Fantasy Baseball Today - THIS OR THAT!? Will the Real Kevin Gausman Please Stand Up? (5/22 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Jake Burger looks like he's back (2:30)! ... Who is the real Kevin Gausman (7:00)? ... News (15:38): Jared Jones had UCL surgery and is out for the season. ... The second base position is bad (25:04)! ... Let's do a little THIS OR THAT, waiver wire edition (29:15)! ... Beat the waiver wire for these potential two-start pitchers (42:50)? ... Is Corbin Burnes back (45:40)? ... It was a big day for catchers (53:19). ... These hitters stayed hot on Wednesday (57:58). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (1:01:45). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow FBT on TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CBSScottWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@Roto_Frank⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join our Facebook group at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. What's up and welcome in to Fancy Baseball today on Thursday, May 22nd. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we'll have a little waiver wire this or

that. Will the real Kevin Gosman please stand up? I do. Every time this guy goes out there, I just, I don't know what we're going to get. Big day for catchers and much more, but let's start with the players of the night. Give me that. I can only play that soundbite when Jake Berger has a big day, so it made sense to do it today. Chris, you are up, player of the night. Yes, Jake Burger, who I believe was rewarded with a bunch of Burger King's swag after that walkoff for the Marlins, Burger King being a Miami company. So it's a great brand synergy there. And he's back. I don't know. He's hitting like 340. He had two home runs on Wednesday. He's got three home runs, I think, in nine games since coming back from AAA. And I think this

just highlights what we've kind of been saying since he got sent down. And then since he got called backup, which is, at least for me, my expectations for Jake Berger didn't really change when he got sent down because this is who he's always been. I will remind everyone that on July 1st of last season, he had a 601 OPS. He had a 561 OPS when he got sent down. He was not that much worse for a lot longer last year. And he still ended up, I think, with what, 29 homers over the course the season. He hit 22 over the final three months. This is a guy who gets really cold and there was always increased risk for playing time after the trade to Texas because they couldn't necessarily afford to live through three months of cold Jake Burger because he doesn't he doesn't help your

team win if he's not hitting home runs. But a three month cold burger. That'd be bad. Remember that show Teen Angel that was on? I do not remember the TVIF briefly. You know, if Chris doesn't know it, I definitely don't know it. I was like right in my sweet spot at 14 years old. But anyway, the kid died and became an angel because he ate a burger that had been under the bed for two lion. That's a grim premise for a team for like a children's TV show. Yeah, it was.

I guess there's a teen. It was played for laughs. It was quite goofy. hilarious. Sorry. But yeah, Jake Berger, he is hot right now. And when he's hot, he's extremely useful in all formats, less so in head-to-head points because his plate discipline is really bad.

But he's certainly a must-roster player in any Roto League. And I would think probably in a points league when he's locked in like this, because he's liable to be 80 OPS. bat for the next three months like he was for the last three months of last season. I'm not saying he will be and there will certainly be more fallow periods for Jake Berger. And as we've already seen, there's playing time risk when that happens. But I think he's someone who should be pretty nearly universally rostered because he was nearly he was universally drafted usually with like a top 10 round pick coming into the season.

Let's see. What should I respond to first? I guess the first thing I'd say is that the only concern when he got sent down is, well, like you said, I mean, the Rangers, would they be able to wait out Berger? The fact they sent him down suggested they won it, when would he be back, et cetera? Not that Berger's profile had changed, just that he didn't have the luxury of repeat chances the way he did with the White Sucks and Marlins. What happened was always the plan. Yeah. They said our plan is to call him up relatively quickly after we sent him down.

So they wanted him back. Yep. And he should be back because I think he's their best option at first base. The other thing, when you brought up the idea of Berger needs to be rostered in points leagues too, I mean, would you take him over Reese Hoskins in a points league? Like it gets to where they're just kind of two. Well, yeah. There are just too many corner infield options in a league that doesn't offer a third corner infield spot to fill.

No, that's fair. And so I think Berger with his, you know, one thing we know about Berger, he's not going to walk much at all. And he's going to strike out a pretty high clip. So I think if the situation at first base or even third base where he's still eligible was more dire, I could see, okay, you got to pick him up and points. leagues too. I think he falls just a little short of that for me still. But obviously in Roto League or even most categories leagues where you need power. Absolutely. All right, Scott. Let's go over to you for your player of the night. Kevin Gossman. He's all

yours. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah, he has become an enigma. So just to kind of recap, okay, let me talk about what he actually did here first. Wednesday, Kevin Gossman, great start. seven shutout innings against the Padres, struck out nine, walked none. It was a beautiful start. It was his second best start of the year. But, you know, he's kind of had three starts like this, three amazing starts.

And then pretty spotty otherwise. And to kind of recap Gosman's season so far, you know, after four starts, he had a 249 ERA, but the splitter didn't look right. We thought it was kind of fake. And then after that, the ERA, spiked all the way to 4.59, because he was giving up more runs. But interestingly, the splitter was starting to get a lot more whiffs,

but the shape still didn't seem right. So was the splitter really fixed? Should we even care? Because he was giving up runs now. It was hard to say. Well, we kind of got the best of everything here for Gosman in this particular start because of his 19 swinging strikes, 13 came on the splitter, which, you know, we've been seeing whiffs on the splitter recently.

But not just that, the splitters had 33 inches of vertical break, which is the most, not in any single start, but the last time he averaged 33 inches of vertical break on that sinker, or splitter, I should say, not sinker. The last time he averaged 33 inches of vertical break on that splitter for a season was 22, which was right in the thick of his ace run, fantasy. So like if he can sustain this shape on the splitter, it's all going to be good. It's a big if because it's one start. And so how many weeks has it been? It's basically been a quarter of a

season. And we've already seen Gosman the outlook on him change a couple times. And now maybe this is the third time. It's going to be key what what the splitter looks like in his next start. if I can definitively say he's back, but if Gosman were to be back, it would look a lot like it did here on Wednesday. I am inclined to just take Gosman at face value over the past two years. Remember, last year, there were several nine, ten strikeout games there as well. He said he had three this season.

