Fantasy Baseball Today - Tanner Bibee's Debut, Jordan Walker Demoted & Robbie Ray Out For The Season! (4/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Tanner Bibee looked great in his debut (1:25)! ... MacKenzie Gore is racking up the strikeouts (9:25). ... Anthony Volpe is starting to find it (15:00). ... Zac Gallen is an ace (17:40). ... Jordan Walker was optioned back to Triple-A (26:15). ... Robbie Ray is done for the season (32:43). ... News (35:25): Max Muncy should be back Friday. ... Joey Gallo hit another homer (40:21)! ... Roansy Contreras had another strong start (47:20). ... Here are three pitchers to buy right now (52:22). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (55:40). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  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/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 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. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Tanner Bivey, step right up. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, April 27th.

Frank Sample joined by the Chris's Towers and the Welles. Today on the show, very eventful day on Wednesday. Tanner Bybee made his debut. Jordan Walker, unfortunately got option down to AAA. Robbie Ray is out for the season. We'll get to all of that before we get started. Please like this video and subscribe to the channel. If you haven't already, shout out to those

who watch us religiously every night. We usually go after midnight Eastern Time, so thank you for hanging out every night. It's awesome that you're here watching us live. We do appreciate it. If you're listening on the audio, side, download, follow, and leave a five-star rating. Thank you very much. We really do appreciate it. Let's jump right in. Oh, my goodness gracious, players of the night. All right. Chris Towers.

Let's start with you, bud. Yeah, I'll take the, uh, the Olive Garden breadstick of the night. And we'll talk about, uh, but it's Tanner Bebiby, right? I wanted to say Tyler for some reason, but that's not the name. It's Tanner Bybee. And he looked really, really good in his Major League debut, five and two-thirds innings. It was against the Rockies outside of course field, so, you know, grading on a curve here, but still eight strikeouts, one earned run, six hits.

No walks. The stuff looked really, really good. He averaged 95 miles per hour with his four seam fastball. He had a slider curveball combination that looked wicked. The change-up

looked pretty good. Sliders got like ridiculous depth. This is not a sweeper. This is a like this thing dives off the table. It looks kind of like a curveball. I think differentiating between the two of those will be kind of difficult. The curveball is just going to be a little slower.

But the movement profile looks pretty similar for both of them. And yeah, he looked really, really impressive. Obviously the, the guardians are an organization that has more than earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the development and maximization of their young pitchers. and he looks like a super talented one. So I'm very excited about what we saw from Tanner Bivey today. As you should be as well.

I saw this interesting stat. Tanner Bivey is the first Cleveland pitcher since at least 1920 to record five plus consecutive strikeouts in his major league debut. The slider that you referenced was his most used pitch in the start, 44% of the time. So interesting because it's like a 126 curveball. but it's a slider. It's like a 12-6 slider. I've never seen that before in my life.

Did you guys listen to the broadcast at all outside of watching? Sometimes I don't. And if anybody did, they were losing their minds for two innings at least fighting over what this pitch was. They're like, I don't know what this is.

And they're like, it doesn't really throw the curve ball that much. They couldn't figure it out. And by all looks on so many of them, it is a wild pitch. It might almost need its own designation because I don't really recall, and I can't think out the top of my hair,

at anyone, a 12 to 6, like, curvy slider that bites at the end. And some versions of it have more bite than the other. It's a, it's a wild slider seeing like up close in person like we did in that. And guys didn't know what the hell to do with it. They didn't know what was going on. It had not only seven whiffs on the pitch, which he threw more than any other pitch, 44%. It also had 13 called strikes because guys were just letting it sit in. He was commanding it.

I was insanely impressed with Bybee. Fastball lost a couple times. but he was getting guys off of it. The change up is probably going to become a little bit bigger as things go on. But he is a crazy, fascinating pitcher. And it looks like they're saying he might stick around. He might stick around in this rotation, which is the best move that they could do. Actually, now that you brought it up, I remember listening to the broadcast.

And they all just, they wanted to make sure that they got it out there. It's definitely not a sweeper. You don't need your computer to tell you that. I was like, great job, buddy. Good job, guys. I love these old school announcers that are just like, anti-everything new that comes out. You mentioned it, well,

it sounds like Tanner Bybee will stick around. Here's what I saw from two different beat reporters. From Mandy Bell, Tito said Tanner Bybee will stick with the team for at least the next few days. They haven't nailed down their exact plans just yet, but Bybee will be heading on the road trip. And then this from Zach Maisel.

The plan is for Tanner Bybee to stay with the big league club, Terry Francona says. So, you know, kind of take that with a grain of salt. 34% rostered as Tanner Bybee. Look, I think like we've been talking about all of these young pitchers, based on how good he looked, I think you've probably got to go out and add, Bybee.

The next question is, how do we rank all these guys? Yesterday, Scott and I tried to rank them, and we didn't know for sure that Bybee was coming up. There was only speculation last night, so I think we had him fourth out of five on this list, and I'm sure that would change now. Towers, we'll start with you. T. Bradley, Mason Miller,

Brandon Fott, Logan T. T. Allen, Tanner, Bybee. How do you rank those five? That's a really tough one because there are so many extenuating circumstances with all of these guys. So hard. Todd Bradley and Brandon Fott

are not currently in the majors. Logan Allen, did he get sent down? Not that I've seen. Not yet. Okay. Yeah. So those are the only two

who are not currently in the majors. Mason Miller, I mean, are we going to get 90 innings out of him the rest of the way? So like, I think you can make a case that Alan and Bybee are at the top.

It's just, is there a spot for either of them in the long term, let alone both? We know Tristan McKenzie is going to be coming back within the next month or so. Obviously, Aaron Savali should be back, hopefully soon. They could just throw Zach Pleasack out. They could throw Calquantra out. I don't think either of those guys are difference makers. And Logan Allen and Tanner Bybee look like they could be. But yeah, given the fact that those two don't have innings concerns and are current,

in the majors, I kind of feel like you got to put them at the top, right? I had Tosh Bradley at the top last night, and that's even with him being sent down. We don't know when he'll be back, but that's the problem. So impressive, though, six plus strikeouts. He did nothing to be demoted. It was just Tampa gonna Tampa, right? So if you ask me today after seeing Tanner Bybee, I hate changing my answer just one day, but like we just didn't know he was going to be up for sure.

Yeah, we had new information. Yeah. So I think I would go, Taj, Bybee, fought Logan Allen and Mason Miller. I think that's my five right now. Wells, what do you think? Well, what do you think? Yeah. So I think it is difficult to cross the board.

I read this article today that was a little bit more into the Taj Bradley situation because I still couldn't get over like, what the hell are they talking about when they're like, we're going to get them on our five day schedule. Like, what do you got to do? Just put them out there. I think it's really silly and they're feasible. There could be manipulation of contractual stuff that's out there. but they're sending him to the miners to start multiple games,

which I don't think that's what I, maybe you guys knew, maybe everybody understood. I just didn't. I didn't understand. They're sending him down to start multiple games in the minors on a five-day schedule. That's how they're going to do it instead of doing it the majors, which by the way is stupid.

So now we know that. Just do it at the majors. Just do it at the majors because he's like phenomenal. But that's what they want to do. Contract manipulation. Let's all pretend we don't think that's what it is. So there's that. We know what that is two weeks.

