to give those guys you know pretty wide latitude when it comes to that stuff um next question comes in from purposely anonymous because my league rivals listen to the podcast this is more of a philosophical question but when is it time to really go for it in dynasty and scott i'll i'll get this one to you although i know it's you know when is it time to go for it and Dynasty is a question that I feel like you may reject the premise of.

I do to a degree. But here we'll go, for example, let's say I have Julio Rodriguez on a pretty cheap contract in a 24-team Dynasty League, $260 budget, Scott White League style. At what point should I accept the God offer for him? I'm talking a top three first baseman, a Hall of Fame starting pitcher still on the IL, so I think we can kind of narrow it down there. And other pieces for Julio and a couple of cheap young pieces. Julio is helping my contender now and we'll help in the future, but the Godfather offer is always tempting.

What say you? Let's hear about the waves, not windows. I don't know that I'm going to use that line this time. We'll see if it comes up. Yeah, Julio Rodriguez, I happen to know how the economy and the Scott White Dynasty League works, and it was set up so that cheap players who are really good are... almost invaluable assets, because that's how it works in real life, too. That's how he was trying to set it up. The Mariners wouldn't trade Julio Rodriguez for anything in the world, and neither should a dynasty team in this kind of economy

where you have them for really cheap. Because I'm not confident that any hitter you could get for him would be a clear upgrade over the final three months. Yes, I won't. There are some hitters I'd rank ahead of him in rest of season rankings, But particularly when you're talking about a 2014 context, what I expect him to do is going to be close enough that you just, you can't give up that long-term asset for a short-term gain when he's also helping you a lot for the short-term too. It's just, no, you can't do that with him. As to the more general question of when is the time to go for it, I don't know that I ever truly push all my chest.

in a dynasty league. And I did win the Scott White Dynasty League three years in a row. So, you know, you don't necessarily. That's why it's called the Sky White Dynasty League. Not because I made it up or run it or anything. But yes, because I want it. They put my name on the, no, that's not really it. But it could be.

Yeah. So what I try to do in Dynasty leagues is to as much as it's possible. I try to make every move with next year in mind. And the hope is that if I'm making every move with next year in mind, I will build up such a backlog of talent that I can't help but win this year. And it's, it mostly works out well, you know. There are times when there are some leagues, some other dynasty type leagues with slightly different economies where I haven't actually won yet,

but I'm very consistently in the playoffs. So, you know, I'm, I am confident that if you're in the playoffs regularly, eventually you're going to break through. But there, you know, you could maybe look back and say, well, maybe you should have made this one deal or that one deal. So what I would add, I guess, is, you know, you have to consider how keepers, how budgets, how salaries work in your own specific setup.

And, you know, because there are, a lot of limitations built in beyond just, you know, one of the clear limitations in the Skywhite Dynasty League is salary. One of the clear limitations is roster size and minor league roster size. And so you make moves

that might be more win now moves, that might give up a long-term asset for more of a short-term asset. But it's because you're, it's because there's this benefit on the back end too. Like, in In the case of this league, you're freeing up a minor league spot for a high minor league draft pick earlier that you otherwise wouldn't get to use. You're giving up a pretty good prospect, but you're getting something, you're still getting the long-term asset out of that, and you're helping your team win now.

So you just, you know, I don't know your specific league setup or the general person listening out there, their specific league setup, but you kind of have to just really know the rules and how to work them. and then you can make short-term trades in a way that still benefits you in the long run. And I think one of the, you know, another way to put it is like, it doesn't matter how good your team is, you're never guaranteed a title. And so, like, trading Julio Rodriguez for, let's call it Freddie Freeman and Max Scherzer for the rest of the season, that makes your team better. I think it's unquestionable. I would have Freddie Freeman ranked higher in a points league.

I would have Max Scherzer ranked higher in a points league. I think those two guys are going to outscore Julio Rodriguez. And if that was the deal, you would feel really good about your chances of having a better team. But once you get into the playoffs, I mean, it's a cliche, but anything can happen. And I think back to one of my fantasy football league with my friends from college,

I won for the first time this year. We're like 14 years in. And I went undefeated. It's like my most impressive championship ever. I went 17 and 0. My team was so good that there was a point during the season where in our Slack channel that we have for our league, someone said that my team was so good

that it made them lose interest in the league this year. And even with that, I had a playoff game this year. I think it was the first round of playoffs because we don't do it by. And I think I won by like, the equivalent of like 17 yards. Oof. Over the course of the full week.