Well, he had one, two, three from June 8th to October. August 25th last year with 10 strikeouts. He had four starts last year with 10 strikeouts. And he followed the first one up with three strike. And he followed the next one up with 10 strikeouts in his next two starts combined. Followed the third one up with three strikeouts. Followed the fourth one up with four strikeouts. It's like what's so frustrating about Kevin Gosman over the past two years is not that he's totally washed up.

It's that we get these flashes of who he used to be. he's just shown no ability to do any of it consistently. I'm inclined to think that that's just because that's where he is at this point in his career. He is still capable of these big starts, but it feels like this will seem harsher now than what I mean it to be, but it feels like late career Charlie Morton. Like I'm specifically thinking of like 2023 before things really went off the rails for him. He had a 364 ERA in 2023 with the Braves.

He had a 1008 or yeah, 1008 K per 9. It's just 200 strikeouts, right? Yeah, no, 183, but it was only 163 innings. He was super inefficient. But I say, I let's say that he was still capable of those high upside starts. And Kevin Gosman was too last year. It's just doing that three starts in a row seems beyond him, let alone three months in a row. So that's, if it wasn't attached to the name Kevin Gosman,

I think we'd be more willing to look at the profile over the past two years and say, he's just a high three ZRA pitcher with upside. But because it's Kevin Gosman, we take the upside starts and say, oh, he might be back. And it's, I'm with you. He might be. I will be watching his next start. I'm just,

I'm expecting the next start to be disappointed because that's where we are with. And I'm with you. I'm doubtful. I'm not like Kevin Gossman entered this start 47th in my starting pitcher rankings, which is obviously must roster. But it's 47th. It's not 17th. And I'm not pushing him up inside my top 30 after this start.

I think he still belongs outside the top 40. But I'll continue to monitor with Gossman because what he did here was at least, at least deserves that much. I just wanted to touch on that Blue Jays game real quick. They destroyed the Padres, 14 Zip in that one. Just want to mention some names here. Bobauchette, two more hits, two runs, two RBI. He's slowly waking up here.

George Springer continues his fine season, two for four with his seventh stolen base. And Dalton Varshot hit a grand slam, his seventh home run, 35% rostered. I'm not sure that number needs to be much higher, but any five outfielder leagues, I think Varshow needs to be rostered in those at the least.

Is that fair? Sure. I don't have a lot of faith in it, but he's crushing the ball right now. 94 mile per hour average, exit velocity. We've never seen that before. I mean, even more than that, the fact that he had two homers in one game last week, both the hardest hit balls of his entire career.

Like, something's going on there. But he also has a 35% strikeout rate. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he can't sustain that. But like, you can't fake a new career high in exit velocity. You can fake an inflated strikeout rate for a couple weeks. And they were career highs by like a mile per hour too. It wasn't, yeah. Yeah. It was a couple miles per hour, I think. All right, my player today is Gavin Williams. But we'll save that for a little bit later on. I want to keep things moving here before we hit our first break. Just a reminder that you can listen to both FBT and the FBT Express on Spotify.

If you're watching on YouTube, you can scan that QR code that will bring you right to the FBT Spotify feed. If you're listening there right now, then drop a comment on this episode. Tell us who is your favorite by low player right now. And thanks to those for watching us live. Make sure to hit the like button

and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today and we'll hit the news and notes. It turns out Jared Jones underwent successful UCL surgery on Wednesday and is projected to return in 10 to 12 months. I understand that surgery should be a last resort for pitchers.

But I just don't understand when we find out about UCL damage, there are very few cases that wind up not needing surgery. And now we've seen this a couple of times, right? Like Andrew Painter comes to mind a couple years ago. they tried to avoid surgery. He wound up having it. And now Jared Jones, too. It's just, you delay the inevitable by two months.

And now, you know, he's probably not back until, I don't know, May or June of next year. And maybe you could have had him back by the start of next season. You know, it's just I never understand why teams don't just do it right away. Yeah. So I think the internal brace procedure has kind of changed the thought process on this. Because the pirates didn't say that that's what Jared Jones had. but they gave him a 10 to 12 month timetable. I'm almost certain that means he had an internal brace rather than full Tommy John

because full Tommy John is usually a 14 month time table. So if you can come back in a year or less than a year from this kind of surgery and you have an injury in spring, it can make sense when it's a partial tear, which is what Jared Jones was dealing with. It was a strain that's a partial tear. If that's what it is and you don't think it will get significantly worse and won't rupture, then you can make the case that, yeah, let's see if he can pitch through it for a couple of months. If not, if there's any kind of setback whatsoever, boom, we'll have the surgery and he's, you know,

he could be back by next April. It's possible. It's not likely, but it's possible and probably May more like. So I get it from that perspective. the one thing for me is I I've seen some like well it's good that he didn't have full UCL repair. He didn't have Tommy John surgery. It was now I don't know if we're at the point that we can say it's better to have internal brace surgery than Tommy John. Right.

Because let's see how the next couple of months is Spencer Strider. Right. That's exactly one thing is like Lucas Jolito, Spencer Strider. God, I was looking at a list earlier today. There was another name that I wanted to mention. But yeah, it's, you know, let's see what it looks like for these guys. I guess Patrick Sandivall is another guy coming back if he gets back. So, yeah, there are a couple, Drew Rasmussen also had internal brace two years ago.

So we're starting to get some examples. most of the guys who have had internal brace surgeries have also had Tommy John. You know, they usually have Tommy John, I think that's Jacob de Grom had Tommy John plus an internal brace. And so the true just internal brace procedures, we're still kind of seeing what that looks like and what that means for pitchers long term. I'm probably more pessimistic for guys coming back from just the internal brace than a full Tommy John. but we just don't have a lot of data on it, so I don't know. Fair enough. George Kirby will make his season debut on Thursday against the Astros.

He's missed the entire season to this point with right shoulder inflammation. If you have him in a daily lineup league, do you just play it safe and not start him his first time out? George Kirby? I usually prefer to leave guys on the bench if I can for the first start back from a lengthy I.elstant. his stuff looked good yeah I was looking it up now I didn't I hadn't seen what the velocities were on the rehab assignment

they looked to be spot on I know the results weren't good for him but it doesn't I don't think yeah I care less about that but yeah I think I think it's fine if you have to start him like if it's him or or somebody

really fringe somebody will talk about at the end of the show yeah none of those streamers, like the best streaming option for Thursday is George Kirby, if we can include him among them. But if, if you have, like, actual quality alternatives, then maybe played safe. Dylan Cruz was officially placed on the aisle with a left oblique strain. As expected, the Nationals promoted outfield prospect, Robert Hassel. Their game was,

not suspended. It was postponed on Wednesday, so we didn't get to see Robert Hassel play. Scott, you weren't here yesterday. Do you have any interesting? in Robert Hassel? Pretty much not at all. I don't. I haven't thought about him in a couple years because his prospect stock crash so hard. And I know he's been hitting the ball harder at AAA.