Brandon Fott pitched today. In Reno, that'll be his last one. I was looking at the schedule. Diamondbacks have an off day on Monday and Thursday. In between there, there's obviously Colorado that's in there. I don't, obviously he's not going to do that. But those two off days might allow them to push one of the veterans out. And that gives him a chance to pitch, I believe, at home against Washington.

So I think he's in a pitch next Tuesday or Wednesday. Brandon Fott does. So to put this all together, I'm going to stick with Tage Bradley, hoping that this is like two starts that they manipulate. Brandon fought, so Taj is one, fought and Bybee are 2A and 2B. That's a tier. Then the next tier is Logan Allen.

And who's our other guy? Mason Miller. Mason Miller. Mason Miller's at the bottom for me on this. I'll take Logan Allen over. But that top tier is Taj, fought and Bybee. And if you want to have a big argument about

Biby has to be above, okay, that's fine. That's totally agreeable. He was insane and he was awesome. And he looked as good as Todd. I want to just see like back to back the curveball and the slider of Tage Bradley and Tanner Bybee. I just want to see those two things because those are two of the prettiest pitches I've seen all year. So I'm not going to like get into a big argument about it.

But those are my three. My order Bradley fought Bybee is what's important. All right. Well, let's go over to you for your oh my goodness gracious player of the night. Potentially a pitcher you will take over all of these guys. Yeah. And this guy brought up a couple weeks ago and it's still going. It's crazy.

It's McKinsey Gore. McKinsey Gore again with. a crazy good performance going up against the Mets struck out 10 in six innings, four hits, one earn run, had 100 pitches, now has a 3 ERA in that game. He ended up putting up 19 swing and misses, which is obviously crazy impressive. So much again is done on the fastball. And that's just, it's like, I don't see that a whole lot with a lot of these other guys. You see it like on the off speed pitches, slider and curve have higher percentages. But, you know, 61% fastball. He had a 30, 34% whiff rate on it, 36 overall percent CSW.

And every single start this season, he has had six or more strikeouts. He's command has always kind of been the big issue. He's commanding better. He's getting in and he's walking less. He's striking guys out because the arsenal, he's more confident. And going into this game, just to point out, the Mets were the third least strikeout team. They strike out the least overall on the year, the third least. And he came in and sliced and dice these dudes.

with 11, and that's so weird about the strikeout prop. So I just can't get over how impressive he looked. He looks like the pitcher. He looks like the part. Like, we're all focusing on Jared Kelnick and how awesome that is. Think about like, look at McKinsey Gore. Like, McKenzie Gore had all the juice in the world and everybody gave up on him. He's found his rhythm.

He's found a good system. And it's working. And he's got like a 30% K percentage. So this is a guy that we really need to pay attention to. And I think people are still sleeping on. Yeah, Towers. I know a couple of weeks ago we spoke about McKenzie Gore. said, I kind of worry that he leans on the fastball so much, but maybe it's a good thing.

Maybe it's just a really, really good fastball. I mean, mid-90s from the left-hand side, he's got that big leg kick. And again, 12 of his 19 swinging strikes and this start came on that fastball. So normally I would agree, 60% usage on a four seam in today's day and age of baseball probably don't want to do that, but maybe McKenzie Gore is just the exception to the rule. You are muted, sir. Ah, mute. Yeah, I still, I'm still somewhat skeptical.

You know, like I, it's just really hard to thrive in major league baseball with, you know, throwing 60% fastballs. But especially I feel like as a, as a left handed pitcher because teams are going to stack their lineup with righties. He doesn't really have a change up. I think he's thrown five of them all season. One percent before this game. And in this game, he threw one more. So there you go. He's thrown six total changeups this year.

Yeah, six and five starts. So basically not throwing in. Maybe that's a pitch that he just hasn't needed so far. But I just, I don't know, I worry. Like he had pretty big platoon splits last season that hasn't, I don't think, been as much of an issue for him. He's doing a much better job of limiting hard contact, expected Wobon contact down from 405 to 365.

You know, we did see a stretch like this from him last season. And so that's the thing that I can't get out of my head. you know, actually, if you remember, through June 4th, he had a 150 ERA with 57 strikeouts and 48 innings over his first. It was nine appearances, eight starts. So it's like, things fell apart rapidly for him. So I don't want to say that I don't believe, but I'm just, I am skeptical of what we're seeing so far. And McKenzie Gore is 71% rostered. So could be out there in some shallower leagues. Well, let's just say all these pictures are available. Are you taking McKenzie Gore at the top of that list that we just talked about? You know, that's really tough. I think you can make the argument. There's something about Taj Bradley on that team for me that I really can't go away from. I just think like he's got the baseline of a fantastic team behind him, offense, defense. And once they figure out this, you know, this five-day schedule that they got to do, like he should be good the rest of the year because he put up like 130 innings last year. So actually would still go. with Bradley

because I do think there's some regression in play for Gore like these guys that are performing at like insane levels there's going to be a form

of regression but I think he's making the proper changes that Gore is going to be serviceable year so I go like Bradley I don't know and I think I might go

go go go go over the rest of these guys even though there's a high high potential like how much certainty is there with Bybee how much certainty is there even though I think

when Fott's there he's there it's just how good is he going to be with the homers and everything so I'll go go Gore right after Bradley I didn't even look at the line.

How did Brandon Fott look on? He was okay. He went five, pitch 85 pitch. He had 85 pitches. Three earned runs. He did have a couple walks. I don't believe he gave up a homer. There might have been one in there.

But the first two or three innings, he was unhittable. Absolutely unhittable. And then that's the thing I worry about a little bit with him. He's got a home run problem. And that second to back into the third time through the order is what he's had problem with. And hopefully that maybe that's one of the reasons why they're holding him back. But it's another three. innings. He's still holding it down, did it in Reno and AAA, and he's got like a low 3

ERA or mid-3 ERA in the PCL, so it's pretty solid. I would put McKenzie Gore in that kind of mini-tier like you mentioned. Well, I think I would take him ahead of Tanner Bybee and Brandon Fott just because, again, there's more assurances. You know, he's going to be in his team's rotation as long as he's healthy. I don't, you know, I don't know that you can say that about the other guys. So it's close. The team context is definitely better for those other teams. but yeah, I think McKenzie Gore is behind Todge Bradley for me as well. Oh my goodness gracious for me. I just wanted to give a shout out to Anthony Volpe

who got off to a really slow start this year. Of course, Homer had to do it. Two for three with a double, two walks, three runs and three RBI on Wednesday. Big breakout performance just for the Yankees' offense. They really needed it in general. Since his first opportunity to move into the leadoff spot, his last 14 games,

Anthony Volpe is 14 for 48. That's a 292 batting average with, two doubles, two homers, 11 walks, and five steals. So, I mean, especially the OBP, getting on base, sealing bases. Like, his skill set is so interesting.

I don't know that I remember another hitter who, I don't think he's going to hit for a great batting average. Like, maybe it's 250, 260, something like that. But just profiles this way in that he's super fast, really good on base skills, but like a mediocre batting average. little bit of pop and great speed. He's just like such a unique player in that way. I mean, very similar to Trent Grisham or at least the, you know, the version of Trent Grisham we got excited about who, you know, he's actually having a decent start to the season. But like, you know, good plate discipline. I think Volpe's strike out rate will come down.

