Fantasy Baseball Today - Opening Day Overreactions, Bullpen Madness & More! (3/28 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

MacKenzie Gore had the best start of his career (4:10). ... Spencer Torkelson reached base five times (8:16)! ... Add Kyle Manzardo or Tyler Soderstrom (11:43). ... Wilyer Abreu had a multi-homer game (14:22). ... Tyler O'Neill homered on his sixth consecutive Opening Day (19:35). ... Let's talk about all the bullpen madness from Opening Day (23:15). ... Three teams are off and running (41:00). ... How did Sandy Alcantara look in his return (42:48)? ... Add Sean Burke (44:32)? ... Are Miguel Vargas or Jorge Polanco worth a look in deeper leagues (46:09)? ... News (48:20): Gunnar Henderson is going for a rehab assignment on Friday. ... How did these pitchers do on their new teams (53:13)? ... These pitchers were bad (56:13). ... We wrap up with leftovers and weekend streamers (59:08). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CPTowers @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy Cocoa Friday and welcome into fantasy baseball today on March 28th. I am Frank Stamphle, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, opening day is in the books. It's time to overreact. We've got, we had some bullpen madness. We'll talk about all of it. Had some young hitters with huge games here and much more. There's only one way to start the season, guys.

Oh my goodness gracious. Oh my goodness. gracious players of the night. And for those who might be watching or listening for the first time to one of our in-season podcasts, this will pretty much be the way we start things and we'll start with players of the night. If you hear an awesome call somewhere, an announcer on TV or radio, tweet it at me, email it to me and I'll try to work it into our rotation of player of the night calls here.

There was that great home run call on Kyle Monsardo's home run. today. I'm not sure I heard it. If you caught that one, I'm going to have to check it out. I did not. Yeah. It was, it was, it was an adventure. It was an adventure. Like, the announcer changed his mind like three times within the call whether it was going to be a home run. Well, the ESPN broadcast on Anthony Volpe's home run was, and there's a pop fly to write. I heard that. And it's gone. It was actually hit further than Austin Wells home run, though. That is true. All right. Scott, lead us all.

off your player of the night. Well, it's actually not Kyle Monsardo because that's yours, Frank, but it's probably the player of the day, I would say, McKenzie Gore. That's the all the breadstick. Oh, yeah. Certainly had the pitching performance of the day. Struck out 13 over six innings against a great Phillies lineup, 20 swinging strikes on 93 pitches, including eight on the slider.

You know, well-distributed, the whiffs were, but eight on the slider. That was the most of any pitch. And it was a very different slider than we've seen McKinsey Gore throw in the past. It was down almost five miles per hour. So it was, you know, kind of a slower, bigger, breaking slider. And he threw it exclusively, you were telling me, Chris, he threw it exclusively to lefties. He didn't throw it to righties. And lefties, even though he's a left-hander, have been part of,

Gors responsible for part of Gors inconsistencies over the years. He hasn't dominated left-handers like you'd expect him to. You're being extremely kind. He gets demolished by lefties. His career OPS against lefties is like 800, I think, which is hard to believe because he's a big, yeah, 816 career OPS versus left-handed batters. That's really, really

bad. And that wasn't the only arsenal change for Gore in this one. The nationals had talked about him developing a cutter. He threw only six of them, but he got three whiffs on those six. And that seemed to be kind of the alternative to the slider that he used against right handers. So he seems to have a more diverse arsenal that's going to help him navigate a lineup better. The biggest thing he did, though, probably was throw 71% of his pitches for strikes. And during the stretches, McKenzie Gore dominated last year, which was start of the season, end of the season, threw a lot more strikes. His stuff is good enough that as long as he does that, I think he's going to be in good shape. And he's clearly off to a nice start here. And,

yeah, hopefully it continues. Yeah, the biggest thing for McKenzie Gore throughout his career has been a lack of consistency. So at this point, I think if he's maturing as a pitcher and he takes that next step as a breakout, that's how it will come. It will be throwing strikes and being more consistent on a start-to-start basis and not walking as many.

And, you know, if it involves implementing new pitches, like you pointed out, Scott, a new slider, you know, throwing some more cutters in there, then I think we could potentially get the breakout season here from Gore. There's no doubt that he has the stuff. It's just can he do it consistently? That will be the question here. but it was an awesome start, no doubt.

It's worth, his slider last year was basically a cutter. He like he averaged 91 miles an hour with his slider last year. So I think this move is kind of splitting that up into two different pitches, right? Like a true cutter that actually, I think more or less had a similar movement profile to the one he threw last year. and then a loopier two-plane-breaking slider, which in theory from a lefty should help him avoid barrels and miss bats against lefties more consistently. And yeah, I think this is a super, super encouraging start for McKenzie Gore.

His command always comes and goes. He's got a, he's basically, he has like Clayton Kershaw's delivery. I don't know if that's like oversimplifying, but he has a very similar delivery to Clayton Kershaw, and it's a really difficult delivery to duplicate. And so I think that that's been part of the problem. He just has trouble repeating his mechanics. But if he can, the stuff we saw today from McKenzie Gore was super, super impressive.

All right, Chris, let's go right back to you for your player of the day or night, whenever he played. Yeah, I think Torkelson was a night game. No, that was like an afternoon game. But yeah, Spencer Torkelson. Awesome, awesome performance in his very first game of the season. Homered off of Blake Snell, right? I think I need to.

I think it was a Vesia. I like Vescia. Yeah. I mean, that's a tough pitcher too, but he homered off of a good pitcher and walked four times, which is really impressive for a guy who's always. always had some plate discipline issues, has always been a little chase heavy. It's one game, one game after a very good spring. Yes.

I think Tyler or Spencer Torkelson is worth adding in probably categories leagues here. He's 43% rostered as of tonight. So I don't know how many categories leagues he's available. And there was probably some. And I would be adding him. I don't think in head to head points leagues. unless you're just really bad at first base. But it was a very, very promising first showing for Spencer Torkelson.

Yeah. I mean, look, if he continues to walk a lot, it'll be a great points league profile. And it's worth pointing out, because I think there's this perception that Torkelson has always been useless in fantasy. He was drafted among the top 12 first baseman just a year ago. Oh, he was coming off a good 2020.

23 season, yeah, mostly because of the power. So, you know, depends how deep the league is. We had three widely available first baseman who we regard as having upside, have monster performances here on opening day. And somebody asked me if I should drop Reese Hoskins for one of them. I don't know that I really want to do that because I like Reese Hoskins a lot too. And I don't know that I should change. If I like all the players, I don't know that I should change my priors based on

one day, but. But I don't think you have to to say, we're talking about Tyler Sodstrom, Spencer Torkelson, and Kyle Manzardo, who all had a home run. Soderstrom had two. Manzardo had a double and a triple as well. He finished a single sort of the cycle,

which is, that's frustrating. But I would say you don't need to suddenly think all three of those guys are better than Reese Hoskins. What you need to think is, this might be my only chance to add any of those guys. No, I get that, but I don't, I still think it's too, like, what if Reese Hoskins homers twice tomorrow? That wouldn't be surprising.

