Fantasy Baseball Today - Temperature Check on These 8 Pitchers! (8/7 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Bryce Miller keeps trending down (3:00). ... Dylan Cease is dominating (8:12). ... Nathaniel Lowe is doing some nice things (15:01). ... Ronald Acuña just had a wild game (17:00). ... News (22:04): Hunter Greene is unlikely to return. ... Let's do a temperature check on Cristopher Sanchez (36:35). ... What's up with Foster Griffin (44:55)? ... Who's hot and who's not (55:16)? ... Bombs away for the Reds (1:00:54). ... We wrap up with waiver wire adds, bullpens and streamers (1:06:05).Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for the newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters

Tough fantasy baseball today on August 7th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, who's hot and who's not. Hitter edition, temperature check on eight confusing pitchers. We had a wacky two-homer game from Ronald Acuna and much more. Let's jump in. Holy cow about that. All right, let's begin with...

Actually, the Red Sox, man. The Red Sox. gonna mention this every day. They are on fire, man. That game between the White Sox and Red Sox was great. Incredible theater. It was just back and forth, back and forth, and the Red Sox are on a new streak.

They've won eight in a row. They are 31 and 5 in their last 36 games, which is just insane. Without Roman Anthony, without Garrett Crochet, wild stuff. But let's talk about Bryce Miller. Chris, what's the latest? Nothing good.

Nothing good. on Bryce Miller. It was what, five innings, four on runs today, struck out five, gave up two hits, 10 whiffs on 93 pitches. It wasn't a terrible start. It certainly wasn't the worst start of this little stretch he's on, but it was just another one where his fastball velocities down a little bit, and he just has not been nearly as effective lately.

It's the, let me make sure I get the numbers in front of me. his fastball velocity dipped below 96 miles an hour for the first time in his first start in July. That actually was pretty good, 95.8, and I think he struck out 8 in six innings. Since then, last five starts, he has a 581 ERA, 133 whip, only 17 strikeouts in 26 innings, 26 in the third innings. And that's a big deal for Bryce Miller because his fastball is a big part of what makes him good when he's going well. the whiff rate on that pitch has really, really falling apart lately. I think it's down to like 17% in this stretch. It wasn't bad in this one, but then he just didn't have anything else to go along with it.

Like the splitter was okay, but the rest of the arsenal, the sweeper, the curveball, I mean, he's largely shelved the curve ball, the slider he didn't throw much today. And that's always been kind of the thing with Bryce Miller is the fastball's good, Splitter's really good. Everything else can be pretty iffy. He's a guy who tends to have to change his arm slot to be able to throw his breaking balls, and they've never really been super effective pitches despite rating out pretty well on the various stuff metrics. And so he needs an overwhelming fastball.

And he's only down about a mile per hour since the first month. month and a half or so of the season. But that's a really important. It seems to be a crucial mile per hour. And I'm not totally giving up on him yet, but it's been a long fall and it's hard to recommend him as a starter for next week. It's at New York. You know, not the toughest matchup in the world without Aaron Judge, but they can still hit homers. It's a tough place to pitch. And I think I'm leaning towards having to sit, Bryce Miller at this point. And then I think he's got, um, I think it's Milwaukee after that. Milwaukee and then the Cubs after that. So the next two weeks are looking pretty tough for Bryce Miller. And, you know, when we're talking about week 21 now,

next week, you're running out of time for him to turn it around. Now look, if he goes out and has a great start against the Yankees, maybe we reconsider. But right now, it's, um, it's not looking great for a guy that I think we all had as like a top 30 starting pitcher a month ago. Yeah. This has flipped upside down very quickly for Bryce Miller. you read off the last five starts. We all had them inside our top 30, and that number has dropped precipitously. Scott has them down at SP 69,

Chris down to SP 53. I haven't met SP 44, so perhaps that number needs to drop even more for me when it comes to Bryce Miller. This was just a weird start because he actually did get whiffs on his fastball, threw a lot of his pitches for strikes, really didn't give up that many hard hits.

There was only three hard hits against. He really just got ambushed in that first inning where he gave up three runs, and then obviously couldn't really put together a great start after that, but this is kind of a weird start here for Bryce Miller. You talked about the matchup next week. Scott,

what do you think about potentially dropping Bryce Miller? I had someone earlier today tell me they dropped Bryce Miller for Noah Cameron, who's on that crazy run right now. Like, I get it in a shallow enough league. Like, you've got to make hey, because we're going into week 21, like Chris said. Like I've been saying, for the past couple days, you don't have a lot of time

to wait around for a hypothetical anymore. I would like to avoid it. I moved Bryce Miller as far down as I felt like I could. You said I'm 69th in my starting pitcher rankings. I moved him down as far as I thought I could without suggesting it's time to drop him.

It's not a Davis-Martin situation. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, the fastball did play a little better in this one. It was a little higher in velocity than in his previous couple outings. Maybe it's trending up. But overall, even that, like, it's a 25% whiff rate on the four seamer, which is pretty good. Yeah.

But for, like, your best start in a month in regards to that, that's not great. You know, it's just okay. I'm not optimistic. But I also wasn't optimistic in May. and obviously Bryce Miller looked really good soon after that. So things could change quickly. But yeah, I can't say I'm optimistic at the moment. All right, Scott, let's go over to your player of the night.

Dylan has ceased to maintain his velocity, but he was still amazing. He was amazing. Yeah, 10 strikeouts in 7-2-hit innings at the Cubs, tough matchup. Revenge game, kind of. Used to be a Cubs prospect. Wow, that was completely out of my member. I had, yeah, I had no recollection of Dillon Cis being a Cubs guy. How did he...

Did he even get close to the majors with the Cubs? Not being on the Cubs. They traded him to the White Sox in the Jose Cantana deal, I want to say. Oh, okay. Anyway. Sounds right. Yeah, so Cis struck out 10 in seven innings, even though his fastball and slider were both down more than a mile per hour

from his season average, his changeup was down about four miles per hour. And both of those things have been true for, more or less true, for three starts in a row now. The changeup being far, far lower in velocity, and the other pitches being notably lower in velocity. And yet they've all been awesome. They've been arguably his best three starts of the year. It's been really impressive. I can say for sure that in the first of those three starts, which I believe was the no-hit bid, and then this most recent one,

even though the average velocity was down more than a mile per hour, it started low, even lower than that, and picked up over the course of the game. And that was true in this one too. He was averaging more like 94 on the fastball in the first inning, and it was back up to like 97 later on. So he hasn't come... I haven't found a...

It does seem like a good sign that, you know, I feel better about that than if it was... was the other way around, like it was losing velocity over the course of the game. I haven't seen C's comment on that part specifically, but it makes me wonder if it's intentional.

He's clearly changing the way he pitches with the Blue Jays. And he did comment on that overall, just the overall changes he's making. He says, I feel like I'm mixing in more variety of pitches, and I feel like I'm getting them to better spots, too. It

feels like some days in the past would really just be very slight or fastball heavy. And if I didn't have one or the other, it would be a massive grind where now I can mix in a first pitch curveball and go to the sweeper and go to the sinker and things like that that. But I haven't historically done very well in the past. And that's helping me just diversify my pitches and be less predictable. And so he is speaking to some of the wholesale changes he's making. And maybe dialing it back a little, particularly early in games, so that he can bring out his A-grade fastball later

once he's going through that lineup for the third time, also to keep him from burning out too early in the start. I don't know. I'm just theorizing what's going on with the velocity here. clearly though it's working for him and I feel like this is the best version of Dillen C's we've ever seen it's a little bit of what like Justin Verlander used to do this is kind of like a little bit of the old school mentality

Justin Verlander I was looking it up just now 2015 in the first inning of his starts in 2015 so it's a long time ago he was averaging 92.7 miles per hour in the first inning, which think about hard-throwing ace averaging 93 miles per hour with their fastball. That's how much things have changed.

