Fantasy Baseball Today - Prospect Report: Matt Mervis, Brandon Pfaadt Coming Soon? (4/22 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:03 Who are the top prospects to stash right now? Find out next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5. Today is Saturday, April 22nd. I am Frank Sample joined by Chris Towers. Let's start with the top five prospects to stash. And number one, Matt Mervis. He's doing Matt Mervis things. He crushed his fourth home run of the season. On Thursday night, he's got more walks than strikeouts so far this season. Chris, I just don't know how much the Cubs need to see from Eric Hosmer before they pull the plug and call up MASH Mervis. Yeah, I mean, Matt Mervis has now

Starting point is 00:00:38 played 75 games at AAA. He is a little older, 25 years old, just turned 25 five days ago. Happy birthday, Matthew. He's hit 19 home runs with 39 walks, 50 strikeouts in those 75 games. He's saying 291 with a 960

Starting point is 00:00:55 OPS. That was actually before he homered on Thursday, so that'll be even higher. Yeah, I don't know, the Cubs are getting almost nothing from Trey Mancini and Eric Hosmer. Hosmer is very much not an everyday player at this point in his career. I think he's barely a major leagher, frankly, at this point in his career. So this is one, you know, we've seemingly got like one big prospect call up every week.

Starting point is 00:01:20 And Mervis seems like a pretty good bet to be the next one. Or it could be this next name. Brandon Fott because Madison Bumgarner was DFAed by the Diamondbacks. Fott went out on Thursday night, had his best start of, the season seven shutout innings with eight strikeouts. He's 42% rostered, so still widely available. The only issue here, Chris, is earlier on Thursday, the Diamondbacks announced that Tommy Henry was being called up

Starting point is 00:01:45 and that he would start in Mad Bum's place the next time Bumgarner was supposed to pitch. So I don't know. Do you think Brandon Fott has now forced their hand with this amazing start on Thursday? Yeah, you know, you said or Brandon Fott, and my response is, because no los dos.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Why don't we have both? I would love to see both of them get called up. I'm a little more skeptical on fought than a lot of the fantasy industry seems to be, you know, from what I understand, this stuff is not like overpowering and it's more like an advanced command control type of profile. But like you had 218 strikeouts and 163 in the minors last season. He had a sub one whip pitching in the PCL,

Starting point is 00:02:27 which is incredibly difficult to do if you know anything about. that league. So yeah, I'm very excited about it. I think like a Tyler Malley type pitcher, mid-3 ZRA, a lot of strikeouts could be the outcome that we see for Brenna fought. And a question I keep getting, Chris, is Mason Miller or Brandon Fott? Which one are you going with? Well, Brenna fought through 163 innings last season. Mason Miller has thrown 44, I believe, since being drafted in 2021. So I really like Mason Miller. He looks, I mean, we've gotten Spencer Strider comp.

Starting point is 00:03:06 His stuff, the stuff plus metric that's on fan graphs that Enosaris helped develop, I think so far he is behind only Jacob de Grom and Shohei Otani. Among major league starting pitchers, it's one start, but it's a stat that tends to stabilize very quickly. The problem is he might not even throw 100 innings this season. So, I wouldn't drop Mason Miller to pick up Brandon Fott, but if both were available, I think I would prioritize Fott as well. It's the innings and the team context. The Diamondbacks are just going to be much better than the Oakland A's as well. Next up we have Sal Freelick, who could have gotten an opportunity with Garrett Mitchell going on the IL with a shoulder injury. The problem is that Freelick is now dealing with a thumb injury. So maybe he's delayed a little bit, but you know, once he heals up, Chris, I think we can see Frilik with the Brewers. Yeah, it sounds like it's not a super serious injury. And this is a very, very contact forward profile.

Starting point is 00:04:05 There's a little bit of pop there. You know, maybe, you know, he can get to 10, 15 home runs. But he's played 61 games at AAA so far in his career. He's 23 years old. So he's not old for the level at all. He's at 335 with 22 strikeouts and 280 plate appearances. So yeah, this is a, a type of player who, if you gets the call, could make a big impact in batting average, certainly, and potentially stolen bases as well. Think what Nico Horner has done so far this season. Think of what Stephen Kwan did last year. That kind of potential is there.

Starting point is 00:04:39 And the last name that I want to mention is Tanner Bybee, who is with the Cleveland Guardians. They recently optioned Hunter Gaddis back to AAA, and they're going to need someone to fill that spot. theoretically they could, you know, call Hunter Gaddis back up, but Bybee has looked amazing, you know, dating back to last season. So once Brandon Fott gets called back up, I think that's the next picture that we're going to be focusing on, Chris. Yeah, he's, uh, Bibi has had some control issues early on at AAA this season, but that's

Starting point is 00:05:09 never really been an issue for him before. He is 24. He hasn't thrown a ton of innings. So it's, it's one of those situations where it's like, how do you balance getting him ready with, you know, whether he's already ready now. But yeah, it's an interesting skill set, 11.3Ks per 9 last season in his first full season as a professional. I think there's a lot to like there.

Starting point is 00:05:32 All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, the Odyssey app, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today and Five. And we'll be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - Prospect Report: Matt Mervis, Brandon Pfaadt Coming Soon? (4/22 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

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