Like, I have a lot of confidence in Reese Hoskins. He has had a lot more success in the majors than any of these guys. And I'm not, I'm not ready to make that switch. It's certainly conceivable that any one of them could be better than Reese Hoskins this season. Yeah. And I think with a lot of the early season content, at least for today. I don't think we're telling anyone to drop players of note on this day,

but if you have an open roster spot or if, you know, an injured player that you're throwing on the IL, or it's just a player that didn't play on opening day. And you don't know how much they're going to play in general. Like, you could drop that player, fine. You drafted Zebby Matthews and didn't know what to do with them. Now you have somebody you can drop them for.

Yeah. So I guess let's just talk about all three of these players right now because Kyle Manzardo finished a single sort of the cycle, three for four, a walk, a double, a triple, a home run, four RBI, in the lineup against a lefty, Cole Reagan's here. So that was really, really encouraging for Manzardo. The problem for him in fantasy,

while he is a first baseman, he's util only for now on CBS. So hopefully he gains first base eligibility. He was the DH in this game. He did not play first base. The other big game, Tyler Soderstrom, two for three with a double dong here. Both home runs over 108 mile per hour exit velocity.

one of them came off of Logan Gilbert and the power metrics are legit. I mean last year they were at least and he hits the ball hard, he barrels it up. Seems like he has an everyday opportunity here with the athletics in I think what could be a pretty sneaky lineup here. So Scott, how would you rank the three

just based on all three having great first games? But Soderstrom, Kyle Manzardo, and Spencer Torkelson. I'm going to go, I'm tempted to put Manzardo last just because he's not eligible at first base, and you'll have to factor that into your thinking with your own ranking, obviously,

whether you can actually use Monsardo at this point. But if I'm just going how much I trust them on a skill level, I think I am going to, well, not just skill level, but skill and playing time, factoring it all in. I'm going to go Torkelson 1, Monsardo, 2, Soderstrom 3. It's virtually a tie. So if you disagree with me, fine. I'm not going to really argue with you about it.

I will point out that you mentioned a home run for Monsardo came off a lefty, Frank, and it did. All three of his hits came off lefties. All three of his hits came off three different lefties. And so I think that's a pretty strong indicator that Monsardo is going to be able to handle an everyday role. I mean, just the fact he was in the lineup against the left-hander on opening day, I think is encouraging. So that's one of the reasons why I give him the edge over. over Soderstrom. The other one being that Soderstrom,

I think has more pronounced strikeout issues. I actually might put Soderstrom at the top of this group. I'm not going to argue with you, Chris. Just on the off chance that he might get catcher eligibility. Okay. That's that's a good thing. That's how slim, I think, the margins between these three are. They all have plus power.

There's some strikeout concerns for all three of them. Sodestrum might get catcher eligibility at some point. And Manzardo is D. only right now. So like literally that might be all that separates them for me. All right. I do want to give a shout out to another young player who had a huge game here on opening day. And that's

Willie Ara Brayu of the Red Sox. Three for three with a double dong, four RBI including a three run, go-ahead home run in the ninth inning off of Luke Jackson. Not sure that experiment is going to last very long. Three batted balls over 108 miles per hour

here for... I only have 12 all last season. Yeah. And what's even crazier about it. He missed a lot of spring training with an illness that caused him to lose weight. I don't know if it's the same thing as Mookie Betts, but it was kind of a similar situation where he, they said he was down like 10, 15 pounds or whatever, and he missed the large majority of spring. They didn't know if he was going to be on the opening day roster. Didn't know if he would be ready. And he's here and he has a great game. Last year didn't put up huge numbers, but he hit the ball hard. It was a good barrel rate. I don't think he's going to play against lefties, so there's a drawback

there. But Chris, what do you think about Willie Arbriu? He's 63% rostered. So anything more than that, we're talking about points league territory. I just don't know if he's going to play enough. He already might have gone up. When I checked, it was 69% rostered. So

yeah, I think he's probably not really a points league guy. So it's any categories league and there might not be many of them where he isn't already rostered. But if he is, I'm fine, taking that chance. Sure. I think I'd rather have Lars Nupar

Who's only 43% rostered Lead off Lars baby lead off Lars Leading off for the Cardinals he homered today Towering shot I'd love to see it Yeah I think will your Brayus fine And maybe Maybe there's room for more than fine there

I think there is I wish he played in a different park He plays in one of the worst home run parks for a left-handed hit And I wish he didn't have the platoon concern. But at the very least, I think he showed with this start that he's not going to, he's not going to cede that job

to Roman Anthony easily. And good for him. I will also note, because we don't have the time, we don't have the time with all the opening day reactions to get to like a week two preview, week two sleeper hitter,

sleeper pitchers. And obviously it only applies to those who treated opening weekend as week one. But will you are brave, is scheduled to face, the Red Sox are scheduled to face just one left-hander next week, and they have the fourth best hitter matchups. So if you are looking for a streamer hitter, he would make for a good one. So would Soderstrum, by the way, because half of the A's games next week are at Colorado.

Willi Air Abraeu on Yahoo, by the way, is only 15% rostered. So if you play over there, lots of daily lineup, heads-head categories leagues, where you can just put him in whenever he's playing on a daily basis, I think Willier-A-R-U-Rew has more value in a format like that. I think we would all take Lars Nupar over Abraeu though, right? Yes. Yep. Yep.

All right. Same thing. I think in every format, yeah. Yep. All right, well, let's take our first break. Just a quick few things to promote here. Thanks for watching, everyone. Hit the like button and subscribe on YouTube.

If you haven't already, that's YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. If you listen to the audio podcast and you enjoy the show, please feel free to leave us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And as Scott just mentioned, if you're looking for week two sleeper hitters and pitchers for the upcoming week here on Monday, go check out Scott's articles on the site, CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. Let's take a break. We'll be back right after this quick commercial break. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Before we get into the bullpen madness that was. I've got to mention Tyler O'Neill. This stuff is crazy, man. He has homered on six straight opening. days. That's unbelievable. Which, I mean, it cannot make the stuff up. And it was his Orioles debut too. It was a great one. Three for three with

a homer, two walks, three runs, and three RBI. How hum. Let's just highlight that entire Orioles team here because no Gunner Henderson, no problem. They clobbered the Blue Jays. They put up 12 runs on 14 hits including six homers.

One of them for Tyler O'Neill. Adley Ruchman, huge game. Two home runs in this one. He went three for five. Cedric Mullins, three for five, two homers, five RBI. He also attempted to steal, we got caught stealing, but obviously a great game here. And it's Jordan Westberg breakout season, baby. Two for four with a walk and his first home run. Any analysis here?

Big game from the Orioles. Just loves being Andy Rushman get off to a good start. He was an MVP caliber player before the hand injury last year. And he never blamed it, but the drop off in production from, July 1st on was pretty stark. And I think he was a target for me all draft season. And I'm expecting a huge season from Adley Ruchman. He hit only three home runs in the second half last year.

