Fantasy Baseball Today - Talking Pitching w/ Lance Brozdowski! Week 5 Sleepers & Two-Start Pitchers (4/19 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Welcome back to the show, Lance Brozdowski (2:50)! ... Jack Leiter had a rough debut (5:35). ... Ryan Pepiot turned in his second quality start of the season (9:38). ... Kirby Yates looks like the Rangers closer (13:07). ... It's time for our prospect spotlight, this time Cade Povich of the Orioles (15:18). ... News (22:04): Rafael Devers is day-to-day with a knee injury. ... Let's recap Thursday's standouts (26:36). ... We're talking pitching with Lance Brozdowski, first up Jared Jones (34:14). ... How does Lance rank Garrett Crochet, Reid Detmers and MacKenzie Gore (36:50)? ... Are we buying Red Sox pitchers (40:35)? ... What's wrong with Max Fried (42:53)? ... Sell-high on Cristian Javier and Shōta Imanaga (46:13)? ... Which pitchers is Lance looking to buy (50:30)? ... Let's preview Week 5, starting with the schedule and two-start pitchers (54:08). ... Who are the top sleeper hitters next week (1:01:25)? ... Let's wrap up with weekend streamers (1:04:37). 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

Man, Tough Fantasy Baseball today on April 19th. Frank Stanfield joined by Scott White, and we figured with such a small slate of games here on Thursday, let's change it up. Welcome back to the show, special guest, Lance Brazdowski. Thanks for joining us on this very late slash early recording. What's going on, Lance? How you doing?

Thanks, cool to hop on. I've been a listener for a while. Yeah, man, happy to have you on. You can find all of Lance's work all over the place. Player Development Analyst at the Marquis Sports Network with the Chicago Cubs. He has picture breakdown videos on YouTube at YouTube.com slash Lance Brazdowski 1 and also has a great newsletter

where you can find his pitcher notes and they get sent to your inbox daily. The link for that is Lancebras.substack.com. Really helpful, the one that he sent out on Thursday took a deeper look at Max Fried, Michael King, Jake Irvin, and Albert Suarez. And if you thought we were nerdy, Lance takes it to the next level. And I mean that, obviously, in the best way possible,

talking about picture release points, vertical, horizontal break, stuff plus, heat maps, and much more. Highly recommend you check it out. Lance, did I miss anything? No, I think you nailed it, yeah. No, I love doing the substack, and I've been trying to push YouTube recently, doing some, like, longer form things. I like the nitty gritty of fantasy, but I also like zooming out a lot and looking at, like, lead trends. It's probably one of my favorite things to do is just like, where's the league going? What's going to be the next big thing? Like, what are teams doing with organizational talent, et cetera? So I try to dip my figure in everything. I'm seeing your face everywhere lately, but to me, there is nothing more valuable than those pitcher notes that you put out on Twitter.

I remember the first time, I think I brought you up on the podcast last year. Yep. I know this is Chris Bubich, right? Chris Bubich, right? Like, there's nobody nothing pitcher for the Royals who was suddenly showing all these dominant characteristics. and the analysis was just so spot on to me. And it's a shame he got hurt, and we haven't had reason to talk about him since.

But that's what puts you on my radar, and I've enjoyed all the pitching notes on Twitter since then. Thanks. I appreciate that. I don't know if we have a boobitch this year. I don't know if we found that yet, which is unfortunate because I would love to be the one to talk about it. But I also feel like everyone is putting out different kinds of pitching notes

summaries and stuff that it's, I feel like I was like the OG last year, and now I'm like behind the curve. Like there's cooler visualizations and stuff. So it's funny. It's funny indeed. Today on the show, we'll break down Jack Leiter's debut. We'll have another prospect spotlight.

We'll get Lance's opinion on a bunch of interesting pitchers here early on in the season. And then we'll preview week five with two star pitchers and sleeper hitters. But let's jump in. Can you believe it? Wow. So I realized before the show, we were talking, we're catching up, we're introducing each other. I didn't ask who Scott's player of the night was. I know who Lance is, Lance wants to talk about Ryan Pepio,

but one of us needs to take Jack Lighter. So, Scott, I feel like we should start there. So go ahead. He's all yours. Yeah, I was about to go Pepio, but no, that's fine. The guest can have the breadstick. That's fine. Not many choices today.

So I will talk about Jack Leiter. Wasn't good. Wasn't good for Jack Leiter. He got lit up, you might even say, at Detroit. Seven run runs in three and two-thirds innings. And a home run. right, which is interesting because home runs with something he really struggled with

throughout his minor league career. Even this year with some of the encouraging changes we've seen from Jack Leiter, the lot more strikeouts apparently during that shutdown period last year where he was on the developmental list. They went to work on his mechanics

and regain some of the fastball shape from college. It never did regain the curveball he had in college that made him such a high draft picked and really high-end pitching prospect to begin with, but he has a slider now, and he was able to get a lot of strikeouts at AAA prior to this call-up.

Didn't get a lot of strikeouts here, three-and-three-and-three-and-two-thirds inning, nine whiffs on 85 pitches, which is kind of, whatever. They don't really have a spot for him unless they're going to kick Andrew Heaney out. And so I don't know if Jack Leiter is even going to get another turn. before being sent to the miners. I don't think he's long for the rotation,

even if he does, based on the way this first start went, which doesn't mean I'm tossing him in the trash forever, and he'll never have use in fantasy. The strides he made at AAA prior to the promotion were definitely noteworthy. But, you know, it's a tough hurdle to clear, and early returns here were not promising.

Yeah, I always thought with most prospects, You know, you get one start. If you perform well, you get a second start. Let's see where it goes from there. But obviously, this was not a great start for Jack Leiter. He gave up 10 hard hits, 94 mile per hour average exit velocity against. Definitely did not help that Lioti Tavaris misplaced a fly ball in center field, which should have been an out.

Instead, it turned into a two-run triple that he just completely misplayed. While watching this, I saw Leiter throw some filthy changeups for strikeouts. I believe both were against Kerry Carpenter. But overall, the command was just really bad. from what I saw. Lance, I don't know if you had a chance to watch this start or just dig into anything, you know, under the radar here with Jack Leiter, but what did you see from him? Yeah, he's, he's interesting. He's of this mold that I think we're getting a lot of guys that have these like carry forcing and like a tight slider off it. I think it'll like Spencer

Strider and Jared Jones. Those two guys are obviously much better than current day Jack, Jack Leiter. The change-up was probably the most surprising thing to me because I did a deep dive on him based on his AAA data from a couple of starts and also looking at last year. Last year, the foreseem wasn't as good. This season, the forcing got better. It added some carry. It looked really good. He plays around with like two locations with it.

He'll go away to right. He's then also push up in the zone. I agree with you, Frank, that the command was terrible. He was missing armside a ton. If you look at just the pure dots on Savon of like where the pitches where there was so much like up in the right-handed batter box, it's just, it's not competitive pitches. And I think they just pumbled them for that. But that's a pitch that he was throwing like behind the count as a sinker, I thought.

Because it's like hard. It's a weird change up. But that's like definitely a peripheral offering for him. It's a fastball slider mix. I actually really like him. I did like a top 40 minor league pitching prospect rank and I had him inside the top 15. I had him like six, seven spots off Jared Jones. But that is a little bit more like zooming out and looking forward of like what could this guy become.

I thought the fastball traits were really strong. They didn't really show up today. I'm curious to see him if he gets another start. I don't know. I bet he'll go back down. But I imagine at some point later this year we might see him again. Kind of like maybe like the like Brandon fought last year is a good example, right? where he was like, up, got beat up, goes back down, comes back up, and has a good run.

