Fantasy Baseball Today - Ranking Bullpen Additions & Andrew Vaughn Replacements! (3/30 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)
Episode Date: March 30, 2026Carlos Estevez is out! How do we rank these reliever adds? Andrew Vaughn has a hamate bone injury and we need replacements. Are Owen Caissie and Emerson Hancock must adds? Subscribe to our YouTube ...channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv 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/ 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Opening weekend is in the books.
Let's talk news and waiver ads.
Up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express.
Welcome into FBT Express on Monday, March 30th.
I am Frank Stample joined by Chris Towers.
Let's address some of the news.
We'll talk waiver ads as well.
But we learn Carlos Estevez is in a walking boot on Sunday
after taking a line drive off of his left ankle on Saturday.
Also, predictably had a terrible outing on Saturday
where he gave up six earned.
runs, including a walk-off grand slam to Dominic Smith.
He averaged just 91.2 miles per hour on his fastball.
And then on Sunday, Matt Strom pitched in the seventh inning,
Lucas Ersig got the save opportunity.
He closed it out.
So, Chris, we did have some closer things happen this weekend.
If you're looking for saves, how would you rank Lucas Ersig with the Royals,
Jordan Romano, with the Angels, and Cole Sands, who picked up a save for the twins?
I think I would go
Erseg, Romano, and Colsands.
The distinction between
Erseg and Romano mostly just comes down to
I think Arsett's a better pitcher.
Romano, I know the peripherals weren't quite as bad
as the, what was an 8 ERA last season,
but it is hard to shake an 8 ERA
when it comes to projecting a player moving forward.
It's hard to project that guy to keep his job
coming off a season that bad.
So, and I think there's some competition there, right?
If Kirby Yates doesn't end up missing much time and he's back.
If Drew Pomerans, you know, if Jordan Romano falters, they could turn to Jew
Pomerant.
So I think there are more alternatives in the Angels bullpen.
I think the Royals are just a better team also.
So the thing with Estabez is even if his ankle was fine, even if he hadn't taken that shot off
the ankle in the opener, I think he still would have lost the job.
I think it was totally fine for the Royals to look at his velocity being way down this spring and say, yeah, but the adrenaline's not going.
Let's give him a real chance.
Let's give him a game opportunity.
Now that it's happened and his velocity was still five miles per hour down from where it was last season, I just, I don't see how they can use him in high leverage situations.
And manager Matt Quattaro already said they are probably not going to use him in high leverage situations as they try to get Carlos Estevez back to normal.
So I think Jordan or Lucas Ersegg's going to have a little bit of a leash here.
Would you drop Carlos Estevez?
Yep.
Yep.
Okay.
The Ham A Bone strikes again.
This time with Andrew Vaughn.
He's expected to miss four to six weeks.
And Jake Bowers and Gary Sanchez look like they will form a platoon at first base in the meantime.
I think Jake Bowers in Deeper Leagues is a name that you could look at there as a replacement.
What about in shallower formats, Chris?
three names that stood out had a good first weekend here.
Nolan Shenuel, Jake Berger, Ryan O'Hern.
How would you rank those three as first base replacements here?
I would rank them Berger, Shenuel, and O'Hern.
And Berger, he was really bad last season,
but he had been a 30-homer guy the previous two seasons, basically.
He dealt with a wrist injury that he ended up having off-season surgery on after the season.
So hopefully that's just what it was.
The problem is, even for a good home-run hitter like Jake Berger,
home runs are fairly rare.
And he's going to be streaky, I think.
And he really doesn't do anything if he's not hitting home runs.
This is not a guy who walks much.
He brings no value on the base path.
So there's definitely some risk when he gets cold that he just does not do anything for you.
I want to point out with Nolan Shanuel, who I would still rank below Jake Berger.
But his average bat speed is up three and a half miles per hour.
So far in the early going this season, it's four games.
They've played 23% more than most teams, I guess.
So that's nice.
but it's four games.
It's way too early to make any definitive conclusions.
