Fantasy Baseball Today - Underwhelming Debuts, Sell-High on Bieber & Struggling Pitchers (5/4 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Well, Brandon Pfaadt's debut didn't go as planned (2:30). ... Neither did Gavin Stone's debut (9:50)! ... Is now the time to sell-high on Shane Bieber (12:15)? ... The Braves slugged a bunch of homers Wednesday night (19:05). ... Who's the next wave of prospects to watch for (23:00)? ... News (29:00): Jacob deGrom will play catch soon. ... What is going on with Aaron Nola, Alek Manoah, Dylan Cease and Max Scherzer (40:11)? ... Which hitters are moving up the rankings (47:00)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (52:26). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, May 4th, Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris the Welsh. Towers is on vacation, so it's just the two of us.

Today on the show, we're going to recap all of Wednesday's action. Brandon Fott and Gavin Stone, that did not go as planned. DSL High on Shane Bieber. I don't know. We'll talk about that. And I got some rankings risers that we'll get to a little bit later on. Before we get started, please like this video and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. And if you're listening on the audio side, download, follow and leave a five-star rating.

Apple, Spotify. No matter where you listen, we do appreciate it. Welsh, not sure if you're a big Star Wars guy. sure you are, but may the fourth be with you, my friend. Thank you. I like that assumption. You're like, I don't know if you are. And then you're like, you look around. You're like, okay, there's a bunch of like graphic novels and cards and total nerds. Oh, yeah, you know, well, you're probably a Star Wars guy, I would just assume. Yeah, no, I like it. I don't, I'm not crazy. Bogman is a insane Star Wars person. I'm not, but I do watch all the stuff. But may the fourth be with you.

I wish there was a little bit of a force in Texas working for a certain pitcher. I did contemplate wearing a paper bag on the show today. It's been a rough day. What a Welsh Wednesday. How cool did Welsh Wednesday look like 24 hours ago? We're like, oh my God, look at this. Every Wednesday. It's so much fun.

This is going to be the best time. It's the worst time. Never wanted to not do fantasy baseball today than today. Oh, gosh. And you know what? I think we were bound for one, right? Because we had to get one. Such a great streak of Welsh Wednesdays and prospects getting called up and for the most part pretty good pitching performances.

But we'll get into all that. Let's jump right in. The impossible has happened. You're right. That is the Mets broadcast saying the impossible has happened when Bartolo Cologne hit a home run all those years ago. The Mets got swept in a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. You want to talk about the impossible has happened. Anyway, Welsh, who is your player of the night?

Well, let's just rip the Band-Aid off, friends. Let's talk about Brandon Fott because, oh, my, it wasn't good. I will say that the total line looks a little bit worse than what it was if you actually watch it. We did a live stream during the entire start, which was probably a big mistake. But Brandon Fott did not look great. Hey, shocker, you know, breaking news to everybody. biggest worries were his fastball was absolutely nothing burger. And you could tell the team knew it.

There obviously was some great scouting ahead of time. By the way, second best offense in baseball right now, scoring the second most runs just behind. One of only two teams to score six runs per game with the race is the Texas Rangers. And they knew not to swing at that fastball. And guess what? That stupid fastball he threw had one whiff. I did have 23 swings, but it only had one whiff on it.

but 14 called strikes. So even though he had a 4% whiff rate on his fastball, he ended with almost a 20, he ended with a 28 CSW, which is not like resoundingly awesome, but that's not a bad CSW, 28, you want to be in the 30s somewhere in there. So the CSW actually ended up

because what were guys doing? They're just not going at that fastball. They were trying to hit the other stuff. Fastball wasn't effective. His changeup was not there. And that was his biggest problem. That got hit hard. His slider.

showed all of the stuff that you could get excited about. It swept big. It moved across the plane, had a 35% strikeout or 40% strikeout rate with a 35% CSW. But he only threw it 20% of the time. He obviously lacked early confidence with it. He didn't throw one through the first three or four batters. Then he lost his change up. And that was a lack of confidence.

And here's the biggest problem. 10 hits, 10 content, not everyone was a hit, but 10 balls were hit. 100 miles per hour or harder. That's crazy. And it was a horrid start. I don't know what to tell everybody about that. Like the fastball, he couldn't get it for strikes,

which is his problem. And they're going to have to rectify that or he's not going to work. The slider is a plus pitch. I don't care what anybody says. The change up can get there, but he couldn't locate it. So what happens when you got a 94 mile hour fastball that you're also not throwing? And he's got to fix a 30% zone percentage on his changeup as well.

so he couldn't get that in there. The positive, he's got a great two-start matchup next week against Miami and then San Francisco, both at home. So those are potential get-right situations, but it was a disaster. And I hate it. I mean, you can see the sign back here if you're watching on the YouTube channel. It put in a really bad situation of giving up five homers, meatball pitches that were getting beat around,

that it kind of in the short-term answer, this big question of like, Mason Miller, Bryce Miller, Logan Allen, Tanner, Bybee, Brandon Fought, you know the order now. I don't know if the order we have now will be the order at the end of the year,

but I am way, way more concerned off of Brandon Fought than I was even a couple weeks ago. And it'll be very fun to see at least, or not fun, it might not be fun at all, to see him going against a little bit lower competition. Everyone's like,

Bryce Miller, blah, blah, blah. I don't need that. But I just want to see maybe a little bit better situations for him to be put in. And hopefully he rebounds. And if he doesn't, even if he doesn't, he's kind of at the lower tier of all these guys right now.

I think everybody has their answer. Both the Millers make more sense at this point because that fastball wasn't working, dude. It was not. You mentioned all the hard contact that Brandon fought allowed. The final line, by the way, for anyone listening, four and two thirds, nine hits, seven earned runs, four home runs allowed, 12 hard hits.

Oh, four, yeah. 93.8 average exit velocity. And the third time through the, the lineup. He just got absolutely crushed. You know, the first two times he allowed two solo home runs and you're like, all right, it's fine. Some of them were hit pretty hard, but

it's that third time through. They had a big lead at the time, so they're trying to get him through five innings so that he can get the win. And that fifth inning, he just got crushed. He gave up five runs in that final inning. He's 66% rostered on CBS right now. And you mentioned the matchups for next week.

So if I have Brandon fought, I'd want to hold. For at least those two, I think I'm starting him. I mean, against the Marlins and the Giants right now, the way that those two are playing. I know that you said drop him for the Millers, but is that a move you to actually make? Like, if you have Brandon fought on your team, would you drop him for Bryce Miller? Because Miller is actually much more widely available. Boy, I think that one is such a tough one.

Bryce Miller looked great, but the difference between Bryce Miller and him, it was actually completely inverted. Like, Bryce Miller did everything off the fastball. His fastball, I think I got like 11 whiffs. It was amazing fastball. I saw, I think it was Joe Doyle who had mentioned, I guess he had been kind of pushing this narrative that Bryce Miller might be a Spencer Strider-like player, which I was actually surprised about because I think he's a little bit more defined. But he's kind of, he split that slider into two pitches.