I don't necessarily know if the Rangers will need him for those purposes. But I do like Jack Lighter long term for Dynasty, for example. But with pitching prospects, you know, it's like they can go a variety of directions, I think. And it's maybe not the best to cut established big leaders who are more average to reap the rewards of potential benefit of lighter. Lance, let's go over to your player of the night. And that would be Ryan Pepio, who turned in his second quality start of the season. It was six innings, one run, seven strikeouts, 17 swinging strikes. in this start. What did you see from Ryan Pepio in this start? And just overall,

through four starts of his Tampa Bay race career. I really liked him entering the season. He was one of my kind of pseudo-breakout picks, which I think was not really sharp. Like a lot of people had him, I think, in the industry as a guy that they were drafting a lot. Even it was just for going to Tampa Bay in an organization that does a really good job in terms of optimizing usage and stuff. I think the oddest thing for me this season is that he's cut his change-up usage a lot, which was the pitch coming up through the minors with the Dodgers that was like his go-to. And it was really good. Grated out. I think FangRuff said as like 70, 60, 70, which is like plus to plus,

plus really, really strong offering. This season, however, like the forcing looks a little better from the shape perspective. He's got a little more carry on it. And he's had like a roller coaster of a season, right? He had the really good starting cores, which was strong. And it was like, okay, that's odd because he's a guy who kind of feeds off movement.

Everything wasn't moving as much because you're in altitude. And then he has this start, which is really solid. I mean, he's interesting. Maybe last year he had peripherals that suggests that he wasn't like a sub two five ERA guy. No one is. But then this season, he's kind of. of the inverse where he's down and more around like a three five fifth or so and his eri's up at like

it'll be up around like four two excuse me so i i still like him a lot like i think he's a good pitcher um going forward in like a 12 team or he's probably a guy that i'm looking at matchups on in 15 i'm starting him every single time probably um i think of the archetype of him though is interesting the fact that i thought in this start his slider was thrown a little bit harder which is something i maybe will throw into a pitcher notes of mine in the future but this like trend of guys who have good carry fastballs and also not being able to have, like, great breaking ball. I think like the Taj Bradley problem almost where it's like he can just never figure out a breaking ball that works. I thought that it seemed like Pepe was trying to throw this pitch a little harder.

Like you look at the progression of his slider velocity over the last four starts he's made this season. I think it's ticked up each start. I think it was around like 88, 89 this outing. Similar to kind of what we saw with like Bobby Miller last year where that pitch just got harder and harder. So I wonder if they're playing around something there on him. But I like him going forward. I'm not exactly sure where I'd rank him. I don't have pitching ranks.

but I imagine he's probably like a fifth to seventh speed depending on how you built out your staff. And I definitely like him. I consider him almost like a by low of sorts, you know, coming off two starts where people see like a four or five plus ERA and you're like, I don't know about this guy.

Like I still think he's a good pitcher. Yeah, the ERA for Ryan Pepio after the start was 437. And I noticed the same thing, not throwing his change up as much. He threw a season high 38 sliders in this start. And they were really good. He had 10 whiffs on it at 43% whiff rate. So I thought that was notable.

and obviously this was a great start. Anything you'd like to add, Scott? Yeah, has changed. The change-up's been getting crushed this year, and that's why he really, he cut his usage in half in this start in particular, and got a good result. So I was encouraged by that,

that, okay, maybe he doesn't have a feel for the change-up right now, but he's still able to succeed, even when he's not relying on it as much. And I trust the raise to get him right, ultimately, even if it means kind of a different pitch mix. You know, we've seen them have success with that with so many other pitchers. The biggest leap for Pepio was just how much he improved his control last year.

This is now two great starts and four. And I think it's reason to be encouraged overall. My player of the night, we don't usually put closers up here, but on a smaller slate, I'm just going to continue to highlight Kirby Yates because it kind of feels like he's just taking the Rangers closer job. and he's running with it. So here on Thursday, Jose LeClerc entered with two outs

in the seventh inning in a tie game. Runners on first and second. He got Javier Baez to ground out. Rangers took a one-run lead. LeClerc stayed out there for the eighth. He got a strikeout, then walk, walk, another strikeout. He was relieved by Kirby Yates

who got the final four outs of the game for his second save of the week. He also has a win that he got this week, and he's just looked, lights out. Has not allowed an earned run this season. 10.4K per nine, 2.1 walks per nine. he's 41% rostered.

I think that number needs to double, Scott. I think regardless of format, if it's a Categories league, obviously you need the saves. But even in a points league, like, if he's the closer on a really good Rangers team, he's going to get lots of saves.

Well, here's what Bruce Bochie said after Monday's game, and we didn't talk about it on the podcast the last couple days. I just overlooked it, I guess. But he said with the way Yates is throwing the ball right now, we kind of like where it's at.

referring to the closer role. So that is probably as much of an admission as we're going to get that Yates is just the closer now, at least until he gives the Rangers reason not to turn to him as the closer. And I wish I had invested more in him when Fab was running, especially since I'm so invested in Jose LeClerc

in some of those 15 team leagues where saves are especially scarce. Because I think Yates could do just fine in the role, has fewer potential landmines in his path maybe than LeClerc does. He's less combustible overall, I guess is a better way to put it. And yeah, I agree. He might just be like a top 20 reliever going forward. All right, before we hit our first break,

let's get into another prospect spotlight. Maybe we should just rename this segment, the Orioles prospect spotlight, because their system is just so loaded. I think each of the past three that we've done have all been Orioles because every week there's a new player emerging that's just doing something awesome.

And this week it's Cade Povich, who is a 24-year-old, big old lefty, 6-foot-3, actually came over to the Orioles from the Twins in the Jorge Lopez trade way back in 2022. Three starts at AAA this year. Cade Povich has a 110 ERA,

a 0.55 whip, 24 strikeouts to five walks over 16 and a third innings, 13.9% swinging strike rate. He also made 10 starts at AAA last year. So it seems like he could just about be ready for promotion to the Orioles. Obviously, they have Cole Irvin and Albert Suarez in their rotation right now. Scott, what do you think about Kate Povich and when we could potentially see him up in the majors? John Means potentially coming back and Kyle Bradish potentially coming back a few weeks later.

So I don't know, you know, life finds a way and all of that. I don't know how soon we're going to see an opening for Kade Povich, but he has been arguably just in terms of results, the most impressive pitcher in the minors so far. He's allowed to combine four hits in his 16 and third innings of work. He's struck out 24. And what I've read is that he doesn't have a very good fastball.

And that's, you know, that's, that's worrisome. There is no greater indicator of pitcher upside, I think, than a good swing and miss fastball. And Povich doesn't have that. So his method of attack last year and previous levels of the minors was to get hitters to chase some of his secondary arsenal. Five pitch, five pitch, five pitch, archival overall. So to get hitters to chase some of his secondary pitches out of the zone and it just didn't work for him. He reached a level last year where that just, didn't work anymore and he walked too many guys and got in a lot of trouble with that.

But he's been doing a better job of attacking with the secondaries more this year at AAA, and that's why the results have improved so much. He's only thrown 61% of his pitches for strikes, which is not good at all. And so I'm a little concerned about that on top of him not having a great fastball. but these are issues that pitchers have worked around before. And it does seem like Povich has taken a big step forward in development, maybe not a finished product yet. But he's somebody who needs to be on your radar now.