In the seventh inning, it was a much smaller sample size, but in the seventh inning, he threw 114 pitches with his four-seamer. They were 94.2. So, you know, that's, as hitters see you, they're going to be a little more effective against you unless you can improve your stuff

as the start goes on. And, you know, maybe that's the thought process there. it's clearly what we're seeing this season. I mean, look, the rough contours still look a lot like the previous versions of Dylan's Seas, but I think we're seeing a different, better version of him because, like Scott mentioned, that change-up has gone from being a non-factor. I mean, it was a joke pitch before. He basically threw an e-fist when he threw his change-up, and it required him. Like, he would just throw his, he would slow his arm angle down. It was completely, it was a completely different pitch.

Now that's a real pitch. And, you know, he's throwing the curveball a little more even. Despite the fact that the curveball has gone from his third most used pitch to his fourth most, he's also still throwing it more. And so I think you add it all up and it's just, I really do think this is the best version of Dillon C's that we've seen. Now, that has hurt us in the past, you know. Dillian Seas has never been consistent.

and it's possible that he's about to go on a two-month run that spoils a lot of the good that he's done this season. We've seen that from him before, but I don't really see it coming. Like he's got a 277 XERA. He's limiting hard contact. The walks are bad, but typically bad. The strikeout rate's better than it's ever been. He is tied with Gavin Williams for the second most double-digit strikeout games in the majors now. He has 10 or 8, sorry, including 3.

three out of his last five. Yeah. So it's been very impressive. I think the only way that it could go wrong is if the control gets even worse. Like, yes, it's 3.7 walks per nine for the season, but we've seen stretches where the control is just untenable for Dylan Seas. I think in terms of everything else, the way he's pitching his feel for pitching, the new pitches that he's mixing in, I agree.

I think this is a different version of Dylan Seas, the best version that we've ever seen. And over his last six starts, a point. 84 ERA.67 whip. 57 strikeouts over 43 innings. He has been awesome. Pretty good. That is Dylan C's. I know this won't really help anybody and it's like whatever

talking point at this point in the season. But I kind of feel like Dylan Cs should just be ranked over Paul Skeens at this point. It's hard to know what to do with Paul Skeens. So I'm not, I'm not going to argue against it. Yeah, I've, I've been resisting moving Paul Skeens down, more than I have, which right now is just sixth, but I think C's 10th. So, yeah, you could,

you could justify moving him down a few more spots behind C. Sure. My player of the night, I'm going to go a little bit deeper here, and that is Nate Lowe. Welcome to Cleveland, two for four with his 13th home run, three RBI. And he's quietly having a pretty good season, and he's going to have more of an opportunity here with the Guardians. He's hitting 269, 13 home runs, 831 OPS in 86 games this year. The expected stats look pretty good. His bat speed way up this year for Nate Lowe. It's up almost two miles per hour.

His fast swing percentage is up from 24% to 46%. He's got a career high, 17% pulled air rate. So this is more of a deeper name. If you need a quarter infielder in a 15 team league, maybe a 12 team league, if you're kind of desperate, I know we've talked about first basemen who are slowing down and there's been a lot of injuries at that position recently as well. But yeah, I like the changes that Nate Lowe has made the season,

and I just think he's going to play more in Cleveland. So I'm kind of interested. I agree. You think he's going to play against lefties? I don't know that he'll play against every lefty, but he wasn't, I don't even think he was playing against every righty with Cincinnati. He was kind of like a part-time player.

So I just think he's going to play against every righty, and then maybe against some lefties in Cleveland. Yeah, I'm asking because I know I looked at the trade deadline when I was writing about winners and losers and thought about Nate Lowe as a potential winner but then I looked at the bench

and I was like, eh, it's still not going to play that much at a position that's like 32 deep and usable fantasy options. That's the hardest part. It's hard to make a case for Nathaniel Lowe when Ty France still can't even be rostered

and I guess maybe he's about 50% that roster now. I think he's about 50% now, yeah. Barely. Yeah. Now I get that. I think it's a deeper league name for now, but yeah, I just wanted to highlight Nate Lowe and some of the underlying stuff. I didn't realize how good it was for him this season. Ronald Acuna, we've got to mention, man.

This was awesome, just an unforgettable game. Two for five with a double-dong, three RBI, but the first home run he hit in this game was Jose Konseco style. It was awesome. It was on the warning track. It was about to land. Two Marlins' outfielders combined. with each other and then it hit off both of their gloves,

bounced off. It was never going to be a home run, bounced off of them, and then went over the fence. So it was just one of the more improbable things I've ever seen on a baseball field. I think we've had three home runs like that this season. There was the one off Joe Adel's head, if I'm remembering correctly.

Yeah, that's true. And there was another one that bounced off someone's glove and into the, that's weird. My favorite part wasn't even so much that happened, just the reactions of everybody were great. Like the fans in the stands, the way they went after the ball, the two Marlins outfielders, how dejected they looked. Ronald O'Cunia just like stopped once he rounded first base because he had no

idea what happened. And the Braves broadcasters were like, go, go Ronald. Brandon had a great call. It's worth watching the clip because there was a, a lot going on there. So that was, but that was actually, so it theoretically shouldn't have been a home run, right? It stopped short of the fence and was knocked over. It was the much better struck ball of the two home runs.

The other one was at 337 feet. Yeah, that one traveled about 60 feet further than the actual home run. Yeah. That was funny. Yeah. So again, that's Ronald Le Cunia two homer game. In 10 games since returning from the IL, he's hitting just 205. He does have four home runs, thanks to tonight.

zero steals, not sure how much he's going to run here in the second half coming off multiple hamstring injuries and he has a 29% strikeout rate. So nice to see a good, perhaps lucky game for Ronald de Cunia and we could use more of those down the stretch. Before we hit our first break, just want to remind everyone that we will have our week, what do we have coming up, Scott? Week 22?

21. Week 21 FBT Express Preview. That will be out on Saturday. all of Scott's articles will be out this weekend as well. So if you're looking for sleeper hitters, two-star pitchers, whatever you need, make sure to check those out on the website and also our FBT Express episode. And 21 to 27, by the way. So this is the seventh to last week. It's moving fast. Here we are. Yeah. It still sounds like a lot when I put it that way. I mean, I was hanging out with fantasy football guys this week for the Scott Fishball and

flex drafts. And it was like, oh, how's baseball? Well, it's a week. It's a week. 20, we still got two months left. You know? Those guys don't know. They don't know. They don't get the grind every day for six months. Here we go. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back, Fantasy Baseball today.

Let's hit the news and notes. And Hunter Green, who was placed in the aisle with right elbow discomfort, has just a slim chance to pitch again this season. Realistically, probably not going to happen. The Reds are four and a half games out of a while. card spot. They're not really playing for much. Do you guys think it's okay to drop Hunter Green if you need that spot? I think so, yeah. I dropped into about 100 in my starting pitching rankings, which is a total

guess. And if you wanted to just take him out entirely, I think that would be reasonable as well. Until we know for sure, I'll stick to keep him in. But yeah, I think it's, you know, maybe he, if he's cleared to pitch in September, maybe you just throw him out there for a couple of innings just to, you know, get one last look. But yeah, I'd be surprised if he made any any kind of impact the rest of the way. Joe Ryan has been diagnosed with a mild left glute strain and an IL stint is likely for him. So make sure to get him out of your lineups for next week. Trey O'Savage has been diagnosed with meniscus damage in his left knee and will visit a specialist on Monday. John Schneider said that surgery is possible. If that

happens, probably the end of the season for Treyi Savage as well. Jose Ramirez returned to the lineup after missing two games with soreness in his surgically repaired hand. Vlad Jr. has missed two straight with hamstring tightness and general fatigue. And just the way the season has played out, I mean, I think it's totally defensible. You could have been benching him for a while now. People have been asking us for a while if they can drop Vlad Jr. I mean, is that crazy? What have we been saying all week?