This year, I mean, it would be hard not to because his ex velocities were so poor otherwise. But he has like a 117 ISO. Yeah. So that's the ball on the ground way too much. Andrew Benintendi, who we don't even know how much he's going to play. I don't think there's much to see with Robert Hassel.

All right, Anthony Santander left Wednesday's game with left hip inflammation. This one does not sound good. Ronell Blanco has been sent back to Houston because of right elbow soreness. So as we learn more, we will let you know. There's a lot of guys dealing with elbow injuries in Houston right now. I mean, like five different starting pitchers have had elbow surgery there, I think, or have dealt with some kind of pretty significant elbow injury. It's outside of.

Times are tough. Outside of Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez, it feels like every other starter is just someone they're calling up from the minors lately, which is... Yeah, Wesneski just had Tommy John, Christian Javier and Luis Garcia and Luis Garcia. I think Louis Garcia had Tommy John earlier this year. And Javier was last year. So yeah, it's rough. J.P. France, shoulder injury as well. Yeah, a lot of injuries there. Mike Trout has progressed to running at roughly 80%. He's on the IL with a bone bruise in his left knee. Bryce Miller played catch in the outfield. prior to Wednesday's game. We haven't heard much about that,

but he's on the IL with elbow inflammation or elbow sorenness. Aaron Boone said that he has, quote, no plans right now to reinsert Devin Williams into the closer roll. And Chris, we spoke about this last night. It just doesn't really make sense as long as Luke Weaver is pitching this great.

So I don't know. Yeah, it's hard to improve on like a 0.40 ERA and 0.50 whip. Like, he's got to look more human. I think before Devin Williams is re-inserted. Like, Devin Williams has been great in a lower leverage role. I think he's basically back. But, but yeah, there's just no improving on Luke Weaver right now.

Yeah, like it's just he might not be better than Luke Weaver. And it's not like the Yankees gave up so much that there's like a huge rush to get him back. They're not like that invested. So yeah, I get it. Justin Martinez threw a schoolist inning at AAA on Tuesday and averaged 100 miles per hour on his sinker. Justin Verlander is going on the aisle with right pectoral soreness. Tyro Estrada has taken batting practice every day this week and faced high-end velocity on Tuesday.

He could return as soon as next week and is 13% rostered. Any interest in stashing Tyro Estrada? It's probably 15-team roto leagues with a middle infield spot, I would imagine. I mean, we were drafting him pretty universally in roto leagues. I like him. Yeah, I think there's a chance He gets back to You know, being a pretty decent source of stolen bases

And batting average in Colorado Look, something's got to go right for the Rockies at some point Does it though? Right? Like, well, I just, and I say that to point out That like there was a point a couple years ago where Jerks and ProFar signed with the Rockies And we were like, this could be pretty cool

And it turned out he needed to, you know, do some other stuff to become a good hitter. But I will say This with like the retread veteran in Colorado and it doesn't often work out. Yeah, it hasn't a long time. And it might for Tyro Estrada, but like I'd have to have an actual need at middle infield,

I think, to do it. Because a lot of, there have been a lot of middle infielder's introduced, even in deeper leagues like that, that weren't really on our radar since it started a season and now definitely matters. So can I get Tyro Estrada in my top 25 even at second base? I'm not so sure of that.

It is kind of. of weird how like it hasn't been a particularly strong offensive environment this year it's been pretty much identical last year but last year wasn't a particularly strong offensive environment and yet it feels like every hitter position

is much deeper than expected yeah than expected and I think I think the reason why is the hitters who've performed well by and large haven't been the hitters who are supposed to perform so we can't give up on the guys who have the track record but

at the same time, we're not going to turn a blind eye to these newcomers who are making a case. Second base is actually like the perfect example of that because basically the entire preseason top five has been a disappointment. Either because of injury with Catel Marte and Jazz Chisholm, Ozzie Alteau have been bad and MacKlein, I think was the number five guy or maybe Jordan Westberg. Either one of those guys would prove the point. The entire top five and maybe top six.

coming into the season has been oh, Marcus Simeon, that's the other one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, gosh. The entire top has been fine when he's been healthy. Yeah, no, he's been good when he's been healthy. It's just he missed some time. And then Jazz was fine before he got hurt.

Yeah, like the entire top seven at second base, maybe with the exception of Marte, I guess, has been pretty deeply disappointing so far. That's kind of wild. And I finally moved Marcus Simeon down to seventh, which I'm sure a lot of people listening. Well, I moved him to 11th. I moved him.

I moved him. I moved on 12. I moved to 12. I moved him to 11th. But like, honestly, it's also like Nico Horner's been kind of bad. It's like empty,

not great batting average. Same with Xander Bogor. Which is crazy because I think he's been the second best second baseman in Roto this season or third. That's interesting. The position is bad. That was my takeaway updating on Wednesday,

updating my rankings. Second base is bad. It's really, really bad. But it's interesting, I guess. I mean, there are names that have kind of emerged, like, is Glaber Torres for real? Is Michael Garcia for real? Like, is Jorge Polanco back?

So we have some names, but. Like, uh, I'm looking, I'm counting up the number of second basement. It's bad. I'm counting up the number of second baseman averaging more than three points per game, which I think there was only, uh, I think there was only like four last year. And there's one, two, three, four, five, six. seven. And how many of those do you expect to continue doing that? Well, that's a different question.

But that's why it's like, again, we're trying to forecast forward. And a lot of the big names, like Altuve has been really bad this season. Albi's has been really bad. Like, you guys just went over it. But that was kind of what I was focused on here. We probably need to move on. But if we wanted to have you guys guess the six second baseman in the top 100 in rotor right now, it's a fascinating list. Oh, Brendan Donovan.