If I was remaking my top 100 prospects today, I think I'd have to put him in it. Lance, I took a look at Katovich's latest start at AAA. He averaged 92.1 on the fastball. He threw five different pitches. It was a four seam, change up, sweeper, curve, and cutter. Do you have anything on the pitch mix or stuff numbers from K. Povich down in the minors? Yeah, I'm curious on where Scott saw that the fastball was good because the fastball swing miss is way up this year. He missed bat's like 25% swing miss right last year and that's up to

47% this season. He added a little bit of carry to the pitch. I don't exactly know if that's an altitude thing or sometimes stadium adjustment has some effect on that. It's always sometimes tough and AAA to like guarantee that that that shape will be better when we get up to the majors. But yeah, I thought that pitch looked a lot better. I couldn't really tell why though. It wasn't like the release was way up, which is allowing him to kind of get behind the ball better and create that carry. But yeah, I thought he was missing a ton of bats, actually, with the forcing. Three report is that the fastball wasn't that good, which I agree with based on the shit. But the only thing that jumps out to me is that he's like a high change-up guy.

If you look at his plots on where he throws his change-up, he's primarily like four-seem sweep to lefties, and then he'll go forcing change-up and mix him like peripheral cutter curve. But the change-up location is actually high in the zone. He's a little like Lucas Giole as a lefty. I try to come up with some comps of guys who have like this kind of fastball shape who are lefty and throw in his velocity range was like 92-ish. And I came up with better than Cody Bradford, but not as good as McKenzie Gore. So that's kind of your balance.

I think of guys who are in that area who could carry their fastball relatively well, but rely on other things obviously to get swing missed. McKenzie Gore obviously has had some improvements this year. I really like what he's done. But Bradford is like, I think a bit of fools gold. He's like kind of a command guy yet I don't really think he commands his fastball well. So Povich is like I would take if you're like projecting, if you brought Povich to the majors right now and projecting him versus Cody Brad for rest of the season, I think those guys are

like, I don't know. I'd probably leave Povich from a stuff perspective. So, so yeah, the four seem intrigues me here because I agree with Scott's reports from like, that seems like 2023 in my opinion. But the four team I see on the data source I have from AAA, he's missing a lot of bats with it. I just I don't entirely know what he did to it to add that shape. So I'm intrigued by him.

And it's the Orioles too, right? he's a lefty. You go under that park, like no one's going to hit a ball out of left field, and you'll get a probability of wins from the fantasy perspective. So if he comes up, like I'm intrigued. Again, that is Kate Povich, one of Scott's top five prospects on the periphery.

Make sure to check out the latest prospect report, which is live on the site. That's cbsports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. Quickly promote, download and follow FBT and 5, wherever you listen to podcast. We have a bonus episode coming out this Saturday, every Saturday at that. So again, FBT and 5, wherever you listen to podcast.

Let's take our first break. And when we return, we'll hit some news and notes. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in news and notes. Imaging on Rafael Devers' left knee revealed a bone bruise. He's day-to-day, and a trip to the IEL is not expected. It's been a rough go for Devers early on between the shoulder and now this knee injury.

But hopefully we get him back soon. Tyler O'Neill was placed on the seven-day concussion IL. He cleared the initial concussion protocol a few days. ago but has now been diagnosed with a mild concussion. He hopes to be activated when first eligible on Tuesday. Walker Bueller made another rehab start at AAA Thursday, and it was quite underwhelming. Two and two-thirds innings, two runs allowed, four walks to three strikeouts.

The plan was for Bueller to get up to 80 or 90 pitches, but because of the walks, he only threw 68 pitches in this start. We'll wait to learn more. I mean, I would say based on these results, he probably makes another rehabs. and maybe we don't see him until two weeks from now. Again, that is Walker Bueller. Robert Stevenson will undergo surgery on his right elbow and will miss the remainder of the season. It's a tough blow for the Angels who signed Stevenson to a three-year deal this past offseason.

Nick Pavetta is scheduled to throw a bullpen session Saturday. He's on the IL with a right elbow strain. Aroldus Chapman was given a two-game suspension and fine due to his actions against the Mets on Monday. he got into an altercation with an umpire and was ejected from the game. Quinn Priester is expected to start Friday for the Pirates and will go up against the Red Sox. In three starts at AAA this year, 395 ERA, a 124 whip, 20 strikeouts over 13 and two-thirds innings, 17.9% swinging strike rate. And he was really bad in his time in the majors last year with the Pirates.

But he is getting a lot more whiffs. He's 6% rostered. It's got any interest in Quinn Pristered. priest or just a name to watch for now? I am intrigued by the whiffs going up because he had been more of a pitch-to-contact guy previously. A guy was supposed to thrive on getting weak contact as opposed to miss bats, and I'd rather see the miss bats. But the actual performance has been pretty up and down, and obviously we have a big sample

of struggles from the majors last year, so it's going to be more of a wait-and-see situation for me with Quinn Priester, I think. Yeah, I think that's fair. And if you're wondering, Pirates GM, Ben Sherrington, did mention Paul Skeens and said he needs to continue building up volume in the minors. Skeens made another start at AAA on Thursday.

Three and a third scoreless. With one hit allowed, two walks, eight strikeouts. He has not allowed an earned run and has a 0.64 whip, 19 strikeouts over nine and a third innings. Lance, if you had to look into the crystal ball, when do you think we could see Paul Skeen's up

with the Pittsburgh Pirates. I got to imagine by the end of the month. He's unbelievable. His stuff is like the craziest. It's just, it's crazy. It's crazy that there was even a debate in the past that his fastball shape was bad. Because it's good.

It's 100 miles per hour. Like, it's really hard to have bad fastball at 100. Unless you're Jose Soriano, which we might get to at some point in this podcast. But, but yeah, schemes is amazing.

The craziest thing here is this, he throws like a splinker now, which last year when I saw this pitch, I thought it was just a sinker. It's like 95 miles per hour And it's killing like so much depth It's unbelievable And I was like that sinker should just be thrown

As this primary fastball And then I came to found out it's a splinker Which is just like I always had a baseball Blinker you're like jamming it between your finger My understanding of a splinker is you're like not jamming the ball But you're going towards the split idea And just like going in between where you normally grip a two seam and a splitter So you're like a softer grip

And that allows you to like kill vertical on it And it's throw really hard harder than your average splutter. So, like, that pitch for me is like an absolute game changer. Because he, if you worry, if you're worried about the forcing to writeies on him, you just throw the splinker because he could get in the zone and the thing is just going to be pounded. Like, that thing's never going to be lifted. Even if it's middle of the plate, that ball's going right into the ground.

So, I mean, he's one of the best picking prospects we've seen. And I don't even know how long. Maybe since Straussberg. He's unbelievable. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I think the last time I remember a pitching prospect getting this hyped was a number, another number one overall pick Steven Strausberg. But that was like 15 years.

ago at this point. Yeah. Yeah. A couple other news and notes. Michael Massey is expected to be activated by the Royals on Friday and is a name to watch in deeper leagues. And Ryan Nelson was forced to leave his start Thursday after taking a comebacker to his right wrist in the second inning. We'll quickly run through Thursday standouts. There's not much going on here. For the pitching standouts, that's three straight seven inning outings for Logan Webb. He was up against the debacks where he allowed two hits, one walk, five strikeouts. Did give up some hard contact. And this.

This one, still not getting many whiffs, but that's not entirely Logan Webb's game. He had an 82% ground ball rate in this start, so I thought that was encouraging. Scott, anything to add on Logan Webb? It seems like a pretty straightforward start for him. I don't know that it was a straightforward starter, that it's been a straightforward start to the season for Logan Webb, because the change up just isn't playing like we're used to seeing it. It was a little better, I guess, in this one, and he got a 15% whiff rate with it. up from 8% prior to this start.

