Fantasy Baseball Today - Seven Pitchers Pitching Well, Bohm Breakout & Oneil Cruz vs. Elly De La Cruz! (6/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Taj Bradley has turned things around over his last four starts (3:00). ... Alec Bohm's breakout looks for real (7:10). ... Cole Ragans decimated the Marlins (14:20). ... News (17:56): Fernando Tatis went on the IL. ... These pitchers are all on quite a run right now (26:38). ... Oneil Cruz vs. Elly De La Cruz was fun on Monday night (40:05). ... What's going on with Vinnie Pasquantino, Salvador Perez and Adolis Garcia (46:10)? ... David Hamilton continues to hit (50:41). ... Carson Spiers turned in a quality start for the Reds (55:01). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (57:40). 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, @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/ 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. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Hey there, welcome into fantasy baseball today on Tuesday, June 25th. I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers. Today on the show, seven pitchers who are on a role right now.

We had Ellie Dela Cruz versus O'Neill Cruz. Awesome matchup. Both hit massive home runs in that one. Three slumping hitters and much more to talk about. Let's jump in. O'E. Both of those baseballs had a family. O'Neill versus Ellie.

We'll talk about that later. Chris, Player of the Night from Monday's action. Yeah, I mean, the Ellie De La Cruz won. It was incredible. But my, oh my goodness, gracious, player that we are going to talk about and analyze is Taj Bradley, who continues to do a lot of things really well, continues to look like a somewhat different pitcher than the one that he had been in a, you know, somewhat disappointing fashion prior to this season and still has some warts.

It's fair to say. But five and a third innings, two hits, one earned run, eight strikeouts in this one. Still four walks, has the ERA down to 381 after this start. And that splitter's been a real weapon for him. He had seven whiffs with the pitch today, generated a bunch of weak contact with it, 35% CSW rate with it. Really, really good stuff from that pitch. It's a pitch that he reworked this offseason.

I think it's a different version of the splitter that he had last season, and he's throwing it a lot more. as his relatively brief season has gone on. His usage rate entering this start in the month of June with that pitch, 31%. He threw it 35% of the time today. It has coincided with an improved quality of contact allowed by Tage Bradley, improved control before today, and a really solid swing and miss rate.

I'm hesitant to fully buy in to Tage Bradley, because the command and control are still a little iffy, but clearly he's a super talented pitcher. The splitter has become, like I said earlier, a real weapon for him. And it's the kind of pitcher who I think it makes a lot of sense to bet on. And in an era where, or in a season, I guess, where there are so many pitchers getting good results

who I don't really believe in, I'd rather bet on Tage Bradley, who has the elite strikeout potential, you know, over some of the guys who have gotten better results maybe, but I don't think are as exciting. The last four starts for Tage Bradley. He was one of the seven pitchers, I have for that segment later on that are on a roll right now. And last four starts for Tage, 154 ERA, a 103 whip, 29 strikeouts over 23 and a third. You mentioned that strikeout upside 11.1K per 9 for Tage Bradley so far. He kind of has this three true outcomes nature as a pitcher where it's lots of strikeouts. Walks could be a problem at times and hard contact has led to home runs, I will say, over this four-star stretch. He's doing a much better job limiting the hard contact.

So if he can continue to work that splitter in and build off of this, I think we have something with Tage Bradley. but as you mentioned, not fully buying in yet, I would ask, oh, can you sell high on him? But I just don't know how realistic. Like, what are you going to get for Tage Bradley even if you tried to sell right? So I don't,

I guess you can look into it, but I would just reap the rewards of a former top pitching prospect that looks like he's kind of figuring things out right now for a really good team and really good organization. Yeah, I would say if you're talking about sell high pitchers, Bradley doesn't really enter the conversation for me. And there's a lot of, you know, Seth Lugo and Ronell Blanco and Michael King, you know,

are our pitchers who are all Brian Wu, if this hamstring injury ends up being relatively minor, are all pitchers in a similar range of the rankings who I would be more inclined to sell high on than Tage Bradley. I think that makes sense. And I realized while talking about Taz Bradley, I said on a really good team, I'm just so used to Tampa Bay being really, really good. good. This year, not so much. Yeah, one game under 500, four games out of a wildcard spot. So I guess they still have some time to figure things out. So they have not been really good this year, but obviously over the past decade or so, they have been a really, really good organization. Let's talk about Alec Bohm as my player of the night. And he went through a downstretch for a few

weeks recently, but he has turned things back on four for five with a sock and a shoe here on Monday, his ninth home run, his fourth stolen base, last 10 games for Bome, a 476 batting average, three homers, 12 RBI, two steals, and overall on the season, he's batting 313, 873 OPS, 64 RBI has been massive. The expected stats look great, currently ranks as a top five third baseman in both Roto and head-to-to-head points. Chris, at what point do we just buy in on this Alec Bone breakout and maybe start to move him higher up the rankings like a top you know five six seven first and third baseman rest of season yeah i mean we we've got you know a three month stretch this season where he really had like you mentioned he went through a rougher period and that's

sort of true you know you look at like baseball sivan has this cool feature where they have a a rolling average expected Wobah over you can do 50, 100, 200 plate appearances. And if you do by 100 plate appearances, his worst stretch lately is the 100 plate appearances ending on May 28th, where he had a 329 expected Wobah. Last year's expected Wobah for the whole season was 343. Like the slump this season is not much worse than what he did overall. last season and you know the like may was a bad month he hit 243 he slugged 369 his expected well-bin that month was 355 yeah so yeah I don't know that there's a lot really good going on with

alec bone he's cut the strikeout rate but the quality of contact has been better it's not like a dramatic change in batted ball profile by any means he's actually hitting slightly more balls on the ground this season, although basically everything is right within like a point and a half in percentage points from where it was last season. He is pulling the ball a little more, which has helped him tap into a little more power. And he's just hitting the ball a little harder across the board.