Squeaker. And it, it's as simple as like, if one guy catches one fewer pass on my team, I lose. And that was, unquestionably, the most dominant fantasy football team

I've ever put together. Now, obviously fantasy football and fantasy baseball aren't the same, but once you get into the playoffs, that's similar. So you're always talking about, like,

you're improving your chances of winning incrementally, to be 51%? I mean, like, it's really hard to get to the point where even like right now, if you could say that you have a 25% chance of winning your league, that means your team is really, really outrageously dominant. So there's just, you have to balance that. I tend to be a little more aggressive when it comes to going all in than Scott does just because, you know, flags fly forever and you don't know, you know, you may not be here tomorrow, all that. stuff but you also have to find the right balance between the two of those yeah I just I don't

move on to marks stretches that's a big part of it like I's fair like I can not see the thing is you can always quit a league oh come on that's certainly not the spirit of the dynasty league walk it away I could I could throw some dirt at a very famous baseball writer who basically pushed in all this chips one year won the league and then quit the league but I won't do that. I won't name him. He's very famous, though. All right. We'll move on to Mark's question. With the trade deadline coming up,

do we know of any closers who are expected to be traded away within the next month? Are there any RPs who may take over the closers' roll on the teams who are selling by the trade deadline? I think... I was going to let you say what you're about to say. But, okay, so, I mean, obviously,

man, I always have a hard time with these off the time. So I think you always look at the bottom of the standings. And so the teams that stand out at the bottom of the standings are with like established closers would be like Jorge Lopez perhaps. You know, I don't think he's someone who would get traded and be a closer somewhere. Baltimore actually has a pretty good back end of the bullpen right now. I don't know if they've gotten the credit they deserve.

But Felix Batista especially has been tremendous. tremendous, and so is Dylan Tate. So I think Felix Batista is someone who, if Lopez got traded, Felix Batista could potentially be a very good closer. Washington's another team where, like, Tanner Rainey's cheap, and I mean, he's 29, so he's not exactly young. But the problem there is, I don't know, like maybe Palo Espino, but he seems just as likely to get traded as anyone else.

So I'm not sure who the next person would be there. That's probably like Baltimore. as a situation, they're actually competitive and feisty enough that if Jorge Lopez got traded, I think Felix would actually be a pretty good closer. Washington is probably one that if Tanner Rainey got traded, I don't think anyone would really matter unless someone just really surprised us. I mean, David Robertson could get traded for the Cubs. That seems like a pretty easy one.

Would it be to close for somebody else? Probably not. But I mean, part of the issue with answering this question, is I'm just not sure with the way bullpins are managed these days, I'm just not sure it's worth the squeeze, you know? Like, if I'm looking for perspective saves, I'm almost, I'm almost counting on an injury. Like, I'm almost looking at a bullpen with a clear pecking order,

picking up the second guy, and then just, I mean, hoping for an injury sounds ghoulish, but, I mean, that's kind of what you're doing. like for example Raphael Montero with the Astros I think everybody questions the health of their closer right now and Montero is proven to be the backup option there

so you know somebody like that but it is something that got a lot of attention in the fantasy in the past I just don't know that it's that way anymore I do think the example from Baltimore is good Phyllis Bautista because he's shown such exemplary stuff. But, you know, let's say, I don't know, let's say the angels were to trade Ryssela Glacius.

Do you think it would go to one guy? Do you think it'd go to Ryan Tepera? Or do you think they'd mix a match? Most of the time, I think these non-contenting teams would mix a match. Yeah. And that's another one where Ryan to Pera is 34. It's just as likely he gets traded with his racerle-saclius. If you get traded.