But that's, that's low. That's low for anybody's change up, but especially a guy who relies on it as much as Webb does. So I wouldn't say I'm unconcerned about it. He's been pretty effective, I guess, so far. And so maybe that'll lull you into a sense of security. But I don't, I don't know.

I'm a little concerned about him. What do you think, Lance? I'm not sure if Lance is hearing us right now. If anything, Lance, you can hop out and then hop back in. Let's quickly run through Griffin Canning and Kentamayda. Griffin Canning had his best start of the season at Tampa Bay. Five in a third innings, two runs, four strikeouts,

with 12 swinging strikes on 84 pitches, even after the start. It's an 805 ERA, so not overly interested in Griffin Canning. Kentomayda is just off to a terrible start. Two in two-thirds innings, six runs allowed. Five earned. He gave up three homers in the start. His fastball, not that it's ever been good or fast. it's averaging 89 miles per hour.

Last year, it was 91. So, Scott, I'm not really looking to aggriff and canning. And I do think that you should drop Kentumaitan in basically every format. Fastball down two miles per hour consistently. Results have been bad. He might just be done. And canning, I haven't, I'm not totally without hope for canning, but this was the first sign of, these were the first encouraging signs we've seen all year

with the fastball being up a little bit and the results were okay. It's going to take a lot more for me to act and pick up canning, though. Lance, do we have you? I think so. I lost audio there. I apologize. Yeah, no worries. Here's some canning talk, though.

Anything you'd like to add on Logan Webb, Griffin Canning, or Kenta, Maeda here from Thursday? Yeah, myeda is probably drovable right. And I agree with that. I thought I heard you say that at the end. Canning's been a weird one. I think the angels of a whole have been thrown a lot of fastballs. They've gone in the opposite direction of the entire league. Canning has also been a guy that's increased fastball usage, despite the fact that

his fastball wheel is down. He's also not throwing a slider to righties anymore, which was really good last year. He's still throwing it. It's just the changeups become his dominant pitch. So he's doing right, right changeups as his put away, which I just don't really like.

So I'm just kind of off him. I'm just not touching him in any leagues, really. Webb, I can't say I have a ton of thoughts. And I feel like he's just a horse. Like I get, yeah, Scott mentioned like the changeups down, but I don't know.

I drafted him if I haven't been one league and it's more like an innings play, right? Like you're just trying to get 90 of like maybe three. seven to three five ERA and you're happy. So if you run through little blips here and drop some strikeouts on him, like I think he's still fulfilling the needs of a given team, for example. He's not like a frontline ace for me. He's probably like,

he's a back into that top tier, so to speak. So I'm happy where I have them because primarily I stacked the rest of my roster with guys who could strike out a ton of more, if that makes sense. Just want to quickly run through some hitting standouts here from Thursday. Ahmed Rosario continues to hit well, two for four with a triple, a run, and an RBI. He's up to a 339 batting average. so far, has started five straight, and in those five games, it's 10 hits, two homers, five runs,

six RBI, 17% rostered, second base shortstop outfield. We spoke about Rosario, mostly as like a deep league ad yesterday, and I would stand by that. I see no reason to move off of that. I just hope that eventually some of these hits start to turn into stolen bases, and we get Ahmed Rosario running. That's always been the hope for Ahmed and Rosario. Mike Trout, speaking of running, 0 for 3 with a 1.5. walk and two steals. He is up to five stolen bases on the season. Five steals in 19 games.

I love it. I love it so much. He had a total of six steals in 290 games from 2020 to 2023. He's currently on. He is on pace for 39 steals over 150 games. He never lost the speed. He just lost the inclination to run. And Ron Washington brought this up before the season.

He says he wants everybody running more, and he singled out Trout. And I didn't think it would go this well. He could always slow down. You know, we see it all the time. A player have a bunch of steals over a stretch of a few weeks and then not run for the next two months or the other way around. It's not the most consistent, consistently distributed stat over the course of the season. But just the fact that Trout had, like you said, a combined six deals,

the last four seasons and already is up to five for him being as fast as he is. If Ron Washington accomplishes nothing else in Anaheim, he'll have done us a great service just by getting trout to tap into his speed again. Three hitters who are off to nice starts,

Adolis Garcia, went two for five with his fifth home run of the season, Riley Green, two for four with a double, triple walk, and two runs scored. He has 16 walks already this season that is tied for second most in baseball. And Jaron, one for four with a triple, walk, two runs, two RBI, and his seventh stolen base.

He is batting 3-01, and I thought it was interesting against lefties this year. Jared Duran 9 for 24. That's a 375 batting average with a 900 OPS. All right, Lance, let's talk pitching. Let's talk some early season standouts here. And, you know, I guess we could kind of do this like a rapid fire style. Just we can get to as many pitchers. I'll keep quick, yeah.

Yeah, so let's just start things off with Jared Jones. He's been the talk of the town in fantasy. He's got a 313 ERA, a 0.78 whip. nearly a 20% strikeout rate, 34% K-minus walk rate that's second among qualified starting pitchers, 136 stuff plus that's first among qualified starting pitchers. He's a two-pitch pitcher.

Is there enough here, Lance? Because Chris and I have aggressively now ranked him inside of our top 30 starting pitchers rest of season. Your thoughts? Yeah, top 30 is fair. I was looking at that relative to some of the other guys that are in like that 25 to 35 window. I think that he's squarely in there.

I don't see any issue with putting him in there. he's really good it's a really good fastball shape again I was talking about like velocity release movement combo like he's pretty elite you know I think the thing year over year that's interesting I've seen some of these guys

like I look at Prosper's a lot and I enjoy like thinking about how they could improve and some of the guys that have popped in recent years just like out of nowhere improve their fastball shape without really changing like any release things or anything you know and that's what Jones did like Jones was like a guy who was averaging like 16 inches of vertical break

which is basically squarely average and this year he's up to like 18 and he added a tick. And it's like everything is the same. Like the extension is the same. The release is the same. And he just somehow added that. And like that is a huge implication on stuff models. Like induced vertical break on fastballs has a large like swing.

And if you told me he was up to which is vertical break, I would have ranked him higher much more aggressively. I still ranked him pretty aggressively. I liked him as a pitcher, you know. But like the fastball is just too good. Like I really think like I have a lot of conversations with coaches and stuff. And as old school as it sounds like, When the fastball is that good, you have to prep for it as a hitter such that, like,

even if you have a mediocre slider shape, it'll work. And this is like the Spencer Shrider thing. Like, his slider is fine. It's not, like, even stuff models are great. It's not like an elite slider, you know? It just works. It works off the fastball, worse off the fastball line where he places it. And it's a good pitch.

But yeah, I buy Jones. I mean, I think I put him behind guys like Grayson Rodriguez. Like, that's an interesting one in that window. Like, Grayson Rodriguez is right around probably a top 20 guy. The guys after him, that I was kind of thinking through, like Lazzardo right now is definitely on the downtrend. That's an interesting like up trend downtrend,

um, I'm just, I have Jones just behind. What did you say? I have Jones just behind Lizarro and my rankings. Yeah, see, that's an interesting one.

It's a tough one where it's like you have like, you're on different trajectories there. You know what I mean? Hunter Green, you probably have them ahead of, right? Yeah. Well, ahead of green.

Yeah. And then like, kind of like Chris Basson and Carlos wrote down. Those were the other names I saw in that 30 to 40 window, depending on obviously your guys ranks. Yeah, okay, so I wanted to ask you about three lefties here. Let's start with Garrett Crochet, who's been one of the biggest surprises. I don't think the White Sox named him their opening day starter,

and we all kind of snickered at it. But he's actually performed like an ace. And why is he doing that? And do you think it'll continue? I'm shocked that he's holding Velo over five plus innings because he was a reliever. And in spring, like, I saw the cutter that he has a new cutter. I love the shape of it. it's a really hard pitch.