He calls it the gyro and sweeper stat cast did not. But he's kind of a slider-ish fastball player, but he lives out the fastball. You want a great fastball, but you don't want that to be everything. And I think the worries with Bryce Miller are the secondaries are not there, which there is a secondary with Brandon Fought. So I don't know, man. I think surprisingly of all of these guys, the easiest rotation stuff is like Bryce Miller looks locked in

because they need a guy for the rest of the year. Brandon Fought is maybe not guaranteed. So you've got like Bibi and Miller might be the most guaranteed as far as rotation goes for the whole season because you still have innings issues with Miller. So like would I make the move? I don't know. I wasn't encouraged off of this start redraft.

I think you can make it if you want to. I know a bunch of people are burned and pissed off and stuff like that. Go make the move. But it's a great matchup next week. I personally, I want to see what happens with those two starts next week at home against the Marlins and the Giants. So I'd be kind of hesitant to do it.

But boy, that'd be really, really tough if Bryce Miller is sitting out there. I can't imagine he is sitting out there after that start. And for what it's worth, for those who pay attention to this metric that Enosaris provides, Eno Saras has great work with the athletic stuff plus. It's a way to measure basically how good a pitcher's stuff is. Bryce Miller, after yesterday's start, ranked second in all of baseball behind only Jacob de Grom

in terms of stuff plus. So that metric really liked what Bryce Miller had to offer in his first outing. It's a very fastball heavy metric, just to point out, like, Eno will tell you all the time because I do a show within once a week. He'll tell you the system doesn't like change up. So it doesn't grade changeups very well. and those guys aren't going to get extra love.

But big fastballs grade out incredibly high. So there's always this like reliever thing that goes on. Mason Miller graded out crazy high. And it's actually funny because it's like Mason Miller and Bryce Miller are both kind of working with a similar repertoire of like cutter slider and then huge fast. Big fastballs. They're just different type of fastballs, a different type of command. But that's huge after one start.

You definitely need a little bit more. But to rate out number two after one start is crazy, it's against C.A. So let's remember that. While we're talking about the prospects, we might as well mention Gavin Stone and what he did in his debut. Also knocked around by the Phillies in his outing, four innings,

eight hits allowed, five runs, four of those who are earned. Only one strikeout, only six swinging strikes on 77 pitches. Mostly four-seem fastball and change-up, but he did not have the change-up in this one, just a 12% whiff rate, 15% CSW,

and by all accounts, that is Gavin Stone's best pitch. So if he doesn't have his best pitch, he's probably not going to pitch very well. He's 52% rostered. I just don't know if he's going to stick around Welsh. I was scouring Twitter. I was trying to find anything on Gavin Stone.

I haven't seen anything. What did you think of this performance? And what happens next for Gavin Stone? Yeah, I mean, I wasn't impressed. That's what was so stinky about today is it's like, you had these like really two cool guys that were out there and it didn't work. He threw a little bit of a slider. He couldn't put that in the zone.

and the change-up just wasn't there. It wasn't fooling anybody. And I don't know really particularly if the fastball was even as effective. It wasn't actually. It had a 6% whiff rate now that I'm looking. It was very Brandon-fought-esque, except he got a lot less like called strikes on it. So it's like that pitch just in general was less effective

and the change-up wasn't there. They said they were going to take it day by day. I think this was before the start. I think after they might re-look at it. The guy I actually thought might be a player that they look at before Gavinstone. I was wrong about that, but just to take a look at as they're looking around is, pay attention to Emmett Sheehan, who was in the AFL last year. He is only at AA right now, and it does look like they really like to get their guys at AAA. But 19 innings this year, he's got around

a 3-ERA, 35 strikeouts to 8 walk so far. I think he leads K-percentage in minor league baseball. Bobby Miller is another big prospect who just came back and he had a crazy good start. Eno's metric, we were able to look at it in AAA. Four of his five pitches graded out higher than 100 on the stuff plus, which is above average. So Bobby Miller has got the big stuff. He's just coming off of injury. Yeah, when it comes to Gavin Stone, you heard it there, kind of taking it day by day. I'd be all right dropping him for Bryce Miller because, again, someone who I know is widely available.

So if you want to make that swap, but if Bryce Miller's not available in your league and you picked up Gavin Stone, I'd probably just hold on for now and see what the Dodgers to decide. to do with him. Oh my goodness gracious for me from Wednesday was Shane Bieber. And this is kind of an interesting one because he had actually on paper a very strong start at the New York Yankees, eight innings, two runs, four strikeouts in that one.

Two home runs allowed to the likes of Willie Calhoun, my man and Jake Bowers of all players. Only eight swinging strikes on 93 pitches in this start for Shane Bieber. He allowed 12 hard head. I'm not gonna read off this Yankees lineup, but this is not the Yankee lineup that we're used to. 12 hard hits allowed a 93.6 mile per hour

average exit velocity against in this start for Shane Bieber. He has exactly four strikeouts in five straight starts. He does not have a whiff rate over 30% on any of his pitches this year. Last year, he had two pitches with a whiff rate over 40%. So the swing and miss is not there this year for Shane Bieber. So you might see the surface level stats. 2.96 ERA 107 whip, only 30 strikeouts in 45 and two thirds innings pitch.

That is a below 6K per 9. The underlying ERA estimators are not buying it. And he's allowing the most hard contact of his career, Shane Bieber, is 93 mile per hour average exit velocity on the season. And even with that, he has a career low 246 Babbitt. These things just do not add up. He's not getting whiffs. He's allowing contact.

He's allowing a lot of hard contact, but it hasn't turned into hits yet. And he's also walking more batters. So all of these things have me pretty worried overall about Shane Bieber. So this is a great start for him against a bad Yankees lineup right now. And I think the time to try and flip Shane Bieber

sell high on him. We always accentuate the sell high aspect of it. Don't just try and get off Shane Bieber for the sake of it. But if you can sell high for a few names that we'll talk about a little bit later on, I think one very clearly that stands out to me. Aranola has an extensive track record,

much like Shane Beaver, but there's not as many concerns, at least in the underlying numbers for someone like Aranola. So if you can make that swap, if you can turn Shane Bieber into Aranola right now, that's something that I would look into doing. Luis Castillo has kind of been knocked around

a little bit as last couple of starts. I'm just like looking inside the top, 15 or so starting pitchers. That's something that I would try to do. Yeah, he's been a sell for me for a little bit. You know, he got away with a lot last year in losing Velo and losing spin. He's still a good, when I say this too, like, I think Shane Bieber is fine. But Shane Bieber was put into a much higher tier of player.

And I just think he's okay. The strikeout numbers are getting a lot lower. He doesn't get away with a lot of that. He can go deep into games. That offense is future right now. I'm a sell on Shane Bieber. especially while he's still performing, because I'm not encouraged. Can I ask you, can I ask on air the question I asked you off air?