Then he hit three this spring. Then he hit two on opening day. So yeah, I think Adley Rushman is, we can put that bad second half behind him. Meanwhile, Cedric Mullins, final 87 games last year. He hit 277 with 12 of his 18 home runs. and had an 834 OPS. So he was miserable at the start of last season,

picked things up, obviously, Zier went along, and looks like hopefully he's going to avoid the slow start. Do we want to address now the pitcher who, a lot of this damage happened against Jose Rios? I'll just go ahead and say, like, you can mention it. I'm not, I don't want to overreact. I think Jose Brrios is fringe enough coming into the season that if you wanted to do that,

drop him based on this. I think it's fine. I think he'll be fine. It would have to be a shallow league. But yeah. It would have to be a shallow. He's probably still Jose Barrio. See, the pitch velocity, shape, selection was all normal.

He got 13 whiffs on 90 pitches, which is better than he does usually. He had a couple of stars last year where he gave up three home runs. I think it's just a, you know, the way Jose Barrio season goes. And he happened to get one of the bad ones out of the way. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. I had him starting in a few roto leagues. Unfortunately, some deeper leagues where not great, but this is part of the Jose Brrios experience, unfortunately.

Let's get into... Can I point out one thing that's not on the rundown before we get into the bullpens and the pitchers and all this stuff? Because we're not going to talk about it. But I think it is interesting. Nolan Aronado, Homer today, off Griffin Jacks.

That's a good pitcher. two of his swings were at least 70 miles per 75 miles per hour. And that was something that was noted by, you know, Saras in spring training that his bat speed was up in the very limited sample size. He only had 11% of his swings last season were at least 75 miles per hour. Two of his four today or two of his four batted balls today, I guess were. So it's not getting. guarantee of anything, but it's a glimmer of hope for Nolan Aron. All right, move on.

Let's go. Build that value, get traded to a contender, and let's see what happens. Let's get into the bullpen madness because there was a lot. And it was just a stream of one thing after another, one team after another and just like, what is happening? It was 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern hour was real fun for bullpens. And I was live with Nick Popper. We were on playback watching all the opening day games. We were just kind of jumping around. And every game we went to got blown. Like we just would jump to another game and it would get blown.

And we were just like, who the heck is Ian Jumbo? Well, let's talk about that. Start with the Reds bullpen. It's Terry Francona. Like, what are we doing, bud? One run game, we get Scott Barlow in the 6th. He struck out two. Emilio Pagan in the 7th.

He struck out two. Tony Santian in the 8th. He struck out two. So we're thinking, all right, who do we get in the 9th? Taylor Rogers, is it Graham Ashcraft? It's neither. It's Ian Jabo, spelled G-I-B-A-U-T.

You don't need to know how it's spelled. Who gives up four runs on a walk and three hits, including a homer. He takes the blown save and the loss. Jabot, it's especially baffling. He was a non-roster invitee, and he was one of the last players to make the team.

And after the game, Terry Francona said roles were not planned before the game. He also said that In hindsight, he should have flipped Emilio Pagan and Jabot. So Jabot pitching in the seven. We're all trying to find the guy who did this. And Paghan in the ninth inning. Yeah, it's just, I don't know what happens next,

but I'm pretty sure it's not Ian Jabot. No, it's not. It's not. I don't think so. And if I could spoil one of the other ones, the Luke Jackson experience, him as the Rangers closer, also ended disastrously. So you've got Terry Francona, you've got Bruce Bochy.

And I'm just saying, I'm just wondering, like, when are these old school fossilized managers going to learn that you save your best reliever for the ninth inning? Always. You never, you never depart from that. Because that's obviously the way to go about stringing relievers together to secure a win. I'm obviously saying that tongue and cheek because people have been arguing for just the opposite for these old school managers. But I don't think this is what they meant. I don't think the idea of using your best relievers in the highest leverage situation meant you could just throw any old guy out there in the ninth and just hope your way to a victory. like bad relievers make for bad closers.

And so I hope these two Hall of Fame managers learned a very valuable lesson here on opening day. I will say it's a little concerning that Terry Francona's lesson from all this was, I should have used Emilio Pagan as my closer because he has been a closer in the past. He's not very good. He is a pretty extreme fly ball pitcher. that's not going to work either. But I guess if you have to speculate on the next one, I would rank it Pagan and then Santian,

who was good in the setup role. Here's the thing. But yeah, this still seems like a stay away for me. So let me look up, Santian. Let me check my note so I can make sure I'm saying this right. Okay, I didn't make a note on Santian.

apparently. It must have been a different reliever I'm thinking of. We already know Terry Francona thinks Tony Santian is his best reliever. He's said that. And so I think in the long run, if he believes Santian is his best reliever, unless somebody else emerges as a better reliever in the meantime, in the long run, I think the majority of the safe chances are going to Santiam, because that's generally what happens.

All right. Well, let's move over to the Phillies. because Jordan Romano entered in the eighth inning with a two-run lead facing eight, nine, and one in the nationals lineup. He gave up two runs on a hit by pitch, a walk, and a hit. Jose Alvarado pitched in the ninth inning with the game tied, facing five, six, and seven in the lineup. He struck out two in a perfect inning. And it seems like the usage here is they were saving Jose Alvarado for the save opportunity. Well, okay, now I do have some details I can offer on this one.

So Romano pitched the eighth, yes. He faced... He struggled. He, yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't a clean inning. He gave up two runs, a hit and a walk. He would, eight, nine, and one were due up. But here's the thing. Okay.

If they think Romano's the high leverage guy, presumably they'd want to save him for the top of the lineup. This was the Nationals' top of the lineup. It went lefty, lefty, lefty, lefty. switch hitter, lefty. A whole string of lefties with one switch hitter in their first five hitters. So obviously, they were going to use Alvarado in that situation. That's fair point, am. Unless they had a true locked-in closer.

So I think that's the main thing that happened here. Now, Romano has to do better with the opportunities he's given to emerge as the leading saves guy that we think he's going to be. And I still think he's going to be. but if nothing else, we know he doesn't have a stranglehold on that role. And Rob Thompson's going to play matchups at least to some degree. I will point out that there were at least two occasions in the spring where they went with this exact order,

Kirkering, Romano, Alvarado. That doesn't necessarily mean much because it's spring training, but it happened multiple times. Now it happens in the first game. I think that's a good point about the string of lefties that the nationals have at the top of their lineup. I hadn't considered that. Is what a switch hitter? He's a left.

He's a left. He's just as lefty? Yeah. I guess I'm thinking of Josh. So, Josh Bell was the only switch hitter in that group. Weird lineup construction. Can we get Dylan Cruz up there to balance it out a little bit? He's saying he's going to bat second and then he dropped him to eighth on opening day.

He bad at eighth. maybe it was just because it was a tough righty, but that was dumb. I hear what you're saying, and we think we thought for years, Alvarado could be a closer caliber reliever, including just last year when the path seemed wide open for him. There wasn't an alternative as good as Jordan Romano

or as proven as a closer as Jordan Romano. So they never really seemed interested in making Alvarado, full-time closer then, and I'm highly doubtful it's going to happen now. I think he'll be in the mix. Yeah, he'll be in the mix. But I think in the long run, Romano's still the guy. If I had to guess, Romano is still the guy. Okay. Would you be looking to add Jose Alvarado in category leagues? I think he's perfectly fine, useful in categories leagues, regardless of whether he's the closer moving forward, which I don't think we expect. If Edwine Useta is worth rostering in your league, then Jose Alvarez. I think I'd rather have Alvarado than any Reds guy at this point.