Hard hit rate up to 46%. Average exit velocity, 90.6, 89.4 last year. So yeah, I mean, it's a little harder. to write off as just a hot stretch when it's multiple hot stretches now over the course of the first three months of the season. And Alibbom is someone who has just gotten a little better every season. And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's enough to make him someone we should be treating as probably not like a top five third basement or anything like that.

but, you know, like I've got him 12th. Maybe that, yeah, that's probably too low. Me and Scott have him 12th. You've got him ninth in Roto. Maybe, like, is there that much of a difference between him and Alec Bregman at this point in their careers? Is Alec Bremant even better than Alec Bome at this point in their careers? Do the marginal steals that Spencer Stier gives you really matter that much relative to Alec Bome? especially since Spencer Steer has really slowed down.

Is Manny Machado healthy enough to be ranked above Alec Boom? I think those are questions worth asking. Yeah, and that's part of the reason why I moved him up as much as I did. It's 9th at 3rd base in Roto. I moved him up to 8th at 3rd base in Head to Head Points, and he's back to back with Alex Breggman. I think you can make that argument to move Boom ahead of Breggman. It's just, you know, in a points league,

Breggman has been so elite for so long in terms of that strikeout to walk. ratio and I but I still think it's kind of a stand out there too right like yeah I think that's not quite as much doesn't walk as much but the strike rate's down to 14% now yeah and it's probably his better format because last I checked he was on pace for almost 60 doubles so even though he's not

hitting home runs those doubles matter more in a head to head points league so yeah wow he's got 28 already entering today he had 31 last season that's crazy yeah so there's an argument for it I have Alec Bohm eighth in my first base rankings as well, but just ahead of him, I have Christian Walker and Josh Naler. So I don't think that I can move him any higher there,

but in third base, I might move him ahead of Vallix Pregman. Yeah, the thing with Walker, he steals a few bases, which helps. I think he's a better source of power than Alec Bohm. Naylor, it just like, he's on a 40 homer pace

with just crazy run production paces. is, I think his RBI pace is like over 120 or something. It's just. So is Bomes though. Bomes RBI pace is wild. It's just Nailor's only hitting 244. It should be higher with his strikeout rate, but for whatever reason, it isn't. Also, because we mentioned Josh Naler.

Really good piece on baseball prospectus this week. I think it came out over the weekend or maybe Friday about there were some changes to is it still progressive field? I think so. I'm at that age where I just can't keep up with what the stadiums are called and I just call them what they were called when I was 15.

But progressive field, they made some changes to the outfield or not the outfield dimensions, but like the seating that has maybe created like a wind tunnel effect. And it's like the one park in baseball that is playing significantly better for homers that.

it did last year. So, sorry, that's just one thing that came to mind that I meant to mention on yesterday's podcast. But could explain why the Guardians are seeing a little power boost, especially from the left side of the plate. Yeah, according to Stackcast, Park Factors this season, Progressive Field ranks third in Home Run Park Factor, which if we turn on the three-year rolling average,

that brings Progressive to 25th. So that's a pretty... Yeah, I mean, it's always been a pretty bad home run part. Yeah, that's a pretty stark difference. So it could be something there. It's inconclusive is what the article, the conclusion that the article came to, but it's at least worth mentioning as a factor in why,

you know, Josh Naler and Jose Ramirez are both on 40 homer paces. Stephen Kwan has already hit a career high in homers. That was just something I wanted to mention. Okay, yeah. Just to put a bow, Alec Bohm is awesome. This breakout pretty much.

looks like it's for real. And if you have them, I would not be looking to sell high and just continue to reap the rewards of Alec Bohm in that awesome Phillies lineup. I want to give him an honorable mention to Cole Regens who ate the Marlins alive. He was so awesome.

Six innings, one run, 11 strikeouts. He had 26 swinging strikes on 108 pitches, 10 on the change-up, seven on a fastball, six on the slider. He's allowed three earn runs or less in 15 of 17 starts. He's got a 303 ERA, 11K per 9. Cole Regens is awesome. Anything to add, Chris?

Yeah. Anything to add or just, it's pretty much it? Nope. I mean, like, it feels like it's like three walks every time out. And that was the one thing we were concerned about with Cole Regens. But he's getting so many strikeouts that it genuinely doesn't matter. Yeah. The underlying numbers love Cole Regens as well.

I think I moved him up to seventh in my starting pitchers. rankings and I might move him ahead of Luis Castillo this week. Not that I don't think Castillo is bad by any means. I just feel like Cole Regans might have just surpassed him. It's not really a Castillo thing. It's more of a Reagan's thing. Quick reminder that you can download and follow Fantasy Baseball today on Spotify. You can do the same thing with our five minute podcast, FBT and five. If you're watching us live on YouTube, then you can scan that QR code that will take you right to the FBT feed on Spotify. Let's take our first break. And we'll When we return, we'll hit the news and notes right after this.

Welcome back in news and notes. Fernando Tatis was placed in the aisle with a stress reaction in his upper right leg, retroactive to June 22nd. Apparently he could still play through the injury, but it won't get better without rest. So they opted to go this route. Put Fernando Tatis on the aisle. And we were talking beforehand, Chris.

It was kind of weird the way the details came out because originally it was he got hit on the arm by a pitch on Friday and he had a triceps injury. He sat out Saturday and Sunday. Turns out he's also dealing with this quad injury. He could be out the minimum time on the I.L. He could be out in total after the All Star break. So it's just kind of ambiguous right now. Yeah, it's weird because not a doctor,

but the quad is a muscle as far as I know. And you don't have a stress reaction in your muscle. So I don't know what happens. happened here as far as, you know, it was originally reported that he wasn't going to have imaging done on the injury. Maybe they, they, I'm not sure exactly what the timetable was there. But yeah, the, the timing was a little weird. And unfortunate. Hopefully it, it ends up being closer to the minimum stay. But yeah, not, not great for Fernando Tatis, unfortunately. And he had been dealing with the quad injury apparently for a couple of weeks before they figured out

what was wrong. Yeah. Another one in a long line of injuries this season between, you know, for a long time there, first month of the season, it was, all right, this picture, that picture. Every day we'd come on here. But now it's, all right, we're missing Kyle Tucker. We're missing Mookie Betts. We lost Ronald de Cune for this season.