I did not realize he was this good. Brendan Donovanton 3.30. Yeah, he's been awesome. The expected batting average is good too. I was trying to remember why. I looked into that. Yes. Bryson Stott is a top 100 player right now.

Jorge Polanco, Nico Horner, Michael Garcia, and Bryce Terang. That is a weird list. I made a list of, uh, maybe, maybe a segment we'll do tomorrow. Players you hadn't realized they rank so high and Brendan Donovan was one of them. Uh, it's, it's just, uh, it was just two second baseman that I, averaged more than three points per game last year, by the way. All right. Donaheim left early on Wednesday due to a compressed nerve in his right hand.

And the pirates are calling up pitcher Mike Burroughs to start on Thursday at AAA this year. 251 ERA 105 whip 11.4K per 9, 14% swinging strike rate. Yeah. And only leagues. I mean, a name to watch. Let's see what he does on Thursday. He's not uninteresting. And I'm forgetting who said it.

someone said on Twitter today that Mike Burroughs would probably be getting more hype for what he's doing right now if it wasn't for the fact that we wish it was Bubba Chandler getting called up. I think that was probably Eric Simulski said it.

And I think that was probably a pretty, pretty fair point. All right. Let's get into a little this or that. That's not right What did I do? Bad name for a segment, I guess. Oh, man, come on.

Did you hit the button again for your hitting of that button? No, I don't know what happened. I thought I thought you were going with the Fat Boy Slim. Yeah, here we go. Okay. Well, all right, let's, you didn't hear anything. Let's get into our next segment, this or that. All right, most of these are going to be waiver-wire related.

In fact, I think all of them are. And Scott, you brought up one of them earlier. Jake Berger or Reese Hoskins. I don't know if we ever came to a definitive conclusion on this one. But obviously, Burger has looked great since coming back. And Reese Hoskins, the guy is red hot. He hit his first home run on April 15th in 32 games since he's betting 3.49 with seven homers, 23 RBI, and OPS near 1,100.

Who do you like more, Reese Hoskins or Jake Berger? Well, I think in points leagues, it's clearly, clearly Hoskins. and I do think Chris at least implied that he felt that way too. A 402 on base percentage for Hoskins this year. And walking is something he's used to doing. Last year was kind of the exception. Not that it was a terrible walk grade last year, but pitchers clearly weren't as fearful of him last year for good reason.

But yeah, he's clearly the better option in points leagues. Amazing. His OPS is up to 900 now. Does that mean you guys would take Burger? over Hoskins and Rodo or would you just take well I'm thinking about that it's it's a much closer call I mean at his best Hoskins is kind of a lock for 30 homers himself but maybe burger burger has more raw powers so there probably is a higher ceiling

there but in terms of what I actually think is going to happen I think they're both going to be right around 30 homer pace from this point forward so I'll I'll say Hoskins either way but it's a close call in Roto. I think that's fine. Fair, yeah. What if we made it a triple threat match and included Matt Shaw?

What would happen then? So that specifically means you're talking about a Roto League because Matt Shaw's third base, so we're talking about a corner infield spot. Sure. I think this probably depends on what I need. If we're talking about adding a starter right now,

I'd probably go with Hoskins. I feel more confident in him being useful right now. I think you can talk yourself into Shaw having more potential as a five category contributor than either Burger or Hoskins. So if you're talking more a stash to see who clicks, I might go with Shaw. I just think in Roto, given the deep hitter, how deep you go into the hitter pool, there's just no excuse to have Hoskins or Burger on waivers now. When there is maybe an excuse to have Shaw on waivers, he probably needs to be picked. up at this point, but there obviously isn't the assurance that comes with those other two. But I think we're like ranking them rest of season, Shaw is clearly going to be third for me.

But I think you could make the opposite case. The fact that Shaw has had three good games and is as rostered as Jake Berger and Reese Hoskins probably means that it's much less likely that if you don't add Shaw this week, you're never going to have a chance to add him. Whereas people have already been passing on Reese Hoskins. Fairly or unfairly, there is not a general appetite for Reese Hoskins right now. There should be. There should be. I agree. There should be.

I will also say, like, I, truthfully, I just have no burger. No burger. I have no burger in interest. I have no interest in burger in points leagues, except as like I need to fill a spot and he's the best I can do. I can understand as an emergency play, but I just don't think even in a best case scenario, he's going to be an impactful player for points leagues because the plate discipline is so bad.

Shaw, meanwhile, has sustained a low strikeout rate. So I think there's a lot more points league upside with him. So I might go Hoskins Shaw than Berger in points, but Hoskins, Berger, than Shaw in Roto. And what if we made it a fatal four-way and we included Nick Kurtz, who went two for five with a double dung. He's been dropped in a lot of least.

leagues. He's down to 64% rostered. I know it's mostly been rough, but it's now three homers in the past two games had someone tweeting at me that it's, uh, it's only, it was like 90 degrees out in Sacramento and the ball is flying out there and just think about all the home runs that are going to be hit in July and August when the weather heats up there. So, uh, sure. If we're just ranking the four now, Hoskins, Berger, Shaw, Nick Kurtz, how you guys do it? I mean, everything I think has looked fine for Kurtz to me, except for the very high strikeout rate, which is a product of inexperience and learning the league,

and I think is going to see a lot of correction to come. I've been a little unsure what to do with Kurtz in my rankings, because I pushed him up quite a bit initially, and I've just kind of left him there in that 15 to 20 range at first base. So he's my highest rank of these four, I know. I have more trust in starting Hoskins right now or starting Burger right now. But I think, yeah, I think in the long run, I do like Kurtz the most. It's just not the safest pick, clearly.

All right. Next up, Tage Bradley or Dustin May. Very shallow leagues here, but these names clearly have been dropped in some leagues. They're now right around 70 to 75% rostered. Dustin May, a great start at the, at home, against the Diamondbacks, six innings, one run with eight strikeouts, 14 whiffs on 88 pitches, and Taj Bradley turned in a quality start against the Astros, six innings, two runs, seven strikeouts.

Who do you guys like more rest of season? Dustin May or Taj Bradley? May. I haven't seen a lot to get excited about with Bradley. The hard contact is still there. He's missing way fewer bats, way fewer. Strikeouts are down, walks are up, too. He missed a decent number of bats in this.

but it was weird how it happened because... It was all the cutter, right? No. It was the fastball, which is one of his worst pitches. And he threw it a lot more, 60% instead of 42%. And he had a decent whiff rate, got seven strikeouts and six innings. So I don't think he actually accomplished much in this start. Even though it was a good result, I don't think this is the formula of success for Taj Bradley.