Sure. Okay. Shane Bieber or Alec Manoa. Who would you rather have rest of season? Oh, gosh. And I have to choose an answer, don't I? I don't have either. Actually, no, I think I have Shane Bieber on one team.

But I would not trade Bieber for Manoa. I think the underlying concerns that I have with Manoa are at least on par with Shane Bieber. perhaps even worse than at least look. We know the actual numbers are much worse for Manoa right now than they are for Bieber. And Bieber has a much more extensive track record. So we'll talk about Manoa a little bit later on. I've got a group of four struggling starting pitchers.

I'll ask whether or not you want to buy low on those right now. But no, I would not make that swap. How about you? Would you trade your Bieber for Manoa right now? No, I mean, I don't know if I would look at it like that. I would probably have to look at this more like if I were trading like, let's say a position player and I could get one of those two players in a trade, which one would I want? The answer is neither. I would not be trying to acquire either one right now. Agreed.

I don't know, man. Like, maybe Manoa in this. I don't know. No, I'm going to go with Bieber. I'm going to stick with Bieber. He can go deep into games. Even that offense is kind of putreed. I like the defense. There's a lot of run support in Toronto. I'll go with Bieber, but like slightly. I'm looking at a few hitters. I'm most notably in the outfield. Because it feels like there's a lot of underperformance there right now. But someone like Luis Robert or Teoska Hernandez, I feel like you have to get more than that for Shane Bieber right now. Luis Robert for Shane Bieber is,

that actually might be like a perfect trade. Because I'm also very out-ish on Luis Robert. I mean, part of me kind of wonders if he'll still be on this team come the end of the trade deadline and how it's performing. But I think those two might be a very easy trade. If you are kind of a semi believer in Shane Bieber and you're looking for pitching, those two, it's not a sell high by low. It's just kind of trash for trash.

You know, you're just kind of moving both in there. I think that actually works. Yeah. And it's so weird because like we're talking about Shane Bieber. Like he's been awful this year. Again, like the ERA and WIP are both very good. Like it's a 296 ERA 107 whip. But the strikeouts and everything else underneath the hood just does not line up with those

numbers right now. And that's exactly why I'm telling you to try and shop Shane Bieber. And it's tough because it happened last year. And he was just like, no other matter. You know, he kept performing. Like he kept performing despite VLO and spin changes. And it seems like it's happening again.

But I'm, I think push is going to come to shove here pretty soon. Well, he was getting a lot more whist last year, too. The swinging strike rate was still like near 14%. And now it's below 10. I mean, that is a, that's like a, I don't even want to wish this on him. But that's like a Eric Lauer, like a kind of. El Gibson type number, you know? Like, this is a bad swinging strike rate right now.

So it could improve. And maybe Shane Bieber, like the, you know, he just starts getting whiffs out of nowhere. And he makes me look dumb. That's definitely a possibility. And I think his cape, I can be wrong. I'm not looking at it. I'm terrified to touch anything on my computer right now. I feel like he had like a low 20 K percentage last year.

And isn't the K percentage into like the 17, 16? I mean, isn't it like four or five percent lower than it's been over the last, you know, ever, four or five years? Let's see. So the strikeout percentage is at 17% this year. Last year it was 25%. So even higher than I said. From the shortened 2020 down, 41%, 33%, 25%, 17%. There's a very clear, you know, decline that's happening right now with Shane Bieber's strikeout rate. A, oh my goodness gracious, shout out for the night to Braxton Garrett. I hope no one started him like I did in Tout Wars because

14 hits 11 earned runs negative 17 and a half fantasy points if you play on CBS yeah it's it's pretty bad I'm struggling there I've got some injuries and I'm trying to do it with volume I'm like let me just throw out as many pitchers as possible and it did not work it did not work with Braxton Garrett there was a reason Braxton Garrett was available Frank yes absolutely a slug fest for the Atlanta Braves 14 runs on 18 hits, six of those being home runs. Ronald de Cunea hit his sixth home run of the season. He's batting 355 with 14 steals.

There's some ding-dong on Twitter that used to tweet at us all the time about how Ronald de Cunia has no power left. And already this week, despite being hit on his shoulder with a pitch, he has two home runs. One of those on Monday was like 450 feet. I think the power is just fine with Ronald. The slap hitter. I will tell you.

And I hope enough people like they tune in and they kind of like vicariously live all of this through you guys. There is something so satisfying about like those little inside jabs that you can do. Because I saw, I think, like, Scott had one. I think Scott had one. It was like, this wasn't very sloppy. Like, I kind of get very excited about those like fantasy baseball today jokes that get to make it out into the Twitterverse. And that one is a nice fun.

There's one's sucko. There's slap hitter in a cunea. There's some good ones out there that's fun to kind of call out when you can. I don't want to be salty all the time, but man, it's just like some of these tweets and comments that we get. It's just made people get really, really crazy with it. I hadn't blocked in quite a while. I'm not a beat. Like, I'll do it.

I'm not a bit. I had the, I had to, decoambe Mutumbo today a little bit. So, yeah, I mean, people are out in the streets getting wild, man. They, they sure are. The Atlanta Braves, getting back to them. Marcel Ozuna went three for five with a double dong five RBI. Doesn't really play much anymore. So I don't think there's anything actionable there.

Austin Riley is kind of off to a slow start, but he is sixth home run. And Ozzy Albies is actually off to a very good start. Four for five with his ninth home run. He's now batting 275. Zero steals. That's the weird part for Albi. You know what is applicable about Ozuna, though, to think about? Is when Orlando Arcea comes back,

Ozuna is probably a very important piece relative to Von Grissom, I think, at least, about if he's going to be sent back down or if Grissom can stay up. because I do believe the end of the day they're going to have to move him off because they really do seem committed to Arcea and go back to that experiment. And Ozino, to me, feels like one of those guys that it's like that team might have to make that decision.

We have options on Grissom. Do we get rid of Ozuna and let Grissom kind of take that role? And in his sparing time that he does play, if he does hit a bit, it might lead to, unfortunately, on Grissom being sent back down when Arcea does come back. So just kind of be aware of that and probably watch it. And it could be somebody else, but I just kind of associate those two right now together.

The way that I'm leaning, what we've seen from Von Grissom so far, is when RSI is good to go, they're probably going to send Grissom down. But I hope I'm wrong, and hopefully he plays well from here on out. Let's take our first break when we return. I want to ask you about what prospects could be next, right? What's the next wave of prospects looking like?

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products are paramount. All right, well, which prospects could be next? And the ones that stood out most to me, the Cincinnati Reds, I was about to say all of them, but then someone's going to say, well, what about L.E.D. La Cruz? And he is not one of them. So that's why I will refrain from saying all of the Reds, but most of the Reds. It kind of feels like a lot of them are ready. And Christian Encarnacion, Tran, Matt McLean, who's a former first round pick.