Now Fernando Tatsisco's on the aisle. So it adds up. And it's, you know, it's a pretty big blow for fantasy. And obviously, we're all trying to navigate this together because everybody has injuries. No matter what team you have, no matter what players you have, you have suffered some kind of fantasy injury this year. Yeah, the top 10 in ADP right now or just the top five. Ronald Acuna, Mookie Betts, Kyle Tucker, Fernando Tatease, Spencer Strider. Five of the top 10, I believe, are on the aisle right now.

Trey Turner just came back. It was six of the top 12. Yeah. It's been, uh, it's been rough. A tough season indeed. Edwin Diaz has been handed a 10-game suspension for violating the foreign substance policy. He has the option to appeal. But as far as I know, I haven't seen a decision on that.

My guess is he won't appeal. I don't know how you even appeal it, right? Like, you can, Rosen is legal, but you can have too much of it. And if the umpire decides you have too much, I don't know how you say, no, I didn't have too much. Like, that's, yeah, it's, it's silly. It's such a weird thing that they have going on. right now. Yeah, it's just so subjective too. It's certain umpires might think it's too much. Other umpires not, I don't know. It's just, how do you police this right now? It's a very,

very weird thing that's going on in baseball, I would say. Bobichette went through a full workout Monday and remains on track for activation from the IL on Tuesday. Clayton Kershaw will be shut down for at least one week after feeling soreness in his surgically repaired left shoulder during a bullpen session over the weekend. Wilson Guthrerris returned to the Cardinals lineup on Monday. after missing six and a half weeks with a fractured left forearm. He hit third in the lineup and went one for four with a run and an RBI. Welcome sight back to the catcher landscape and fantasy, obviously. Zach Gallen threw a live batting practice session on Monday.

He's been out since May 30th with a right hamstring strain. Brian Wu left his start Monday due to right hamstring tightness. What's interesting is that his velocity was way up across the board in this start around two miles per hour on all of his pitches. I don't think that contributed to the injury. It's just something I thought was noteworthy. I think he is so fascinating. Like, well, I don't know if you watch this start,

but it was just fastball after fastball in the strike zone. Yeah. Like, he's not trying to get chases. There's nothing complicated about Brian Wu as a pitcher right now. It's just, I'm going to throw you a fastball in the strike zone and you're going to try to hit him. it. And I don't think it's going to keep working. Obviously, the fact that he keeps getting hurt doesn't help, although this is very different than the recurring elbow and forearm scares that we've had. But yeah, it's unfortunate just because he's a fascinating pitcher to watch. Blake Snell will throw a bullpen session Tuesday and start at AAA on Friday. Gavin Williams will make his next rehab start at AAA on Wednesday.

U. Darvish will not rejoin the rotation as expected Tuesday due to. quote a little right elbow inflammation. I mean, I guess it's something that could be measured from a little to a lot, but. I don't know if there's ever a little elbow injury. I guess maybe there can be, but yeah. Doesn't sound good. He, I think he dealt with what, bone spurs in his elbow last year and didn't have surgery on it. So could be something that's still lingering. Nolan Aronado has missed two straight with a left forearm issue, but hopes to return in the coming days. Stalling Marte has been advised to rest for the next 15 days after being diagnosed with

bone inflammation in his right knee. He is likely to go on the IL. I didn't know your bones could get inflamed. It might have been a not correct news update wherever I pulled that from, but that's what they wrote. So that's what I'm going with. Blue Jays, bullpen updates. Yami Garcia progressed to long toss from 120 feet, and Gior Romano played light catch on Monday. T.J. Friedel was placed on the aisle with a left hamstring strain and is expected to miss two to three weeks.

I did not mention this yesterday, but Heston Kirstad was recalled by the Orioles, and he started in left field on Monday with Colton Kouser on the bench. Heston Kirstead finished two for four with a double. Obviously, a name to watch. We've talked about

this so much this season that hitting prospects have struggled mightily first getting called up now Kirstad has had a few tastes already he got called up late last year he was got called up a little bit earlier this season they call him up but they don't really give him an opportunity to play every day so I think it's hard for him to

to get in a groove and get going but with Colton Kouser struggling the way he has the bigger thing I think they might have an opportunity available here for Kirstad so I think the bigger concern is Colton Kouser's been pretty awful for pretty close to two months now. OPS under 600, both May and June. Might be time to, I don't want to say give up on Colton Couser,

but I'm a little worried about the playing time. I think he was out of the lineup today for Kirstadt. Yes, yes, he was. And yeah, he has a 574 OPS since April 26th. So last two months, yeah. Not great. David Frye was back in the lineup Monday as the DH, after leaving Sunday with right elbow inflammation.

Merrill Kelly is targeting a return in mid-August. He's been out since April 23rd with a right shoulder strain. Tommy Edmund could begin a rehab assignment soon. He's missed the entire season to this point as he recovers from right wrist surgery. Lars Neupar took batting practice Monday and we'll do so again on Tuesday. He's been out since late May with an oblique injury. The Mariners activated Jorge Polanco who missed just under a month with a right hamstring strain. He's someone that could matter in Roto leagues with a middle infield spot.

Probably going to take him some time to get going. And he was pretty bad early on in the season, but we'll pay attention to Jorge Polanco. Patrick Sandoval has a high-grade flexor tear and a high-grade flexor strain, excuse me, in a torn UCL in his left elbow. He'll undergo Tommy John's surgery. And last but not least, Chris, your Florida Panthers,

our Stanley Cup champions. Congrats to you, my friend. Vamos Gatos. They're going crazy at J.P. Mulligans. The char hut is lit. The abuelitas are outside of La Caretta with their pots and pans going crazy. Is that true? Yeah, that's how South Florida celebrates championships. People just drive down streets with their windows down, banging pots and pans out of their missized SUVs. It's a ridiculous place and I love it. Oh man. So I try to keep tabs on all sports as much as I can. Like I've dabbled throughout my life, basketball, football, obviously baseball, and played some soccer, tennis. Hockey is the only sport. I have just, I've never gotten into it.