Pretty good power, very athletic player, but there are things in the swing profile that make it so that he may not hit for as good of a batting average as you might. hope. And like, I get that that might seem like a amming with faint praise kind of situation for Anthony Volpe, but I think we should all remember how excited everyone was about Trent Grisham not very long ago. And, uh, you know, if he's a better version of Trent Grisham, that can still be a very good player. I wonder if it was like categorically, if it was like, old school Javier Bayez. They're not the same. They don't have like the exact same profile. But if you're talking like, you know, a mid 250, 260s batting average guy that has a bunch of homers and stolen bases and stuff like that.

That's like kind of who Bias used to be, but Bias obviously is a, they have a different approach. Yeah, I think a lot more strikeout heavy. Sort of tilted, Volpey more speed, bias more power, but the end result.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think what's been notable so far for Anthony Volpe is this one infield pop-up. And that was a huge issue for him in the miners. He's got this big upper cut swing. So it's a lot of, you know, fly balls, a lot of infield fly balls.

And normally that leads to a lower bad bit and a lower batting average. but that part of his game has been promising so far. So keeping that down and looks good. All things go, all systems go right now for Anthony Volpe, leading off for the Yankees. It's a great spot to be in. Looks like he's getting more comfortable and working out.

The same can not be said for Jordan Walker, which we'll get to in just a little bit. I want to give an oh my goodness gracious shout out to Zach Gallen. What he has done over his last four starts is insane. Four scoreless starts in a row. This one up against the Royals, six and a third shoutout, 12 strikeouts, zero walks, 17 swinging strikes,

nine of those coming on the curve, six on the change up. He ditched a cutter in this one. He went very four seam curve and change up heavy, but over his last four starts, 27 innings pitch for Zach Allen, eight hits, one walk, 41 strikeouts.

Nine base runners in four starts with 41 strikeouts. He is on a run right now. Look, even dating back to last year, right? His second half was insane. And he's, you know, first two starts were a little bit rough, but man, these last four, amazing. Over the last calendar year, he's at, what do you get to? Six and a third.

So he's at 206.2 innings, 229 strikeouts and like a 255 ERA. That's over his last 34 starts over the last calendar year. We might have just overthought it with Zach Allen. Like, oh, he was pitching over his head in the second. in half. There's no way he could repeat that. And like, yeah, he's not going to put up a one ERA or whatever it was. But like, he might just be really, really good. I mean, around 29% K minus walk percentage. My favorite interaction about this the whole day, too, because he is insane is pitching ninja put out a little gif of what is described as a cut

change. And Veni Pasquentino, the recipient of the pitch, commented. And this is about an hour ago and said, this was quite possibly the craziest pitch I've ever seen. I've never been more confused in my life. Was it a cutter? Was it a change up? Somehow, it was both. And that's just who Zach Allen is. He's a magician.

You know, I was thinking about one of the, one of the 2020 podcasts we did when, you know, we had three months of no games to try to fill time for. And I can't remember if we did like a, the next blank or, or, or, you know, how we did it, but I remember saying Vinnie Pass, or, sorry, Zach Allen was the next Zach Grinkey. Doesn't have like overwhelming stuff, doesn't throw 97, doesn't have like,

the generally doesn't get a lot of pitching ninja love, doesn't have like the super jiffable pitches, but just like manipulate speeds, manipulates, you know, arm slot, manipulates the movement profiles of his pitches in a way that just like makes him so, so hard, great command, great control, just like he might be one of those guys that it's just like, he sort of confounds our typical understanding of what makes pitchers great.

And then think about the defense he has behind him too. Gold Glover at first, a potential gold Glover at short when Nick Ahmed's out there, the fastest outfield in baseball. It's what makes him being on a not very popular big, you know, team makes him even more fascinating because there is offensive support and there is a lot of, of defensive support and he needs very little of it. He needs very, you know, how many years do we freak out about Jacob de Grom not getting any run support out there?

He needs very little defense and offensive support and he gets it done. And everybody was panicking after the first two weeks. People were ready to sell the house off of Zach Allen because of what are they invested. Doesn't look so great right now. And we were talking about ranking elite starting pitchers the other day, Chris. And we said, you know, Garrick-Cole and Corbyn Burns still up top. And then, you know, we have a group of Shane McClanahan, Spencer Shrider,

Jacob de Grom, that's like your top five. I think you could still put like Sandy and Max Scherzer and Verlander's about to return. Like maybe that's, you know, filling out your top 10. But I think once we get into that group of Julio Reyes, Shohei Otani, Luis Castillo,

Kevin Gausman, like Zach Allen is absolutely in that group. He's like in that 10 to 15 range. In that group? I don't, I think he's out of that group. I think he's a, You think he just lives in that group or he's not better than that group? I mean, who would you rather have?

You'd rather have Arias over Galen? So that's what I was thinking is really interesting. Both of those guys. Like, I think before this season, I would have said Gallin for sure because I thought like Aureas super safe pitcher, not necessarily as high upside. But like this new cutter seems to have unlocked something for him as strikeout rates way up so far. He's got like four. good pitches now. I think Julio Reis is off to a really interesting start. And I think both of those

guys, you can make a case for, I don't have them in my top 12. I think you make a case for both of them as top 12 pitchers moving forward. Yeah, I think they're in a tier together. You know, I, it wouldn't shock me Welsh if you said that Gallin should be at the top of that tier. I think that's acceptable. I think he's, he's just firmly in that tier, that group of, you want to call them low end aces? That's what I would probably call them right now. But maybe he's just an ace. Maybe he's not a lot of.

I mean, I think he's like, I think you have to look at him as the top 10 overall starting pitcher in baseball. And like there are old guard guys that we have to hold on to. We are holding on to because of the talent level we've seen. And there's just going to be a battle between guys that are just not quite getting it done and how much further is that gallon's going to push everybody to be one of the best. But, you know, I mean, he's also shown his hand. He had some struggles early on in the year.

And he can miss that pitch sometimes. So he's not perfect by any means. But I don't know. I think when you also talk about that track. record of what, 220 strikeouts over that period of time and everything. He's in the top 10 SPs right now. And I might say he might be a great buy still. If everybody is in a space of like, yeah, he's, you know, he's around like the 15s or something like that. I think he's got inside top 10 easy, uh, easy floor. So maybe you could still buy on the high. All right. Let's take our

first break when we return. We'll talk about Jordan Walker's unfortunate demotion here on fantasy baseball today. Welcome back. And the NFL draft is nearly here. Get real time updates. about your team's draft picks and trades all three days of the draft that includes scouting reports grades player comps for all your team selection download the free cbs sports app to use the best draft tracker out there the best second screen companion for when you're watching the draft unfold on tv i know what i'll be doing my setup for thursday night got my old laptop over here have baseball on on that one i have the draft on the tv got my phone right here i'll have the draft tracker up on the CBS sports app, so highly recommend it, and we'll see.

Big week in sports for me, Welsh. The Jets acquired Aaron Rogers that finally went down. And they still got their first round pick, well, a first round pick, not their first round pick. I'm excited to you. You got to be excited. I don't have much to go for. My Niners don't have a pick until late Friday, but you're getting Aaron Rogers. It's a big deal.