And so I think I think generally speaking it kind of points to something that I I come to realize is that I just I don't think there's much value and like speculating on saves outside of like good teams like I think Cincinnati is a perfect example the past two seasons there's been opportunity there and how many people have wasted roster spots to get nothing out of six different guys in Cincinnati's bullpen over the past year and a half and So I just, I don't know, it's speculating on saves. Like, it's hard enough to project how many saves a guy's going to get when we know they're the guy. But when you're talking about, like, things that have to happen, you're not just talking about a guy has to get hurt or a guy has to get traded. And then the guy that you're speculating on has to be picked.

It's just, it's really, I don't know if it's worth the time. Let's do a quick team name Tuesday. We'll take a quick break after that. we got a couple of them here Polar Bear Express from Joel you know because of Pete Alonzo

the polar bear right okay and in honor of top pick past top pick Mickey Moniac getting called up Mo Moniac Moe Problems

I feel like that's a Heath Cummings one that one's from Michael It makes more sense than Heath Cummings take on that one but that's fine yeah that's fair we'll take a Quick break and we'll be back with more of the fantasy baseball today mailbag right here. All right, moving on.

Benjamin from Hamburg, Germany, plays in a 30-team deep head-to-head points dynasty league with daily lineups and eight keepers. Holds plus saves, total salary. He's using real-life salaries, $144 million per team in these real-life contracts on Spottrack.com. Really wants more Blue Jays on his team because he's a Blue Jays fan. He has Cedric Mullins and Zach Wheeler on his team and he wants to try. trade them for Alec Manoa and George Springer. Do you think this is a fair offer for the other owner?

Salaries add up almost equally, and according to most trade value treats, the deal seems fair. So that would be Cedric Mullins and Zach Wheeler for Alec Manoa and George Springer. How do you feel about that one? I think in a dynasty league, particularly a 30-team dynasty league, and seeing how the salaries work, they're based on real-life salaries. He's like, I don't think the other guy's giving up Manoa, you know. Even if the salaries cancel out because he's losing a lot of salary with Springer, I just think Springer, if he was looking to shed that Springer salary,

there are straightforward ways to do it that wouldn't cost him. So, you know, in a redraft sense, Mullins and Wheeler for Manoa and Springer sounds very fair. But in the dynasty context, I just see Manoa as one of those untouchable types, Gila Lane won this deep. I mean, the way Manoa's pitched this season, he's actually, he looks a lot like Zach Wheeler. I mean, doesn't have the elite strikeout upside of a lot of ace pitchers, but pitching like an ace going consistently deep into games, pitching about as well as you can, uh, for someone

who doesn't get, you know, 11K per 9 or whatever it is. So, um, yeah, I think you'd just win this trade, even if the, the salaries weren't fair, or weren't even. So, yeah. Moving on, Stephen writes in, What's up with Edward Cabreras? Seems like he should have been backed by now. I have him stashed on the IL.

Keep him, question mark? Have another related question. I'm wondering when you think Max Meyer gets the call more importantly. What are your realistic expectations for him once he does? Can you throw out a few comps for him? Both A, rest of season, and B, over the next two to three years. So why don't you handle the Max Meyer part of that? because I want to find a tweet about Edward Cabrera

that I thought was really interesting that we haven't talked about yet. Okay. Yeah, so Max Meyer is, I think, clearly a top five pitching prospect. And, you know, if a pitcher only needed two pitches, his fastball and slider, both are among the highest,

the most highly evaluated in all the minors, the most highly rated. And then he started to introduce this change-up to his arsenal this year. The Marlins are the best organization at developing a change-up, so it makes sense that he would add that third pitch, and it really opens up a lot of upside, I think, for Max Meyer. So, you know, in terms of comps, I'd be afraid of aiming too low, frankly. I mean, obviously nobody's guaranteed success. But I think Max Meyer could emerge as a true ace, potentially, and I've added them to my top five prospects to stash right now. So I expect the

promotion to come sooner than later. You know, the Marlins rotation has been hit hard by injuries. They have a couple scrubs in there right now. They could use Max Meyer and is off to a good start since returning from injury. So, yeah, I would say at some point, July, I would expect to see Meyer. Yeah, Meyer's made three starts since coming back from injury, nine strikeout, sorry, 13 strike breakouts one walk in 10 and two-thirds innings recently got up to 70 pitches in his most recent outing and tweet I was looking for was from Craig Mish who covers the Marlins for Sports Grid and I think he's one of the better folks out there in terms of he's got a fantasy focus in a lot of what he does as well So that really helps and he he tweeted this someone asked him about any word on Edward Cabrera know he dealt with personal issues last week, but haven't heard anything as far as him making another

or rejoining the club. Craig Mish said this. Sorry, Dusty, this is one of those really unclear situations where the public comments don't necessarily match the private. I'd be hesitant to comment further. I don't see an imminent return. So that's about Edward Cabrera who showed some real upside in a couple of starts with the Marlins.