He's got off to a fantastic start in the minors this year, after a down season last year. And Andrew Abbott is a starting pitcher recently promoted from AA to AAA, and I know his numbers have been off the charts. Welsh, your thoughts on the Cincinnati Reds and when we can see some of those guys? Cincinnati Redis.

They're red-e. Yeah. You get the reddy. Yeah. The two that I think are obvious. Obviously, I was a big old Christian Incarnacion strand stand before the season and really thought that he could make

the Major League roster with what he was doing and playing first base and it was kind of a shock that he got sent down, then he got hurt. He's hitting over 400 in AAA. He's got four homers already. A 700 slug. This is in nine games.

Nine games he's already got 400 home. He is absolutely murdering the ball. Can easily slot in at first or DH right now. I think you get him in this lineup. What are we doing with like Will Meyer? What are we doing with half of this roster? It's the, it's actually similar to like the White Sox thing.

Like, what are we doing sending down Oscar Coloss and Lyndon Sosa when, in bringing up Hansar Alberto when you're garbage? Like, just play your guys, develop your guys. The Reds are at that point. Christian and Carnacian Strang does not belong in the minors. And I would say, I'd be shocked if by May 15th, he's not up with the major league club. Give him 15 games, let him hit 400 and bring him on up. So I think he is an absolute stash right now.

One of the top stashes is if you're looking for a big power bat because the homers are real. There is no speed to speak of. but he's going to mash in Cincinnati. And Andrew Abbott's the other one. Very interesting thing. It kind of got on the Twitter sphere if anybody saw it. I don't know if you saw it. Andrew Abbott destroyed in AA.

He had a 20K per 9 over a couple starts. It was absurd. So I'm looking at about two weeks for both of these guys. I think Abbott and In Cornosian Strand are guys that are going to come up within two or three weeks or something like that. The other name that I had written down here is Yuri Perez, who is truly one of the top prospects in all of baseball, one of the top pitching prospects with the Miami Marlins,

and he's got a 252 ERA, 0.84 whip, 33 strikeouts, over 25 innings pitched. But he's done that so far at AA, and now the wheels are turning, and you just told me everything about this pre-tagged baseball that they have at AA. So how much stock should we put into this? It sounds like Uri Perez is going to be promoted to AAA, like, any day now.

Yeah, and I don't want to get it wrong. I don't think it was the entire AA. I just am forgetting right now. I know it was at least a league, the league that the Reds are in, if not all of AA, but I do think it might have been that league. That I wouldn't really sit on regardless

because they brought Yuri back. He just dominated in his last start. Struck out 11, gave up only two hits, gave up a solo shot. He was able to go five, which I think is really important. He's gone five in four of his five starts this season. And I kind of think his next start is in AAA.

But I could be wrong about that. And that starts the clock. But I think the Yuri Perez clock starts more in mid-June, mid-June to early July is when that Yuri-Praise. I think they kind of showed their hand. They wanted him to come back to AA. They wanted him to work on a few things. They wanted him to establish there. I think they'll want him to have a good, kind of like what the raise were doing.

You know, the razor like, we want Taj Bradley to have, you know, a couple days on the five, a couple starts on the five day. I think they would really want to see Yuri dominate. And I think that's like at least four starts. So this is just my opinion. He definitely is a speculative ad, but I just don't see them going from AA straight up. I think they want him to do this at AA or AAA for at least a handful of starts, three, four, and then we can start speculating.

Once he's called up into his second start, I'm probably going to start picking him up in those spots where he hasn't, you know, there's no news that he's coming up because I think the clock starts there. Again, that is Yuri Perez with the Miami Marlins. Welsh, are there any names that? you've speculated on yourself that, you know, could be the next one's called up to the major league level. Yeah, players you could look at Gavin Williams is another one of those pitchers. He has been absolutely dominant. You could ask yourself, like, how many more guardian

pitchers can they bring up? But if they really want to rehaul the whole thing, right now they're dealing with a situation of like Peyton Badenfield or I think it's Plyssack. If you want to do it right, I think you just bring up Gavin Williams. He's been so good. We just have to consider it. Bobby Miller, who I brought up like with the MHG Hand stuff, that's another one of those kind of like top 100 guys, I think that that would be a potential. I'll throw out a random one too, because we did this on rates and barrels a little bit, but I actually reached out to a contact that the Rangers outfield situation looks kind of odd. And I kind of was asking about Evan Carter.

And is Evan Carter a possibility of this year? And the person in that organization told me that it is, he needs to go to AAA. They're going to want to see him at AAA, but the summer is a real potential for Evan Carter. And this is a top outfield prospect that's like, a top 20 guy. We're probably a month, six weeks, a month to two months away from that. But once he gets called up to AAA, then they are really looking at like a potential summer call up.

And that team is trying to win. So, you know, getting a live bat who can play defense instead of guys like, you know, like Bubba Thompson and stuff might really be the play for them. And you know that I like Dustin Harris quite a bit, but I, he clearly is not an option to play center field. So I don't know who would be able to play center field if they made that move. but yeah, he is someone that I have liked in the past as well in the Rangers organization.

Let's get into some news and notes. Jacob Grom is slated to begin playing catch during the Rangers' upcoming road trip, which spans May 5th through the 14th. So it's a completely wide open range of dates, but he's on the IL once again with right elbow inflammation. Corby Carroll, Welsh, your boy, has missed three straight with that left knee injury.

The MRI confirmed that it's merely a bruise. However, he did appear as a pinnature. hitter on Wednesday and he went one for two with the run scored, which I think is obviously a great sign. Yeah, there was an article I tweeted out like the day before that said the MRI showed no big structural things. He took BP on Tuesday. He was in the dugout and then all of a sudden I had no idea because I'm going to be honest with you, after Fott gave up that last, I turned the game off. I couldn't do it anymore. And then Bogwin had to tell me like a couple innings later. He's like, hey, Corbyn Carroll's in. And I was like, wow, that's actually fantastic. So I did turn back on to

see how he looked. That's a huge piece of news for everybody, a piece of good news out of the Diamondbacks prospect front. Corbyn Carroll, I think will be in the lineup on Friday because I got a day off here on Thursday. So Friday, I expect him to be back. So thank you, thank you. Thank you. you. All right, Kyle, right, left his start due to right shoulder soreness and was placed on the aisle after the game. We know that his spring was delayed because of right shoulder injury. So obviously pretty scary news for him. Dylan Dodd is actually making a start on Thursday. And if he pitch as well. Perhaps he sticks around and just takes Kyle right spot. But I will just say, watch out for Mike Soroka because in four starts at AAA, the numbers don't look great, but his

first three starts were very good. And then he just got blown up in its most recent outings. So he's someone who's trying to work his way back, multiple torn Achilles. And it would be a great story. And look, when he was healthy, he was one of the better pitchers in baseball. So I love that call. Yeah. Just a name to remember there, Mike Soroka. Pete Fairbanks, was placed on the IL with right forearm inflammation. And it wouldn't surprise me, well, if the Ray is kind of mix and match a little bit,

because that's what they have done in years past. But I think it's going to be Jason Adam who gets the majority of these save opportunities. Oh, yeah. I looked around immediately when this went down. And I was like, where is he available? And he was available in one league. And I put a lot,