Yeah. It's not crazy. I wouldn't be able to do it, but I will admit that that is probably a flaw I have as a fantasy player. I'm just always worried about, and it's probably not going to happen, but someone else picking him up and him just going off for the final like six weeks of the season,

which is improbable, but it could happen. I mean, he could happen. He, if I'm remembering correctly, he kind of went on a, he wasn't nearly this bad last season, but I remember there being like a disappointment, and then,

He kind of salvaged it. Yeah. And this, I remember, I think it was two years ago, and I think it was Matt Olson. Oh, yeah. I wrote an article saying, you know, it's enough already. It's time to move.

It wasn't like a dropping situation, but like it's time to lower our expectations, move and way down the rankings. And then his last two months, he had an OPS over 9. in each of them. So it was about this point in the season. To that point, he had a bit like a low 700s OPS,

and then an OPS over 900 in the final two months. So, I mean, something like that could happen with Vladimir Guerrero. I don't think, like, this is a permanent decline for Vladimir Guerrero. I think he's very likely to be back in, back to studliness next season. My theory with him, and it's not without basis, is that he's been playing hurt. And that's not going to stop until the season stops. So there have been no glimmers of hope along the way.

And so I think by now it's fair to assume that he probably needs to rest up this offseason and then we can reassess next year. It was 24 and 24, by the way. He had an 818 OPS in the first half and 1127 in the second half. So I wouldn't be shocked if Vladimir Guerrero went on a crazy run the rest of the way, but I can't say I expect it at this point.

And obviously, just to cover all our bases here, it's not even a thought in a roto league. You have to go too deep into the hitter pool. Who are you going to drop him for, Nathaniel Lowe? Right, exactly. So it's not even a thought in that. We're talking about the shallower head-to-head formats where there are actually always decent hitters on the waiver watch. That was me dropping Vladimir Gurk.

You know, I've got this little like from my Scott Fishball draft over the weekend, I've got this little like coin with like the, I think it's super Mario wearing a helmet. Nice. And it's cool. And it's very heavy and I keep wanting to fidget with it. And I'm like, no, don't do that during the podcast. because it's going to be like 10 times louder than that. All right, continue on with the news. Nick Lidolo will return to the Reds on Tuesday against the White Sox.

Apparently Lidolo has been using a modified grip for his curveball to avoid that blister. And my expectations are very low for Nick Lidolo. Jackson Job will rejoin the Tigers and start Saturday in San Francisco. It's his first start back from Tommy John surgery. We last saw him in May of last year. he threw 69 pitches in his most recent rehab outing. He is 34% rostered.

What is your interest level in Jackson Job? Is this a must add for the final two months? No, not must add. I mean, we saw him at the major league level last season. He wasn't very good despite the good stuff. But I'm very interested to see what he looks like. And if you're in a deeper league where you're just taking flyers on anyone who's interesting, his velocity was up in the one.

He only made one start, and I think it was only like two innings in front of the Stackass camera. So take it for what you will, but I think he average 97 with his fastball. In that, it was up like 1.5 miles per hour. Again, small sample size, one start, short start. But sometimes you will see guys come back from surgery, throwing harder with better stuff. Terrick Scoobel rather famously came back from elbow surgery looking much better. So I'm not saying I expect Jackson Jope to be. a difference maker, but I'm open to it.

He's still, I think he just turned 24 a week ago or something. Let's see. You know, I'm, I'm moderately excited. All right. Next up, Jake Bowers has missed three straight with an abdominal injury, and the hope is that he will return on Friday. Trevor's story will be re-evaluated this weekend to determine when he can begin a rehab assignment. He's been out since May with hernia surgery.

Scott, are you interested in? stashing Trevor Story in an aisle spot. I have him stashed in a couple deep roto leagues, one where I lost Connor Griffin and okay, how am I going to come anywhere close to replacing Connor Griffin's production in a league that deep? I guess Trevor Story, maybe

in September he could do that, maybe. It's not like there's a high degree of confidence in him performance-wise even though. I had him as a bust coming in. Obviously he was good last year, but in a way that was a bit confounding, didn't get off to a good start before the injury this year, and even that good performance last year was like the only one in a five-year span.

So not a high priority at all, but if you're in a deep enough league where there's nothing but scrubs in middle infield, okay, story could be better than that. Can I ask one related question? Yes. All right. Have you guys noticed where Franklin Arias has been playing lately? Like in the world? Yeah, Worcester, I believe. Worcester?

I don't know how they pronounce it up there. Worcester? I don't know. Worcester? Yeah, I don't know. Someone from Boston just had an aneurism either way, about one of the ways we just pronounced it. No, he's been playing second base, which I thought was interesting, because he is viewed, as far as I know, as a long-term second baseman, at least in the medium term. but the weaker spot in the Red Sox lineup,

I mean, I think either second base or shortstop would be a weak spot. But I just thought that was interesting because he's at AAA. He's been logging some time at second base. It's not every day, but it's been a few times lately, and just wanted to highlight that. I actually thought he rated well defensively. I think so too, yeah. Yeah.

It might just be, well, like you said, it might be thinking short term. It might just be teams like to add versatility as prospects make their way further up the ladder. I just thought it was interesting. Maybe stress testing him at second base a little bit. See what it looks like. Franklin Arias, by the way, in 10 games at AAA,

is hitting 326 with three homers and 12 RBI. He's having an awesome. And a 981 p.m. Yes. Yeah, he's been one of the biggest breakouts at any level this season, I think. There is a non-zero chance that we see him before the end of this season. I mean, especially with the run, the Red Sox are on. Obviously, they're in a wildcard spot. And, I mean, they have hopes and dreams of going even further than that.

I mean, if Adley Ruchman comes back, they could potentially push for the ALEs. So, yeah, I don't know. Non-zero chance. We see Franklin Arias before the end of the season. We need to be in the five on the verge. I think maybe. We are getting confirmation in the chat. It is Wooster.

Wooster. Wooster. They wrote it with like 16-0s. Yeah, Wooster. Who are the five on the verge right now, Scott? I'll let you know if Franklin Arias deserves to be in there. I mean, I skipped that. Yeah, you didn't do it.

The prospects report this week. Let's do it live on the air. Five on the verge. I don't know that Charlie Condon and Zach Veen need to be in anymore since the Rock Kate Anderson number one, Josh Baez, number two. There's another guy. Max Clark got called up. Yeah, yeah, he got called up.

Let's see, the last time I did it. Sounds like it's Franklin Arias. He might be third on that list. Walker Jenkins, Walker Jenkins, who just had his first career two homer game today, actually. And that's at AAA too, right? Yeah. Okay. He might be ahead, but yeah, he's been there for a while, too, at AAA.

I don't know. I think Franklin Arias probably would be on that list. I think he'd be on that top five. So something to think about for next week. The Nationals paused Connolly Early's throwing program after he felt forearm tightness during his latest BP session. And he's been out since early July with elbow inflammation. And once I saw the early trade for Curtis Mead,

I just assumed that this injury was way worse than we the public actually knew. Yeah, it definitely felt like a little selling low. on Connolly early, so you gotta think there's some semblance of damage goods. I mean, he's a young pitcher who's currently heard. I think that's, yeah. There's only so good you can ever feel about a pitcher who's currently hurt. Then again, the Red Sox trade history recently.