It reminded me a bit of like Jose Alvarado's cutter just as a starter, which is obviously really good. So my thing coming into the season with him was just like, I don't think they're going to let him go deep into games. And the first game he pitches, he goes like six and throws 75 pitches. And I was like, and he held Velo the entire time. So like, I don't exactly know what he did in the offseason. They have Brian Bannister in there now in Chicago,

who was the former, I believe, director of pitching for the Giants when they made their turn around. And he's bouncing around. He's a really sharp pitching mind. He's now running. I think their pitching department or having some influence. And I was curious, like, I thought we had some guys this year that I would almost call it the banister effect where he just, I don't know, he just tweaks something with the guy, he tells them something right, he cues them properly mechanically, that they hadn't been queued in the past. And then all of a sudden, the guy's good.

And I'm not sure how much he had to play in this crochet, just like getting him prepped to bear the workload of a starter and hold Vila. But that's the main thing to me. It's like, if you told me, there's a lot of the relievers of baseball that I'd love to see as starters, like Mason Miller, for example, we, that experiment, for some reason, just phased out. But, like, I bet he could hold VL for five or six things. He'd be an unbelievable starter. He's just the A's don't want him to do that. So I'm, you know, I'm, you know,

or a matter of things is a whole here in terms of, you know? Yeah. Read Detmer's. So it seems like the key for him has always been the slider, but suddenly he has this elite fastball now. You buying that? Yeah, I'm buying that. That's a legit change.

That correlates with a release height for him, too. There's something there that he's doing. You know, a lot of the time, like, we look at fastball shape generally as an output of something happening biomechanically. We don't really have data on biomechanics. We're never going to to be able to say, oh, yeah, his hips moving differently here. He's striding differently, blah, blah, blah. And like, that's helping ball flight.

What we just get to look at is like the ball flight's better. So when you see that and he holds it over multiple outings and there's also like some subtle things with his extension, his release height that are also up that correlate to that ball, flight getting better, I'm totally in on him. Yeah, he's like, I think you asked me for a buy highlighter in this. I didn't put him in there, but he's definitely a guy that I would buy at value. on. I think these improvements are legit. And then McKenzie Gore, who it seems to have a few changes going on.

I know Chris Towers is buying in hard, and he's pretty much sold me on Gore as well. Yeah. Where do you stand on him? Yeah, you're hitting me with some positive guys. I like Gore a lot. That's another fastball improvement that it's just got better. He's thrown a little bit harder. A lot of change up, too, which I do think is helping. I think the slider there is also an intriguing piece because it doesn't grade out well in stuff models, but it's really good. He's generating good swing and miss on that, and I think his location of it's really good to righties and it's harder as well.

So like you just have a couple things from the velocity side that are ticking up. There's just not a lot of guys who carry fastballs from lefty slots and throw them hard. And I think we're starting to see like that become something that's popular. Like I think Cole Reagan's and Tariq's schoolball

and these other guys, it's like I wonder whether over the next couple years we're just, we're seeking out the guys with really good fastball shape that throw hard that are also lefties. And then most of the time those guys also have change up so it just works. So yeah, I like those three guys. I would say crochet probably the lowest

just because the innings total is going to be low. but Denver's I really think it's going to be strong this year. And a Gore, maybe some problem on the windside. But if I had to rank them, I'd probably go like Denver's Gore crochet with a gap between crochet and the others. But that's just again, because I don't know how many innings crochet is going to throw. All right. Let's take our final break when we return. We'll have some more pitcher questions here on fantasy baseball today.

Welcome back in. Lance, the Red Sox starting pitchers have a collective 185 ERA entering Thursday. That was by far the best in baseball. they're throwing the lowest percentage of fastballs in the league. Are you buying this approach for the Red Sox starters? I am, yeah. I mean, especially because it's not good fastballs. I've talked to a lot of coaches about this.

And there's some that were just like, yeah, I was kind of surprised it took some teams this long. But you've seen it in particular organizations. Red Sox is the most popular. But I did a video where I also pointed out that the Royals and the Pirates are also teams that made these adjustments. And the interesting thing with the Royals is they actually did it between 22 and 23. They cut their fastball usage by like 6% or 7%.

it doesn't seem like anyone really reported that or talked about it. And then they made another cut this year. So, like, they were almost ahead of the curve. Like we saw, I think they had some regime change on the pitching side entering last season. It may just take sometimes a little bit of time for these teams to reflect that on field in terms of what they're throwing throwing. But I think that's often a signal of like how they're thinking internally from a front-off standpoint. So I'm definitely up on both those organizations from like a, you know, how are they doing standpoint in terms of throwing fast balls less? And yeah, I mean, I'm in on this,

ranking Bellow, Cutter, and Hawk is tough for me because I don't mind Bellow. I guess I'm, it's Brian Bello, actually. Excuse me, I think I'm remembering that there's an adjustment there on that pronunciation, but he's a guy that I'm never like blown away by when I watch him. I know he made the slider adjustment to work with Pedro in the offseason. I personally like Cutter Crawford the most. So I'm probably Crawford-Beroh-Huck, if I had to guess.

But I have Huck on some fantasy teams as like a back-end, guy and I've honestly enjoyed the Huck starts more than the Bayo starts. So I don't know. Like I'm a little more flexible on this rank with these guys. I do buy it. I do wonder about longevity these guys though. So I'd go Cutter one. I think zoning his sweeper as much as he is is a really, really strong improvement. Huck's not throwing his four seam anymore. He's got that new bullet slider, which I like as well. So there's some adjustments there that I think are really solid going forward. I guess I may be relative to market lower on Bayo. Yeah, I've never been a big, Bayo believer either.

And I've been most impressed by Hauk. So I may actually have Halk the highest. I guess he's in much closer to Cutter Crawford in my rankings than Bayo, I would say. I want to ask you about Max Friede because he has been pretty bad so far in a way unaccustomed to. And he did have some elbow issues last year, some forearm or elbow? Basically the same thing, right? He's had some issues last year And now he's struggling

So what do you see happening there? Yeah He is a case of He's entering his walkier He's a free agent after this season And I believe it was Inoceros That had like some study That guys and walk years tend to play more

And I don't necessarily know If that poured it over to the pitching side of things But every time I see Max Free Not pitching well I wonder Whether there's like something going on He's just like I have to get to 150 innings Or no one's going to pay me You know what I mean?

And it's like as a result of that we might just see really high inflated VRAs and whips the entire season. From a mix and usage and location standpoint, the main thing that stood out to me is that he's kind of isolated the location on his force him to righties. He's not throwing it anywhere,

butt up and in. And I sometimes think about pitching is a little nerdy, but like from a lines perspective if that makes sense. So I think of like fastball line at the top of the zone and then breaking a curveball off that

that kind of gets called, strike middle of the plate, and the hitters like, oh, dang, like, because you establish that fastball line up, I wasn't really perceiving that curveball to end up where it ended up. I think of this sometimes with Freed,

where he would go kind of arm side away from Ritey's and then let his big curveball come back over the plate at like 73 miles per hour. And it would work because he would toggle locations on the forcing would be all over the zone. I wonder whether placing that forcing now only inside has like eliminated any tunnel, so to speak, which you could say in this case, I think,

with any of his breaking balls. And as a result of this, like the fastball swing is up, like 15 percentage points. I don't know if it's tipping, but if we're going to start try to discern whether a guy's tipping, you generally want to look at swing rate. It's really the only thing I can imagine that guys would care about to discern whether someone's tipping.