I'm comfortable saying it now, I put a lot of fab on making sure I acquire him. It's a daily run fab type of thing. So I'm making sure I lock him. up because I fully believe he'll be the only other guy speculated on would be I think it's um is it braden Brito uh the young kid from AAA who came up he got that like three innings save that might be a guy I think they really like he looked really good maybe he gets a shot but I think this is all Jason Adam all right Michael Harris was removed as a precaution after jamming his right knee it doesn't

sound like he will need an IL stint Liam Hendricks will make four to five minor league rehab appearances before joining the White Sox again fantastic news absolutely love it 71% rostered is Liam Hendrix. If he's available in your league, I don't care what league it is. 10 team, points league, must add. Go out and get Liam Hendricks, make sure he is not a free agent in your league. Kyle, right?

Well, I already talked about that. Wrote it twice. That's how important it was. Luis Severino will throw a live batting practice session on Friday instead of beginning a rehab assignment. I'm sure with the Yankees, there's definitely no kind of setback here. That never happens.

Oh, wait. Carlos Rodon will undergo more testing on his back. on Thursday because they don't know what's going on. All right. That one has me like, I think it is doomsday. I think that is doom coming for you. When that is revealed that he was like, you know, I just don't feel right and that they're going to go send for testing.

I'm just, my gut feeling, we're not going to like the result of that. I just can feel it. It's so weird because he's had multiple tests done already and it's shown nothing. There's nothing wrong with his back. But apparently something is affecting his mechanics right now. That's the most recent news. The crazy part about this is that his elbow, his shoulder, his forearm, all of that, fine. Now it's a back injury with Carlos Ordone and, frankly, a disaster to the start of his Yankees career.

Nestor Cortez will lose his start this week due to strep throat. Garrick Cole has been pushed up and will gain an extra start this weekend on Sunday against the race. I've been hyping up Michael King recently, and there was a report Wednesday that he'll soon, available to pitch more frequently in shorter bursts. So they're kind of opening up that possibility like, all right, maybe we do want Michael King to become our closer. And frankly,

I hope that happens. I love your call. I went and picked them up in a league as well. It was only available in one. Again, these like, pseudo guys, you know, really great stuff, Holdy type of players,

only available in a very, very small amount of my leagues. But I went as soon as you said that, I was like, you know what, you're 100% right. I think, I don't think Clay has been the guy.

And I think King is the one. So I put a bid in and got my, myself a little bit of Michael King. Clay Holmes, by the way, gave up another run and was in line to take the loss on Wednesday night. But we'll talk about that a little bit later on. Harrison Bader exited the game after colliding with Isaiah Kiner Flefa in the outfield. Oswald Paraza also left after suffering a leg injury on a stolen base attempt.

How many injuries can happen to one team? They're going to test the limits. Not that we needed confirmation, but Bruce Bochie confirmed Will Smith will the majority of the team save opportunities moving forward. Kenley Jansen threw a bullpen on Wednesday and will likely be available on Thursday. Apparently, the Dodgers noticed a mechanical tweak in James Outman's setup at the plate and then he bounced back with multiple hits on Wednesday. So that's good news because he was in a bit of a slump recently.

Yeah, and strikeouts. Hopefully the mechanical issue is also going to get the strikeout numbers under 30%. That's what you're wanting. Robbie Ray officially underwent Tommy John surgery, which means we probably will not see him until the second half of next year. Carlos Carrasco will make a rehab start this weekend and could rejoin the Mets rotation next week. Garik Hooper was placed on the aisle with an inner ear infection. Yuleiguriel will fill in at first base in the meantime. Yuan Moncada is close to beginning a rehab assignment. J.J. Bleday was recalled by the A's and was crushing it in the

PCL. It's a very hitter-friendly environment worth mentioning in 25 games there. 316 batting average, seven homers, seven doubles. More walks and strikeout. and a 1072 OPS. Welsh, any interest in Bladay in, I don't know, the deepest of leagues? Sure, in deep leagues. Why not? I mean, I like the walks being over the strikeouts, bring over that hitter friendly.

So seeing Brent Rooker be able to make some of the changes he had, I think you could see that in Bladay. Bladay is a good player, but he gets in these massive slumps where, you know, it's 150 batting average, just swinging through everything. So I think in deep, deep leagues you could speculate it's a lay's guy. Like, how excited still are people? about Brent Rooker overall, and then minus that 10 times for JJ Bladay. So it'd have to be a deep one, maybe watch him a little bit more.

He's not a 12 team. He's not a 15 team. But just keep an eye on him if the power starts going. And he translates those PCL stuff over. Peyton Burdick was recalled by the Marlins and he was also crushing it at AAA. Welsh, anything on Peyton Burdick? Big hard to hit numbers. He actually was like two years ago or so, a very, very hot name.

Older prospect kind of at all the levels. absolutely puts a big hard-to-hit numbers. It's just inconsistent contact and, you know, just kind of swing and miss. So we're going to have to watch that as well. It's crowded. It's crowded there. They, you know, they just brought up Xavier Edwards to be in there. So I just don't know how that it's fully going to end up going.

But, you know, keep an eye on it. They're probably testing the waters overall. I still going to sit here and say, I wonder, wonder if they're testing all these guys out to move jazz back. I wonder if they want to see how Xavier is. I know Abby So Garcia hit the aisle, but Burdick and Edwards, could they lock up? They got Sanchez, Brian Daylor Cruz. All these players really seem like maybe a test to see the level of comfortability

and wonder if they would, you know, tuck their tail in and get him back over at short, which I kind of would like to see. Yeah, I think that's a great call. Hopefully, yeah, I haven't watched many Marlins games recently, but the ones I saw earlier in the season, Jazz was struggling big time in the outfield. Noah Sinigard isn't scheduled to make a start this weekend. It allows the Dodgers to go with Kershaw, Dustin May, and Julio Arias in a very important series against the San Diego Padres. Jan Goams was placed on the seven-day concussion aisle.