At least we know Alvarado is really good. And to be clear, he looks better than ever. So far this, I know it's only one game this season, but also spring training I was watching him. He, his velocity's up like two miles per hour on his fastball. He had this ridiculous curveball that I don't think he threw today. but he was working on it in spring that had like it was oh he threw one and it has like he struck out 20 and nine innings this spring he has it has arm side movement like it's like a screwball basically because of the weird way he pronates his arm that thing looks ridiculous

if he can command and obviously hose over it was already very very good so uh he could just be very useful in all category formats if he gets six saves all year. All right. We do have to move infinitely faster here. Let's talk about the Dodgers. Ten or Scott got the eighth inning with a two-run lead facing seven, eight and nine in the Tigers lineup. And he allowed a run on a triple and a sack fly.

And then it was Blake Trinan who got the ninth inning, not Kirby Yates, who didn't even pitch in this game. Trinan gave up a hit and a walk, but struck out two for his first save. So this is frustrating. I saw people last week doing victory laps on fantasy baseball Twitter because Tanner Scott is definitely the Dodgers closer and I don't know if that's certain here. I do have a bit of a conspiracy theory that the Dodgers,

they have their little World Series celebration here, they're wearing the special jerseys and all that, maybe to honor Blake Trinanin because he was so good in the World Series and part of their postseason run. But that's my conspiracy theory. I don't have any truth behind that. It's reasonable enough. You know what's fun, though?

Evan Phillips and Michael Copac aren't even healthy. Yeah. Yep. Why did Kirby Yates not even pitch in this game, though? I wonder if Scott was called in the eighth just because Kerry Carpenter was coming up that inning. But I think he came on as a pinch hitter. Like, they didn't know he was going to bat.

I think he came on as a pinch hitter that inning to face him. Because there was, like, Ryan Kreidler was in the lineup. So they probably just wanted a little bit more punch than that at bat. Yeah, okay, maybe. Yeah, you're right. It was a pinch hitter. Okay. Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, that's, you know, one of the bold predictions I scrapped was that four Dodgers relievers would have double digit saves this year. I decided not to throw that out there because Dave Roberts did verbally endorse Scott as his closer. So, okay, there's a clear leader there. I don't know. Maybe I should have stuck with that. ball prediction. Let's talk about the Royals. Lucas Ersig entered with one out in the seventh inning with the Royals down four to three at the time to face Jose Ramirez and Lane Thomas. He retired both of them, but just kind of weird usage, I guess. Carlos Estevez pitched a ninth inning

with the game tied. He struck out one. The Royals would eventually lose in extra innings. Do you have any thoughts on the way the Royals were used here? Probably Fireman. is the front runner. But that's a fireman situation for our seg, right? Like coming in to face Jose Ramirez, that's the, in a late inning situation to face Jose Ramirez, it's not going to get much tougher than that.

But while down a run, it just seems kind of, I mean, I guess you don't want the game to get away from you. Yeah, like that's, it's not closer usage, but it's fireman usage,

which was what we expected. And that means he's going to get some saves, but not all of them, which is what we expected. I don't think there's much here. It's just Carlos Hustavis matters. All right, for the Pirates, Colin Holerman, entered in the eighth inning with the two-run lead.

He gave up two runs on two walks and two hits. Boom, tie game. David Bednar gets the ninth inning with the game tied. He gave up a lead-off triple to Nick Fortez, and then intentionally walked Xavier Edwards, gave up a walk-off hit to Kyle Stowers. So not great. I will just question the management on this one.

and maybe this is overthinking it, but I believe they gave up a double to open. No, a triple. O'Donio Cruz badly misplayed a ball on a triple by Nick Fortes. Of all people. Then they walk Xavier Edwards to try to get the force out to get a double play. But then he steals second. So first base is open and they pitched to Kyle Stowers.

I didn't get that. Like just walk him. The second run doesn't matter. it's tied and you're you're on the road i i don't understand why they didn't just walk the next guy to get a force out at every at every base i i thought the management there was stupid but bad like david bennard looked bad all season last year and now he blows his first save i it wasn't a save though it was a tie game or blows his first opportunity in a high leverage situation in a save in a closers role yeah yeah so i the saving grace that's that's

As we've been saying with Bednar all along is Colin Holderman looked bad. Yeah, everybody else is terrible. Look bad. There's just no alternatives there. So Bednar probably gets a long leash longer than one appearance, certainly, because of that. I mean, honestly, maybe. I don't think there's a guarantee he gets the next save, though. For the Red Sox,

a roll as Chapman entered in the eighth inning with the game tied, facing two, three, and four in the Rangers lineup. He gave up a hit. But he was overall solid inning. The Red Sox took a three run. lead in the top of the ninth. Justin Slayton came on for the save. He retired the side in order, picked it up. I still think it's Chapman's. He just, he pitched in a high leverage spot because the game was tied. Alex Cora did exactly what he said he was going to do. He said

Chapman's going to get the majority of the save opportunities. But the exact quote was if Corey Seeger leads off the eighth, he, meaning Chapman, could be used in the eighth. Guess who led off the That seems like our role just Chapman's the closer, and they just thought that was the situation to use him in. Yeah. For the Rangers, Chris Martin entered with two outs in the seventh inning. Runners on first and second in a tie game. He struck out Connor Wong. He also pitched a scoreless eighth.

And then Luke Jackson came on for the ninth with the game tied. He gave up a three-run homer to Willier or Brayu. He took the loss here. I would assume Chris Martin gets the next save opportunity, but I can't say that for certain. It sure seems like Chris Martin's the first. fireman, which means he'll get some save opportunities. And if everybody else is bad, maybe he gets all of them. That's, that's kind of my read there. Bad relievers make for bad closers. Bruce Bochie, what are you doing? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, I, uh, go ahead. Are we done with

the closers? Because I got a, if I could put a bow on it. I have some other just like general things to get to later on. But if, yeah, you could say, say whatever you. Okay, so like, don't go crazy throwing a bunch of fab dollars at a bunch of relievers who pitched in unexpected spots. I think overall, none of today's bullpen choices reveal that much. Remember last year on opening day, Abner Ribe was the big pickup. Three years ago, ironically enough, it was Tony Santian, got a save for the Reds on opening day. And everyone was like, oh, look, the Reds Avenue closer. I think what will ultimately be is what works

and what works will be revealed in time and a lot of that, what's revealed in time, is going to be what we expected all along. So yeah, if you want to throw, you know, if you're playing a deep roto league

where anybody who's in line for saves gets scooped up, maybe you throw tiny bit at Slayton, Justin Slayton, maybe you throw a tiny little bit more at Jose Alvarado. But you don't go crazy because it's just one day and it's a weird day and a lot still needs to be fleshed out. Yep.