So I think he's well behind. I forgot who the other one is. Dustin May. Dustin May, yeah. He's well behind Dustin May, who obviously is on the best team at baseball. And at least has a good ground ball rate, even though his strikeout potential is overwhelming. What if I add Max Meyer to that mix?

Because he's actually been dropped in some leagues to 75% rostered now on CBS and had his best start in a while against the Cubs of all teams, six innings, one run, four strikeouts here, Only eight whiffs on 99 pitches. How would you guys rank Meyer, Taj, and Dustin May? Meyer, May, Taj for me. I have them ranked the same way. But maybe you can convince me that Meyer still needs to be at the top of the list

because it's another one like Kurtz where it's just like, I'm not ready to move him down, but I have a hard time explaining why. So maybe you could explain it. I think Meyer clearly has the most upside of this three. I think May for as cool as his pitches look when you jiff him up, this is who he's been his whole career. Good. The stuff looks good. The results aren't bad by any means,

but he just doesn't get a lot of strikeouts. His command is iffy. And I think that's probably just what he is. he hasn't pitched in basically two years. So I think there are going to be limitations to his innings at some point. Meyer, that was him last year, right? Like that, he was limited last year. So I would imagine the Marlins are just going to let him go for the most part.

We've seen that 14 strikeout performance from him. We've seen, you know, strikeout rate 27% for the season before this one. He has, I think, the best individual pitch of this group with that. slider. That he stopped throwing. That he stopped throwing quite as much. And even though he reversed the bad three start trend with this start here on Wednesday, it was like he threw that slider only a quarter percent at the time.

At the start of the year, when he was gaining so much traction, Max Meyer was throwing at like 50 percent at the time. And he's just gotten away from it. And the results mostly have been bad apart from the start Wednesday. And the problem is he threw the foreseumer a lot today. and that's just not a good pitch for him. Even though he's throwing it harder, it just has always had bad shape.

And so he probably needed to live in like the 96 mile and hour range. And he settled around 95. So there are concerns here, certainly. But I think the changeup is okay. The sinkers looked okay this year. Those are both kind of new pitches for him or at least new tweaks. So I remain more hopeful for him. But if you wanted to say that may have,

as a higher floor. Yeah. I think that's reasonable. Sure. It feels more usable. Like I am, I am clinging to that upside we saw from Meyer early on and hoping he can recapture it.

But he's got to, he's got to show some evidence of it soon or else I think just the more usable May is going to be ahead for me. All right. Next up, we have Josh Lowe, who went two for four with his second home run in seven games since returning. He's hitting 269 with two homers in 898 OPS.

He's, 70% rostered. Josh Lowe or Austin Hayes, who we gushed about just the other day. What do you guys think? I think Hayes is the better header. So it mostly comes down to how badly you need stolen bases. Because I think low will be a difference maker in stolen bases.

I think you're looking at what do you still ask? You're 30, 35? In a bad year, yeah. I think 30. I think so I think that'll be where he really stands out. And Hayes will probably contribute almost nothing in stolen bases. So that's a clear lead for Lowe. It's only 25.

25. If you, but it was in like 100 and 106 games. Okay. So if you need steals, I think Lowe's clearly the answer. I think Hayes is going to be a better header otherwise. And I think it might not be all that close because

Lowe hasn't shown much ability to hit lefties. The Rays are willing to sit him against lefties if they need to. I saw he started the other day against the lefty. You know, I'm not saying he's just never going to play against. against lefties, but they will sit him. And yeah, it will probably drag his ratios down if he doesn't sit against them. So I have more faith in Hayes bat.

I was going to say low in roto because of this deals, but I actually have Hayes ranked ahead and roto. And I'm not inclined to argue with myself, you know? The Scott from yesterday who updated those rankings decided that's the way it needed to be, Hayes over Low, and the Scott today is indifferent enough to just go with the Scott from yesterday. You know what? I wouldn't be mad at you if you went with the cop out and said Josh Lowe and Roto and Categories and Austin A's and had dead points because I think that's probably the way I would lean. All right, let's take our final break. When we return, we will talk quickly about some other waiver wire pitchers and some pitcher questions.

and I've got some big day for catchers. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Quickly run through some other waiver wire pitchers. And you might be able to beat the waiver wire for these two-star pitchers. They look like two-star pitchers. We'll find out for sure tomorrow. But Tomoyuki Sugano, a quality start at the Brewer,

six innings, two runs, three strikeouts. And it looks like he might have the Cardinals and White Sox next week. So that sounds pretty good. And Andrew Heaney. I know we've done the Andrew Heaney thing. evenings one run, five strikeouts, and it looks like he is at Arizona at the D-backs next week. At Arizona. I hate the matchup for Haney.

I don't want that. At Arizona at the Padres. I just realized. Arizona, really great lineup, San Diego, outside of today, they almost never strike out. I think they still have the lowest strikeout rate in baseball as a team. So, yeah, he might continue to defy the odds and pitch well, but I would. wouldn't expect it. Sugano also defying the odds.

So I can't say I have a lot of faith in that. But the White Sox are on there. He's rolling right now. Sure. If Sugano gets bombed in both starts, I really wouldn't be surprised even by the White Sox. But he's fine. I don't think it needs to be a high priority target,

but he's fine. One name who might have a sneaky matchup next week, Kate Horton was okay at the Marlins here, five and a third, one run, three strikeouts, but under the hood, 16 whiffs on 92 pitches, and he threw his change-up a lot more. Didn't really know he had that in the bag.

Nine whiffs on the change-up. Looked filthy in this one. Looks like he's at home against the Rockies next week, which is just a great matchup. Yeah, if he's going to be a three-pitch pitcher instead of a two-pitch pitcher, that opens things up quite a bit for Kate Horton, who, of course, had, well, like a 1-20,

27 ERA at AAA, with some underlying concerns, but still, you know, it's hard to do that at any level. And the top line here on Wednesday wasn't that impressive, but I think he raised his stock in my eyes nonetheless. And then he has an even better matchup against the Rockies next week. So I'm not saying he's a must start or anything, but if you're looking for an upside guy, whether or not you have room to start him, there might be more competition for Horton's services after next week. So maybe a good idea to pick them out now. And for my AL-onlyers out there, Ryan Yarbrough, just wanted to mention. Nice start here.