You know, had that great start at Coors Field where he, you know, had a ton of strikeouts and swings and misses. But doesn't sound like the Marlins are expecting him. So that was something that I saw a couple days ago that really stood out. So I wanted to throw that in there. Helps Myers' chances. Yeah. Yeah.

So that gets back to Steve's question. Worth stashing Edward Cabrera or would you pick up Luis Patino, who recently started a minor league rehab assignment coming back from injury? Well, I mean, there's upside there for both. It sounds like Patino is going to be back soon. So if it was between those two, he's the one I've leaned towards. I want to say I'm eager to pick up either one in a standard-sized league. I mean, we haven't seen a ton of success for me.

We've seen flashes from both at the major league level, but it's been a struggle for the most part so far. So they're not high priorities for me, but if you've narrowed those down as the best two options in your league, then I would lean Patino. All right. Here's more from the same email or Stephen. is this a stupid or a brilliant trade

Ronald Acuna and Robbie Ray for Shohei Otani in a daily lineup league Okay Stupid or brilliant I don't know that it's I don't know that it's either stupid or brilliant I think in a daily lineup league now that he's having a very strong follow-up to his MVP season

maybe it'll end up being a second MVP season Otani is clearly the number one player in those daily lineup leagues where you get all of his pitching stats and almost all of his hitting stats. You just lose the ones

on the Dacey's pitching. Yeah. So Ocuna is a clear first rounder himself, of course. Robbie Ray, you know, a top five rounder, certainly. I don't think I'd do it because, you know,

obviously that big workload for Otani Is it just for this year? This isn't a dynasty context. Just for this year. Yeah, I don't think I'd do it. I don't think it'd be worth freeing up a roster spot by shedding both of those guys who, I would expect to be better

than whichever version of Otani you're getting on that particular day, the pitcher or the hitter. What do you say? I would say this. It is a higher upside. and lower floor move. Because if Shohei Otani stays healthy and plays like he can,

I think Shohei Otani plus whatever you use that extra roster spot on is probably going to give you more value than Ronald Ocuna and Robbie Ray. But you're introducing a ton of risk into your team because if Shohei Otani goes down, you lose two players, essentially.

Yep. And so you're giving up, you know, you're giving up Ronald to Cunea and Robbie Ray to get that and I think that's I think it's fair I think it's reasonable but it just depends on your willingness to take risk all right I don't I don't think the upside is worth the downside personally because they're both the good players you're giving up are both so good but that's that's me the upside is pretty significant for Ronald Acuna and Robbie Ray as well right all right last Stephen asked a ton of questions we'll just get one more in here finally

one under the radar breakout pitcher and hitter for the rest of the season. Ooh. Under the radar breakout pitchers or hitters. Ah, man. I've got one for a hitter. Okay.

And he's at this point very under the radar, but Ramon Luriano is someone that I think could be in line for a very big rest of season. He's already started to turn it around a bit of late, but, you know, remember last season he was starting to steal some more bases,

you go. The last two seasons combined, he's played 137 games. He's hit 244 with 18 homers and 19 stolen bases. But he's done that in Oakland. And I think he has a pretty good chance of being traded this year. And I think Oakland is one of the worst places for hitters to to play. So I think Ramon Luriano is someone, you know, coming back from that suspension, it's not terribly surprising. He's gone off to a mediocre start. But he's someone, I think, could have a big kick to close out the second half and then um i don't know if Shane boss counts for this question but i don't know if like the perception of him matches how good i think he might actually be rest of season because i think he might just be like a

top 24 guy the rest of the way i've got him like 36 um but with no concerns really about his innings being limited beyond just like being on the raise and not being allowed to go deep as deep into games as he might otherwise be. I think Shane Boz might just be like one of the best pitchers in the American League already. He's been tremendous. So I don't know how under the radar either of these players is. I mean, obviously that's not a precise term. They're both available in more than 30% of CVS sports leagues.