Angels reliever Jose Quijada will undergo Tommy John surgery. And Guardian's pitching prospect, Daniel Espino, underwent shoulder surgery and is expected to miss the next 12 to 14 months. Welsh, I know this is a huge blow for a once very exciting pitching prospect. It's, I don't, I guess you just hold Aspino. and Dynasty, right? Like, there's, there's nothing else he could do. Do you drop them? You could. Just get rid of him? I think there's, there are leagues that he is dropable right now. This injury, we were doing some research on, I believe it was a similar injury that Johann Santana had. And the recovery from that, it's really tough to come back from these. This is not his first or

second go round. He's not, he's pitched, I think, like 30 innings or something in like three years. He's also physically changed his body completely. There was a time 12 months ago that there were some people that would have argued that this is the top upside pitching prospect in all of baseball because it's triple digits, really good breaking stuff. But this injury, I think, is a death blow. I don't, he's not a top 150 prospect anymore. There's too much far gone lost time. This injury, the recovery is bad. You've got a year gone. He's not a top 150. So if you don't, if you roster, you know, some of you guys leagues and five prospects or something like that. But even like a 15 team 10 prospect, I think there's justification. You could look around for

more proximity and just say, I'm not doing this because he is two and a half years away. I mean, not to make it about the same thing, but Christian Robinson. The news came out if you pay attention to this. Christian Robinson with the Diamondbacks almost seems like a forgotten name. Hasn't like three years. He just got reinstated finally. And he's going to be out there. And everyone's like, hey, is he a prospect? I don't know. He's completely retransters. He's a monster. He looks like the Hulk. He's so big now. He has gained at least 50 pounds of muscle. There's this whole new body that he, I'm not even joking, man.

There is a whole new body that this guy is going with. And he hasn't played competitive baseball in like three years against other people. So what level is he? I don't know. Daniel Espino is about the same thing. He has pitched so little in like three years and it has a whole new physical transformation that I just don't know if it's worth sitting around. And you see these guys that are popping and getting.

some time. I mean, Emmanuel Valdez looks amazing right now in Boston and is hitting. And that's a guy that most wouldn't have considered a top 150 prospect. I think you can make those moves in like a 15-team 10 prospect league. Stuff like you and I are playing with Scott. And that's probably not a league you want to drop them,

especially a points league. But you could think about it. You really could. Again, that was Daniel Espino with the Guardians. Let's take our final break. And when we return, a few struggling pitchers, what do we do with them? Find out right after this. High low, or no thanks, bro.

The Aces Edition. Lots of struggling Aces right now. And four names that we're pitching on Wednesday. Aranola was at the Dodgers. Another underwhelming start. Six and a third. Four earned runs. Five strikeouts to zero walks.

The ERA is at 4.64. The whip is still very good, though. 1.13 for Aaronola. Alec Menoa, not great. Once again, at the Red Sox. Five innings. Five runs. Two earned.

Three strikeouts. Three swinging. On 103 pitches. That is, it's unheard of. The Blue Jays did him no favors in this game. Four errors behind him. It was just awful defense and 50 degrees, nasty weather.

It was like drizzling out in Fenway. It's like all around. It was just bad for the Blue Jays and for Alec Manoa. Dylan Cease, underwhelming once again, five innings, four runs, four walks, six strikeouts. And since opening day,

Cise has four plus walks in three of six. starts. His walks per nine are approaching five. So the control is just really bad once again for Dillen C's. And Max Scherzer such an interesting one here, rocked in his return from suspension. He was at the Tigers. Supposed to be a great matchup, right? Three and a third, six runs allowed, only three strikeouts, two home runs allowed in this one, lots of hard contact. It was cold there as well, 52 degrees. The slider, the cutter, they're both down in terms of velocity there. Spin rates down. as well, Welsh. The fastball down 107 RPM,

the slider down 134, following a sticky substance suspension. Very interesting for Max Scherzer. I just throw a bunch of names your way. So if you want to go one by one or whatever, however you want to approach this, are there any ones that you would actually look

to buy low on from that group? It's a bad look. It's a bad look for Max Scherzer. I've always kind of just tried to blind, especially a lot of these guys qualify, specifically like Nola and Scherzer would have kind of always qualified as like benefit of the doubt. You know, it's early. You got weird cold weather and stuff like that.

Kind of, I think like a lot of us are still trying to do with Sandy Alcantra where you just like, you get benefit of the doubt. These guys are going to be able to revamp. Scher, I don't know. This could be a one-off thing, but put a couple things together, man. Spin and Velo adjustments gone after this suspension. That highlights the amount of rosin that he was used. using and then the alcohol. It's a bad look and you can kind of put one-on-one together that this

might be, there might be an adjustment period for him to figure out how to be a different pitcher because he's not going to be able to get away with maybe some of the other stuff. It's speculative. It's one start. You can be like, oh, shut up, whatever, Max Scherzer, I'm worried about that one. I've already expressed my worries about Alec Manoa. He was a preseason bust for me. I haven't heard a whole lot from the Dillon C's people after that first start because It's been pretty consistently the same thing with him. Nola is the one that I'm really enamored with. The curveball has just not been the same.

It hasn't. It has a 28% whiff rate today. He wasn't pinpointing it. The sinker had zero whiffs on. It had some called strikes. He was a little ineffective on some of his command. I don't know if it's a pitch mix problem. I think there's just also just overall ineffectiveness.

You had VLOs down kind of just in general on this one. Spin was kind of okay. Noel is the one that I'm kind of blindly saying, I think I can still get back in with. I love that there's four different pitches that are going. He is still getting whiffs. The whiff percentage was relatively low here, but he had a 32% CSW.

Dodgers have been striking out like crazy. It didn't quite happen in this game. But I want to hold out hope that I think Aaron Nola is someone that I'm interested in buying back on the offense, has got a boost with Bryce Harper coming back. So that's the way. one I think I'm most interested in buying in and probably the biggest name of any of them, where I think all three of the others, Frank, I think I'm, I don't think I can do anything with.

I'm not going to buy low on them if I own them. I don't even know how I could sell them. I don't know how that would work, but I'm kind of out on the other three from a general sense of trying to buy Aaronola's my target. I will be fair because I said this about Bieber earlier. I'll say the same thing about Nola. His swinging strike rate is way down this year as well. It's down to 10%.

last year it was 12.6%. The whiff rate on that curveball is also way down. So in fairness, but Noah kind of goes through these stretches and then he just kind of turns it on out of nowhere and he's inconsistent at times and then you look up at the end of the season and he winds up with like a borderline

ace type season. So I just, like you, kind of more blind faith in an Aranola and I said earlier I would try and flip Shane Bieber straight up for Aranola right now if I could and I just think if people are looking at the surface numbers you might think, wow, that's crazy.

Why would you do that? But I think that there are more signs underneath the hood as to why I would do that and reasons why I would do that as well. Alec Manoa, outside of the defense, which again, wasn't his fault, the velocity remains down a little bit this year. The walks had been an issue all season long.

They really weren't a problem in this one. You and I were speculating before we started that like the new pitch clock thing, he's someone that works very slowly and like, look, who am I to call somebody out for conditioning? Right? like these are professional athletes. But I think, you know, if you're looking at Alec Manoa and maybe some of those other Toronto Blue Jays as well, it's like, yeah, maybe conditioning might be an issue for him right now, one of the slowest pitchers in baseball, and now there's a pitch clock.