A little. They're very willy-nilly about trading. Craig Breslo seems to go for his guys. I will give him that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I can't. criticize every team for prospect

hugging and then criticize Craig Breslo for prospect munting, I guess. Robbie Ray will make his Padre's debut on Friday. Andrew Painter who left Wednesday with hamstring tightness is expected to make his next start Monday in St. Louis. The Angels

plan to call up George Closson to start Friday against the Marlins and his last 12 starts at AAA, a 257 ERA 117 whip over a strikeout per inning. Also four walks per nine. very widely available. Chris,

do you have any interest in Angels pitching prospect George Clawson? I can't say I have zero interest. I can't say I have much interest.

I think it's a very deep league situation. Yeah, it's definitely, well, part of it is just he's pitching in the PCL, right?

Like they're in Salt Lake, I think, the Angels. So it's, it's just hard to know what to make of any pitcher in,

in AAA, especially in the PCL because there's so many ballparks at elevates, at elevation or in weird climates that it's just, he could be good, but his underlying numbers are not particularly impressive this season.

So I would need to see something at the major league level from George Clause. It seems like a related time to bring this up. Do you guys know what Reed Detmer's record is this year? It's either surprisingly good or surprisingly bad, I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess 10 and 4. I'm going to guess it's like 3 at 11. Frankins. It's not 3 and 11, but it's 3 and 8. For as well as he's pitched overall, 3 and 8.

That is the Reed Detmer's experience. I can't give it. And obviously the angels are worse now than they've been all season after the trade deadline. So I, given the concerns about him as a pitcher and then add that to it, I don't think there's much reason to pursue George Claussen. All right. Spencer Arrogatee left him. rehab start early after re-injuring his right foot. He's been dealing with a nerve issue in that foot. I do have some lineup stuff here. I wanted to mention Moises Biasteros got a start at Catcher on Thursday for the Angels.

That was his ninth appearance overall. So we need 11 more before the end of the season for him to have catcher eligibility for next year. That would be great. So hopefully it happens for Biaseros. And Anhele Hinau was in the Guardians lineup once again. And looking at the way this lineup shook out, it was Hainau at second base. So he has one start at second, one at third. He already has shortstop eligibility.

It was Jose Ramirez at third. Brian Rokio at short. Travis Pisana actually was the DH here. Chase the water in Reifield. No Stephen Kwan. He got banged up the night before. And no Joe Adele against the righty. So I'm kind of wondering if Joe Adel is more of a short side platoon player.

But I think they're going to just kind of shuffle things around. And you're probably going to see one good guardian's hitter out of the lineup like once. per week if they want to actually get on hell Hanow in there consistently. Let's do a temperature check on these starting pitchers. We'll have some starters sitting here as well. But let's talk about, we already

did Bryce Miller, he was like the top of the list. But Christopher Sanchez, look, Christopher Sanchez still ranked as a top five starting pitcher by all of us. But he's been shaky as of late. Five inning, six hits, two runs, two walks, six strikeouts here, mixed outing,

couldn't locate his change up. His sinker got hit hard. Surprisingly, the slider was his best pitch in this start. But over his last six, he has a 496 ERA, a 168 whip. There was one really, really bad start that's doing a lot of the carrying in there. But he also has a bad dip over 400

during that stretch. So where do you guys add on Christopher Sanchez? Like, just what's gone wrong here with Sanchez? You said it's a 496 ERA over the last six starts. I think it's like a 270 ERA over the last five. I'd be interested to see what the whip is.

I think the whip is still really high. Yeah, he has, his last three starts is 10 walks, 3, 5, and 2. So the control's been a little shaky lately for sure. Yeah. And it's not the first time we've seen a stretch like this from Christopher Sanchez. He is normally an excellent control pitcher, but he throws very hard and sometimes just seems to lose that awesome control. So his previous two starts, he had a combined eight walks, which is very out of character. They still end up being decent starts for all the walks,

but not up to the level we were seeing from Christopher Sanchez. He had just two walks in this one, but still only through 57% of his pitches for strikes, which isn't very good. It shows he's still going through it. I think it's going to be a short-term thing. His season long strike percentage is 67%. And it's been very consistent,

like fourth straight year of it being in that 67% range. even for stretches like this where he kind of loses it. I want to freak out about it. He's managing again to be respectable even while going through this stretch, with the exception of that one star where he got blown out. And on the season, it's a 265 ERA over 10K per 9, 122 whip. I mean, that is just, that is a killer.

That's partially, he gives up a lot of hard contact on the ground at times and the defense behind him is just not good. So, I mean, I think he's going to run higher whips. So I think that's just part of... I think it got better. I think losing bone at third base helps for... It depends if Lewis... It depends if Lewis Rye's can carry this over, I think.

And it's Bryce Harper. Bryce Harper and Wright Field. I think Ron Washington was credited for Luis Arise defensive improvement, as has been true for many infielers who've worked. worked with Ron Washington, and obviously Ron Washington didn't come over in that trade. So, yeah, hopefully the gains stick, but I guess that's not a guarantee. It is. You know, Sanchez is seventh in the player-rater on the season.

Despite that whip. Might dip down to A. Well, I was going to say it's kind of surprisingly low, I would say, given that he has an MLB best 14 wins and a 265. ERA. Yeah, that's the whip. That's all that's all whip. That whip will kill you. Yeah, that's, that's an undervalued thing. I think a lot of people when they're building their teams. I don't think about the fit. Yeah. The whip. That was the only thing that I was worried about with Sanchez coming into the year because he has run some higher whips in previous years as well. Let's talk about Ranger Suarez. Not great against the White Sox here. Three innings, three

hits, four runs, three of those earned, and he has not completed five innings in the three starts since returning from the IL. Not sure that he's completely right at the moment. He dealt with a groin strain in July, and remember he was going to come off the IL, then they delayed him a few days. Yeah, so I just, I'm not sure that he's completely healthy right now. The problem is that he lines up for two stars next week, really good matchups at the Blue Jays, at the Pirates. Do you guys throw Suarez out there, despite him not looking right and not going deep into starts right now? Yeah, I mean, at this point, can you even count on him for six innings across two starts?

I would bet on more, but this is always the thing that's a little scary about Ron Herr Suarez. It's just that when things are going well, they tend to go really, really well. But there's always, almost always. I think last year there wasn't. But most of the time, there is a point where it stops work. And it's usually around an injury. I want to say a couple years ago there was a back. I think most years it was a back.

Yeah, he's had recurring back issues. And it just kind of sets him off a little bit to where nothing looks terribly wrong, but he just isn't as effective because he doesn't have the stuff to overcome when he's not executing well. In the way that Christopher Sanchez does, you know. And so that's the one thing I would say with Suarez is just, I want to have faith that he'll turn it around. But we have gone through this before where, you know, seemingly minor things, like missing, you know, two weeks and then a week, two weeks with a groin injury, I think it was. Yep.