It's a big Knicks, Jets, things are looking all frank. Things are coming up, Frankie Stans. When's the last time the Yankees were the worst team that I was talking about? That's wild right now. Hey, we're thriving here. Hey, what thriving? Speaking of which, all three of us that are on this podcast right now, all three of our basketball teams have advanced to the second round of the playoffs.

How about that? How about them apples? Which team is mine? Miami Heat. Don't act like you're not a heat fan, Chris. Come on. Really? They just won tonight.

We're going overtime. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah. We're going to have a nice little. nice little rivalry here for the next couple of weeks, Chris. Your Miami Heat going up against Miami. See, that's the thing is that like I was born in 88. I am as old as the Miami Heat.

And I came of age watching the Tim Hardaway Alonzo Morning Miami Heat. And so I hated the New York Knicks in the 90s more than I've ever hated any entity in any arena. Like just eight year old me just like just furious at Jeff Van. and Gundy just screaming at my TV. I hated Larry Johnson. Great player. Would have loved him if he played now and I didn't really care.

But back then, man, despised that team. So like, that might actually that might have to go buy a heat shirt just for the Knicks aspect of it. Frank, please come in wearing a dress. Do the Larry Johnson. Just come in like Grandma Ma or whatever it was. Jimmy Butler up against Tibbs.

great. Anywho, people didn't come here for basketball. Let's talk about Jordan Walker. Option back to AAA, sat out the last two games where like, hey, what's going on here? This is kind of weird. Scott mentioned yesterday that there was a report that Walker was making adjustments to his batting approach, trying to get the ball off the ground and stop chasing as much. That all makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me, Welsh, is the timing. Why would the Cardinals have him on the opening day roster if they were going to give him such a short leash. It just doesn't really make sense.

I know that there are external pressures and stuff and the fan base and you see how good he performs in spring training and you feel that pressure to have him on the opening day roster. But it's not like he's done anything that bad to be demoted. Now, I had some people point out to me that the defense has been really bad. I'd be lying if I said that I watch every single Cardinals game.

I do not. But if you look at it from an offensive perspective, he started the season with a 12-game hitting streak, scuffling a bit as of late, but still 274 batting average, five extra base hits, two homers, 90 mile per hour average exit velocity. I just thought it was very interesting the way that the Cardinals handled the situation, Welsh. What are your thoughts are you holding on to Jordan Walker? Yeah, so like anything I'm going to say is not an excuse or I believe.

My bottom line, I think is one of the stupidest things we've seen in a long time. This is equivalent to the beginning of the year. Remember when the guys needed like a little bit more seasoning and they had to stay down for two or three weeks? This is equivalent to that because I just don't think when's the last you may ever saw like a rookie at this level, especially on a team that has been scuffling. It's not like they're winning like the dime back situation can't do Madison Bungar anymore, can't do Jake McCarthy. I think it's silly. The things that are out there, they said, Marmal said that Nolan Gorman is the reason. He is so good and hitting so well.

The DH spot is not available and there is nowhere to play. Dylan Carlson's been playing up a little bit. So he's a tiny bit of a defensive liability. And they don't have that extra versatility because how Gorman's been playing. Another fun factor, I was reading up on this. They can actually still manipulate service time if they keep him down for 20 days. They can accrue an extra year of service time on him if they keep him for 20. Now, if he doesn't make the top two in rookie of the year.

That's the other caveat. He has to be down for more than 20 days, 20 or more, and he can't finish in the top two of the rookie voting, which doesn't seem like that's happening right now. By the way, number three on the NL rookie of the year is 10 to 1, Kodai Senga. The top two, Outman and Carroll, they are essentially two to one. Those are the big dogs. So they can manipulate and own more service time if they do this.

They can bring him up in like two weeks and then everything is still good. He could still qualify for his Super 2 and he could still do the extra pick. and all those things can happen. But I think this is like old school manager stuff of not wanting to get him in the lineup, giving it to guys like Alec Burleson and Nolan Gorman. And there may possibly be, hey,

if you're not going to play him, this isn't going to serve anything, they could potentially manipulate. All of these things are in play to just say it's dumb. And there's no way I could probably let off the gas on this because I think he's going to go into AAA. He's going to destroy baseballs. He'll be a backup in a couple weeks.

And hopefully they don't screw it up. But I just, I would try to hold on. at every way that you can hold him. Sure, you could move on. He hasn't been lighting the world up, but I'm trying my best to keep him at any cost. Yeah, I updated my rankings

and did the trade values chart today. That'll be up on CBSSports.com today as you're listening to this. And I think I dropped him to like 180-ish. So like, I very much still want to have him on my roster. That's very much the range where like, I guess you could drop him, but I think it would be a mistake.

And it's frustrating because, like, all of the reasons that you can make for Jordan Walker deserving to be sent down, I don't think he deserves to be sent down, but, like, yeah, his defense is bad,

and he's got bad plate discipline. He swings and misses a lot. And, like, you knew what he was. Like, those were all things. Like, I guess maybe you could look at it and say,

well, they made a bet that, he took this big leap forward in the offseason and, you know, clearly he wasn't ready for that. But everything that he struggled with, it was completely predictable that he would struggle with it. And I think if they were 15 and 9 instead of 9 and 15, he's probably still on the team. I think a little bit of is just like, oh, crap, our team stinks. We need to fix something. Well, I mean, getting out the player that might have some of the biggest juice that people are excited about.

is silly to me. I also wonder if there's anything that this team back and looks and goes, well, look what happened. And there's two stories. There's two stories to this. Look at what happened with Joe Adele. And then look at what happened with Jared Kelnick.

And like, are they playing the Jared K-K side that they could like get this to work out? How much does this set players back? I just like, you said it. They knew what they were getting into. The guy's 25% K rate. His whiff rate kind of stinks a little bit. But he's still hitting for average.

He is still a big physical presence that you're putting at eight, that can be, I mean, how many, how many players like that are hitting like seven or eight for a team in baseball? They're not. And the best way to learn is to get them on the field, but you have old school manager stuff. I mean, we knew that when you saw the Tyler O'Neill nonsense. He's just giving opportunity to these other guys and he, they do not care about the status or develop. I really don't think they care. Marmal cares about the development of this player. He's just like, I didn't know him anywhere to play them. So I'm going to play these other guys. So go ahead, do whatever you guys want in the organization. It's pretty, it's

pretty stupid. And I think the optimal plan for the Cardinals is like, hey, if one of these outfielders can catch fire, most notably Tyler O'Neill, it's like maybe they can flip him for a pitcher or something like that. And then they could call up Jordan Walker and he's got an opportunity to play every day. I thought it was still weird in the offseason that, you know, they, it sounds like they had opportunities to move Tyler O'Neill or acquire pitching like Pablo Lopez. All right, maybe you had to give up like Alec Berluson or Lars Neupar or something. But hey, Pablo Lopez looks like a really good pitcher. You know, you got to give something to get something, and it just didn't make sense to me

why the Cardinals didn't do something like that this offseason. Let's get into Robbie Ray who needs season ending surgery to repair his flexor tendon in his left elbow. And look, obviously in redraft leagues, you can go ahead and drop Robbie Ray's not going to play this year. In my home league, I was stashing Robbie Ray in an

IL spot, and I currently have a claim in from Frankie Montas, so I'm just going to like replace one IL stash with another, so that's one thing I'd recommend on doing. Obviously, go and pick up any or all of those young pitching prospects that we spoke about earlier. Well, so what I wanted to ask you about is Chris Flexen is currently in the Mariners rotation, but perhaps this makes it more likely that we see somebody like Bryce Miller or even like an

Emerson Hancock at some point this year. What do you think about those two and maybe their chances of contributing at the big league level? I definitely think the opportunity is out there. How soon? I just, I don't think so. I think they're going to, they're going to cart flexing out there for a little bit, and it's going to piss everybody off.