I think it kind of makes some sense. Yeah, man, I think it's gotten slower. I think he's got like the pace of play for him has been more difficult. As far as his like rank among other pitchers, you know, other guys have worked so much harder to work faster. And you just have to think, you know, deeper into games that's going to have. an effect and he's just less effective. So I think, yeah, it's kind of weird. And it's a, there was some stuff about it in the preseason two about weight. And I think he was like going out, I don't remember who it was, but he was going out someone about it. But I think like you're seeing it

come together. Plus, he kind of has that argument. I mean, shout out to you, at least in this early set of how right this has been. You know, one of your biggest bus this year with Sandy Alcantra. And it is working out exactly how you put it. And what was one of the big arguments you and I both talked about? He didn't have the strikeouts to kind of back up some of the stuff. Some of these guys can make do with getting strikeout. I mean, Lodolo's just been absolute garbage, but I think he has the most strikeouts in that division right now. So he's still getting those strikeouts and stuff like that. That's not, I'm not trying to make a big case for him over these other guys, but I'm just saying, like, he doesn't, you have that redeeming factor.

Munoi doesn't have that. Ocantra hasn't had that. And that makes me dislike Minow even a little bit more that he's not able to pull back into that. All right. Well, let's go a little rapid fire with the rest of what we got here. I had a few rankings risers written down that I wanted to mention. I was kind of touching up the rankings on Wednesday. Josh Young went three for five and poor Brandon fought. I mean, this is the guy who did all the damage. A double dong for Josh Young in this one, both of them over 400 feet. He's batting 275 so far with eight home runs and 86 OPS.

The plate discipline is lacking. I mean, we're talking about a 30% strikeout rate, 32.5% for Josh Young. He's up to 79% rostered, so I don't think he's available. but I like what I've seen so far and I trust that the strikeouts will come down a little bit and I've moved him close to my top 12

in third base rankings. I moved him up to 13th. So he's just ahead of like Patrick Wisdom and K. Brian Hayes and Alec Bowman and he's behind Gunner Henderson and Jordan Walker. That's kind of an interesting conversation

there Welsh. I think you can make the young over Gunner move and redraft pretty easy right now. One thing I've speculated on, and I've mentioned this in places and stuff, Young had a very hardcore concerted effort on power hitting. And I'll make this quick in spring. I've told some people, I watched this like crazy 30 minute power session he had with one of

the coaches and just bam, bam, bam, all he was doing was trying to lift the ball and it really started working. So something that from just seeing him in camps a lot is I think the effort has been to translate, who he was a big contact hitter, you know, through college and going, is to translate and turn that into more power. But that happens at the minor league level a lot. And what happens when you transform your approach from contact base to a little bit more power based?

You see averages dip and you see strikeouts go up because you're going to be more aggressive. So I am hopeful that that is going to drop. The K percentage will drop over time as he's adjusting to being maybe a little bit different of a hitter. So I'm a big buy on Josh Young right now. And like I said, I think Josh Young over Gunner makes all the sense to the world in redraft right now. The Gunner's hard to justify rostering. Yeah, no, he's been very bad

and save it for another day, but we'll have to do a deep dive and see what's going on with Gunner Henderson. Max Muncie just looks like Prime Max Muncie again. It's like the elbow issues are behind him. He hit a walk-off grand slam on the first pitch that he saw. So fitting, too, that the Dodgers did that against Craig Kimbril of all relievers too.

I moved Max Muncie up to my fifth ranked second baseman and my sixth ranked third baseman. He's just behind like Aeronado and Austin Riley and those guys are off to slow starts. I can't do it yet, but like, if we get another month in and Muncie's just doing the same thing and those guys are still struggling, then I'll probably make the swap at that point,

but those guys just have such extensive track records. Like he just changed his tier, maybe. Muncie's kind of moved up a tier. He hasn't maybe moved over players, but he has definitely improved his tier rank. And I want to talk about three outfielders that I've moved up quite a bit. Josh Lowe went one for four with his sixth home run.

The problem is that he's still not playing its lefties, So the playing time is a little bit annoying. It kind of hurts counting stats, but on a per game basis, Josh Lowe has been one of the best outfielders this season. 338 batting average, six home runs, five steals thus far. Masataka Yoshita went two for five. He is now on a 13 game hitting streak, and he has multiple hits in three straight,

has that batting average up over 300. And Jaron, we talk about this guy like three, four times a week because just keeps mashing it. One for two with two, a double, two runs scored. He has 10 doubles already. He didn't start the year on the Red Sox roster. He came up like halfway through April,

and he's got 10 doubles, and he's got like a handful of home runs. So he's been awesome. Where did I move these guys up to? Yoshita, inside my top 30 outfielders, maybe it's aggressive, but I really like what I've seen, and the stack has data for him is awesome too. So I've got him up at 29 in the outfield.

Then the other two names, Josh Lowe, up to 43. he's right around like Lars Newbar who I still have some confidence in Patrick Wisdom, Joey Gallo so like guys that have increased their stock this year and Newbar who frankly has decreased his stock

and then Jaron Duran who I have at 52 I don't know man maybe I should have him higher. He was outside my top 60 and I moved him up to 52 like maybe he should be higher what do you think about those rankings risers? I think particularly I'd focus on Jaron Duran. I think

Jaron Duran I might value over low right now. I am so impressed and you look, he has doubled his barrel percentage. He have been per plate appearance as well. He's increased by two miles per hour. His average exit velocity. His launch angle has doubled as well. He's hitting 400, but his XBA is still a very sustainable 265. He's tapping into power. He was a 30, 30-ish high 30% hard hit guy. He's over 50 right now. And on top of all those things, what is like, Like one of the magic keys, lower on the strikeout rate, which is exactly what he's doing. I think he's making all the right changes. I think Duran is, we're going to look back at the end of the year.

And we might be like, wow, how did this happen? How did we get, you know, close to 2020 on him? So I think he deserves to be up. I like your Yoshita one. I'm kind of with you with low a little bit. But I think I might value Duran over low. Okay. So maybe I got to push him closer to like that top 40 range with Jaron Duran.

A few waiver wire starting pictures I wanted to mention. There wasn't really much available going on. on on Wednesday. Seth Lugo turned in another quality start. He was up against the Reds. He went six innings, one run, five strikeouts.

Only six swinging strikes. The numbers this year have been good. The whip is high. 1.34 for Seth Lugo. But yeah, he's not getting a lot of swinging strikes either. I think he's fine. He has RP eligibility too.

So if you're playing a points league, that helps. J.P. Sears, I was about to do this whole thing. Scott. I was about to call you Scott. Welsh. Sound the alarms.

Breaking news. The athletics finally. got a win for one of their starting pitchers. You'll never guess what just happened. No, do they, oh my God, are you, all we've been doing, everybody is doing the whole like, Bryce Harper starting pitcher versus the A. Everyone, the unit of measure for anything is A's starters.