I didn't play it at all growing up, so that's probably why. But yeah, it's so weird. Hockey is actually the one sport I played like organized. And it's because the 96 Panthers, I was eight years old, mighty, Ducks D2 had just come out. The Panthers made the Stanley Cup and I got super into hockey and it was super fun. I used to go to all the games back in the like Pavel Burray days, the Peter Worell days, the Roberto Luongo days.

And then they were the most irrelevant franchise in the big four professional sports for like 20 years. So it's been really fun to watch the last couple of years then blossom into now a championship team. It's been very rewarding. All right. Let's get back into the baseball action and seven pitchers who are on quite the run right now.

We will start with Tanner Bybee. Another strong start at the Orioles. Obviously a tough matchup. Six innings, two runs. One of those earned had seven strikeouts. 14 whiffs on 96 pitches. He's throwing this curveball more in three of his last four starts.

I wonder if it could be a classification issue because I had his stack cast. I had the game open on Stackcast, and I saw the stats change in front of my eyes from, it took pitches away from slider and added them to curveball. So I wonder if maybe there's a misclassification thing. All that matters is last eight starts, Tanner Bybee, a 230 ERA, a 0.91 whip, 62 strikeouts over 47 innings.

How much are you buying what we've seen from Tanner Bybee? Almost the last two months at this point. Yeah, I mean, we really like the potential when he got the call initially last season. We liked what we saw for the most part as a rookie. You know, three swing and miss pitch secondaries for him. There does appear to be something going on with the curveball. The velocity today was up about two miles per hour. On everything else, it was more like 0.3 to 0.4 miles per hour.

He was getting less vertical break with the curveball. So I don't know if he's throwing a tighter version that the the stack cast system is struggling to pick up on or what. But it was pretty effective pitch for him today. Three whiffs on 15 swings. The slider was a little better. Three on eight swings. But it's all in all, I mean, I think you're inclined to buy in just because this was a guy that we really liked the talent. level all along.

And the problem for the most part was he just wasn't putting guys away. And over the last, you know, really couple of months, the strikeout numbers have really improved in June, especially. It's been bonkers, 37 strikeouts and 22 and a third innings pitched. Yeah. So I don't expect that to sustain. But he was someone early on in the season where it was like, shouldn't he be better? than he is.

And now we're starting to see that, yeah, maybe he is. So I'm happy to see it for sure. Another one in a similar situation, you know, had the hamstring injury, Justin Steele, missed about a month of the season, came off the aisle, was struggling, figured he's going to get better at some point. And we are witnessing that happen right now. He was at the Giants, seven in the third innings, two runs allowed, nine strikeouts, had 15 whiffs on 106 pitches, 116 pitches, 11 of those.

on the fastball, which was great in this one. He did allow 14 hard hits, but he also was getting lots of whiffs. So kind of a little bit of a Taj Bradley thing, like lots of whiffs, lots of hard contact in this one. But generally, Justin Steele is usually very good at limiting the hard contact. Last six starts, 138 ERA, 0.97 whip. And the numbers now, Chris, look pretty much exactly where we thought they would be for Justin Steele. Yeah, no, it, you know, the one thing that I think about with Justin Steele is, he is for all intents and purposes, a two pitch pitcher, right?

He throws the fastball and the slider about 90% of the time. But that's sort of not 100% accurate because what it really is, is Justin Steele throws three different variants on those two pitches each. He, you know, he'll cut the four seamer. He'll throw it with a little more ride. He'll throw the slider, sometimes a little bit. little loopier. Sometimes it'll be more like a cutter. And so what I wonder, because he doesn't have huge velocity, you know, even for a lefty 92 miles per hour in this climate is close to average.

Maybe what we saw early on is, you know, when he's not 100%, when he's a little rusty, the margin for error might be a little slim. You know, he needs to really have his feel. And this is something that we've talked a lot about with like Aaron Nola, who has a different approach, but similar, not huge stuff vibes. And it could just be that when things aren't great, things can get pretty bad for Justin Steele. But he is, you know, we're going on probably close to 350 innings of Justin Steele pitching like this in a way that, yeah, it's a little funky. It doesn't look like really anyone else in baseball, but at some point, yeah, there's not really any reason to be skeptical. Yeah, 349 in a third innings entering this start over the last three seasons with a 312 ERA.

Next up is Garrett Crochet. Another solid start. This one up against the Dodgers, five and two-thirds shutout, five hits, six strikeouts, 16 whiffs on 91 pitches. He only allowed one hard hit against that lineup, the Dodgers stacked lineup. And, and, and, and, and, and, And he continues to focus, fastball cutter. They accounted for 93% of his pitches in this one. Last 11 starts for Crochet. It's a 153 ERA. It's a 0.84 whip.

90 strikeouts over 64 and 2 thirds innings during that stretch. So I think, and we've kind of come to this realization recently, Chris, where I don't think you need to try and sell high on crochet. Like if you're not going to get a top two or three round player for him, just continue to reap all these awesome rewards. Yeah, it's a tough player to analyze very similar to Louise Heel, who we've grouped him with for a lot of the season. I personally, I might have a little more faith in Garrett Crochet as a pitcher than Louise Heel. But that's, I think, splitting hairs to a certain extent.

If I was just ranking them for their next start, you know, like Nick Pollack, when he does his pitcher rankings, he's just ranking them right now. He's not doing the rest of the season. And I think there's some merit to that. We rank rest of season. That makes it a little harder because if I was doing it the other way, Garretre Crochet and Louise Heel are probably top 12 starting pitchers right now. I think I have more faith in both of them than Dylan Cease right now. Aaronola, I mean, like, they're certainly pitching at a higher level right now in a way that looks really sustainable for both. But one, there are control concerns for heel especially, but crochet as well. Two, they're both at completely uncharted levels of innings pitched over the course of the last few seasons. And three, we just don't know how long they're going to remain in their respective rotation. So that remains the only concern for me with Garrett Crochet.