And it's just going to be good. And they're going to do it just like Diamondback, just to the point where everyone's getting frustrated, because Bryce Miller is not pitching super well. I think that's something that's holding him back. He's also at AA. Emerson Hancock has been, no, you know what?

I must have a start that got bad. He has a seven ERA right now. Bryce Miller has around a six. Taylor Dullard is another guy. He's got around like a nine, eight or nine ERA. So all of these guys not working. I would have to look, prelander Baroa is another person. I'm saying lots of names to everybody.

If they want to do it internally, they got it. And I was having this argument with our friend Scott Bogman that he's like, well, they're going to go trade for somebody. And I go, they're not going to do that right away because there's no way I see this team giving assets to go get like Vince Velasquez, who by the way wouldn't be available because the Pittsburgh Pirates are winning. If they're going to make a move, because they've got mediocre pitchers. They have Marco Gonzalez.

They have flexion. They don't need that. They would go to do this to get a big piece, but who's selling? So I think they're going to wait this out to start to see how the market opens up and see if a team or two is. I think they will be the most active in trying to seek pitching because of how crazy this is. But one of these guys, I do think it's an opportunity of flex and blows up over the next couple of weeks. I wish I could tell you guys who it is. I'm not sure if any of these guys because you got a couple double A pitchers that are struggling.

But Bryce Miller is the one that kind of jumps. out to me. Even though he's been scuffling a little bit, he pitched so much with the big league and the catchers are used to him. He's still the guy I kind of hold out hope that he could maybe get that spot. You mentioned the name pre-lander, Baroa, and so far in three starts at AA, he's got a

579 ERA and a 171 whip. Lots of strikeouts, but yeah, I think he definitely needs some more time as well. Let's get into the other news and notes. Max Muncie is expected to rejoin the Dodgers on Friday against the Cardinals. Aaron Judge is okay after an injury scare on a slide into third

bass. Apparently both of his hands got jammed into the dirt. I didn't see it. It was real awkward looking. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't see it because I was watching my man. Bibi, Tanner Biby. I want to think of a nickname. I don't have anything good yet. The bibes. The vibes are great. Like the vibes are great. Something like I was thinking like I did this and this is really going to be cringy, but it's like you got a little beaver. You got a little ba-bub-bibbi. Maybe it's like in sync. The rotation. It's a little, they're in sync. It's funny. You say that too because I was I thought about that earlier and I was like, oh, maybe I should make a new sound bite

for whenever he pitches, by, bye, bye, and then we can just kind of get into it. It's probably the only thing you can't really do with him. Yeah, someone will come up with something. Bye, by Birdie. Yeah, the wheels are turning. Age yourself. Yeah, we're 60.

Yeah. You, Darvish is on track to start Sunday against the Giants in Mexico City. That's actually a worse pitching environment than course field. Mexico City, there have been a handful of series played there, I remember reading some analysis that like, I think it's like about 1,500 feet higher than

course field is. Um, and so yeah, it's, uh, I'm pretty sure that's, yeah, it's, it's a bad pitching environment. So don't, don't be surprised if, uh, if you Darvish struggles in that one. Tim Anderson will begin a rehab assignment at AAA this weekend. Taiwan Walker exited his start due to right forearm tightness. And no Ranger Suarez is on the verge of returning. so maybe they just kind of make that swap and that would allow Matt Strom to remain in the rotation for now.

Tristan McKenzie could begin throwing in the bullpen as early as this weekend. He's eligible to come off the IL May 29th. Doesn't necessarily mean he'll be ready at that point. George Springer left after getting hit by a pitch on his right hand. X-rays came back negative. Speaking of which, Javier Baez's X-rays came back negative after being hit by a pitch, this time on his left hand.

Speaking of which, Josh Young's X-rays also came up negative. after being hit by a pitch on his left hand. It's like, everyone got hit on their hand today. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like anything too serious. And the last one, I swear. Austin Hayes is set to miss multiple games with a bruised right hand. He was hit by a pitch on Tuesday, not on Wednesday.

Kentemayeta left his start early on Wednesday at, and will undergo an MRI on his right elbow. He allowed, I hope you didn't start him anywhere. And we told you not to start him. 10 earned runs in three innings of work, and then he left, and it seems like clearly There's something going on with the elbow here. Or hurt elbow or hurt feelings?

Like, what do you really think? I mean, he's had like a back issue, the ankle. Yeah, it's been a lot wrong with Kent Obayana right now. I think he's dropable. The name that came to mind was Bailey Ober, who has flashed a little bit here or there. He's only 11% rostered. So if you're playing deeper leagues, I'd speculate and pick up Bailey Ober. Welsh, I know Simeon Woods Richardson is a name that was up late last year as well.

But Bailey Ober would probably get the first shot, right? Actually, already been up. They called him up and they brought him up in like a relief role, which is super weird. So, yeah, I think Bailey over is the guy because they brought him up and didn't put Simian Wood Richardson because he pitched, he may have pitched recently, but I saw him pitch like over the weekend. And it was just in like a six or seven inning roll. So I would say it's first Bailey. And if that doesn't work out, Simon Woods will get the next shot.

All right. J.D. Martinez has missed two straight with back tightness. Mike Yistremski was scratched Wednesday due to left side tight. witness. Chase Silseth was recalled by the Angels and in four starts at AAA. He had a 0.90 ERA, a 0.90 whip, 20 strikeouts and 20 innings pitched. He's 5% rostered. I saw that he pitched in relief on Wednesday night. He pitched in relief. They are keeping Jose Suarez in the rotate. It's crazy. Like, I don't understand what's how. You want to be like calm about like what teams do. Their baseball organizations. But like I really don't know if the Angels know what

they're doing with pitching outside of like Otani. I don't know what's going on. They brought up Sil Seth, who could easily take his spot, who was dominant in the minors. They pitch him in relief, and they're going to keep Suarez in the rotation. Crazy pills. This entire situation is with them. And Chase Sil Seth in his two innings of work in relief zero hits to walks to strikeouts. So look, if we see one more Jose Suarez blow up, which is very likely, then maybe Silseh

gets an opportunity to go into the rotation. Ryan Weathers was option two AAA by the Padres. That's our last note here. His velocity was way down in his relief appearance. He was like, he averaged like 89 with his fastball. It was down like five miles per hour from when he was starting. I thought it was a typo, Chris. I thought I was going to see after the game like his arm literally fell off on the mound.

Like five miles per hour down. Yeah, that was that was alarming. It was crazy. Let's get into some waiver wire hitters. And we'll start off with, you know who. Joey Gallo. One for four with another home run, his seventh of the season. Two homers against those pesky Yankees revenge games for Joey Gallo.