But Nolan Chanuel has gone from having below average bat speed to right around average so far.
And that was a focus of his this offseason.
He's always had great play discipline.
If he can be even a 18 to 20 homer guy, I think that really changes his outlook for fantasy
because I think the good play discipline should still be there.
And he's a guy who can afford to trade some contact for some power.
And I think that's something to keep a very close.
high on early in the season. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this.
Welcome back in FBT Express, taking a look at some waiver wire ads from the first weekend of
the baseball season. And Chris, from your Miami Marlins, Owen Casey, an impressive debut weekend.
He was thrown into the lineup Friday against the lefty because Christopher Morel got hurt.
He had an RBI single in that game. He went three for four with a steel on Saturday.
Then on Sunday, a walk-off two-run homer here for Owen Casey. He is 58.
percent rostered on CBS.
Do you think he should be
rostered in all leagues right now?
How do you feel about Owen Casey?
I think like a three outfield or points league
might be a stretch for Owen Casey
because play discipline probably will be an issue
for him at least a little bit. But
I do think anywhere else.
Yeah. And he got kind of lost in the shuffle
among the rookies this preseason.
I think partially it's because
he debuted late last season for the Cubs
and just didn't really do anything. He wasn't playing every day.
He's been a top prospect
for quite some time now, and I think there's probably been some prospect fatigue.
Owen Casey has like over a thousand played appearances at AAA, which basically never happens
for top prospects these days. So I think there's just, he's just been a little overlooked,
but he's going to play pretty much every day for the Marlins. He's showing there's multiple
facets to his skill set. Stole a base on Saturday. That was cool. He's got above average sprint speed,
actually. So, you know, the Marlins are going to be an aggressive team on the bases. So I don't know.
I think Owen Casey's ceiling is 25 to 30.
30 homers and maybe 5 to 10 steals too.
So I'm very interested in him.
Obviously, look, there's Chase the Lodder, right?
That's a higher priority than Owen Casey among young Alfielders.
And, you know, JJ Weatherholt and Kevin McGonagall,
there are other prospects to prioritize.
But Owen Casey is 58% roster on CBS.
That's too low.
I think it should be more like 85.
All right.
Well, let's wrap up here talking about Emerson Hancock with the Seattle Mariners.
He was incredible on Sunday night baseball here against the Guardians.
Six no-hit innings, one walk, one hit by pitch, nine strikeouts,
had 12 whiffs on 97 pitches.
And he looked like a completely different pitcher, Chris.
What did you see from Emerson Hancock?
What size leagues would you be looking at him in right now?
Pretty much everything.
You know, maybe not your 10-team points league because those are super shallow and he's not a top-60 pitcher,
and that's probably the bar you have to clear.
but this is a guy who was a top prospect at one point and has been pretty bad at the major league level.
I think it was a 481 ERA entering this start over close to 150 innings.
Last year he threw 90 innings and wasn't very good.
But I am willing to open my heart and my mind to the idea that Emerson Hancock is a different pitcher
because he was literally a different pitcher today.
He came out and went from throwing his four seamer and his sweeper combined 30% of the time last year to
79% this year. The sweeper got some really ugly swings. It gets a lot of movement. The foreseamer,
you know, maybe the shape is a little better than it was last season. It's a more effective pitch
than the sinker, at least it has been. So I am open to the possibility that Emerson Hancock has
just figured something out and can be a useful pitcher here. Do I think that's the
likeliest outcome? No. I think the likeliest outcome is you're probably just dropping Emerson
Hancock in a couple of weeks anyway. But what he showed here, nine strikeouts over
six shutout innings.
I am willing to take a flyer on Emerson Hancock just in the off chance that what we saw
last night was real, in part because there just weren't that many impressive waiver wire
pitcher performances this weekend.
There were certainly none that I view as, yeah, I got to go out and add this guy.
I think Emerson Hancock was probably the closest to that.
So 12-team Roto leagues, 15-team Roto leagues especially, I would be looking at Emerson-Hankcock
for sure.
All right.
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