It's just how he's going to hold up to his continued larger role. I will say if Crochet gets traded, I think that's probably better. Well, obviously it's better for his rest of season value because he's not on the White Sox anymore. But I think he's more likely to pitch further down the stretch if he's traded to a contender versus if he stays on the White Sox, they could just choose to, all right, we need this guy for next season, let's shut him down, whatever, by the time he gets to like 150 innings or something like that. So if he goes to another team, I think he's probably more likely to just kind of pitch through that and continue to pitch rest of season. Three other pitchers who are on quite the role right now, Chris Bassett turned in a quality start at the Red Sox, seven innings, two runs, two strikeouts, and over his last 10 starts, it's a 236 IRA and a 113 whip. Matt Waldron, six innings, two runs, eight strikeouts up against the Nationals.

He had 15 whiffs on 107 pitches. Last nine outings for Waldron, it's a 195 IRA.92 whip. Baseball is better with a knuckleballer, so I'm happy for that. And this one, I'm just kind of sneaking it in there. He hasn't been doing it for too long, but give a little credit to James Paxton, who has looked better, his last three starts at the White Sox, five shutout innings, six strikeouts. I get it.

It's Chicago. 18 whiffs on 91 pitches. He has 15 plus swinging strikes in back-to-back starts. That is notable. Last three starts, a one ERA, a 0.72 whip for James Paxson. Chris, anything to add on Paxton, Waldron, and Chris Bassett. All right, Bassett, I wanted to look up. Yeah, 429 career ERA in April.

It is 367 or better in every other month of the season. He hates April. He just hates it. I don't know what. Maybe he's cold. Maybe his hands get dry and he needs a new moisturizer or something. But this is, I mean, notably three years in a row, I believe, where he's just been awful in the month of April. And then has really turned things around.

He wasn't awful in April in 2022. Sorry. Awful in 2023. Bad this year. It's tough because I understand. the in the I understand when you see a pitcher like that struggling and you think well he doesn't have strikeout upside he's old he's not on a great team what kind of ceiling is there is it worth waiting for but it's been such a consistent overall profile by the end of the season with

Chris Bassett that I just I tend to just yawn when he struggles because I'm very confident he's going to figure it out and it's not the kind of thing that I even spend much time analyzing. That's how confident I am in him figuring out. Paxton, I still don't buy it. It's two starts where he's gotten strikeouts. He now does have more strikeouts than walks for the season after the past two starts. That's terrific.

But it's still overall, I think a pretty underwhelming profile. Great team context, good defense behind him. but the best I can say about Paxton is I would have dropped him for sure before the last two starts. I guess you don't have to drop him now, but I'm not inclined to think there's a ton of upside here. Let's take our final break and when we return, O'Neill versus Ellie, right after this. Welcome back in, O'Neill Cruz versus Ellie, Dela Cruz was awesome on Monday. outside of the fact that the Reds really just crush the pirates. But if you're into just watching great players do great things,

then yeah, this game was for you. O'Neill Cruz, two for five with his 11th home run, added three RBI, the home run, 112.3 exit velocity, 458 feet. And it's been a weird season for O'Neill Cruz, Chris, because he had a really bad April. He has been better since the start of May, eight homers, three steals.

It's like a 30, Homer 11th seal pace over 150 games. But overall, I mean, based on where we were drafting him, this has been a letdown season. Where are you at on O'Neill Cruz almost three months in at this point? Yeah, it's a lot of what we feared it would be, right? Like, he has actually been quite good against right-handed pitchers. He has an 843 OPS, eight home runs in 210 plate appearance. is hard to ask for too much more.

And then he's just been a complete disaster against lefties. 26 strikeouts and 69 plate appearances is close to a 40% strikeout rate, hitting 106 with a 342 OPS entering Monday. Only two home runs, only three walks. It's a lot of, if you were hoping for O'Neill Cruz to have a true breakout, what you would have needed to see was cutting the strike. rate overall and being much better against lefties. One of those things he has gotten better at as the season has gone on.

He has struck out. Did he strike out today? No. He didn't strike out today. So he has 46 strikeouts since the start of May. That's in 158 plate appearances. He had 45 strikeouts and 121 plate appearances in April. So that alone is reason to be optimistic.

but the struggles against lefties have continued in a way that does make it harder to believe in O'Neill Cruz truly breaking out and becoming a superstar. That being said, if O'Neill Cruz is just a high 700s OPS bat, that's still probably a really valuable player because he's going to steal some bases because he's going to hit for power. Became the fifth player ever to hit a home run into the Allegheny River at PNC. Park on the fly. He has had like three or four now land in the Allegheny, but only one on the fly.

Did that last week. Crushed one today. We know the skill set here is freakish, but the overall profile is still kind of underwhelming, I guess. Yeah, especially the steals, right? I mean, that's, you know, six steals on the season. And there was an article that came out earlier in the year that, the leg, the ankles, still not 100%,

and it's something he's going to have to play with the rest of this season, maybe the rest of his career, just something that's kind of there lingering. I mean, it hasn't affected him too much over the past two months. He's obviously been better. But again, a little bit of a disappointment. I will point out the stat cast numbers still amazing. 95.1 average exit velocity, 18% barrel rate.

Both of those are elite. The expected batting average is 256. So if he hits over 250 on a 30 homer, 10 to 15 steel pace, that's like you said, that's still a really good player. But when we saw the ADP climbing inside the top 60, the top 50, we're probably going to be let down if that is all O'Neill Cruz does this season. I will say you can make a case that he's just a better hitter than L.A. Cruz at this point in their careers.

The quality, the strikeout rate's basically identical. O'Neill Cruz is a little higher, but obviously like we talked about earlier, it's been getting better. His quality of contact metrics are actually even better. Yeah. Than Ellie De La Cruz, which is kind of amazing.