And then, like, he got pushed back an extra week because of the illness. You know, that could be enough to throw him off just because his margin for error seems really slim. Having said that, I'm not sitting. a two-star guy. I agree. With a 332 ERA and 117 whip. In my two-star pitcher rankings for this week, I don't put Ranger Suarez in the must-start tier,

but I put him in the advisable in most cases tier, in between Noah Cameron and Shoda Imanaga, behind Cameron ahead of Imanaga, and ahead of Bybee and Casey Mize and Ryan Weathers. That's the placement for the two-star Swaras, who, yeah, you could say it's four starts, obviously four starts where he's gone less than five. Two were just before the injury, two,

just after the injury. And one of the four was really good. He just left with the injury, you know? So I, I, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to overreact to what in the grand scheme of things is just a little rough patch. All right, let's take our final break. When we return, I have one, two, three, four,

five more pitchers to talk about. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back, Fantasy at Baseball today. We'll continue on with a temperature check for some confusing pitchers right now. And next up, we have Foster Griffin, who had a Rough Guardian's debut against the Mets. Four innings, seven hits, five runs,

did have six strikeouts, two homers allowed in this one, and he has allowed five plus earned runs in back-to-back starts, two homers in each of those as well. He has just a seven-point-pointed. 4% swinging strike rate over his last four starts. 75% started. He's at the Tigers next week.

What do you guys think about? Foster Griffin, some recent struggles. Are you using him next week? So hit two home runs and back-to-back starts. And he, that seemed like the main area where he was, where we were going to see that ERA come in line with, more in line with the expected ERA. Like I've been saying for months now, I think Foster Griffin is good.

I don't think he's low threes. E.R.A. good. And so eventually there has to come a stretch like this where he gives some of that back. And the home runs seem the most likely way for it to happen. Against the Tigers next time out, I still think that's pretty attractive. I'm not going to say he's a must. I would start a two-star Ranger Suarez over it, or Ron Harris. excuse me, Ron Harris-Wara's over him, for instance.

But back-to-back bad starts isn't enough to make Griffin, like, radioactive to me. I will say the strikeouts have disappeared lately. There was a stretch where it was like nine strikeouts, nine strikeouts, two strikeouts, nine strikeouts, nine strikeouts. I was like, okay, well, that's kind of weird. But then it was after the third nine strikeout game and four starts, it's been two, two, three. and then six today. I guess that's a good sign.

But yeah, that's the one thing that stands out is since the start of July, it's 24 strikeouts and 35 innings. So that's concerning. I've been more skeptical of Griffin than you guys all along, so I'm a little more inclined to believe that whatever is happening here is a little more indicative of what will happen moving forward, but I'm not going to say you should drop him. And even like a sit, you know, it's going to depend on what you have.

I don't think to try to a matchup you're avoiding for Foster Griffin. I just felt that whole time that we were talking about Foster Griffin, Chris, going through your mind was the clip from Brooklyn 9-9, where he yells, vindication. No, no, that was Eduardo Rodriguez's last start. That's true. Let's talk about Braxton Ashcraft. Not great at the Brewers, five innings, four runs, two more homers allowed for Ashcraft. and he actually got a lot of ground balls in this one.

He had seven ground ball outs. It was like a 57% ground ball rate. Still managed to give up two homers. Does not have a quality start since June 24th. And over his last seven, 681, ERA 135 whip, 11 homers allowed over his last seven starts. So 67% started at the Marlins next week.

What are we doing with Braxton Ashcraft? I'm starting. Oh, okay. Against the Marlins? Yeah. Yeah, but. I mean, this is a, how many starts were we talking about? Seven start stretch where only, I guess, two of them, you could say we're good.

And the rest were like terrible. So that's obviously a lot of terrible. And I don't really get why you did mention he started getting ground balls again. He actually threw more sinkers in this one than he hadn't to start since June 17th, which was right around the time this rough patch began. But prior to this start, the last time he had thrown his most sinkers since June 17th was the previous start

when he allowed two hits in one run in five innings. So he doubles down on that, and it's a lot worse. So I don't know that that's the fix. There's a lot of information to say that. I don't know that that's the fix. So I, sorry, I got distracted. Did you drop something?

No, I didn't drop something. There was an earwig crawling across my desk. Oh, that's fun. And I tried to smash it, but I just knocked it on the floor. So now there's an earwig crawling across my floor. I'm telling you, there's a lot more bugs in South Carolina than I know what to do with. Yeah, I don't like a earwig. Didn't one time we were like recording and a fly went in your mouth while you were talking?

Yeah, I breathed in a fly while I was done. That happened to me recently, like into my nose. and it was real upsetting. Never, never happy about that. I want to get that earwig. Where to go? There it is. I see it.

You won't get this content anywhere else. Yes, now it's a dead earwig. I got it. What is an earwig? It's a creepy little, I'm not a fan of what I just. So the urban legend or old wives, whatever you want to use to describe it, is that they crawl into your ears and feed on the earwax. And that's why they're called earwigs.

But they don't actually. It's not. That is not a pretty good thing. Not a big, NBD. Not a pretty looking creature. Yeah. Very anti-bugs. I don't mess with bugs.

It was crawling right at me. So you can understand why, like, I don't know how it ended up on my desk. Get out of here. I don't like that. I don't know. I guess I'm a gross guy. Yeah. What were we talking?

Oh, Braxton Ashcraft. How big are these things? They are, they vary in size. The long-less I've seen is probably like an inch, inch and a half maybe. I don't like that. Yeah. Um, my theory for Ashcraft is that he's tired. And that's not going to change.

Who among us? It's a long season, you know? We stand a relatable king. Yeah. He's got a lot more innings than he's used to, and he's tired. And I don't know that he's going to get right. I could have bring myself to drop him, but even against the Marlins, I don't want to start him. Yeah, he's about 15 innings above his career high, I believe.

So, yeah, that's a concern. I am looking at your sleeper pitcher, Scott. I would use any of the top five over Ashcraft next week. That includes Noah Cameron, J.T. Ginn, Roki Sasaki, Walbert, Arania, and Dustin May. I would use any of those five over Ashcraft. I might use any of the 10. See, now we're, now we have that discussion about bugs and now it's like anytime you feel

like a little wisp of wind across your leg, it's like, oh God, ah, get out of here. The thing is, like, we hire a pest control company. It's huge business. People who follow me on Twitter probably know the story I told about Flash and the Black Widows. If not, you can do a little

search on that. Since we moved into this house, we've probably had like six different pest control companies door to door soliciting for our business. And we're signed up with one. But like it's just they built a neighborhood in the middle of the forest and they don't know. The bugs don't know it yet. The bugs don't know it yet.

I found a black widow two days ago on the outside of my house. I'm not a bug guy. Bugs freak me out. I don't. Me neither. My wife's always like take care of it. I'm like, you take care of it. protect me

what is this no I I handle the bugs I understand chivalry but like I don't want to I also don't want to kill them you know like I feel please I don't love killing please

I will leave the the chival I'm gonna step away from the chivalry conversation because I'm not the one who kills bugs in my house I'll just tell you that right now Framber Valdez great out in here at the Mariners seven shutout innings with five strikeouts

but a weird one. Only four whiffs on 95 pitches. His velocity was down across the board. Not really sure what to make of it. He's looked better in his last three starts. He gets the Guardians next week. They are really bad against lefties. So I think if you held on to Valdez,

you're probably just running him out there. I did have a question. What are the chances he can get down to a 375 IRA and a 125 whip by season's end? Right now it's 417. and 137. Okay, so he'd have to lower his ERA about about... He would probably have to pitch to about a 340-ish ERA the rest of the way

to finish with a 375 WIPE.R. That's not impossible. Definitely not impossible. This is one of those starts where it's like, yeah, the result was really good. You know, seven shutout innings. And then you look into it and it's like, I don't know if it makes me feel any better about,

Framber Valdez. Only four whiffs, like you mentioned, five strikeouts. It's given how mediocre he's been for most of the season, I think we'll take it, certainly. But it's not like I can look at this start and say, aha, he figured something out.