He also added a sweeper. It's a weird sweeper. It's basically a second curveball based on shape. I don't necessarily know if he needs it per se. So there's just some weird stuff going on, Freed. Some of the projections I saw from Steamer are still really aggressive on him. Some sites had him like a top 20 pitcher. I guess I don't mind him as a by low, you know, because I do think like this is a walkier for him.

Like he has to throw well. You know, like he has to stay on the field. If he goes down with an injury, he's not getting a contract or he's not going to be a big contract that he probably wants. So maybe there's some like, I'm going to battle this out on the mound as opposed to like, I'll take the 15-day IL and only throw 130 inches. So you were, you think he might be pitching through something. That's my.

I hate speculative. Yeah. The one thing you didn't even mention that I think is the most glaring thing is he's always been such a good strike thrower. And he hasn't been this year. Yeah. It's, I don't know what that stems from, honestly. Like, it's weird.

There's just weird things. The weirdest thing, too, was the first start. If you look at, like, his pitch plot, it was, it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It didn't even look like Max Fried. And then the next starts, it immediately reverted back. So it's like, I, it's weird, man. Like, there's some stuff going on there. I don't necessarily think I fully understand.

It's almost just one of those things where you shrug and you have to move on. You can point out, like, any subtle thing that's changing. But I do think it really comes down to, like, more swings on the foreseem and it being only in one location. Like, I think the approach to him right now from a, hitter standpoint's pretty simple. I want to squeeze in one more here before I let you Frank ask you one. Christian Javier. I've kind of been calling him a sell high because even though the results have been good,

I'm not convinced the fastball is back looking at the data and he has this new change up too, but it doesn't look like a that great of a pitch either. And I think he's just kind of caught the league by surprise with it and I'm worried they're going to catch up to him. Yeah, yeah. That's always an interesting wrinkle. When I look at pitchers is like, are they trying to, are they, they're just succeeding because of the scouting report or they're succeeding because the stuff's really good. The biggest thing I know is that he like completely cut his fastball usage,

like 20 percentage point. Like that's a massive cut. I think it went down from like 48% to 28% or something. He's just not throwing it. So he's become a very like unorthodox version of himself where he's like not giving up a lot of home runs, but he's walking a lot of guys and he's not striking him out because he's throwing so much off speed. The slider is a little bigger too. I think I agree with you in the sense that like he's probably doing something the league is a bit perplexed by and scound reports maybe haven't just caught up. So this is not like the Javier of old. Like I don't think this is the guy that two years ago was dominating.

This is like a very different version. I struggle to see how you'd be able to sell high on him though because the strikeouts are weird and the walks are high. So he feels kind of almost like a hold to me and just see what happens. But it's notable to me that that forcing usage is down. Like that was the pitch for him for a while, right? So it's like if that's not there and they're telling you it's not there by saying the usage needs to be lower on it.

then like, I don't know what he is. He's like a high walk, low Homer, low K guy, which is like really, really weird, especially on an Astros team that doesn't look like the 105-1 team of the past. Lance, you've had a up close and personal look at Chota Imanaga, and he's off to a great start. He's yet to allow an earned run through three starts. He's a 0.72 whip.

He's throwing lots of fast balls early on, 67% of the time. The splitter has been filthy. He's also allowing a lot of hard contact and a lot of fly balls. and I have to imagine, as the weather heats up, starts where the wind is blowing out in Wrigley, some of those fly balls are going to turn into home runs. Do you think Shoto Imanaga is a sell high in fantasy right now? I'd say he is a sell high, yeah, but you've got to get value for him

because I still think he's a pretty good pitcher, and I do think that four seam is really, really good. It gets like what we're talking about here, like lefties with good carry from weird releases. That seems to be what, in terms of fantasies, is creating these guys that pop out of nowhere. I do think the homer problem going away is pretty fascinating to me because he had that problem. Even WBC when he was using like domestic baseball, he had it over an MPB too.

So I'm waiting for the start when he gives up like four or five home runs. It's going to happen. Everything market corrects back hard. But I do think the fastball is legit. I wonder whether over time here we start to see implementation of other pitches. Like a cutter he was throwing, I think of WBC a bit. I could see that playing inside to Ritey's eventually if like the four seam doesn't get as much swing away or they start to cover it. try to keep guys off that four seam out of the plate.

The splitter is good. It's generating really good results, but I think it's good as a byproduct of the fastball. Again, you run in situations like this where the splitter alone, I don't think grades out as like plus plus. It's like probably fine, but it generates like crazy, crazy statistics just because everyone's like so trying to gear up for his four seam

that it just creates massive issues. So like I like him. I think he's a good pitcher absolute steel from a value perspective for the Cubs, especially based on his performance so far. But there's going to be like a three or four homer start here. And then I think the luster's, going to come off. So if you could get like top

25 to 30 pitcher value for him, that'd be awesome. Maybe 35. I'm trying to think of where that window is. Maybe like if you get like an SP3 for him, I think I might take that and cash out and assume that the homers will come back to bite him at some point. Would you trade

a menaga for another name we've brought up here, Jesus Lazzardo? I think that's doable. I think that's doable. I feel like I would do that. Yeah, yeah. I can't say I'm Dougan december enough to be totally confident. I think his Velo down.

I don't think so. Based on the starts I've seen, I don't think it is. I think he's had some really tough matchups, the Braves, the Yankees, gives up hard contact. Yeah, yeah. He's always been like a little inconsistent, so.

I think I would do that, yeah. I might shoot slightly higher, but if that was what I eventually got for him and I was willing to move off Shoto, yeah, yeah, I'm fine with that. Before we get to Scott's Week 5 preview, Lance, why don't you give us a buy High, a buy low, and a deep sleeper who's made some tangible changes this year.

Yeah, start with a buy high. I really like Christopher Sanchez at the Phillies. It's a really interesting pitcher. He's a guy that I have on a couple teams. I wish I just got him everywhere because his value was appropriate. And I never really saw him getting jumped in drafts where I was like, whoa, he's up there now. I got to take him earlier. He was always kind of going around ADP, at least in the draft rooms I was in stuff.

He's unique because he throws from a high release, but he gets a ton of drop on everything, which I think creates like this approach angle issue for hitters. So I know, you know, Sarah's last year had a stuff model he updated into this year and it made him much better, but last year it wasn't good. And he was pitching well. So it was one of those things where he was like, what's going on here?

And I think that approach angle stuff was one of the main reasons. But I think I'd probably rank him like as like an SP34 right now. Like I think he's like a top 40 arm, like maybe even top 36-ish, like looking at that SP3 territory. I really like him going forward. I just think he's a good pitcher. He's in line for wins. I expect him to throw a lot of innings.

I think he had like 140-ish last year, if I remember correctly. So I'm buying high on him. Like, if I need pitching, I don't fit. And I buy high. It's just, I mean, like, buy that value or pay a little bit up because I really don't think he's being valued as like an SP3-ish right now. I'm not sure where he's ranked, but I like him for sure a lot. In terms of deep sleeper, I'm going to go real deep on two guys here.

Jose Suriano, I mentioned. This is an angel pitcher who throws just absolute crazy Velo everything. His curveball is one of the most insane pitches in baseball. And this guy's throwing his fastball is so much. much. It pains me. It like hurts my soul when I watch him. He's throwing 54% of two fastballs. And I get the justification for a guy with this velocity throwing fastballs because, oh, you need to throw strikes, et cetera. But he's striking everything else more than the fastballs. His curveball strike rate, his bullet slider strike rate, his change of strike rate are all

in line with his fastball. So I just don't understand why he's throwing his forcing as much as he is. If that ever adjusts, like I think he could turn into like an Albert Cabrera type where it's like heavy reliance on off-speed pitches, don't really throw the fastball much. And I think he could be pretty good. Like, I like him. I think he's a really good pitcher. Like, I'm surprised we're not talking about this guy more because of how incredible the stuff is.