All right. Let's take our final break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Teams that are off and running. We had some big stolen base totals already here on opening day. The Nationals, no surprise. They ran crazy last year. They had three more steals, one for each of Dylan Cruz, Jacob Young and Luis Garcia Jr.

the Padres ran wild. Fernando Tatis went three for four with two steals. Manny Machado, two for three with two steals as well. Zander Bogartz, one for three with a seal. After the game, Tatez said, quote, last year I was standing on one leg. You can really see how healthy I'm at right now. It's a huge part of my game

and one of my favorite parts of the game, I really missed it. This could be huge. Fernando Tautiz overall, number one player, baby. I also will note Tatees had the two steals. Mani Machado had two steals. It sure seemed like the Padres were picking on Doug Baldwin,

or I'm sorry, Drake Baldwin. Doug Baldwin, former wide receiver. Yeah, Drake Baldwin, Braves rookie catcher, who by the way, nearly hit a home run to straightaway center in his debut. It was one of those, did the center field or Jackson Merrill Robert or didn't he kind of situation? because he leaped right at the wall. Would it have hit off the top of the wall or sailed over?

Hard to tell. But that was unfortunate for Mr. Drake Baldwin. The pirates also ran wild. They had six steals as a team. Brian Hayes had two. O'Neill Cruz had a steal. Brian Reynolds had one. Isaiah Connor Folepha had a steal

and so did Tommy FAM. So I don't know if... Cyl McHontra had zero interest in holding runners in this game. Well, it was just... Like, I don't think all of them were off of him, but at least a couple were and yet he was not even

I'm not sure he even threw over to first in this game he was just focused on pitching let's talk about Sandy Alcantara's return here Sandy he was that's right yeah he was cruising until the fifth inning and it felt like they left him in too long and I kind of get what they wanted to do like how many save out win opportunities are you really

going to have Sandy Alcantara so he had a 1-0 lead and he has to get through the fifth inning, so they left him out there. And then it all just kind of spiraled in that final inning. He gave up a, he struck out the first two, gave up a single, steel, walk, double, double steel, walk, and a two-run single. And they pulled them after that.

So the final line doesn't look great, but before that, 16 whiffs on 91 pitches, Chris, he looked pretty awesome. Yeah, he looked great. Honestly, if there's a big takeaway from today, there's no short leash on Sandy Alcantra and there might just not be a leash. Like they let him throw 91

pitches in his first start of the season. He was very efficient before the fifth inning. I think it was like a 25 or 27 pitch inning, something like that. But yeah, I thought his stuff looked awesome. Looked like he didn't miss a beat. The command wasn't great, but that's not so concerning

because we know that's a strength for him. that'll get better, I think, as he gets more reps. But yeah, he certainly didn't, I will say this. I don't know how much upside there's going to be. I think the downside concerns about Sandy O'Connor are like already off the board based on how he looked in spring and the length that they gave him in this start. All right, let's talk about a waiver wire pitcher. There's only one that really stood out to me from opening day.

And it's Sean Burke of the White Sox who pitched really well. six shot out innings, three hits, zero walks, three strikeouts. He only had eight whiffs on 73 pitches, but the zero walks is huge for him because he had big control issues in the minors, only allowed four hard hits in this game. He led with the slider. It was his most used pitch. He's 25 years old, lots of strikeouts, but again, lots of walks in the miners, 34% rostered. Scott, how interested are you in a Sean Burke after this opening day start? I've had trouble getting a handle on Sean Burke. And so I've mostly just ignored him because he pitches for the white socks anyway.

And a lot of the stuff you see is uninspiring. But then there are these flashes of brilliance sometimes. And it's like, okay, maybe there's something here. He's pretty low priority for me, I would say. Because at the end of the day, he still pitches for what's probably the worst team at baseball. And that's that's the last hurdle to clear. You know, there are a number of hurdles leading up to that. And I think a number of interesting pitchers that are still fairly available,

including A.J. Smith Schaver, just to pull one off the top of my head. Okay, so yeah, you would take Smith Schaver over Burke. How about Richard Fitz or Sean Burke? I would take fits still. That might change if Fitzstart goes poorly. That's kind of the margin for error. that exist there, but as of now, Richard Fitz. All right, there were a few deep league bats that had good games here on opening day.

Miguel Vargas, 2 for 4 with a double, 2 RBI, hit the double off of Usake Kikuchi. This comes after a nice spring for him, and he let off in this game against the lefty. He's 8% rostered on CBS, has third base and outfield eligibility. And Jorge Polanco, 3 for 3 with a home run. He's only 10% rostered. Underwent knee surgery to repair the Pateler tendon in his left knee. maybe he's just finally healthy again. Like he used to be a pretty productive player, Jorge Polanco.

Chris, if we're talking, you know, 15-team Roto leagues or deeper, do you have any interest in either, Miguel Vargas or Jorge Polanco? You probably have some pretty bad players on your 15-team league. So, yeah, I think. I think I saw both of them available in 15-teamers that I'm in. Yeah, Vargas leading off, that's moderately interesting. He's put up big minor league numbers throughout his career. and it just hasn't come together when he's gotten the chance,

but maybe there's some post-type sleeper potential there. And Polanco, he's hitting sixth, so not a bad lineup spot. And it wouldn't take much to move him up if he's the guy he used to be. He wasn't last season, but maybe he just wasn't healthy, like you said. I did notice this spring, Jorge Polanco hardly struck out at all, a 12.5% strikeout rate after 29.3 last year, which was out of character for him to strike out that much. So I was, my hopes were raised just by him making more contact this spring.

And then he has an opening day performance like this that, you know, makes it makes it look even more interesting. It'd have to be a pretty deep league for me to act on it. But it's noteworthy at the very least. I'm still pretty skeptical of Miguel Vargas. I'm more skeptical of Vargas than Polanco. Agreed. His double today had an expected batting average of one.

150. His hardest hit ball was less than 95 miles per hour. It's a lot of the same issues there for Vargas. And I didn't, even though he put up a good batting average this spring, I was seeing a lot of the same things then too. All right, let's quickly get through some news and notes and then we'll get back into recapping opening day. And Gunner Henderson will begin a rehab assignment Friday. He's been out since late February due to that right into intercostal strain. Tanner Bybee was scratched from his start due to food. poisoning. Ben lively started in his place. Tanner Bobby wants everyone to know it's not Chipotle's fault.

People were blaming it on Chipotle. And he said it happened before he had his pregame Chipotle meal. So just want to put that out there. He's not playing the pregame Chipotle meal with that going on. I don't think he got to. Oh, okay. I think he said he didn't get to the pregame Chipotle. Okay.

But that's fine. He eats Chipotle before every game. Okay. Before every game that. It feels risky. Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe it's what he needs to feel alive. I don't, I don't know about that one.

Chipoli's delicious. I'm not taking shots. It's great, but it's just, it's like the episode of the office where Michael Scott eats, you know, fetichini Alfredo before he runs a marathon. It's like, what are we? It's got to just be a bowl. You can't, you can't take a, the giant burrito. The bowls are very popular, but I love a tortilla.

I love everything wrapped up in a tortilla. Yeah. Now, the burritos are great. but they can get pretty messy. It's pretty heavy, like a brick in your stomach. Zach Netto, who is still rehabbing from off-season shoulder surgery, isn't ready for game action and has no date to return. No date for his return.