Five innings, one run, eight strikeouts, zero walks, 14 wists on 81 pitches. He's kind of the Yankee pseudo SP5 right now when they need them in the rotation. So, yeah, for the deepest of leagues right there. Hey, real quick, starting pitcher edition. just some quick questions here. Corbyn Burns turned in a quality start at the Dodgers, seven innings three runs, eight strikeouts.

He had 17 whiffs here on 96 pitches, three starts since he got that injection in his shoulder. Two against the Dodgers, by the way. 135 ERA, 0.85 whip, 23 strikeouts over 20 innings pitched. I think we said this after his last start, but let's just confirm. Corbyn Burns, he's back.

Question mark? I want to say it. Yeah, I'm leaning strongly that way. The cutter still isn't like the movement profile still isn't what we want it to be. He got nine whiffs with, there's seven whiffs with it today. So I guess it didn't matter today. And maybe he's just adjusting the location or, but the whole thing feels very 2024 to me, where he made it work for most of the season because he would have nights where the curveball looked awesome or the change up or the slide.

And maybe that's just what he can do. but it did fall apart eventually. And I still have that little bit of concern. Not a ton, but a little bit. It's fair to have a little bit of concern, but I think given the concern level a couple weeks ago, I am feeling a great sense of relief now if I'm invested in Burns. Because I see the light, if nothing else.

And it was one thing last time out against the Rockies. It's another thing against the Dodgers here. Twice and three starts. Still gets great results. And the whiff rate on the cutter is not just higher than last year. It's higher than two years ago when nobody really had any concerns about burns. So I think things are looking up. Jacob de Grom continues to pitch well.

This one at the Yankees, seven innings, two runs, nine strikeouts to one walk. He had 20 whiffs on 103 pitches. Surprisingly, the change-up looked awesome for DeGrom in this one. A pitch, he usually doesn't use very much. But are we getting closer to Vintage de Grom? What do you guys think? I think vintage de Grom is, I don't know. Like, I think he's, I think the version of DeGrom we've seen this year is fine.

And like, it's not really until he gets hurt and he'll probably get hurt. But until he does, you just kind of slot him in every day and you don't worry about it. Obviously 20 whiffs is a lot of whiffs and it was against a good lineup. And I don't know. Chris, do you feel otherwise? All right. So here's the problem. for my late 90s

baseball fan heads Kevin Brown was an awesome pitcher he wasn't close to as good as Pedro Martinez Jacob de Grom could be a Kevin Brown level

pitcher Sy Young contender one of the best pitchers in baseball and also not be anywhere close to vintage DeGrom because vintage deGrom is probably the best pitcher since Pedro Martinez. So like it depends how you ask that question. Do I think Jacob deGrom

is health permitting one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball right now? Yes, absolutely I do. The four seamer has been dominant for the past month. The slider has been great all season. He threw the change up seven times and got, or had got seven whiffs on the change up and six of them were, seven swings on the change up, six of them were whiffs. Like he he looks phenomenal. It's just I don't think he's old Jacob de Grom where he was running 36% whiff rates on his foreseamer. It's more like 26, 27% right now. I mean, old de Grom would have been number one with a bullet lunch. It's top 10.

Yeah. So that's the question. It's now we're at the point where my only concern about Jacob de Grom is can he stay healthy? Yeah. A month ago, I had a little bit of performance concerns. That's where I'm at. So even like length now. So eight innings last time, seven innings this time.

That makes four of his last seven starts, six innings or more. That's pretty good. Yeah. And none less than five during that time. Yeah, I think, you know, he's, yeah, he's good. Keep starting him. Let's talk about Gavin Williams, who look good at the twins, six innings, one run, six strikeouts, 13 whiffs on 98 pitches.

And he's been reintroducing this. cutter slowly back into his mix and he just used it a bunch more in this one 22% usage some mixed results you know soft contact here but only 18% CSW maybe it helped the fastball play up because there was 10 whiffs on that fastball in the start I will just point out this was also a skeleton twins lineup like there's nobody right now but a strong start for Gavin Williams what do we think about this cutter and I don't know are we are we getting him back in lineups now what do you you guys think about Gavin Williams? I think right now today is the best I felt about Gavin Williams since 2023. But we've gone on our real journey since then. 2023. He's a top prospect. We're super

excited. He has a 324 ERA. We're like, yes, Gavin Williams are awesome. Gets hurt in spring of 2024. Doesn't really look good at all at any point in 2024. Comes back this spring looks awesome. We start to get excited about him. First five or six starts of the season, he's just terrible, dreadful. Can't throw a strike. And now I think we've gotten back over the hump, and it's because he's expanded the arsenal.

He came out at the start of this season and just decided, I'm just going to throw a four-seamer sweeper and curveball. And that was where he was in 2023, but it clearly wasn't working. He wasn't commanding the four-seamer well. He had this cutter that was pretty good last year that he just stopped throwing. and now he's got that cutter back in.

He threw three or four changeups today as well. I think it was the first time we've really seen like a legitimate five pitch mix from Gavin Williams. So look, it might all fall apart next start. He might lose the ability to throw his four seamer for strikes. We've seen that multiple times. But I think the, the, the, the, the ebb we're on right now is a good one for Gavin Williams. I don't know if I use that term correctly. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't want to oversell the cutter because he used it a lot in this one.

The high prior to this was 7% usage on the cutter. So it's a one game sample, basically, if him really bringing it back into his arsenal in a meaningful way. But I think the most, like there were encouraging signs prior to this. I've talked before about how sweeper has over a 50% whiff, right? And that's kind of what's interesting about this Gavin Williams start for me. Sweeper far and away his best pitch. He got one whiff on the sweeper in this one. And he still had one of his best starts of the season.