Crazy deep. Michael Grove has made some weird adjustments. I don't know if he ever actually gets a rotation spot back with the Dodgers. He's throwing a new cutter. He's complete disforcing, which has always been an issue for him. And his stats have looked really good. He's interesting. And then I'll give you a prospect one, too.

David Festa. It's a pitcher for the twins. I don't know if he's a guy you've brought up. but he's another guy who had like a fastball improvement. He's throwing 95. It's up to like 20 inches of vertical at AAA. I'm not totally convinced that he's worse than Chris Paddock and Louis Varland. And he seems to be the next guy up for me.

Like the twins are a team that have to be looking at his peripheral stuff. So I think if David Festa comes up, he's an immediate ad for me. And then what did I miss? By low. By low. I went a little cheeky here. But if anyone's not valuing like Luis Castillo or George Kirby as like top 8 to 12 guys, I would try to get those ASAP.

Pablo Lopez to me is still like a top three or four pitcher. If he's not being valued as that, I'd get him. Joe Musgrove's probably the other one I would go towards. He's a guy who his four seems is getting clobbered right now. Shape doesn't really look dramatically different. A lot of the underlying stuff doesn't look dramatically different. Slider actually got a little better. I just wonder, he had that weird shoulder injury after Mexico last year.

I wonder whether he's not, like, he had a weird preseason injury too. I just wonder whether this is kind of like his spring training. But all the peripheral stuff looks really strong there. So he's a guy that if I need pitching, I would be going after for sure. Awesome, awesome stuff. We're going to go a little bit long here, but let's get into the week five preview. And we will talk about the schedule first for next week. There's one team with five games, the Astros.

Two of those five will come in course field. There's 18 teams with six games next week and 11 teams with seven games. That is the White Sox, Reds, Royals, Brewers, Twins, Yankees, A's, Phillies, Pirates, Padres, and the Blue Jays. What about the Rockies next week? Finally, a full week in Cores Field, six home games, four of those against the Padres, and two against the Astros. Starters sit these fringy two-star pitchers for next week.

Michael King at Colorado and home against the Phillies. There's one start in Cores Field. What do we do? Well, coming off the start he just had, two-star week, I think you have to start them. The Colorado start scares me, of course. I'll start. How do you feel?

I couldn't make it go even longer here. How do you feel about Michael King this year, Lance? Because I was fading him pretty hard, and then that last start kind of threw me. Yeah, I've been kind of on him. The Vilo's still down there a lot relative to what he was sitting at late last year with the Yankees, which is maybe slightly concerning.

But I'm also almost encouraged by that, but the fact that he's had some success of late, despite the Vila being down. The only thing I noticed in digging in him was like he changed up his forcing him a bit in terms of location. throwing it away a lot to Rite's as opposed to like pure elevation, which is something the Yankees do. I wonder if that's like a Miebla thing to kind of play around on location there to help things kind of play up, especially with this new bolt slider he has. So I really like

him. I think I would definitely start in Cores. The concern with Cores is that guys with like big shapes, like many things definitely contract to the middle of the movement plot. So I wonder whether this is start. The thing that'll work for him there is if he just throws like 65% sinker, that'll drop more and it'll work. So I think there's outs for him to like survive and cores, but I don't expect to see the same amount of sweeper. So maybe the K-totels down, but I'm totally fine with that two-star for him. Zach Lattell is home against the Tigers and at the White Sox next week. Pretty good matches.

Yeah, it's a pretty strong recommendation with those two matchups. Yeah, agreed. Brady Singer is home against the Blue Jays at the Tigers? Still skeptical of him overall, but those matchups are good enough. You go with Singer in a two-star week? Yeah, I think I would too. He was like a dirt plan of mine, if you want to call it that early in spring, because I saw some usage changes and stuff going on,

and I was like, I drafted him in a couple like drafting holds as like a really late pitcher that no one else wanted. So we'll see. I'm also skeptical that I'll continue just because nothing is particularly strong with Brady Singer, but I would start him depending on my other options.

Hunter Green is off to a very Hunter Green type start this year. He's got one start at home against the Phillies and at the Texas Rangers. You know, tough matchups. He could still give you 15 plus strikeouts. So unless you're just really protecting ERA and WIP, I think you go ahead and put Hunter Green out there too. Based on where you drafted him, yeah, you got to start him here.

I don't know how you'd have better options than him in a two-star week, honestly. Carlos Rodon has had kind of a weird start to the season. He's home against the Oakland A's and at the Brewers. So I have this in the points only section because I've been so overwhelmed by what Rodon's been doing. The matchups are pretty good. But I just, I have no trust in a minute. anymore.

Points league's fine. But I'd rather not start him in a Roto League. Yeah, I might shy away, but that A.E. Start might be enough for me to start him. Like, you get a win there. I think that makes up for whatever happens in the second start. Paul Blackburn is off to an ice start. He's at the Yankees and at the Orioles.

Tough matchups. Yeah, I'd pass on him. I'd pass too. Jose Cantana at the Giants and home against the Cardinals. Not terrible matchups? Yeah. Terrible pitcher. Keaton win.

I noticed Keaton Wynne is 12th in Stuff Plus so far this year, according to Fangraphs. He is home against the Mets and home against the Pirates. Well, that's interesting. I do have him as a mild points league recommendation. Those matchups are decent. I think I'm okay with him. The splitter there is really what Stuff Plus likes and he throws it a lot. So that's why I think he's got a bit of, I don't want to say inflation on Stuff Plus,

but Stuff Plus likes him because of that usage. All right, Scott, hit me with the two-star pitchers to add and stream for next week. All of these names are rostered in less than 80. percent of CBS leagues. Well, Lance was just talking him up, but I think there's been enough negative buzz

on Christopher Sanchez now that he just slides under the threshold here, and I can call him a sleeper pitcher with two starts at Cincinnati at San Diego, so not the greatest matchups,

but I think he's a good pitcher who you have to start with. In fact, I have him as a must start this week, regardless of format. Michael Waka versus Toronto at Detroit. Again, those are good matchups. like we were saying for, who was it, Brady Singer?

I like Waga even more than Singer this week. Brandon Fought at St. Louis and at Seattle. Those are two good matchups. Up and down pitcher, but certainly in points leagues, I think you can run Fought out there. Kind of scary with this recommendation, Lance Lynn, who I'm basically out on. But the results have been fine,

and it's a two-start week. If you're looking to maximize volume in a points league, I think you could do Lance Lynn. Trevor Rogers, Atlanta and Washington are the two matchups. So opposite ends in the spectrum there. Again, that's more of a Points League recommendation. And also Andrew Abbott, who has a matchup situation there, too, Philly and Texas. But it's two starts.

So in Points League, I can see doing it. You have four single-star streamers available here. Who are they? There is Gavin Stone at Washington. Jack Flaherty at Tampa Bay. That's mostly just, I have a lot of confidence in Flaherty, certainly relative to other pitchers who might be available in 25% of leagues. Edward Cabrera against the Nationals,

though he's a Charazard. So it's not a must start, but you're asking for sleepers here. And then finally, John Gray versus Seattle, who's coming off back-to-back. Impressive starts. Lance, I was going to ask you about Jack Flaherty earlier on. Anything else that you've noticed, Anything that you've noticed about him this year?