468 expected Wobon contact. It's 437 for Ellie De La Cruz, who is obviously very, very good at hitting the baseball very, very hard. But not as good as O'Neill Cruz. That is a fact. The one thing I think Ellie Dealer Cruz has surpassed O'Neill Cruz at is just an eye at the plate. He's been much better at walking and noticing different

pitches. And so it's something I noticed earlier on this season. I've been really impressed with that part of Ellie Dela Cruz's game. Let's talk about him. Obviously had a big game, three for five with his 14th home run, three runs, three RBI. The Homer 11.5 exit velocity, 439 feet. And last 10 games for Ellie, it's a 385 batting average. Three homers, 10 runs, three steals this is part of the package Chris it's you know the first month gets off to that great start we saw some of the struggles

and towards the end of May early June now he's picking things back up this is just your latest reminder that the profile for L.A. Dela Cruz is going to run very hot and cold but end of season we're going to wind up with some kind of bonkers I don't know 25 to 30 homers 70 plus steel something like that the

the reds and in Great America a ballpark ballpark have a like a little stand on top of the the batter's eye he hit it over the batter's eye entirely the announcer's sure it's happened before because it was only like 440 feet only but that's one of those ones where you watch it and it's like now stack has got that one wrong that was at least 800 feet yeah the broadcasters were freaking out about it so yeah no i i watched a highlight that was all for the both TV broadcasts and the radio broadcast. It's really fun if you can find it on Twitter. Let's continue on and talk about three other slumping hitters.

They actually all did something here on Monday, but the Royals, Vinipas Guantino, one for four with his eighth home run. It was his first homer since June 1st. Previous 197 batting average, 602 OPS. Salvador Perez won for four with his 12th homer, but previous 21 games before this.

153 batting average, 487 OPS. And Adoles Garcia, two for four, with his 14th home run, 45 games since the start of May, 172 batting average, a sub-600 OPS. Chris, anything that stands out that has you actually worried about any of these names, Pasquantino, Salvador Perez, Adoles Garcia, or would you be looking to capitalize and buy if anyone was trying to sell on the cheap?

I do wonder if at some point we just sort of give up on Vanney Pasquantino being this super high upside hitter that we've hoped he would be. Now, I struggle with that one because anyone who listens to this show knows that I'm a big believer in the expected stats. And his remain really good. He's had an expected Wobo over 350 in all three of his seasons. It's 355 as of now. and yet he's underperformed his ex-Woba all three seasons significantly underperformed the past two as well. And I just don't quite know what to make of that. He does not hit the ball to the pull side in the air as often as you'd like. This season, it's only 28%.

The previous two seasons was around 31%. So that could explain it. you know, he really does when he's hitting the ball in the air, has more of an all-fields approach. And maybe that's something that will limit Vinnie Pasquantino's homer production. But he should still hit for average. And there should be a lot of doubles. I guess 20 doubles so far this season,

that's a pretty good number. But I don't know, the overall package just feels pretty underwhelming for Vini Pass Guantino in a way that, makes me wonder if he's just not going to end up living up to our expectations for him. Yeah. I think that's totally reasonable. I wonder about the ballpark too. I mean, it's just Kansas City is a tough park.

And I don't know, working theory, I guess, is hitters who underperform their expected stats. It's probably ballpark related, right? Like, Kaufman and whatever's happened with Rogers Center the past couple of years, and Vlad has been underperforming his expected stats tremendously. So I just wonder if there's something there and it feels like it makes sense. Adola Garcia, this has been going on for quite some time. Chris, is this something you're actually worried about or try and capitalize and buy low on him? Yeah, I still think I mostly believe, you know, like he's hitting the ball.

You know, the barrel rate is down a little bit, but it's not, it's still really good. 13.4% is still a very solid mark. Infield fly balls a little too much. Okay, that's a problem. But it just feels like he's just a little bit off in a way that I think we've seen from Adolese Garcia before. So I don't have too much concern. And then with Salvador Perez, I just think he was hot. Like, he's a really good hitter, obviously.

But like, you know, he was like top 5% in expected batting average early on. on in the season. That was never going to sustain itself, even though the expected stats said that they should. The thing to keep in mind with expected stats is they are descriptive. They are describing what has happened so far. And that has predictive value. But when you're talking about a player like Silvera Perez, who's 34 years old, has played, I don't know, 1,500 major league games, Like, we have a pretty good idea of who that guy is. And so when he comes out for a month and a half and has an XBA of like 310 or whatever it was, you can be pretty sure that what that means is Salvador Perez was really hot for a couple of weeks and was going to have some regression.

Let's get into some of the waiver wire names from Monday. Not too much going on. David Hamilton is someone we've talked a lot about recently. He continues to impress one for four with his fifth home run to RBI. last 16 games for Hamilton. He's batting 294, three homers, 11 runs, 12 steals during that stretch. He's up to 71% rostered.

There are four middle infielders that are higher on the most added list above David Hamilton. Brendan Donovan, Willie Castro, Sadan Rafael, Josh Smith. Do you agree that those four should be ahead of Hamilton? Again, it was Donovan, Castro,

Raphaela and Josh Smith? I don't know if I think any of them should be ahead of David Hamilton. I know Raphael has had very good numbers over the past month or so. His underlying metrics are still really bad. So I don't really believe it. I think Hamilton's a better bet for stolen bases than Willie Castro. Castro is weird. We talked about it yesterday.

He's been a good fantasy option over the past month or so in a way that is totally out of line with what we've seen from him in the past. I don't buy that Willie Castro is going to be fantasy relevant because of his bat. And so if he's not stealing, I'd rather just have David Hamilton who is. So yeah, I think Hamilton is probably ahead of those guys. But he's also 71% rostered. And that's probably pretty close to the ceiling. Right?

Like I'm not convinced David Hamilton's going to be a points league starter at shortstop, especially. even second base is probably pretty fringy. So he's probably reached about the point where he can't be rostered in too many more leagues. I think that makes sense too. I was going to add, of all those names, I think Brendan Donovan in a points league, you can make the argument while the upside is not massive. He makes a lot of contact.

He gets on base. Cardinals lineup has kind of heated up here recently. So I think in a points league, you could argue Donovan over David Hamilton, but any type of categories league. I'm looking at Yahoo, David Hamilton, 69% rostered. I think almost all of their leagues are either Roto or Head-Dead categories. So yeah, in a league like that, I think Hamilton probably should be at the top of that list of names we just mentioned. Mitch Garver has hit for more power in June, but still a very low batting average. He went one for four with his ninth home run so far in the month, hitting 200, but he's got four homers, five doubles, 16.