56% rostered. He's got six games next week. Just one lefty on the schedule. And I don't know if he plays every day against lefties. I saw in the series against the Yankees there was one lefty, Nessa Cortez. And Gallo did not start that game. He did come on as a pinch hitter. So maybe not going to play against lefties at first.

But, you know, he's been hot when he's played so far this season. Jaron Duran, speaking of being hot, two more hits, batting 400 with one homer, two steals, 29% rostered. He's got seven games next week. Two lefties on the schedule. Hasn't played against lefties, but starting to think that might change. I mean, he is hot, and I think the Red Sox should keep him up there for now. Trey Mancini is coming around. He went two for four with his third home run. And in his last 14 games, he's betting 283 with all of those three home runs so far, 29% rostered. And then Estéori Ruiz had,

two hits and four steals on Wednesday night against the Angels. He had an RBI and a run scored. He's now up to nine steals. He has led off 10 games in a row for the Oakland A's. He's 49% rostered. I wanted to add real quick, you know what's so cool about the like the new climate of stolen bases? This stuff is just changing on a nightly basis. Like we think we know we got no idea. Like a Coonio's at the top. Guys are going three base stealing a bunch of bases. Carol's stealing a bunch of bases. Carol's bunch of bases. Maeda. It is a wild. It is, I don't want to call it like home run chacey type of stuff, but like, I think the end of the year might be nuts, especially as the summer starts to drag on, guys start running. I kind of scoffed at the whole like, oh, we're going to get like 70.

We might legit be seeing multiple 50. Like, it looks like we might be five plus people going 50 stolen bases this year. I mean, Acuna is on pace for 80 something. I think we've already had, I want to say there was something like there were six players when I looked over the weekend there were six players who had at least nine I don't think there were any last April we had the late start last April but still it was pretty pretty wild yeah and apparently ronald lcun you can't hit home runs and then what does he do he goes out and hits a home run against sandy alconsor one of the best pitchers in all of baseball wow who could have saw that coming uh towers let's rank these outfielders from a points league perspective welsh you'll get from a

Roto League perspective. Gallo, Duran, Mancini, and Estuary Ruiz. I think I would go Gallo in a points league? Yep. I think in that order. Gallo, Duran, Mancini, Ruiz. I think you could make a case for Mancini over Duran just because of the playing time. But I don't really expect Mancini to be particularly good. So I would rather gamble on the upside with Duran.

But yeah, if you. need someone to fill in right now, Mancini is a better option than Duran. Rurice is interesting because he is kind of making some adjustments after last season, you know, the strikeout rates down to 16%. He's not really walking,

but what he is doing is he's slapping the ball over the field. His opposite field hit rate is 40%. Right now, that's, you know, like peak DJ LaMayhew kind of stuff. His average exa velocity is really bad, 86.6%. But that's just normal bad, whereas last season, Estuary was 73 mile per hour average eggs of velocity. He's 14th percentile there.

That might play. You know, that might be enough for him to hit 270 and do a little Billy Hamilton impersonation here. Yeah. So he's definitely more interesting in Roto, though. I don't think he's going to have much value in points. Jaron Duran, you know what they say about him? He's hungry. like the wolf.

Welsh, let's rank these outfielders in a Roto League. Joey Gallo, Jaron, Trey Mancini, and Estuary Ruiz. I think Manzini's

at the bottom. I think Duran is the third and he might be the best floor of all those players. So I totally acknowledge that for any Red Sox fan losing their mind. He might be the best floor

of like combo of all that stuff. But you have two completely opposite players. You have Joey Gallo with all the power and Estory with all the speed. So I don't want a cop out, but I will tell you, it's obviously your own flavor of what you're chasing. I'm going to say

this, there's almost an argument. I was about to say the stolen bases because of the position, but there's an argument that more elite power is something you want to chase over stolen bases in this new environment. I'm, I've become kind of a known Joey Gallo hater, so I have a hard time believing this will ever continue, not that a story is that much better of a hitter, but he does have a 245, 246xBA to his 250-ish batting average. So I'm going to history at the top. Joey Gallo, number two, Duran. I'm going to go it that way. But you know, you know how to deal with your own categories that you're chasing if you're looking for more power speed. All right, Towers, is this real or is it just the Oakland A's that are making Brandon Drury

look good right now? He is back with a vengeance. Two more hits. Hit a home run, a double three RBI, his last three games, all against the A's, seven hits, three homers, six runs, nine RBI. The dude is going off so far this series. Fifty-two percent rostered. are you buying it at all? No, I think the likeliest answer is just that he's not completely hopeless and occasionally decent players

have little hot streaks and I think that's probably what we're seeing now for brand jury, but like, you know, back in 2021, he played, it was only 88 played appearances, we had like a 783 OPS. You know, I could see something around there

moving forward, you know, mid-700s OPS. but not what he was with Cincinnati. So I'm still going to say it's not real. Welsh, any interest in these names in Deeper Leagues? Never say never. Nixon Zell went two for four with a sock in a shoe. His first homer and second steal of the season.

A walk-off homer at that. And G-Wan, Bay, Bay, Bay, Bay, three for four with two more steals. He's betting 254 with two home runs and 10 steals so far this season. Any interest, deeper leagues? Pretty minimal interest. in SINZEL. It's an injury away from, what, losing super mediocre production.

Maybe it's going to pick up a little bit. Bay, definitely. Bay was someone I completely underrated as like a prospect, and the stolen bases are getting up there. You know, I don't see any reason why he's going to be coming off of this team anytime soon. He can kind of play a multi-position role because not quite a super util, but in that, Bay, I think, has a more serviceable pickup than Sincel ability right now. All right.

Let's take our final break. And when we return, a few more waiver wire pitchers, right after this. Welcome back and let's talk some waiver wire pitchers. Rwanzi Contreras makes it three straight quality starts. This one up against the Dodgers. Six shutout, two hits, two walks, five strikeouts for him. Only seven swinging strikes.

But man, he's looked pretty good. You know, he got rocked his second start against the Astros. Other than that, he's allowed two earned runs or fewer in each of his other four starts. Tyler Wells had another strong start up against the Red Sox, five and two thirds, two runs, seven strikeouts. for him. And you say Kikuchi, is he like consistent all of a sudden? Like, what, what is going on? Up against the White Sox, five and two-thirds shutout with eight strikeouts, 15 swinging strikes,

throwing his change up more this season, but still allowing a lot of hard contact. That's what worries me about Kukuchi. Last name, Drew Smiley coming off, you know, and he took a perfect game into the eighth inning last time out. He's going up against the Padres. Solid start. Five innings, two runs, four strikeouts for him. Towers will start with you. How do you rank this group? Smiley, Kikuchi, Tyler Wells, and Rwanzi Contreras. Probably Kakuchi, Contreras, Wells, Smiley. I don't really know what to make of you say Kikuchi. I don't, I, like, I want to believe that he's taking a step forward, but I don't.