I know the control has been great, which obviously is half the battle with him, but anything you've noticed with Jack Flaherty? The only thing I noticed there is that he's thrown a lot more slider. They took away his cutter, kind of changed the shape of that pitch a little bit, I think. The fastball's still getting beat up, though. So I just think he's like a match-ups guy

where, like, I'm just a little worried if he runs into some lefty lineups. If he runs into a heavy righty lineup, I'm in for it. I do remember looking at that two-star thing, and there was, I don't remember, was it, Reese Olson?

There's another guy who's going against the twins. Fun trivet question, but the worst team in baseball from like an X-Oarva standpoint versus right-handed pitching this season is the Minnesota twins, which is really surprising to me

given the fact that I always think about that team is having like big lefties. So that might be like a sneaky way to like if you're looking at matchups and you see that you have like a righty versus that team, I'm not sure if it'll continue, but right now they're just, they're not good.

I'm surprised at that. Yeah, and Jose Soriano is going against them next. week. So that's a really... That's a sneaky play right there. Because he's only 8% rostered. Yeah, that's some deep league stuff for you. Let's slide over to the hitters.

The best matchups for next week. The Yankees, Padres, Red Sox, Orioles and Twins. The worst hitter matchups, White Sox, D-Backs, Dodgers, Phillies, and Nationals. With that said, Scott, who are your favorite sleeper hitters for week five? So it's not as impressive a list as I feel like it's been the first three weeks. I think Ryan Malkassel's a must this week. Not only do the Orioles have the fourth best hitter matchups, as you mentioned, but three lefties on the schedule.

He crushes lefties. He's off to a good start anyway. I'm kind of surprised he's as available as he is. Ezekiel Tovar is batting nearly 500 at home so far this year. I mean, all your Rockies hitters with a full week of home games you could consider using, but Tovar is one who's out there in a quarter of CBS leagues, probably even more in Yahoo and ESPN. And so I think he's a good play.

off the waiver wire. Charlie Blackman, last year he was great at home. He was basically must start at home. And I imagine the same's going to be true this year. He's widely available, available in almost 70% of CBS sports leagues. So, yeah, if you're taking advantage of the full week of Rockies,

of home games for the Rockies, Tovar and Blackman, I think are best bets. If you need help at catcher, Elias tends to perform his best at course field, too. But a catcher I like even more this week is Ryan Jeffers, who's been hot lately. The twins have the fifth best hitter matchups. He probably just, his roster rate just needs to go up and maybe stay up. You mentioned the Yankees have the best hitter matchups.

I think, I hope this is the week Anthony Rizzo finally gets going. Please. If not, then I think we're going to start losing faith in him quickly. But yeah, they have in their seven games this week, four against the athletics and then three against the Brewers. So good matchups there. Alex Verdugo, I think, is somebody else who could take advantage of that. Brian De La Cruz has been hot lately for the Marlins, widely available. And they are facing four lefties in their six games.

He has been especially productive against lefties this year and was better against them than righties last year. year two. So he's a pretty sneaky play. Let's see. At the bottom of the list here, I have Sal Freelich, Oswaldo Cabrera, another Yankee there, and Jerks and Profar with the Padres being one of the two teams playing at course field this week. I can't say I'm excited about any of those three, but I need a list of 10. So those are the three rounding out the 10. Sal Freelick, Oswaldo, Cabrera, and Jerks and Profar. I think one other, not necessarily a deep league name, but he's out there in like five outfielder leagues. Brenton Doyle, if the Rockies have all home games this week, he's off to a pretty nice start.

I think against lefties, he's moved up to second in the lineup too. So he's a guy in a few deep leagues and he's performed well. So I'll just- Zero lefties on the schedule this week for what it's worth. Fair enough. All right, let's wrap up with to stream or not to stream. And last, the way this works is we've got all these names listed out. We usually give out our two or three favorite streamers for that day.

And on Friday, I think we said Spencer Turnbull against the White Sox looks pretty good. What, Dean Kramer at the Royals maybe, Yariol Rodriguez at the Padres. It's not the best day for streamers on Friday. Yeah, I like Turnbull there. All the other ones didn't really jump out to me too much. Dean Kramer, I remember last year, too, is a propensity to have these, like really good starts. I just could never seem to have him in my lineup when he does so.

So I don't know if I want to gamble there, but he- Globy Bobby. That's who Dean Kramer is. He's semi-interesting to me. So like, he's probably two here if I had to pick from this list. Tyone, too, is an interesting one.

Miami's terrible. And like, he was a really good second half last year. I can't trust back. I just never like right off aisle guys. So I'm maybe, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's making a season debut on Friday.

If he pitch as well. I think he's a name that, you know, put on the watch list and let's see where he goes from there. On Saturday, I think, as we mentioned, the twins are bad against Ritey's. Reese Olson is coming off a great start. So that one makes a ton of sense. And then probably Logan Allen against the Oakland A's. And I think that might be it. I like what I saw from Jose Buto, but he's going up against the Dodgers.

So I don't love that matchup. Nah. Yeah, give me Reese there. Yeah, otherwise tough. Mm-hmm. And then on Sunday we have Well, Jose Soriano is at the Reds It's a pretty tough place to pitch

Casey Mize going up against the twins Who again have been pretty bad against righties Ryan Weathers is coming off a great start Lance, I don't know how the Cubs perform against lefties But that could kind of be like a hit or miss start there Yeah, what did you think of that start for Weathers? Because I had some enthusiasm for him coming out of spring training And then that was completely gone

And then he dominated I grabbed him late in some draft and holds and I thought it was like the sharpest move imaginable because I think I got him with like the last pick in some in some draft and holds which were like crazy 50 roster spots. I thought there were fastball improvements there. The shape looked better and he was like mixing some stuff up

and I was like oh, okay, this could be a pop-up arm and I don't know. I don't trust him. Did they come back in that start where he struck out 10? One more time, sorry. Did the improvements you saw in spring training were they also there that start where he struck out 10.

They were there when he was terrible, too, was the problem. Oh. So I was really too encouraged. It was like, oh, it looks better, but the results are terrible. Yeah. Gosh, I don't like this slate on Sunday. I don't mind Soriano against, that's a really tough ballpark, but I'm playing to my cards here of who I liked.

I'd also take, again, Ritey's against the twins, Mize in Minnesota. That's not terrible, I don't think. He seems to be able to get through five innings. he's had some runs-sourning problems and stuff. I don't hate that. So those are probably my two here, but it's a really rocky slate, I would say. I'd roll the dice on weather's over them, I think.

But that's making the best of a bad situation. Again, he is Lance Brozdowski. Thanks so much for joining us here today. Lance, promote all your work where people could find everything that you do. Yeah, totally. I'm on Twitter, Lance Bras, substack. I do that daily. I won't have anything on short.

days like today and YouTube I'm trying to push for sure. Generally take like a higher level view there. Do some breakdowns, pitching breakdowns. So I think through pitching. But I think the main cell there is like some cool topics in the off season and also in season on like trends and baseball that are happening. I'll also show some like minor league data. I get the ability to kind of go through and look at entire systems as opposed to just like what we have from AAA in that one A ball league. So I'll do some stuff on that once I get probably like two months of information to kind of look at what teams on the whole seem to maybe be improving organizationally.

So if you're interested in that stuff, especially from a dynasty prospect standpoint, it's like what teams are throwing a ton of fastballs, throwing hard, what teams have improved year over year, that stuff I think is pretty valuable and allows you to kind of get an idea of what pitchers maybe to trust in orgs as opposed to others. All right, we're going to wrap there for Scott and Lance. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today.

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