Fantasy Baseball Today - Top Prospect Report! ETA on Paul Skenes, Kyle Manzardo? (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

Episode Date: April 6, 2024

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Audacy App and wherever else podcasts are found. What is the ETA on both Kyle Manzardo and Paul Skenes? Giants outfielder Luis Matos is hitting for power in 2024. Could Carson Whisenhunt make an impact this year? Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 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

It's time for our first prospect report of the season. Up next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5 on Saturday, April 6th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and five prospects who are on the verge of getting the call. Jackson Holiday from the Orioles, Junior Camerro of the Rays, who is on the IL right now with a quad train, likely out a few weeks. Ricky Tiedeman from the Blue Jays, Paul Skeens from the Pirates, and Kyle Manzardo of the Guardian.

Scott, with Manzardo, DH has kind of been a revolving door for the Guardians early on in the season here. What do you think the ETA is on Kyle Manzardo? Well, anytime the Guardians decide they need extra help in the lineup, because, yeah, some of the names they've been rotating through that DH spot include David Fry,

Will Brennan, and Estevan Florio. So nobody, they'd miss, nobody we'd miss in fantasy. and when they acquired Monsardo and the Aaron Savale deal with the Rays last summer, we thought, hey, that's their D.H option for next year. They have Josh Naler at first base already, so they must be acquiring Monsardo for D.H. It was a close call rounding out this list

between Monsardo and another Guardian's hitter, Chase DeLauder, who stuck around even longer in spring training and had ridiculous numbers, but he got sent to AA to begin the year. So I think Monsardo would be called up first, you know,

the Lodder could come straight from AA, it happens. But I also think the Guardians want to give Tyler Freeman some runway and center field and would be less likely to fill their DHS spot with somebody like DeLauder

who brings defensive value, hopefully. So that's where things stand with him. I want to mention here also, I want to talk about Paul Skeens a little bit because we have talked in the past, about how maybe he doesn't come up at all this year or comes up very late, preserves his rookie eligibility for next year

so that the pirates could potentially get draft pick rewards if he does well in awards voting. He has to be up for his entire rookie season for that to happen. But I'm kind of leaning toward them calling him up sooner than later and maybe at some point in May and just not worrying about the draft pick rewards, the potential draft pick rewards. just taking advantage of this really,

you know, this player first overall pick last year who's captured the imagination of pirates fans and baseball fans everywhere. And part of the reason he's done that skeins is because in this first start of AAA this year, he had 12 fastballs clock in at over 100 miles per hour. Only two pitchers,

two major league pitchers during the entire stat cast era, Hunter Green and Jacob de Grom, have had that many 100 mile per hour pitches in a start. Remember, Skeens did it in just three innings. So, you know he throws hard. You've heard all about that. But I think the key is more consistently than we've ever seen, really, does he throw that hard?

And the fact he only went three innings, I think, speaks to the idea that the pirates want him available later into the year. Obviously, they're going to have to preserve his innings. They hardly used him in spring training. And now he's kind of going through spring training. So it may be, once he reaches the point where he's fully built up, that's. when the pirates decide to bring him up. And again, that could be some point in May. I agree with you completely.

I think, especially with the pirates getting off to a good start, if they want to remain competitive in that National League Central, they need Paul Skeens on their roster sooner rather than later. Five names that are on the periphery. These are players that are doing something of note recently. And we know the Orioles AAA team scored 26 runs in a game earlier this week. We had massive games from Kyle Stowers, Heston Cure. Stad, the same problems exist.

There's nowhere for those guys to play on the Orioles right now. Luis Matos of the Giants, Quinn Priester of the Pirates, and Carson Wisenhunt, also of the Giants. I think Luis Matos kind of grabs my attention here because he is someone who throughout his minorly career has really been more contact-oriented, hitting for good batting average, but in the spring, he hit for a little bit more power.

So far, in a very small sample. In the minors, he's got two home runs in a very small sample. kind of feels like, all right, maybe there's some power here coming on the horizon for Luis Matos. Yes, real quick. I just want to give credit where credit is due. I got that Paul Skeen stat about the 100 mile per hour number of 100 mile per hour fastballs from MILB.com. They do good work there. Okay. Luis Matos, yes, he was great in the miners last year, but the exit velocities were bad and it didn't translate to much power in the majors. But already this year, four home runs and spring trains, training and two

he had a two homer game the other day for AAA Sacramento. We don't have exit velocity readings from this spring. They weren't available in the Cactus League, but those two homers on Wednesday for Sacramento, 103 miles per hour, both traveled more than 400 feet. If you watch the video of them,

they're impressive looking home runs. So I'm hopeful Luis Matos is adding strength to go along with those contact skills and still has a very high-end outcome for the Giants. All right, for more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, The Odyssey app, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball today in 5, and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.