You know, the curveball was okay, but it wasn't, you know, a classic Framber Valdez curveball start. So I... He really just had that curve and nothing else. Yeah, I'm... I have him ranked around 50, I think at starting pitch.

I don't feel good about that ranking one way or the other. But I can't really bring myself to move him any lower, even though I know some people would like me to. Yeah. The last two names on this list, I'm going to go very quickly through these. Noah McLean had a rough outing. I think we just give him a mulligan.

Previous six starts before this one, 140 ERA, 113-13 whip, 10.4K per 9. And Michael Waka, he was okay, but he had three walks, only one strikeout against the twins. I just wanted to highlight that he's at the Dodgers next week, so you probably don't want to use Michael Waka and should probably lean on one or multiple of Scott's sleeper pitchers for next week instead.

Who's hot and who's not hitter edition? And I have four names. Very hot right now. Alex Bregman, two for four with a sock into shoe. And last 31 games. He's hitting 270, six homers, 23 RBI, and an OPS around 850. So very welcome site there for Alex Bregman.

Kevin McGonigle, he's picking up the slug in the second half where he now has four homers, 16 runs, and an 870 OPS. Dylan Dingler will not stop. He is homered in three straight and four of his last six. And 19 games post-all-Star break, 3.46, 7 homers, a 1068 OPS. And Matt Olson also on a heater, 30-second home run and 20 games after the All-Star break for him. 280-7 home runs, a 10-13 OPS. So four hitters, streaking.

Trending up, any thoughts? Anything stand out on those four? Bregman, McGonigle, Dingler, Matt Olson. McGonigle, so I'll go first. McGonagle and Dengler, I think are just awesome. I think the one that stands out most is Bregman. He's done nothing all season, so it's just good to see him doing anything.

That's the one that he's been a lot better lately. I don't know if the underlying numbers really back it up, but the underlying numbers are never great for Alex Bregman. But this season, I believe, maybe it's changed, but the last I looked, the underlying numbers are not just bad, but bad for Alex Bregman. 3.08 X-Woba is the worst of his career since 2016, which was his rookie season. Other than that, he had been at least 325 every year, including the previous two seasons, which weren't great.

So he is outperforming his underlying numbers, but the underlying numbers are still not where they have been in the past. So I think Alex Bregman is still a pretty, pretty iffy starter in a Roto League. And even in a points league, which is his better format, he's a fringe top 15 guy, not a top 10 guy, I think. I looked the other day, I think last 28 days he was like over three fantasy points per game. So that's a good mark for Alex Bregman. That's where he typically is when he's just Alex Bregman. So perhaps, you know, whether he in up, Rigley, The rest of that lineup is really good.

So hopefully he can kind of carry this. But yeah, the underlying numbers, even during this stretch, it's like a 3% barrel rate. Yeah. It's really, really bad.

So, his last 100 plate appearances, it's 277 expected Woba. Oh. So even where, I mean, that's, I would tell,

that's 250. It's 289. Last, let's see, maybe the last 50. Hey, last 50's 3.42. So if you cut it up that small,

yeah, that'll work. Yeah. If, trading was still available in leagues, I'd probably say, hey, you know, if you could sell based on this recent run from Alex Bregman, go for it. But I doubt you'd even be able to get much for him anyway. Two big name hitters who have been scuffling as of late. Zach Netto did hit his 20th home run. His first homer since July 5th, 23 games between homers. He hit 2.17 with a 33% K-rate

and a 559 OPS. And Jackson Trio mentioned this one the other day with you, Scott. He is homered in two of his last three games, but in his 24 games before that, 219, zero homers, 557 OPS for Jackson Trio. Is this just part of the ebbs and flows of the season, or anything that you're actually worried about, Zach Netto and Jackson Trio? I mean, probably ebbs and flows of the season, though it, that was a,

so I wrote down different numbers than you have for Zach Nett. Previous 35 games before this 2-4-5 performance with a home run. Previous 35, he had just two home runs and three stolen bases in that 35-game stretch. His batting average was pretty typical for Zagnetto. I think it was in mid-230s, but not giving you any of the counting stats you signed up for. And for the season now, it was never his best format, head-to-head point. but right now he's at 2.75. That's actually the lower than Geraldo Perdomo.

It's lower than Nico Orner, who hasn't been very good. It's not that different from like Maricio Dubon or Ezekiel Duran. It's definitely not what you signed up for. And I'm disappointed. Look, that he's probably going to end up with close to 30. 30 homers and about 20 steals still, I would guess. But I don't think he's going to live up to his draft status, which was about a third rounder in Roto.

I'm sure it was a little lower in points. Some kind of mixed in formats here. I think basically what I'm trying to say is I think Zach Netto last year was closer to the high point we're going to see from him than his baseline outcome. And this year is kind of showing that. Yeah. Feels like he's really just sold out for power this year, Zach Netto. The K rate the last three years, 23%, 27%, 32% this year.

And the fly ball rate has gone up too. So it just kind of leans toward Zach Netto selling out for power this year. And obviously it has not been the best season, the season that we were hoping for for Zach Netto. Bombs away for the Reds. They hit four home runs as a team here on Thursday. And Ellie hit his 19th home run. He's actually been very good since coming off the IL with that hamstring injury.

Sal Stewart hit his 25th Homer, and he is slugging for more power here in the second half so far. Nice to see that. J.J. Bladay, someone we haven't really talked too much about lately, but he went two for three with a walk in his 20th home run. He was awesome in May. He was awful in June. And he's just kind of been okay since the start of July. It's a 216 batting average 339 on base. So he's still walking a lot that's good for a points league.

But the quality of contact is way down during that stretch. 64% roster. Does that number sound right to you guys for J.J. Bladay? So it's... I think it's fine. Probably just rostered in five Alphiler leagues at this point. Yep. And I think he's decent in points league still.

Let's look at what is. Last 28 days, it's 2.5 fantasy points per game for Bladay. So... Which, for as bad as he's been, is... respectable. I'm looking at the fast swing rate because that was a big part of our enthusiasm. It's still more than double what it was last year and the year before. Average bat speed is still up more than two miles per hour from last year. Big improvement there. And the power is mainly what we're seeing him sustain. So I do think he's more than just a flash in the pan,

but obviously not as good as he looked in May, you said, right? That was the best month. Yeah, yeah. So I think he'll remain somebody we stream when the matchups are right. Yeah, I think the overall production, 814 OPS, bad batting average, decent power. I think that's probably a reasonable expectation for him moving forward. Maybe I'd take the under on the 814 OPS.

Maybe it's more like a 780 or something, but that's still a useful player. It's just there's a lot of guys who do that in the major. now. And the last Reds homer here was Tyler Stevenson who hit his 10th home run and he's quietly been really good. Last 31 games, 3.30, 5 homers and OPS over 950 during that's been. Hitting the ball hard, expected stats, great. 38% rostered as a second catcher. How would you guys rank Andy Rodriguez, Tyler Stevenson, Joe Mack, and Augustine Ramirez? I think in that order

So Andy Stevenson, Joe Mack Andy Stevenson Mac Ramirez What if I throw by Astero's in there? I think he started a catcher today DH the day before Hopefully he's going to play every day But I have a little less faith in that I'd probably put him ahead of Ramirez

Because I really don't know how much Ramirez is going to play He got picked off today On a play where he had like a four-foot lead I've never seen anything like it He just guessed wrong when the pitcher lifted their leg and tried to get a secondary lead and got picked off. It was real bad. Yeah, I know we were all really excited about Ramirez earlier in the season,

but he wasn't very good at AAA, so I think I'd actually put him fifth behind Byesteros, but Bysteros would be fourth for me. Who were the other three? Tyler Stevenson, Andy Rodriguez, and Joe Mack. I definitely put Bayeusteros ahead of Mac also. Yeah. Like the advantage by Astero has over all those.

guys, even Andy Rodriguez. It looks like he's going to be a true everyday player. He started all three games since joining the Angels, including two against lefties. That was my next question. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think that's reasonable to put him third.