You know, I think like he's always had an interesting skill set. He credit to him. He constantly tinkers to try to find. the right combination of pitches, but at the end of the day, he just gets hit too hard. And that's going to cost him at some point. The results have been good so far, but he's not, he's not such a huge strikeout guy that I think he can really thrive. I think he can be useful at times, but I think in the long run, the ERA is going to end up over four for Use Kukuchi. Okay. So of this group, Welsh, are you taking McKenzie Gore over all four of the names?

I just mentioned. Oh, yeah. Easy gore over all of these guys. Do you want me to rank them? Yes, sure. Okay. I know we're probably move on. Not that the rank even matters. I just want to give out this stat.

I had noticed this and this is stupid. I would probably go actually smiling at the top. And then Kikuchi 2, then Contreras and Wells. I want to put Contreras at the top. My only worry, obviously, K percentage to walk percentage, not good. He has an under 10k minus walk percentage because he's walking 10. But check this out. This is ridiculous on him.

So he has been a primary slider pitcher, 45% usage. The curveball gets really good whiff. So the slider's getting a 43% whiff rate, 33% curveball. He throws his four seam fastball almost 38% of the time. Guess the whiff percentage on it, unless you already know. I want to take it just a stab? Is this contraris? This is contraris.

The whiff rate on his four seam fastball, I'll say 15%. What do you think, Towers? commuted. You are muted, sir. I'm going to say below 10% because his strikeout rate solo. You're right. 1.8% 1.8% whiff rate

on the fastball, 4-seem fastball. That's probably also not sustainable. That's really not good. Great that he can do the other pitch as well, but no one's fear in that fastball. So that's why Contreras a little bit lower than me with the walk issue, not big strikeouts,

a really ineffective fastball. I think Smiley has just looked really well. So I just really wanted to get that contrarious thing out. I do want to say, I think Tyler Wells could like, could fake his way into a pretty decent season here. Because he just, he gives up a lot of fly balls, which we don't typically love. But it's a lot of weak fly balls. It's a lot of pop-ups, pop-up rate over 10% this season. He's not walking anyone.

And so it's kind of a situation where, like, because of where he plays, I could see Tyler Wells having one of those like Chris Bassett type seasons where, yeah, the strikeout rates are pretty mediocre to bad. The underlying stats suggest a lot of regression coming, but he might just be able to survive and be like a, you know, 3-8 ERA pitcher just because of, you know, the home park he has. Maybe you don't want to start him on the road or against bad matchups, but he, Tyler Wells could be pretty useful. And all of those pitchers look like they're going to be two-star pitchers for next week. So if you do want to beat the Waver Wire, Contreras has the Blue Jays and the Rays, which is like really, really tough matchups. McKenzie Gore, who we talked about earlier, has the Cubs and the Diamondbacks next week.

Tyler Wells gets the Royals and the Braves, so one good matchup, one not so good. Kikuchi gets the Red Sox and Pirates, which, you know, coming into the year you thought maybe they'd both be good, and now they might both be bad. Drew Smiley has the best matchups of this group, the Marlins and the Nationals. So if you're chasing the matchups, Drew Smiley, really, really good for next week. Three pitchers to buy that I wanted to mention here,

and some people are going to say, wow, you're really going out on a limp, Frank. Sandy O'Connor, you're telling people to buy him. Well, buy low. If people are looking at the overall numbers and still see an ERA over five, and this was a pitcher going in the second round on draft day. If you can get him for like fourth or fifth round value,

then yes, technically you are buying low. and that's something that I would look to do. Up against the Braves on Wednesday, five and two thirds, two runs, six strikeouts, 20 swinging strikes. That is super impressive for San Diego Ocansara. On 88 pitches at that, too, he has 14 plus swinging strikes in four or five starts.

That's another thing. You look at the K per nine and the strikeout percentage so far this year. It doesn't line up with how many swinging strikes San Diego Contra is getting so far. So I think more strikeouts are on the way, so I would be looking to buy on him right now. The other two names, they're kind of like by high situations.

People just maybe they're not like really buying into it enough. Freddie Peralta had a bounce back outing up against the tiger, six innings, two unerned runs, eight strikeouts to zero walks, 22 swinging strikes on 98 pitches. Fastball velocity remains up about two miles per hour compared to last year for Peralta. And Hunter Brown, a very impressive start. He goes into Tampa Bay, one of the best offenses in baseball so far. seven shutout, two hits, two walks, eight strikeouts, 12 swinging strikes on 95 pitches.

And he is a different pitcher this year. He is leading with his slider. Last year, mostly fastball over 50% of the time. Then his curve ball, like 30%. And he barely mixed in a slider. The slider is now his go-to pitch. He has completely revamped to his pitch mix. And I am very interested.

Welsh, I'll start with you. Would you be looking to buy any or all of these names? Hunter Brown, Freddie Peralta, Sandy Alcansara. Yeah, it's no doubt on San Diego. this is like, this is what you do. This is what you do in April is you go and you find studs that have some struggles and they're having to work through things and you get great value. So that's a no-brainer.

I love the Hunter Brown one. I like to do that against the raise and just in general of how he's been developing as a pitcher because, you know, we talk about heavy fastballs and that complete mixed change on his, on his four pitches or three pitches really if you want to do that, I think it really keeps batters having to be honest. And I think he has been phenomenal. And I love the potential K percentage. It's around 24.

It's a little lower than it was last year. But as he's working through this, I think the walks are going to come down. I don't think I'm super interested in Peralta. Like, I see where you're going with it and I could do it. But he is not of interest where the other two definitely are. Towers, any thoughts? The issue with buying Peralta is just I have no real doubts that he's going to be good as long as he's healthy. It's just that staying healthy has been such a problem for him.

And, you know, as we saw last season, he can pitch and not be 100% right because the velocity was down. He's he relies so much on that fastball being so hard to pick up. And, you know, that works better when he's, you know, averaging 93, 94 like he is this season. So I don't really doubt that Freddie Peralta is going to be good. It's just pitcher injuries are hard to predict and he's more likely than most pitchers to get hurt. I did want to quickly mention Kodi Senga, Wild once again, up against the Nationals. I tweeted this out. He was through four innings and he had 85 pitches.

I'm like, you can't start this guy right now. He's walking too many batters. Then he comes out and he has like a perfect fifth inning. And, you know, the final line doesn't look so bad at the end of the day. Five innings, two runs, seven strikeouts. He did walk four more. He has three or more walks in all five starts this season. He has exactly four walks in three straight. And then I looked at, all right, well, what's the matter? matchups for next week. He's a two-star pitcher. The problem is that he gets the Braves,

tough matchup, and then he gets the Rockies. So you get the Rockies on the road in City Field. That's a good matchup. Welsh, what are you doing with K-Singer right now? Do you just stick on the bench? Yeah, I think you got to play matchups with him, unfortunately. The K-numbers are pretty good. He's still pretty inconsistent. I was actually going to ask you, who'd you rather, Senga or Gore, since we're doing the whole Gore thing all episode? I think I would still go with Senga. It's mostly for team context, though. Like, if he could just get those walks down to like two or three per outing,

then maybe he can push a little bit deeper. The strikeouts have been very good for him so far. And just pitching for the Mets is so much better than the national. So it's getting closer, but I would still lean Senga. Okay. Tower's any different? Yeah, you don't believe in Gore. So there's probably not.