Ranger Suarez will throw a 25-pitch bullpen on Saturday. He is on the aisle with lower back stiffness. Nick Gonzalez left Thursday's game with left ankle soreness. That's because I traded for him in NL labor, obviously. So Carlis-Carlestan has resumed swinging a bat, but still has a ways to go before he returns. Clark Schmidt is expected to rejoin the Yankees' rotation in the middle of April.

Danny Jansen is expected to be in the lineup Friday. He's been dealing with a rib injury. Grant Holmes pitched an inning of relief. What was this about, Scott? Is he still expected to start on Monday, Grant Holmes? So I couldn't find anything official from the team commenting on this usage. As best I could find in looking back through box scores,

the last he pitched was March 16th. So they probably just wanted to get him some work and were finding some opportunity in this opening series to do it. As far as I know, he's still scheduled to start Monday's game against the Dodgers and lines up for two starts if you're treating the first full week is week two. A bunch of players who went on the IEL, but ones that we weren't exactly sure of,

Brandon Woodruff, it is official, goes in the IL, still working his way back from shoulder surgery. Liam Hendricks with right elbow inflammation, Vidal Bruhan with a right elbow sprain, and Josh Rojas with a fracture in his right big toe. There was some interesting lineup stuff here, but I don't want to go through all of it just because there's so much other things to talk about.

Was there anything in particular that stood out to you with lineups? Like Dylan Cruz batting eighth was a big one. You guys mentioned that. Andres Jimenez hitting cleanup, I thought it was kind of interesting for the Blue Jays. Of course he hit a home run. Yeah, everybody's making fun of it. Henry homered.

Frank, how annoyed were the Yankees fans in your life that a guy named Vinny Capra homered against them? Because that that is like the most Yankees fans would overrate this guy name for a baseball player of all time. I didn't hear anything from the Yankee fans on Vinny Capra. But yeah, I didn't know much about him before the game, but looks like he's going to start against left-handed pitching. So Alan Rodin was in the lineup against a righty. He batted ninth. So that's one. Max Kepler was in. the lineup against a lefty, McKenzie Gore,

though notably a lefty who often struggles against left-handed batterers. So maybe they were loading up against lefties. Schwerverbatting cleanup kind of interesting because we thought he was going to hit second. Trey Turner leadoff now. Yeah. Scan it through my notes here

to see if I have any other lineup related things. Cam Smith started, had a not great play on a pretty important batted ball hit to him, but over. wasn't a disaster in right field. And he was lifted for a defensive replacement, as was Jason Dominguez in that game.

In the 8th games. Brendan Rogers got the start at second base for the Astros. I'd probably rather have Jorge Polanco, but that's another very deep second base option for you. The Reds, Spencer Steer did start at DH. Gavin Lux was in left field. And Luxe hit cleanup. It was steer batting sixth.

Yeah, I would think that'll, that'll happen against righties at least. Lux, not sure he's even going to play against lefties every day. Certainly will be lower in the lineup, I would guess. All right, let's get into the rest of opening day. And new team pitching debuts, Garrett Crochet was just okay at the Rangers, five innings, two runs, four strikeouts,

did have 14 whiffs on 88 pitches. Blake Snell wasn't at his best in his Dodger debut against the Tigers, five innings, two runs, four walks to two strikeouts, but did have 14 whiffs on 92 pitches. Luis Severino, strong start against the Mariners, six shutout, three hits, four walks is high, but did have six strikeouts. And Clay Holmes, pretty wild here in his first start,

four and two thirds, three runs, four walks, four strikeouts, only through 60% of his pitches for strikes. Anything else to add on Holmes, Severino, Snell, and Crochet, in their debuts. Holmes is the one we have to talk about. Blake Snell was just in early season form. Clay Holmes, though, the new pitches were not working in this one. He didn't seem like he could really command them and had to lean really, really heavily

on the sinker and sweeper as a result. I think he threw those two pitches almost 80% of the time combined. So he only threw 11 combined cutters, chains up some four seams. those are the three new pitches for him. He's got to pitch better. And I think maybe some of the helium in spring training, it certainly got to be too much for me. I ended up not drafting him in any later drafts.

Any Clay Holmes I got was when he was going 200th or later. It wasn't what we wanted to see. Certainly, I'm not like saying it can happen. But the proof of concept that we got in spring training did not show up. in the first start. And granted, it's a tough matchup, but didn't look like what we thought or hoped he would. What was weird, you said he wasn't commanding the new pitches.

The main one I care about is the change-up, because the change-up was the one racking up whiffs in spring training. He threw only four of them. That was weird. And I think it's because there was just one left-handed batter in the lineup, Yordan Alvarez. And change-up is normally thought of as the pitch. you use against opposing handed hitters.

So I presume in future games, Holmes will face more lefties get a chance to throw the change up more, hopefully get more comfortable with it, maybe even start throwing it against some right handers. I don't know. But that alone makes me give him an incomplete grade for this start. Like I just need to see more. To me, it's like let him cook. You know, it's a let-em-cook situation. He's trying something new.

We have reason to believe he could be good at it. Didn't it go well this first time. Let's just see more. Let's see more from Clay Holmes and not throw out the baby with the bathwater here. All right. Let's talk about the opening day blues. And Jose Burrios was part of this. And the other name I wanted to bring up, Michael King, who was just flat out bad against the Braves.

He had nothing. Two and two-thirds innings. Three runs allowed. four walks, three strikeouts, only had six whiffs, only through 54% of his pitches for strikes. Velocity looked fine, but he really just had nothing. I will remind people, he walked seven in his first start last year and got off to a pretty bad start. So don't think we should freak out just yet on Michael King. Yep, everything you said. First seven starts last year, 5.3 walks per nine, 2.7 walks per nine, cut it in half the rest of the way.

The way he turned his season around should give him a lot of benefit of the doubt. All right. Whip it. Whip it bad. Because these are guys that were really bad at whip last year. And they were bad at whipping their first starts here as well. Zach Gallin and Logan Webb. So Gallen against the Cubs, four innings, four hits, four runs, four walks, four strikeouts.

And then Logan Webb, five innings, six hits, three runs, three walks, five strikeouts. end, where is the change-up? It was his fourth most used pitch in the start, and it was bad again. He only had one whiff with it, gave up a lot of hard contact, 11% CSW on the pitch. And, you know, two years ago, this was Logan Webb's best pitch, his bread and butter, and he lost it last year, and at least in this first start, he didn't have it again. So, yeah. And the cutter didn't look as strong as it.

didn't spring training either. That was the new pitch for, for Webb. Yeah, I mean, look, he'll probably be some manner of good this year because he was last year without the change up or the cutter.

It's just a question of how good. I would have liked for it to be a better debut, but it's too early to draw any real conclusions from it. Yep, I agree with that. It was, Gallin, I don't know if you guys watch this one, but he looked fine in the first inning.