And it wouldn't take much to put him ahead of Tyler Stevens. And who is fine. I think Andy Rodriguez might be legitimately very good. So that's the reason I put him ahead, especially with the stolen basis. I will point out two things. all four of these guys who Homer had only had one RBI. That's just weird. That was just a weird looking box score.

And do you know how many players in Major League Baseball have more RBI than South Stewart? Three. One. Do you know who that player is? C.J. Abrams. J.J. Abrams and South Stewart are the top two. I mean, I guess I don't know if Yarnon Alvarez might have had two or three RBI today. I don't think he did.

Astros didn't play today. Astros didn't play. So no. Yeah. CJ Abrams and South Stewart lead the majors in RBI. And Jordan Walker, just like we drew it up. And Jordan Walker, Luis Garcia, and Alec Berlison.

Actually, man, the total whole top 10, or at least the top eight. C.J. Abrams, South Stewart, Yardon Alvarez, Jordan Walker, Luis Garcia, Alec Berlison, Dylan Dingler, and Andy Pahez are the top eight in RBI right now. Wow. That is bizarre. Wow. That is weird.

That is weird. That is baseball. Susan. We, I do have some waiver-wired names, but we're kind of up against it here. So I'll just mention it all four. You guys, give me a quick thought. But Royce Lewis hit his 13th home run, 66% rostered. We bring up his name like every day.

I moved him up all the way to my 13th ranked third baseman. It's just a really, really bad position. Bryson Stott, he's been hitting well for a while now. Over his last 50 games, he's up over 300. Two homers, nine seals. He is 67% rostered and looks like he's on his way to gaining third base eligibility. so that's helpful. Alejandro Kirk, 16 games post-All-Star break, 3.46 with two homers and an 886 OPS.

And Chase Midroth, revenge game against the Red Sox, the team that drafted him and traded him. Three for five with a double dong, two walks, four RBI, last 21, 319, five homers, and an OPS over 900. Any thoughts, any size leagues that you think these names need to be rostered in. Royce Lewis, Stott, Kirk, Chase Midroth. I think the most rosterable is Royce Lewis. Agreed. I think my droth is the most predictable, but it just doesn't have that high of a ceiling.

And so it'd have to be a pretty deep league, at least to leave with middle infield spot, required to really make use of him. He hasn't been much of a base dealer this year. And the power, okay, hit two home runs today. It's not a big part of his game either. You know, I think Stott is a passable middle infield option, particularly if you need steals in a Roto League.

And Kirk is a fine second catcher. It's nothing revolutionary here. Lewis may be quietly emerging as a, at least a borderline top 12 third basement again. I think he's most roster. Okay. with how bad that position is. I mean, in a points league, in a roto league, I think you could take him over Esauk Paredes and Alex Bregman.

In a roto league, I think you can make the case for him as high as 10 with the steals that have been there. Yeah. I wouldn't actually take him over Bregman and Paretas in a points league, though. No, no, that's what I'm saying. I would take Bregman and Paredes over him in a points league. In a Roto league, I think, might be the opposite.

And you might take him. Okamoto, I think you'd rather have him in a roto league, but maybe the other two in a point. So I think he's right around that range. But I moved Lewis ahead of Bichette, Austin Riley, Colson Montgomery, and anybody else in it, like Suarez, anyone else. So I moved Durbin and Royce Lewis inside of my top 13 third baseman, just because they're performing.

And there's like no one else in the position that is. It's defensible. I, it's defensible. I don't know that in the long run, Lewis is going to be better than those guys, but as we've been saying, the long run doesn't really exist right now. Yeah. When Bryson Stott gains third base eligibility, would you take him over either Royce Lewis or Caleb Durbin? I wouldn't.

Maybe Durbin, I think they're very similar, but as good as Stott's numbers are that you mentioned, Durbin's are just flat out better. Yeah, he's a nice. 900 OPS guys since the start of June. So I think he just take Durbin, yeah. Yeah. All right, some Waverwire pitchers here. Mostly streamer types.

Dustin May look good in his Brewer's debut, quality start. And next week, he's at the Padres. Mention earlier, he's one of Scott's sleeper pitchers. I do think that the, as of now, the Brewers are running a six-man rotation, and I haven't really heard much of an update outside of that. So we'll be hard to get two-start weeks out of those pitchers.

Andrew Abbott, quality start for him. the walks have just been way up lately for Andrew Abbott. He gets the white, he's at the white socks next week. They're pretty good against lefties. So I don't know. I just, I'm not really into it with Andrew Abbott. Bailey Ober, a quality star, but like zero strikeouts.

I don't think you could do anything. Like the only one that really matters here is Dustin May, in my opinion. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And he went through a stretch sort of like Ron Harris-Warris is having now where he couldn't go deep into games and part of it was health related, part of it performance related,

but his last three starts, he's been great again, two of them been quality starts, and I think he's back on the right track. Because it was his first start with the Brewers, it's probably worth mentioning he threw his cutter a lot more, 35% versus the usual 22%. Even though on the surface,

it's not a great pitch for him, but the brewers know what they're doing with pitchers, and we'll see, if that's part of the grand plan or if it was just a fluky thing that happened, this one start. All right, wanted to quickly just mention Luis Castillo's White Sox debut.

It was not very good. Five runs over four innings. But he did get whiffs in this one. 12 swinging strikes on 71 pitches. That is a 17% swinging strike rate. And his last four starts very bad. But the matchup next week is against the Reds. They're not really a great lineup.

They're bad against Ritees. Chris, can I talk into Luis Castillo against the Reds next week? I don't think it's the worst streamer in the world. I'd rather do that than whatever Bailey Ober's got going on. And Bailey Ober is more widely rostered. That is so weird. I don't understand Bailey Overely over.

Bailey Over is 58% rostered. His results since coming back from the IL have not been bad, but it's been like... He has three strikeouts or fewer in three straight... Yeah, there's just been no... Like, it's all... it's all bad bit luck. I don't have any faith in Bailey over

being anything better than like a 4-5 ERA guy. I have one lonely hitting leftover and that is Francisco Lindor who hit his 10th home run and since returning, nope, that's not true, in the second half, he's looked better. 260, 5 homers, 16 RBI, 856 OPS. That also comes with zero steals and I'm not sure that we're going to see Lindor run much

just because the Mets aren't playing for anything and he had a calf injury earlier in the season. So could just be, you know, like home runs, accounting stats for Francisco Lindor the rest of the way. Eight home runs and 35 games since returning. That's pretty good. So, yeah, I think the power,

I think it's a hitter. The batting average is a little lower than we want to see during that stretch, but that's small sample noise, I think. the data's looked good for Lindor all season long. I think you can feel pretty good about him again. I have him fifth in my rest of season rankings at shortstop, and I am not inclined to change that.

No, actually fourth in my rest of season rankings at shortstop. All right, the call to the bullpen for the Angels. It was lefty Sammy Natera Jr. who got the final four outs for his second save. Ben Joyce pitched the night before he threw 16 pitches in his season debut, and I highly doubt the Angels are going to, to throw Ben Joyce in back-to-back games, back-to-back days rather. Sammy Natera, his numbers are awesome.