RBI and 830 OPS. There are things that are happening here. He's 35% rostered. Does Mitch Garver need to be rostered in a one-catcher league? I'm still on the side of probably not. Probably not is, I think, where I land. Like, you look at, he didn't hit his first homer of the season until April 17th. Since then, he still only has a 686 OPS.

However, that's mostly because of the 181 batting average in that span. He has a 216 Babbip in that span as well, but he's still playing pretty close to every day. His counting stat paces in that stretch are 25 homers, 78 RBI, 65 runs. I think that's still a really nice number two catcher. Someone that in a two catcher league, I'm probably leaving,

and I have been leaving in my lineup pretty consistently, because I think the batting average will regress and he'll hit 240 and be a really solid number two catcher. I think in a one catcher league, he's probably pretty fringy. Yeah. Would you rather add Ben Rice or Hunter Goodman

over Mitch Garver right now? Probably both Rice and Goodman over Garver just because it's one of those opportunity costs things, right? Unless Garver hits like three home runs in his next five games, you're probably going to see a lot more people trying to add Rice and Goodman over the next week than Garver. So you don't run the risk of missing out on him if he does get hot.

Yep, I think that makes sense. The Waver Wire pitchers, not too much going on here, but I will ask about them anyway. Carson Spires turned in a quality start up against the Pirates, six innings, three runs, five strikeouts. He had 11 whiffs on 93 pitches. Lance Lynn, a quality start up against the Braves, six and two-thirds, one-run, five strikeouts.

Michael Lorenzen was solid at the Brewers, five innings, two runs, five strikeouts, and Griffin Canning, a strong start up against Oakland, seven innings, one-run, five strikeouts. He had 13 whiffs on 97 pitches. Chris, do any of those names matter? I suppose Spires, just because he's new. You can talk yourself into him mattering,

but I'm pretty unimpressed by the skill set. I don't think he has a lot of swing and miss potential. His fastballs are pretty bad. So I'm not sure that those are going to be great pitches for him. Lynn, Lorenzen, Griffin Canning, they're all just streamer types, I think. Even when they have pretty good numbers overall, the track record's long enough that I don't think we have to react to good starts from those guys. And you might be tempted to drop Spencer Schwellenbach,

who was picked up for the two-star week, and he came back down to Earth at the Cardinals, five innings, four runs allowed, but six strikeouts to zero walks, he had 14 whiffs on 86 pitches, and he had a 533 Babbup against in this start, despite 85.8 average exit velocity. So I think there was some bad luck here.

I like the strikeout to walk ratio. I like the whiffs here as well. So if you picked Schwellenbach up, I think I would probably hold on to him after this one. Yeah, it's tough because, like, he gave up a single that had a 67 mile per hour exit velocity. That seems like bad luck. He had that that badded ball did have a 970 expected batting average. Had another one, 86 miles per hour.

That's not especially hit hard hit. 980 expected batting average on that one. So it's one of those starts where I generally agree with you that he probably did. get babbiped and it just so happened that a couple of the softly hit balls he gave up were hit at the right angle that they it wasn't bad luck that he gave up the hits on those specific balls but I think the poor showing today is probably not as concerning as what we've seen from Drew Thorpe so far I think I still have more faith in Spencer Schwellenbach than Thorpe let's get into some of the leftovers and first up we've got three pitchers Tanner Halk another quality start he was facing the

blue jays six and two thirds three runs allowed two of those were earned he had seven strikeouts and he now has 13 quality starts that's tied for the league lead with logan gilbert aranola a great start at the tigers seven innings one run six strikeouts had 12 whiffs on 90 pitches and freddie pralta solid up against the rangers five innings two runs six strikeouts he had 15 whiffs on a hundred four pitches. He was back to being fastball Freddy. 11 of those 15 whiffs came on the fastball. Anything to add on

Peralta, Nola, and Tanner Howe? No, I think I think we pretty much know all these guys. Peralta the 403 ERA is probably a little inflated. I also don't think he's an ace. Mid-3s-ZRA, tons of strikeouts,

not as much volume as you'd like. I think that's who Freddie Peralta is. A bunch of hitting leftovers, lots of studs. with big nights here on Monday. Jose Ramirez, two for four with his 20th home run, 109.8 exit velocity, 431 feet for J-RAM. Bryce Harper is having his best month of the season. He went three for five with his 19th home run,

added 5 RBI. He's up to an 1185 OPS in June. Vlad Jr. hit the longest home run of his career, 113.1 exit velocity, 471 feet, and he has homered in three of his last four games. It was the hair, Chris. All he had to do was get rid of the hair. Rafael Devers crushed a few balls in that game as well,

three for four with his 15th home run. Cal Raleigh, a sneaky sock and a shoe. His 13th home run, his third steal. Austin Riley, over his last 10 games, batting 4-41 with five homers, hitting the ball much harder, lots of fly balls during that stretch. And C.J. Abrams, a revenge game in San Diego, three-for-five, with two runs and two steals.

Lots of names here. Was there anything you wanted to hit on some really studly names just having big nights? Yeah, I mean, I do want to just point out that like, I feel like the only time we've talked about Raphael Devers this season was when he was hurt. And that just happens sometimes with some of the really great players. It's like there's nothing to talk about. Like Raphael Devers is having an after Raphael Devers season. But I do want it.

I just wanted to speak it, you know? Rafael Devers, awesome player. We haven't talked about it much. Usually if we don't talk about a player like Raphael Devers, it's because they're just doing their own thing. We talked a lot about Austin Riley, for example. Turns out he's just Austin Riley still. And if you had the opportunity to buy low and you took it,

congratulations. Austin Riley's probably going to be like a 900 OPS bat the rest of the way. Some bullpen updates for the Guardians. The manual Class A was unavailable. It was Scott Barlow who struck out the side for his second save. For the Mariners, Andres Munoz entered with two outs in the eighth. He had runners on second and third, a one-run lead. He gave up a walk and then a two-run single.