Ran into a lot of trouble in the second, really labored, seemed to lose his command, came out in the third and his velocity dropped like a stone. Like it was down like three miles per hour in the third inning. He went from sitting like 94, 95 to 91, 92. And it didn't really get all the way back. So that was certainly not what I wanted to see as a believer in Zach. Allen this year. So yeah, not a great start. It's only one start. I'm not going to give up on him. He has a long track record, but it was certainly not the outcome or the process that I was hoping for from

Zach Allen, his first start. Let's get into the rest of the pitching leftovers. Ace is going to ace. Zach Wheeler, Logan Gilbert, Framber Valdez all had awesome starts. Is there anything talkworthy for of those three pitchers? Yes, I will do Valdez because I think Chris probably wants to do Logan Gilbert. So for Valdez, I will say he threw his curveball 34% of the time

and it had nine of his 12 whiffs. That 34% is about what he was doing late in the year when we saw his strikeout rate spikes. So he's carried it over into this year. Just a reminder, last year of Framber Valdez, 7.1K per 9 through his first 15 starts. Then

once he started throwing that curveball about 35, percent, 10.3 Kper 9 over his final 13 starts. Good sign for Valdez. Yeah, I thought he looked really good, was super efficient. Looked like the very, very good version of Framber Valdez that we're typically looking for. I will talk a little very quickly about Logan Gilbert, just his splitter looked really, really good in this one. And it looked good in some really interesting ways. It's a really, really, really. low spin pitch kind of has some of that Roki Sasaki stuff that we've been talking

a lot about that funk where sometimes it moves like a slider, sometimes it moves like a more traditional splitter. Logan Gilbert's awesome. He's really, really good. It makes the 435 foot home run that Tyler Soderstrom hit off of him even more

impressive because I think that was the only is that the only hit he gave up? No, he gave up two hits, eight strikeouts. Logan Gobert stands If he gets any run support He might mess around and win the Sai Young He's awesome

Brent Rooker struck out four times When Logan Gilbert left the This start he was actually down one zip Yep Absolutely And I just started thinking Well here we go again Mariners can't score for Logan Gilbert

I'll just say really quickly Zach Wheeler threw his splitter 11% of the time Which he also did last April And it looked like a great pitch for him and then he kind of abandoned it thereafter. So it's nice to see Wheeler mixing in that splitter again. These pitchers were pretty good.

Paul Skeens, Nathan Avaldi, Hunter Green, and Carlos Rodon. Anything on those four that you want to bring up Skeens of Aldi Green, Rodon. Rodon, let me get to my notes. The change-up was very, very good for him. He only threw two of his 18 change-ups in the strike zone. he bounced a couple of them. So it didn't seem like the command was great, except he generated 10 swings on 18 pitches.

Three of them were whiffs, four were foul balls, and three were balls in play with a 65.5 mile per hour average exit velocity. That's super fun. Fastball got hit really hard. I don't think there's any hope of that fastball getting back to what it used to be. But he moved away from it. Carlos Sward on through the fastball even less in this start.

Yep. Yeah. Only through the four seamer 26%. of the time makes it in 10 sinkers, which is not something he does very often. Only through one cutter. Keep the cutter way. We don't want that.

So all in all, I thought it was a very good start for Carlos Rodon. And the other guy I wanted to talk about is in the next group of pitchers. So we'll move on. On Hunter Green, his fastball, he threw it 70% of the time.

It got 10 of his 15 whiffs. It was up 1.6 miles per hour. which we also saw from Hunter Green in spring training. And like with McKinsey Gore, I think a lot of the calculus here is just how good is his control. And in this start, Hunter Green through 70% of his pitches for strikes. I do think he throws so hard, adding an extra mile and a half per hour of fastball velocity

introduces new injury risk. and he hasn't been the healthiest to begin with. So there will come if this continues for another starter to a time to sell high on Hunter Green probably. But off to a good start. Just wanted to mention real quick with Nathan Avaldi. Awesome start here. Six innings, two runs, nine trycouts to zero walks,

17 whiffs on 87 pitches against the Red Sox. His curveball was awesome. And he nearly doubled the curveball usage. 10 of his 17 whiffs came on the curveball here. Again, that was Nathan Avaldi. pitchers who were pretty good part two Freddie Peralta Zach Eflin and Sunny Gray

Sunny Gray who you know the velocity is still down a little bit but it was up from where it was in the spring and you know again he looked okay in this start Chris you said there was a pitcher you wanted to talk about here yeah Freddie Peralta who gave up a couple of you know Yankee Stadium home runs one of them

we have to we can no longer say only a home run in Yankee Stadium because George M. Steinbrenner Field has the exact same dimensions. Though, Stack has said it would have only been a home run in one of 30 parks. I wondered about that too. Yeah, I don't know if they were including Steinbrenner since they haven't actually played a game there.

I would guess not. But the two short home runs were the only damage against him. I thought he looked really good. The four seamer got a bunch of whiffs. And that was something that I noted this spring. He had a mechanical flaw last season that caused him to lose. the ability to throw his foreseamer effectively to right-handed batters. He had to move to the right, the first base side of the mound to counteract that. And he's discovered what the flaw was this

offseason back to the third base side of the mound. And it looked very good. I thought it was a strong start. So very, very happy with Freddie Peralta right now. We should probably talk about Sunny Gray, right? Did you read off his stats already? No, five innings, two runs, six strikeouts, 12 whiffs on 77 pitches here. Yeah, so his fastball was down a mile, a mile per hour and a half, a mile and a half per hour,

however you want to say it. It was down, but it wasn't like down in, whoa, major red flag kind of way. And he was really effective. He missed a lot of bats. He limited damage.

He did give up a lot of hard contact is the one thing that stood out. Yeah, but that's, that's not so abnormal for him, right? No, that kind of feels like the Sunny Gray experience. Right. He basically looked like Sunny Gray

just missing a mile per hour of velocity on the fastball, which he could still gain back. And yeah, I think maybe maybe if you drafted him, you should be feeling pretty good today because particularly if you did it late, people were kind of backing away from him.

I think it was a really encouraging debut here for Sunny Gray. Aces who were just okay, Cole Regens and Chris Sale. Any notes on those two? I didn't see anything notable. on Cole Reagan's. His pitch usage was kind of weird. He went more foreseam and cutter heavy, didn't have the, didn't lean on the change up as much. I wonder if, no, they had mostly righties in the lineup. So I'm not sure. I guess the cutter can be a righty pitch. I don't know.

I don't notice anything there. His stuff looked fine. I don't think there's anything to worry about with Cole Regens. And I don't notice anything for Chris Sale either. I think it was just it was just whatever one of his less than dominant starts I think I know the answer to this question but do we just bench all pitchers against the Dodgers because

Terrick Scouble five innings four runs two strikeouts as the number one starting pitcher in fantasy this year or number two whatever consensus top two pitcher not great against the Dodgers I think the Dodgers will just do this sometimes but I'm not going to say bench everyone

against them but bench everyone against them but bench most people against them, sure. Yeah. Like, probably don't bench Scuba against them. Today, for example, I am benching Jack Flaherty against them.

Like, I, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. That's reasonable. It depends what your alternatives are too. But I benching Flaherty in a league to get somebody like, I may have been like Chris Bassett in the lineup, which I don't know.

I may regret after the way the Orioles lineup looked on opening day. Yeah. We'll see. Some other hitting standouts I wanted to mention. Jack Centurio, 0 for 5 with a platinum sombrero, he stinks, you can drop him,

so don't need to talk about Jackson, just kidding, please don't do that. But I think there was a comment, I hope he was kidding, there was a comment in the YouTube chat before we started that said, I just dropped Jackson Trio in my head to head points league.