And they're they both have. have been, haven't done enough good things, like the people who have them right now are probably close to dropping them. So they're under the radar in that sense. So the pitcher is Aaron Ashby. I mean, it's going to be guys I've talked about a lot because obviously I think highly have them

and so that would lead me to talk about them a lot. Aaron Ashby, who came off the IL from that forearm injury this week and had a bad start against the pirates. There have been a lot of bad starts with some flashes of brilliance too. But I just, I think the stuff is so good, the amount of swings and misses he gets with it.

The ground ball rate is superlative. It's up there with Framber Valdez. And like that is a rare combination of the outlier swinging miss skills, the outlier ground ball skills. If he's healthy, if this forearm issue isn't something that lingers and is going to impact his production, I think Aaron Ashby could be huge. And there's, if somebody dropped him, I'd scoop him up right away in my leagues. and then the other is Alex Kirolov.

I still have a ton of faith in Kierilov. He was putting up monster numbers at AAA prior to his promotion, which leads me to believe he's learned how to manage the pain in that wrist in a way that we weren't seeing when he was up at the start of the year. And then obviously most of his rookie season, he was playing through the injury. Since coming back, he hasn't been super productive, but since coming back from the minors,

Alex Kerloff's average exit velocity is 92.8 miles per hour. The skills are definitely there for him to be an impact hitter. And I remain hopeful he's going to be just that. All right. Jason from a city that has the new Twin Towers, I'm going to assume that's Minneapolis. With the Rudy Gobert trade, Rudy Gobert and Carl Anthony Towns. I'm going to assume that's what that's referring to,

but I don't really know. could just be the twin part of it that's that's throwing me off um it written hello joe sarah sue and mike i have no idea i thought it might have been stranger things but i think mike is actually the only one of those names

that's in stranger things so i don't think that's it so i have no idea so sir hmm i don't know did you try googling it i did and it didn't it didn't work no worry i did try to come the names exactly So he wrote to it.

This is an interesting 12-team 5-5 categories. Trade. Get Brandon Woodruff. Give up Luis Severino, Michael Kopeck, Anthony Santander, and Jerksson Profar. So how do you feel about the four-for-one deal here? It's a lot. It's a lot you're giving up. I mean, the fact you're giving up, okay, it's not a lot.

I overstated it. But the fact you're giving up Severino plus. I don't think it's a slam dunk Severino is lesser than Woodruff. I have them about on the same level. I was encouraged by Woodruff's strong follow-up over the weekend to his first start back. The first start back, he was juiced up. Like, it wasn't juiced up. That means something else.

He was jazzed up, let's say. He was pumped. He was amped. He was psyched to be back on the mound. And his fastball was as hard as we've ever seen him throw it up, two miles per hour from normal. And that first start. So you can understand.

him being dominant then. But it was back to more normal Woodruff levels than a second start and he still got a lot of strikeouts, missed a lot of bats. I feel pretty good about where he is health-wise and upside-wise

and all of that. But Severino's been awesome. And certainly, we considered him an ace, a fantasy ace, back before he had his arm troubles. Having said that,

who are you actually going to miss of those other players in a 12-team league? Copac, probably. Santander profar. I mean, profar's better in a points league. This is the categories league.

So, you know, Santander's pretty fringy, profar. I don't have a lot of confidence in him. Like, I'm okay with it. I think it's a C

verging on C minus. But, you know, if you just like Woodruff that much more than Severino, then I'm fine with it. You know what the differentiation might be for me?

What? If it's a head-to-head categories league with head-to-head point style rosters or if it's a roto to style rosters. Yeah. Because the deeper rosters, you're going to miss the Santander and ProFar part more. But if you're talking about just five starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, and nine hitters, I think I just go, you know, I think it's close, but I might just prefer the Woodruff side. So I think that's what it comes down to because two of those four guys, I think are

just waiver wire fodder in that, you know, nine starting hitters scenario. So, I mean, I think Santander is in any way, but yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to the final part of the mailbag. Michael writes in, first part of the question, I made the mistake of drafting Zunino. I got Melendez pretty early. He started great, but it's been painful lately, especially for batting average.