So strikes remains an issue. How many of those he throws? It was only a 61% strike rate in this one, even though he had just the two walks in six innings. So I think that that remains the biggest turtle. But the stuff is good enough. and I think if you held on to Williams to this point, you've already gotten through the roughest patch

and hopefully better days are ahead. All right, let's go rapid fire through the rest of Wednesday's action. Big day for catchers. Cal Raleigh continues to dominate two for three with two walks and his 16th home run. He is now a top three catcher for each of us rest of season. Then we got Adley Ruchman, two for six with his fifth. homer, Salvador Perez, three for five with his third homer, J.T. Romuto, three for five with his

fifth homer. Three catchers who have been underperforming quite a bit, they need more big games to come. It's just interesting because all three of them are underperforming their expected stats by quite a bit. And I don't know if there's any reason why. Like, why specifically these three, but it's, yeah, all three of them, if you look at the expected numbers, they look a lot better than the actual numbers. Like, yeah, I mean, I know Perez and Rushman especially, they were like top of the league. Yeah. In terms of underperforming their expected stats.

Real Muto, not as much, but those other two, yeah. I mean, it's massive. Real Muto, it's still like 30 points of Ex Wobah. He's underperforming by still. Do we have any reason or do we just expect them to kind of catch up at some point? So, Ruchman has, for his career, underperformed his expected stats. and I don't really have much reason to believe that that should be an issue now. I could see it before because left field was so deep that you would expect any Oriole who hits right-handed, even part-time like Adley-Rutchman does to underperform.

Now I see no reason to expect him to underperform. It's not like he's a Salvador Perez level athlete where like Salvador Perez has underperformed over the quarter. of his career in the Stadcast era, that's probably because he's one of the slowest players in baseball. Like that, that's actually a reason you would underperform. Rutchman, he's not a good athlete, but he's not a terrible one either. So Ruchman, I feel much, much more confident that he's going to figure it out and be a superstar moving forward.

I know it's been a frustrating start. I've seen some like, oh, should I drop Adley Ruchman? Don't drop Adley Ruchman under any circumstances. and just hope that things continue to get better from here. I haven't moved any of these three down in my rankings, Rushman, Perez, or Real Muto. I've moved Cal Raleigh past some of them. That's more on Cal Raleigh than them. Last name I wanted to mention here, Logan O'Hoppe, two for four with a double dong.

That's three homers in his past two games. Now hitting 270, 13 home runs, 28 RBI, 847 OPS, Scott, why do you hate Logan O'Hoppy? Come on. I mean, he's kind of Jake Berger, at catcher, I guess, except even more extreme because the strikeout rate is more like 33%

than what is it for Berger, like 28%. It's basically untenable. And maybe the strikeouts will come down and he'll be fine. But I don't know. It's a very risky profile. Now, catcher is catcher and your expectations, even though there have been a lot of newcomers

to the position that are exciting, your expectations are only so high. And so you've got one of the league leaders in home runs, he happens to play catcher at what are you going to do other than startup. I just think if you did grab a Hunter Goodman or an Augustine Ramirez, it presents you with a good opportunity.

to sell high on O'Hoppe because I think it's more likely he gets worse than better from here. I will point out two things. One, Logan O'Hoppy, 27% strike guy rate in the month of May. So that's trending in the right direction. It was like 40% in April, I think. And two, this was the second home run, I think he hit, was the second farthest home run he hit this season by a major league. feet. Wow. The Angels have the two longest hip home runs of the season so far. Mike Trout had a 484 foot

home run. I just thought that was interesting. Look, there's no denying. The power is legit for O'Hop. He hits the ball hard. He barrels it up. It's optimal contact for power. It's just, yeah, I mean, if he can get those strikeouts down, like 27 percent, that, you know, that's doable. And, like, you can run a 27%

K rate and probably still hit like 240-ish and still be really good there for a Logan O'Hoppy. Hitters who stayed hot. Esoc Paratus, 2 for 4 with a double dung. And in May, he's hitting 299 with six home runs. Elliot Ramos, two for five with his ninth homer. In May, hitting 3.85 with five home runs.

Cody Bellinger on a 15-game hitting streak, and during that span, he's hitting 377 with five home runs, and an 1130 OPS. And Brandon Lau is picking things up. Last 12 games, 295, four home runs, and OPS near 1,000. Anything to add on Brandon Lau, Bellinger, Elliot Ramos, and Esak, the Ewak. Yeah, Isok is doing his thing.

I noticed this just last week. I looked at his numbers and I was like, oh, those are good. Like, he just snuck up on you. And now he's kind of in the midst of a hot streak with six homers in his last 10 games or something like that. But yeah, everything's looking up for him. I think I moved him up to sixth in my third base rankings behind the obvious top five. So feeling good about him.

And I mean, Ramos, he's looking great, hitting the ball even harder than last year. I don't think there's, I don't see him breaking into my top 25 in the outfield. I don't think he has quite that much upside. given the suspect plate discipline for points leagues and then the lack of steals for Roto. But he can mash.

He's like, I don't know, what's a good comp? Like a poor man's Riley Green maybe? I was thinking like a poor man say Suzuki for Elliot Ramos. Yeah, those both seem fair. I don't think the batting average is going to be there, but... I mean, he's hitting 290s. now. He is now, but I don't, I don't think the profile supports it.

All right. One, Brandon Lough, his home run today, had an expected batting average of 10. Yeah. In that game, by the way, it was 0.0. 90 degrees in Tampa Bay in a day game, this is what's possible. When it's 90 degrees in Tampa Bay, the ball will just fly. Esock Paredes, what I wanted to say on him, he has 82 career home runs. only 21 of them have been hit over 400 feet in his career.

Both of them today were. I thought that was interesting. I don't think it means anything. It's the second time he's ever had two 400 foot home runs in the same game. But yeah, maybe Steyer Field when it's hot is a good place to hit. It may not mean anything for Paredes, but it means something about that environment. Yeah, the ball may carry really. Do they have a humidor there?

Is this a question we should have asked earlier? They have a humidor set up? I would assume so. I would have to. Isn't that a standard by the league now? Right. I think they have to. But it's a minor league stadium.

I don't know. But I think when they outfitted it for a major league club, they would have done that. You would assume so. You would assume so. It is an assumption, I'll admit. But yeah, yeah, in humid environments like that, the humidor makes the ball travel better is the idea. It doesn't make it. It suppresses the way the ball travels in drier environments like Arizona,

but it makes it cut through that humid air even more. A revenge series for Paredes, by the way. He's going off against Tampa Bay. You should never have traded him to the Cubs. That was rude. Some other hitting leftovers here. A bunch of sock and shoes, just like home runs and speed everywhere. Kyle Tucker, 12th Homer, 14th steel.