I hope it was a joke. It had to have been a joke. There is one person who's like complaining that everybody's telling him not to be worried about Jackson Trio and like honestly. Come on. It's one start.

Yeah. It's one game. If you are worried about Jackson Cherio, if your opinion about him has changed at all, you are playing the wrong game. I think it struck out more times today than he did all of spring training. He had like 470 in spring.

Yeah. That is a great reminder. Seven times the spring. Sorry, go ahead. That this is a really, really long season. And if you are playing fantasy baseball, you have to be in it for the long haul. is going to be ups and downs with any player.

It does not matter who they are. And Jackson Trio could have a completely terrible entire first month. And then from May 1st on, he can be a top five player in fantasy. Jackson Trio could have a 600 OPS with a 30% strikeout rate on May 1st. And I promise you I will not move him down in my ranking. This is just part of the game. Is that what he did last year? Probably not far off.

No, no, no. I don't think he was a top five player. But he was like awesome from June 1st on last season. So, yeah, we'll see. My seven-year-old was crestfallen that the Braves lost their season opener today. It's just like, you pick the wrong sport to be interested in. You know what? This much on every game.

That is what I love about baseball because, like, the Marlins won a game that will be one of about 52 games that they win all season. And I had a blast. It was a fun game. Yeah, if they had lost, you know what? It's a game tomorrow. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing about it. baseball. A couple other hitting standouts here. No hamstring, no problem for Vinnie P.

Baby. In the lineup, batting third, two for four with a three-run home run and then a double, which came off of Emmanuel Class A. Obliq looked pretty good for Christian Walker, only one for four, but he had three hard hit balls, two, 111 miles per hour off the bat. So he looked pretty good there. Tommy Edmund loves left-handed pitching, one for four with a home run off of Terrick Scouble. and Shohei Otani is not human. Two for four with his second home run already. Like, whatever. He's awesome.

Nothing else to say about Otani. A couple of their bullpen items I wanted to mention. Elite closers who were not so elite. Devin Williams, Emmanuel Claisse, Josh Hater. All a little bit shaky here on opening day, which just kind of contributed to the theme of bullpen madness for the day. I don't think we're concerned about any of them, right? But anything to add on Williams, Class A or Hater?

I mentioned that Cam Smith kind of misplayed a ball out in right field. I don't think it was an error. But I think that was during the ninth, and it led to a runner getting to second, if I'm remembering correctly. So that... They had a defensive replacement come in for him. Okay. Maybe it was earlier then, yeah. That would make sense.

But I didn't see any reason at all to be concerned about Williams Class A or a hater. They have very long. track records and it's one appearance out of about 70 you're going to get from them this season. So no, no concerns. For the Giants, Ryan Walker got the ninth inning with a three run lead. He gave up one run on one hit. He picked up the save. Robert Suarez for the Padres. He got the ninth inning with a three run lead. He walked one, but struck out two for his first save. For the White Sox, Mike Cleventer entered in the eighth inning with runners on first and third, a three run lead facing Mike Trout. So very high leverage situation there. He walked Trout and then struck out

Jorge Soler. The White Sox went on to score five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, so Clevenger was no longer needed for the save. For the Cardinals, Ryan Helzley, struck out three, gave up a hit, picked up the save there. For the Mariners, Andres Munoz entered with a two-run lead. He walked one, but picked up the save as well. Anything else on bullpens you wanted to mention? So Suarez, four of his 24 pitches were not picked up by stat cast. So we can't say with certainty, but his velocity seemed fine. Sinkers that were tracked were right on last year's average.

Four seamers were down. Point five mile per hour, but it was two. So I don't think there's anything there. Yeah. He looked good. I was at the start of the pod, I was regretting. I was expressing my regret, lamenting, that's the word to Chris and Frank, that in my last draft of the season just this morning,

took Jordan Romano over over Robert Suarez even though I ranked Suarez ahead it was it was a bad decision I ended up drafting Robert Swar as in like two of my final three drafts I think and maybe it'll work out

because he just kept falling I think I only have him in the league we all share and I was defending him the whole time and I was so upset that we got him but it could turn out to be a good pick I think I ended up getting him for like $3 in my league.

It's about that time. You know what time it is? It's about the time for to stream or not to stream, which is Scott White's favorite segment that we are going to wrap up every single show with this season. And I know what you're going to say, Scott.

How can people be streaming on opening weekend? I'm sure there's someone out there who wants to stream pictures already. So that is where we will wrap up. I think we're in. I feel like, we're enabling people who are too proactive with their lineups because you should probably just start the good pitchers you drafted. But fine, let's do this. I agree with you. And we will end

each show with potential pitching streamers. For those who play in daily lineup leagues, we'll talk about the day of and the next day as well. For this one, we'll do the entire weekend because obviously we're heading into a three-day weekend. On Friday, there are not many great options. Jeffrey Springs at the Mariners was the one that stood out most. to me. I think he's very usable. Jack Leiter is a total, I want to watch it. I don't want to rely on it, though.

I don't want to start him against the Red Sox. I can't do it. No, I agree with that, but I will be tuning in. I agree. Of the ones you listed here, Jamison, Tyone at Arizona is the one I'd most likely start if I was just looking to go crazy with volume. Because I feel like he's the least likely to destroy you.

Yeah, I mean, Morton's probably going to be bad for your whip, but you could get six or seven strikeouts and a win out of him. On Saturday, the three that stood out to me, Jose Soriano at the White Sox, Zach Lattel facing the Rockies in Tampa Bay and Osvaldo Bito at the Mariners. Is there anybody else that stands out? Griffin Canning's one to watch. You know, he went, started spamming that really good slider this spring. and we'll see what it looks like, but I would not start him at Houston. No.

I'm going to say Jose Soriano at the White Sox is the best play of the weekend tier as far as streamers go. Even though they handled Yusei Kikuchi today pretty well, wouldn't count on it happening too often. I wouldn't actually start this player, but it wouldn't surprise me if Bailey Falter at the Marlins had a good start, but you know, it's Bailey Falter.

The thing about the Marlins, there's a lot of strikeouts in that lineup. And so they're going to be, feast and mostly famine, I think. And then on Sunday, I have five names that I think are decent here. Tomoyuki Sugano at the Blue Jays, Nick Martinez facing the Giants, Max Meyer facing the pirates, Andrew Heaney on the other side at the Marlins, and J.P. Sears at the Mariners. Of all the pitchers we've talked about in this segment, the only ones I think I actually drafted

are here. They're Tomoyuki Sagano and Nick Martinez. So I'd be fine with either one of them. It's not the greatest matchups, Toronto for Sagano and San Francisco for Martinez, but they're not terrible matchups either. I would prefer to avoid those two. Max Meyer is another.

We'll be watching. Don't want to start him. I will say the same thing about Richard Fitz at Texas and AJ Smith-Shawber at San Diego. will be watching. Prefer not to start. All right. We are going to wrap there. Opening day is in the books. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank, thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.