We mentioned him towards the end of that trade deadline extravaganza that we did. He's only 3% rostered. I'm not really sure who gets the next save, but I think if you're in a really deep league, like 15-team Brodo and just desperate, yeah, I think it's worth a small bid on Sammy Netara Jr. Absolutely. I mean, the numbers are really good. Joyce is not a guarantee

I don't think Joyce is that good I don't even I don't think Joey He just starts hard mentioning him I've been saying him As the guy I expect to be the Angels Closer

Just because He was what a third round pick And he's had a lot of hype And he has been their closer At points In the past But yeah he doesn't He doesn't miss many bats

For how hard he throws I think he has like one season Where he's been pretty good It's really the only season where he was available for any length of time. It was like a, but it was with less than a strikeout per inning.

It was one of those. Okay, the results were good, but not really the data backing it. Yeah, he's a lot more of a Jordan Hicks type than, like a really great closer. But I've been kind of defaulting to him for a while, but look, it might be Natera.

Yeah, it's possible. For the Reds, Emilio Pagan, was unavailable. Brock Burke picked up his second save of the year. For the Brewers, Trevor McGill and Abner Arebe were unavailable. So Chad Patrick picked up his fifth save. For the Blue Jays, Louis Varland got the ninth with a two-run lead. He gave up a two-run homer to Alex Bregman. He took his first blown save and the Blue Jays wound up losing an extras.

He's just been a demon this year. Because even really good closers will blow an occasional save or like have one where they were working in the eighth inning. for like, yeah, that's wild. Yeah. Massive breakout closer season. Just like really deep guys. Louis Varland, Jacob Latt's just really, really awesome season

for both of those guys. For the twins, Yo-Enress Gomez. Also, because I'm sure they're shouting at us, Brian Baker. Yes, yes, well. Yeah. How can I forget? My gosh. Yeah, he's, I think I moved them inside

of my top five closures for the rest of the season, right? He's just, he's earned that. He's amazing. For the twins. Yoendris Gomez got the ninth with a one run lead. He walked one. He struck out two. He picked up his 15th save.

Still not completely sure about this one. I think this was a good sign for Gomez. Jeff Hoffman made his twins debut on Wednesday night. He threw 11 pitches. He did not pitch in this game. The twins took the lead very late. It was in the eighth inning of this game. So I just want to see when they're both rested, both available,

a traditional save opportunity, what happens in the twins bullpen? I think Gomez has built up some respectability, respect, I guess you could just say, within this organization. So I think they're going to stick with him for a little bit, but it might be a short leash with Jeff Hoffman there. I would think so. That's how I laid it out in the latest bullpen report, which came out yesterday. I don't think Derek Shelton would remove him from the role until he actually gives him a reason, too, because he has been stable enough.

And, you know, there are advantages to having Hoffman work in a more versatile role. But I do think Hoffman's the most talented reliever there in any league where saves are scarce. I think he needs to be rostered. And for the White Sox, Grant Taylor pitched two innings across the sixth and the eighth innings. So in a tight game, he did pick up the hold. the, it was Wascar Brazabon, who they just recently traded for. He came in in the ninth and he blew it. The White Sox wound up losing this game in extras.

But this is just your latest reminder that Grant Taylor is not the closer for the White Sox. I just think he's their highest leverage reliever. He'll get saves. I think he's awesome. I think he's really talented. But he's not a traditional closer in the sense. I had a White Sox fan tweet at me that he can't, become the closer because the plan is to move him into the rotation next year.

So I looked into it a little bit and there were reports of that like in April that the plan is have them work up to about 100 innings in the bullpen and then... I remember there being something in May or June about that as well, yeah. There have also been suggestions that that could change along the way. I mean, I think at one point in time the Brewers were saying that about Josh Hader and obviously it never came to pass. So, you know, these situations evolve. And obviously the White Sox are in a much more competitive spot

than maybe they thought they were going to be in April. And their make up a point where they really need Taylor as their closer. And he's their best reliever by far. By far. And I think ultimately, you know, because this is a 2027 discussion, we're going to know well, well, well before spring training, whether or, you know, whenever, you know, summer training. whether Grant Taylor is the closer or is moving into the rotation.

Like if the Red Sox go out and add, you know, three high leverage relievers this offseason. White Sox. Okay. White Sox. Sorry. Yeah. Red Sox. White Sox.

Yeah. Different socks. Then, yeah. Then if that happens, then Grant Taylor's probably moving to the rotation. But if they, you know, make some moves or like Tyler Rogers, you know, those kind of moves, like clear setup, man. Then it's like, okay. Yeah. Grant Taylor might be the closers.

So I think we're going to know well in advance what Grand Taylor's role is going to be next year either way. All right to stream or not to stream on Friday. We have Tyler Malley in his Braves debut at the Yankees, Zach Thornton at the Pirates. Tyler Phillips is home against the Angels. George Claussen is at the Marlins. Zebby Matthews, he's back. He's at the Brewers.

Shane Drohan against the Twins. Shane Boz at the Rangers. Kyle Leahy against the Rockies in St. Louis. and Kader Montero at the Giants. Drohan, Leahy, and then I think Bos would be a slightly more distant third for me. Yep. In that order, I agree.

I like those three as well, and I will just throw out maybe those names are already roster in your league. I think Zach Thornton and Kader Montero could have good starts here on Friday. On Saturday, we have Walbert Arania at the Marlins. Yeah. Robert Stock at the Pirates.

Bubba Chandler against the Mets. No. Seth Lugo against the Cubs. No. Robert Gasser against the twins. Jackson Job and his season debut at the Giants. Matthew Liberator gets the Rockies in St. Louis. I really don't like it.

Anthony Kay. Anthony Kaye. Yeah. Anthony Kay gets the Guardians and Brandon Fott, Chris's favorite pitcher, gets the Dodgers. Come on. Walverd-Rania is the only one I feel good about against the Marlins there if you're forcing me to pick others

I would say Gasser and Chandler over Libertor myself One must imagine Brandon fought pitching well That's all I've got to say It's a little throwback to Wednesday's pod For those of you Tuesdays pod Tuesdays

Not one I was a part I'll tell you that much I think that was Tuesday. Yeah. I'll say Walbert, Rainia, Bubba Chandler, and Anthony Kaye on Saturday. Well, technically Wednesday. You just recorded it Tuesday. Yeah, Tuesday night.

Well, Wednesday morning. On Sunday, we have Grant Holmes at the Yankees, Brady Singers at the Nationals, J.T. Gin at the Red Sox, Sean Binaia at the Pirates, Grayson Rodriguez at the Marlins, Connor Preelep at the Brewers, Michael McGruevy gets the Rockies in St. Louis. Cade Povich at the Rangers, Kuma Rocker, against the Orioles. McGreevy. Grayson Rodriguez at the Marlins. We're picking on the Marlins.

That's a big dice roll, yeah. But I like the way he's looked his last two starts. And my third choice would probably be as hot as the Red Sox are. I like J.T. again enough that I could use him against them. I think you might get your standard five and two-thirds innings, two-run runs out of Shamaniah. I don't think there's a ton of upside beyond that, but it's not a bad method.

Pittsburgh's like 21st against. lefties, I think, in Woba. So. Yep. I'm good with all those. I will throw Brady Singer out there as well. I think you can pitch against the nationals as long as James Wood is hurt and, you know, they've traded some pieces away.

So their lineup not as much. Yeah, I hadn't updated that in my mental model. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. That makes sense. Losing two of their three best hitters. Yeah. All right. We're going to wrap there for Scott, Chris.

I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating. on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye. On podcasts. Oh, and welcome to Plutofo. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, The Matrix, Transformers, Rise of the Beast, or Mean Girls.

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