He took his second blown save. For the Rays, Pete Fairbanks entered in the ninth with a one-run lead. He struck out two for his 12th save. For the Cardinals, Ryan Helsley, entered the ninth with a three-run lead. He gave up two runs on two walks and two hits, but picked up his league leading 20s. seventh save. For the Royals,

James MacArthur, struck out one for his 13th. For the Dodgers, Evan Phillips entered in the eighth inning with a two-run lead, facing two, three, and four in the White Sox lineup. He gave up a hit,

but picked up his first hold. It was lefty Alex Vescia, who got the ninth, and struck out one for his fourth save. This one was a little interesting, Chris, because, I mean, Phillips has worked the eighth inning three other times this season

besides this, but before he got hurt leading up to that. He was basically just the closer. So this one kind of stood out. Yeah. And it's it's like do we really need to play the matchup game against the White Sox? Well, you know, you think about the White Sox lineup and like if there are any hitters that you're worried about. Yeah. It's Andrew Vaughn, Luis, Robert, Eloy Jimenez, and Paul DeYoung. That's the four guys that Evan Phillips face. So while I don't know if it really, like, if you're really increasing your win probability

with a three run lead by, or two run lead by playing that game against the White Sox, it still does at least make sense. You'll occasionally see even closers. You know, traditional closers work the eighth. If it's the, you know, the heart of the order. And especially when whatever you want to say about the heart of the White Sox order,

it's much, much, there might be a bigger gap between the heart of that order and the rest of it than any other team in baseball. Because at least those four are major league players. I think it's probably fine, but yeah, those were, I guess that was the highest leverage situation in the game for the Dodgers. For the Brewers, Trevor McGill struck out two for his 16th save for the Cubs. A mess. It continues to be a mess. Two-run lead. It was Colton Brewer who started the 9th. He gave up one run on two hits.

He recorded one out. He was relieved by Drew Smiley, who then gave up a hit, a walk, a sacrifice fly, tie game. And then he would walk the next two or he gave up a hit and then a walk and game over on a trip. A walk off walk from Drew Smiley. Hector Nairis last pitched on Friday. So he should have been available, but he's just been really shaky over the past couple weeks. So I don't know where the Cubs go from here. I think Keegan Thompson, there's like the K to walk ratio looks pretty good for him, so maybe they could try him out.

But the answer is probably on another team right now. My guess is they make a trade at some point. The problem there is that like the Cubs feel extremely rudderless right now. And the future doesn't look especially bright. I don't know if this is a team that needs to be making win now moves to go by a closer. My guess, they've given some other guys a try over the last week. They have all failed. My guess is they're going to go back to Hector Narris,

who has walked 16% of batters this season. He's been kind of a disaster. But everyone else has been just as bad if not worse. And they've lost a lot of games because of guys not named Hector Nairus. So I'm going to guess they give him another try soon. Yeah, Cubs currently three games out of a wild card spot in just, the crazy national league. Basically just two teams are out of it right now.

The Rockies and Marlins are 12 and a half out. Every other team is within three games of a wild card spot. They're expansion teams. You can't expect too much from them. And then for the nationals, Kyle Finnegan was unavailable. Hunter Harvey entered in the 10th

with a three-run lead. He gave up four runs on three hits and two walks. He took his first blown save and third loss of the season. To stream or not to stream on Tuesday, we have Zach Lattel up against the Mariners, I think is okay. Brian Beow against the Blue Jays

and Tyler Anderson up against Oakland. Yeah, I think those are the three. I wouldn't be surprised if Kyle Hendricks had a good start against the Giants as well. On Wednesday, Spencer Turnbull at the Tigers in a revenge game. My only concern there is you're only going to get like five innings. Yeah, I think so too.

I think that makes sense. But I think they should be five good ones. Andrew Abbott. is facing the pirates. It's in Cincinnati, so I don't love that, but he's pitching well right now. Yeah, I think that one's probably fine.

Yep. And then scrolling up and down. I like Spencer Argetti. I know it's been a really bad season for him. I know he's had good matchups recently that he hasn't taken advantage of. But I did start him in, I think, Tout Wars.

So I'm rolling there. As for the rest of them, I'm interested in what DJ Hertz does, but I'm not. I would prefer not to start him. Yeah. And then like similar to Adiel Rodriguez. I'm interested to see what he looks like,

but after his really poor return from the IL, no way I could start him there. Let's wrap up with Team Name Tuesday. Hey. Yeah, you haven't been on in a while, Chris, so it's good to have you back. You'll understand some of the pop culture references that Scott and I never get.

But these three are from someone else named Chris. And first one is Royce Roll. Yeah. I guess he's rolling right now. He's crushing it. Pro Far, pro good. Yep. Skeens from an Italian restaurant.

Bottle of red, bottle of white. From Tom. Major Burns. He adds that it's from MASH. I've never seen MASH. You know. You can only guess if I see it. But I'm sure it's good.

It feels like Marsh, but it's Stott Ober. I didn't know what this was. I think it's like it feels like it's March, but it's October is what they're going for. I don't know if that's a thing. Maybe. I guess so. But that, that's what I assumed.

Cast a neto Verlander C. Sure. Cast a net over land and sea. I guess is what we're going with there. Yeah. You know what? Yeah. All right.

From Robert. Wood sale at K. Marte, buy low. Yeah. From Dylan, Obi-Kwan Kenobi. Yes. I don't know if we've seen that one with...

There's usually... Kwan. Yeah, I know. There's usually another name that's involved there, but... You'd be like Ober Kwan Kenobi. Yeah, something like that. Solid.

This was sent from Terry as more of a dinner expression. Scott would fall out of his chair if he was here for this one. Just because there's so many names. Please pass a scoble of steer burger along with some Morel Brown Veerling Gravy. Yeah.

I don't know. I also don't know if I could say this last one, Chris. I'll leave it up to you. Yeah. Okay. Well, this last one we got from two different listeners, Brandon and Vincent, Halk Tua.

Yeah. Yeah. We won't go into why. If you know, you know, that's it. But yeah. All right. We are going to wrap there for 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 tomorrow. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.