Senga versus Gore, yeah, I have Senga ranked higher, but it wouldn't take too much to change that. A few hitting leftovers from Wednesday. Cedric Mullins, guy is off to a fantastic start. He went two for three with a walk, his 10th steal of the season. He's bat 271. He's got three homers. 20 RBI as a leadoff man so far.

It's great stuff for him. Boba Chet went three for four with his fifth home run. He's betting 3.40. Whitmerfield is off to a solid start. He went two for four with two RBI and his fourth steal. He's betting 313 with six doubles. The problem has been zero. homers. And in this environment, you're probably not going to get much power from Witt, but

hey, batting average, a couple of runs scored, some steals. He's been doing that. It would help if he ran more. You know, like he's, he's on what is now like a 25 homer or 25 steel pace. It's just like when that and batting average are really all you're contributing, it's like, I don't know how useful that actually is, you know. Would you rather have Witt or a story? I think I would rather have have Ruiz. I think Witt is more likely to give you batting average, for sure. How about this, though? Whitmerfield, 92nd percentile on sprint speed.

So what if he just goes off on, you know, one of these weeks where he steals like five bases, then he could do it, though. Yeah, I guess, yeah. And, but I think also part of it is just he doesn't play as much. You know, Ruiz is playing every day and batting lead off. Whit, what has been playing every day, though, now. And I read an article that said that he has earned that because he's off to a really good start. I think they're going to play him every day.

But he's not leading off. You're right about that. Jose Miranda went two for three with a double dung, his first two home runs of the season, which we need something because it's not been a great start for him. Claver Torres has really slowed down but had a big game when two for five with his third home run. Nick Casano is off to a nice start, which you'll love to see it after last year's terrible season. Three for four with his third home run. He added three RBI.

And Paul Gulchman went four for five with a double dong in that night game against the Giants. Call to the bullpen for the Rockies. Daniel Bard pitched in the sixth inning with the Rockies down two runs at the time. Pierce Johnson then pitched to eighth. And I feel like it's going to take a little bit of time to get Bard back in that closer roll. If you have him in a deeper category league, I think I would hold if you held on this long, obviously. I think eventually he's going to get back in the closer roll.

But given what he's gone through it, I think it makes sense for them to kind of slow roll it with Daniel Bard. For the Diamondbacks, the sheriff, they call him the sheriff. I didn't know that Welsh. I love it. It's a great nickname. Like, there is no player that embodies a sheriff or a closer at the same time than Andrew Chafin. And he did exactly that. He picked up his fourth save of the season.

He's 56% rostered for those that need saves. Jose Alvarado struck out two for his fourth save. And Kyle Finnegan struck out two for his fifth save. Welsh, if you need saves, how would you rank that group, Chafin, Alvarado, and Kyle Finnegan? I think I would go Alvarado, Chafin, and then Finnegan. I just don't know if Chafin keeps it the whole year. They move Ginkl a little bit further back into the rotation. I think he's an option.

Joe Mantiply is still getting himself back. So Alvarado is the one I feel the best about. The last one here for the Braves. AJ Minter struck out two for his fifth save, and it's been a very rocky go. Sounds like Riesel Iglesias could be back soon as well. The regulars in the bullpen, Emmanuel Class A picked up his eighth save.

Ryan Presley picked up his second, and Josh Hader picked up his ninth. I also just saw that Camillo Doval got the final two outs in that game for his third save of the season. Let's wrap up with a polarizing segment. I didn't realize how polarizing it really was, but here we are. We're getting lots of complaints on YouTube and tweets rolling in. Ah, the Daily Streamer segment, blah, blah, blah. Let me remind you that there is a lot of nuance that comes on this podcast. It's very hard to give blanket analysis for all leagues. Like there is no one size fits all. And, you know, we do it.

towards the end of the podcast, we kind of breeze through it. It's something fun to talk about, but we can't say like, are you gonna start this guy in a 10, 12, or 15 team league? It would just take too much time to do that for each individual player. So what we're gonna do moving forward is that I have all the names listed

and I'm gonna ask whoever's on that day, give me your two or three favorites, and that's what we'll do. So I'm not just like reading off names and we're saying no to all of them because apparently people don't really like that. So to stream or not to stream the new edition of this,

Of the names listed, you guys can see them here on Thursday. Give me two or three of your favorites. Anyone that stand out? Hey? All right. So I think there's one clear standout, even though he doesn't have a good matchup, and it's Mitch Keller.

Just the gains that he's made over the past year or so becoming more of a contact pitcher, but doing a good job limiting hard contact. Yes, it's the Dodgers. That's the thing that makes me a little scared of it. but if I had to start one of them, it would be Mitch Keller, although I also think

Joey Lucasey versus Washington is very interesting after the start that he had. And I don't hate Kyle Gibson at Detroit. Yeah, interesting. Those are three of the four that I have written down. I think Seth Lugo at the Cubs is not terrible either. That one's also, yeah, pretty interesting. I mean, I don't know why we're not saying Matt Strom.

We're still not doing the Matt Strom. I'm all over Matt Strom. You're the strong guy, so stick with it. I guess. I mean, top 10 strikeouts in the league is Seattle. He's going to get you strikeouts. He's going to keep them in the game. The offense is going to be there.

I like Matt Strom is my number one here. I also really like the Kyle Gibson one. I really like. I don't want to do it. It's a monster. But I like Kyle Gibson. I like Strom. I could get down with Keller because that offense with L.A.

and the strikeouts and stuff have been bad. Those are the three that I'm lock into. but why do you guys hate Matt Strz? Frank, why do you hate Matt Strach? I don't hate him. I have him in the Scott White Dynasty League. I like him quite a bit. Thank you.

Yeah, you actually, I think you outbid me. I think you did. Yeah, so Matt Strom. Matt Strom is my play, so be careful. Matt Strom, last time out, Welsh was on and he said he guaranteed you six strikeouts from Matt Strom. I think he had that in like the first three innings of that start. He's been pretty good.

On Friday, these names are not nearly as good. The one that really stands out is a. Eduardo Rodriguez up against the Orioles. Orioles are swinging a hot bat, but, you know, E-Rod is the best name available on this list. Like, Wade Miley against the Angels, uh, don't, don't love it.

Like, Kyle Mueller at home against the Reds, like, uh, not really. So I think it's just E-Rod for me. Yeah, I think probably.

I could maybe get down with Rich Hill, uh, Rich Hill and the strikeouts are chasing some strikeouts. Why, you know, Washington. We just saw what, uh,

you know, I don't know. I think we saw like, where, you know, Senga was and everything. I think I could get down with Rich Hill. Edward Rodriguez is my top. But, you know, got to be very careful about our winning percentage here, Frank. And, you know, we're being tracked here.

We're being tracked about the hits on this daily stream. So I guess you could throw Rich Hill into my pool. And look, I'm not calling out all listeners because most of the listeners enjoy, like, all the segments that we do. And obviously, I appreciate that. But, you know, there's a lot of people that just have complaints and I get it. Pitching is off to a slow start. Everyone is chasing pitching, right?

I'll tell you. what? Daily streamers, probably not the way to do it. You probably want to go out and acquire some pitching via trade or something. So we'll continue doing the segment, but like these guys are free agents for a reason. It's because they're not great pitchers. So keep that in mind. You probably don't want to do it with volume. We're going to wrap there for the Chris is. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.