His eyes at Wobah, XBA, X-Sug barrels are all kind of average. Cabot Ruiz and William Contreras are options. Going through the rankings, looks like Scott and Frank have MJ Melendez ahead of Cabot Ruiz, whose power numbers are worse. But Chris has Ruiz just ahead. Advice rest of season. How do you view Cabot Ruiz versus MJ Melendez?

I like MJ Melendez more, just like my rankings say. The one possible exception, and I don't think, does he give a scoring format here? I don't think so. In a points league, the fact Keeper Ruiz almost never strikes out.

elevates him. You know, I still doubt he's going to have a lot of like 20 point weeks for you, but it'll be a consistent, you know, a consistent enough point total that he won't hurt you at catcher in a points league so much. But I'd still rather shoot for the upside with MJ Melendez. The plate discipline numbers remain strong. The exit velocities remain strong enough that I don't think that's going to be a hindrance for him. And I, you know, he's been.

cold lately, but he's got a free run of it now with Salvador Perez out for the long haul. The one thing I will say about Ruiz is the expected stats suggest that he should be hitting for much more batting average. And actually a little more pop as well. He's only hitting 254 with that 9.8% strikeout rate. You know, that seems especially low. And look, he does have a 34% line drive rate. And he hits the ball, you know, in the. air enough that

like he doesn't he hits the ball in the air on on a line not you know fly balls in a way that suggests that he should be a better power or better batting average hitter than he has been it's complicated by one the fact that he's a left-handed hitter and the fact that he's very very slow 10th percent on sprint speed so you would think that there's any pulls the ball so you would think there's a pretty good chance that he's getting shifted out of a lot of hits although he's actually got a 445 Wobah when he's being shifted versus a 239 Wobo when he's not being shifted. So I don't know what to make of that, but I do think Cabrur Rees is someone who probably has better days ahead of him,

even if I don't think he's necessarily a superstar, whereas I do think Melendez probably has star potential with his power. All right. And last question. Also drafted Brandon Lau. I've used Nolan Gorman and Andres Jimenez to fill in. I'm happy with Andres lately, Tom 10 percentile in XBA and XWBA. Gorman seems unlucky his barrel rate, launch angles, X-slug, flyball versus line drive, all that stuff, big numbers.

Luis Garcia is also out there. Or if I go outside second base for a power bat, he's got Vinny Pasquantino and Alex Kirloff. So would you stick with Nolan Gorman or would you try for Luis Garcia, Vinny Pasquantino, or Alex Kirillov? How do you rank? So let's just rank Pasquantino, Kiralov, Luis Garcia,

and Nolan, rest of season. Well, I think the scoring format makes a big difference because I feel much better about Gorman in a categories league, traditional 5 by 5 categories league than I do about in a points league where those strikeouts are going to keep him down. And so between him and Vinny Pasquantino, it's probably, is probably format dependent for me. I'd go Gorman over Pasquantino in categories, Pasquantino over Gorman and points. and then rounding out that list. I prefer the upside of Kirillov to the upside of Luis Garcia, but this is one of those questions where it's like, I think they're all good.

You know, I'm ranking Garcia last year, but that says more about the players I'm ranking ahead of them than it does about Garcia himself. I think that's fair. I think I would probably go with Garcia over Kirloff, and maybe that's just me being a little gun-shy with Kirloff because we've seen him struggle at the major league level. But yeah, I agree.

I think all these guys, they're all certainly within my top 200 at this point overall, and they're all guys that I think should be rostered in in nearly all formats. So that's Nolan Gorman, Luis Garcia, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Al-Kirloff, we like all four of their potentials quite a bit. And that's going to do it for the July 4th slash 5th mailbag on fantasy baseball today. Scott will be back along with myself and Frank Stample on Wednesday's episode of FBT. So we'll look for you there.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you later. Bye. Bye.