Julio Rodriguez hit his ninth home. run, Lindor up to 10 home runs, nine steals, Trey Turner and Bryce Harper in the same game. They had a pair of socks and shoes there. Third Homer for Turner,

11th steel for him. Harper, 8th Homer, eighth steal. He already has 8 steals in 49 games. Last year he had 7 and 145. Lawrence Butler, 7th home run, 8th steel, but hitting 232.

And Zach Netto, eighth home run and 8th steal already. I mean, the guy is just, he's money. Yeah, Butler, getting eaten alive on breaking balls and off speed pitches. 45% whiff rate on both, sub 300 expected Wobon both.

That's a problem for him right now. Yeah, for sure. On the pitching side, some leftovers. Hunter Brown, he was, you know, the victim of that hot weather in Tampa Bay, five innings, five runs, three homers allowed in that game. Turns out he's human after all.

Or maybe he's humid. Logan Webb, a rough start against the Royals, of all teams, the Royals, four innings, 10 hits, six runs allowed, three of those earned, did have five strikeouts to zero walks. Tyler McGill, an interesting start, four and two thirds, one run, 10 strikeouts, and then Garrett Crochet was solid. Five and a third, one run, five strikeouts, anything on Crochet, McGill, Logan Webb, and Hunter Brown. Is anybody actually excited about McGill? Because I know the K rate is great. I mean, he's like 70% rostered.

I think it's yeah isn't it more than that well that's that's actually less than I would have thought so I don't know that that's in but I mean just anybody anybody who analyzes baseball are you excited about Tyler McGill

Chris are you excited about Tyler Miguel Frank no I can't I think the the problem and the positive of the Mets being a smart team now is they can ring value out of

Griffin Canning and Tyler McGill and David Peterson, these very, I think, sort of fringy talents. It's just that also means that they're never going to let these guys pitch six, seven innings unless they're super efficient. They're going to try to limit that third time through the order penalty as much as possible. And so it's going to be a lot of starts like that. This is Tyler McGill's straight less than five innings for Tyler McGill. And he has three starts.

I held up two fingers when I said that third straight. Okay, sorry, go ahead. I thought you were doing the inglorious bastards. You held it up like this. Third straight, third game of the season for Tyler McGill with nine or 10 strikeouts. He has only gone six innings in one of them. That just kind of sums up the Tyler McGill experience, I think. There's a cap on the upside because of that.

He's inefficient. He's got a 135 whip and 10.6% swinging strike rate does not, does not line up with 12.4K per nine. But. Right. He gets the white socks next week. I like that. So we're starting next week. Sleeper pitcher.

Yeah. Forget everything we just said. Yeah. Tyler Regal, use them next week. Call to the bullpen for the Pirates. David Bednar was unavailable. Dennis Santana picked up his fifth save. For the twins,

Yohan Duran, got the ninth inning with a one-run lead. Give up a run, but wound up with the win. For the Cubs, Brad Keller recorded five outs across the seventh and eighth innings. Then Daniel Palencia got. the ninth with a one-run lead, and he picked up his first save. Palencia throws really hard, ratios look okay, right around a strikeout per inning. You know, Ryan Presley last pitched on Monday, Drew Pomerant's last pitch on Monday.

Maybe they didn't want to use these guys a third time in four days, but I don't know. Feels like they could have been available. Palencia got the last save chance too. It didn't go well, and I know some people blamed it on Kyle Tucker. I still didn't. I never did go back and look at that play to see. It was tougher than I made it sound. Okay.

I thought it was pretty tough, yeah. Anyway, Palencia got a reprieve and he pulled through this time. So I would guess he's the front runner, but not with a lot of confidence. And I don't think he's really a closer caliber reliever. He might be able to handle the job well enough. But I doubt he has much security in the role. For the Orioles, Felix Bautista got the ninth with a one-run lead. He gave up a run on a hit and two walks.

He took his first blown save. The Orioles would eventually win in extras. For the Mariners, Andres Munoz picked up his 16th save. For the Guardians in game two, Class A pitched the ninth inning with a four-run lead. Didn't really matter too much. It wasn't a save, but I just wanted to mention the velocity was down a little bit here. So something to watch. It was also really cold in Cleveland, or Minnesota, wherever they were playing.

For the Rangers, Luke Jackson entered with two outs in the eighth inning. Two runners on, one run lead. He gave up a game tying single to Aaron Judge. And then he started the ninth inning and gave up a walk-off home run to Jason Dominguez. I don't think Luke Jackson is very good. Nope. It's just, are they going to give Robert Garcia the next save? And he's a lefty, which is weird.

Yeah, they've kind of... If Chris Martin's on the aisle, yeah. If he was healthy, I would say, yeah, they'll probably go to him, but I don't know. Yeah. And then for the Dodgers, Tanner Scott struck out two for his 10th save of the season. To stream or not to stream on Thursday, we have Tyler Anderson at the Athletics, Luis Severino, home against the Angels. Jolito against the Whales?

Gosh, this is bad. Yeah, Severino and Anderson are the top two in that order, but. I am just, if it is in Sacramento, it's in Sacramento, so it could go really poorly. It's 3.30 in the afternoon. so it's going to be hot. Well, that's Easter time, too. It's going to be 1230 in the West Coast. A best case scenario for Tyler Anderson in Sacramento, I think is like,

oh, he throws five innings, gives up six hits and a run with four strikeouts. To me, that's not worth pursuing for the downside risk. Like we said earlier, use George Kirby if you have. Thursday's rough. Just stay away. On Friday, we have Landon Rube at the Nationals. Kershaw's at the Mets Noah Cameron at the twins

I don't like this one either Look I we don't think we might Noah Cameron might not be very good But this twins lineup that they're rolling out there right now It is bad No Correa no Buxton No Walner Yeah

He might be the best option But that's an indictment on the selection Not an endorsement of Noah Cameron If you need a second option, I'd say Landon Rup at Washington. If you need a third option, I'd say Sean Burke against the Rangers. But none of those three options are ones I really want to do. All right.

We're going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. 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. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.