You got to be kidding me that they blew it. They get to the ninth inning. Zach Jackson gives up a solo homer to A.J. Pollock to blow J.P. Sears's win. And JP Sears was fantastic in this one. Six shutout with seven strikeouts and 17 swinging strikes. Any thoughts on either of those two? Seth Lugo, J.P. Sears. Nothing tangible for anybody.

Like, Seth Lugo is a spot starter. J.P. Sears is not someone I'm putting out there. I was actually telling you, I think the Mariners might just be bad. You know, they have one good hitter right now, and he got thrown out in the game, and it's Jared Kelnick. I think everybody's hitting like under 250. The only 300 hitters, Kellnick. I think the Mariners might just be bad right now.

So they might be someone that you can kind of sneaky start pitchers up. if you like to bet and you like to play K props and whatever, but you might be able to get some K numbers off of guys like them, but Sears is not somebody very, very minimal spot starting for me for him. All right. The other name I wanted to bring up was Andrew Heaney. What do we do with Andrew Heaney? He gave up six earned runs over four and two thirds, four walks, three homers allowed.

It's just a terrible combination. The ERA now is up to 5.52 on the season. It's a weird year for Heaney because he gets blown up on opening day. then he has four solid starts in a row, and now he gets bombed again. So he's kind of back to that Andrew Heaney, we knew before the Dodgers, we're like just very inconsistent

and can just do a lot of damage to your ratios. And he's 75% rostered. I don't trust it well. I'd be okay dropping Heaney for like Tanner Bybee, Bryce Miller, uh, Logan Allen, any of those guys I would drop Andrew Heaney for.

Yeah, I think Heaney is one of those guys. If you have them on your, roster, you're having to like really consider who he's going up against. And that kind of stinks. And that usually means like that is a guy you can stream. So I think Heaney, unfortunately, is in the stream area. But don't get it twisted. Like he's going to go out there and he's going to strike out 10 in one game, but then he's going to give up five. I mean, dime back is pretty good offense that he went up against today. But he is a little too inconsistent

that you can't justify either not streaming him or like hands down. Go pick up one of the hot arms that are out there. If that's the option, go pick up Bybee. I might even speculate on Natasha Bradley getting it right soon as well. But yeah, the guys that are there, I would drop hanging for. A few leftovers will start on the pitching side of things. And it appears, Framber Valdez has started a new quality start streak this season. He's now up to six straight, six innings, two runs, eight strikeouts up against the Giants in that one. Logan Webb, a very strong start at the Astros, seven and two thirds, two runs, five strikeouts for him.

Shane McClainaghan, you know the deal. Here comes the money. Here we go. Money talks. Shane O'Mack has allowed two earned runs or fewer in all seven starts this season. He had 17 swinging strikes up against the pirates. Marcus Stroman, another quality start for him. Good matchup against the National.

Six innings, one run, five strikeouts there. And Shohei Otani recorded 15 out on Wednesday. 13 of them via the strikeout. This is crazy. Welsh, anything on those names. Otani, Stroman, McClanahan, Webb, and Framberval. is? Again, I'm not sure there's anything really tangible. McClainahan, he keeps getting these low, this is kind of a betting thing, he keeps getting these low strikeout numbers and he's still just

making it happen. The nine strikeouts were great. This is what Otani does. Both of these guys are going to absolutely rock on strikeouts. The Stroman one is interesting just because, like, you want him to be consistent. He's a guy that's going to get those higher strikeout numbers against those like whiffing teams, those bottom 10 whiffing teams. But this is kind of a standard line for him. Strowman is way more trustable, fake word, trustable than I think anyone is giving him credit for on that Cubs team. Yeah, there is an argument to make to sell high on Stroman right now, but I don't think I would. I think I would just hold or I would even try to buy high. I love the defense behind him this year. He's someone that pitches to contact and their defense up the middle is one of the best in baseball now. You know, bringing in Swanson and Bellinger and Bollinger and Horner playing second base there. It's like, no, I just, I think Stroman's going to have a really good season. Some hitting leftovers. Kattel Marte is coming around.

He went one for three with his fifth home run. He's got three homers over his last four games. Christian Walker also coming around. Two for four with a double dung has four home runs over his last four games. Speaking of coming around. Miguel Vargas might be happening. He is heating up. He followed up a four hit game with a sock and a shoe.

His second home run, his second steal of the season. Bryce Harper needed all of one game to get his timing down. He went three for three with a double, two runs, and 2 RBI. That guy is, he is a freak. He is a robot and he is awesome. Water Franco went two for five with his sixth home run. He added 2 RBI in three runs.

Welsh, did you see his flip the ball to himself and throw it on defense? I've never seen that in all of my years of watching baseball. Yeah, I love it too because like it's going to, it's going to incite Twitter over the next 24 hours. It already kind of has from the old hats of this is gross to just like let's have fun. I'm kind of an agent of chaos, so I love this. It is showboaty, and he almost caused himself a problem, but it looked awesome. And like I said, I'm here for a little bit of chaos. So I loved it, but I know there are people just infuriated.

Last but not least, say it ain't so, Willie Calhoun, my man, two for three with his second home run in as many days. He also hit a game tying RBI single off a manual Class A, which, man, if you want to steal my heart, like, I'm about to buy myself a Willie Calhoun jersey. Like, I love this guy. I was like, can we petition for Derek Jeter to come off and we get you a Yankees, Willie Calhoun, big fat head or whatever that is, the thing in the back? I think you need a Yankees Willie Calhoun back there. That is my guy, man. I'm rooting for him until the day he sends in the retirement papers.

We'll never give up on my guy, Willie Calhoun. A few bullpen updates for the Tigers in game one of their doubleheader. Alex Lang walked one, but picked up his fourth save. Quietly great numbers for him. 1.32 ERA, 0.95 whip, widely available if you need saves. That's Alex Lang. For the Dodgers, Bruce Dark-Graderall entered the ninth with a one-run lead. He gave up a single, a walk, a single, and then it was a tie game.

For the Phillies, Jose Alvarado entered the game in the eighth with a one-run lead to face the heart of the Dodgers lineup. He gave up two runs, and then with the game tied to the ninth, good friend Craig Kimbril gave up a grand slam to Max Muncie, and he took the loss. For the Nationals, Kyle Finnegan gave up two hits but picked up his seventh save. He is 40% rostered. Welsh, between the two, Alex Lang and Finnegan, they both pitch on bad teams. If you need saves, who would you rather have?

Man, I think I might go with Alex Lang. I'm such an anti-Finnigan guy. I don't know why, but I'll go with Lang here. Yeah, I think that's the right call, too. For the Yankees, Clay Holmes got the ninth with the game tied. He gave up two bloop hits and an earned run. Look, I've been ragging on Clay Holmes recently. At least this time, it wasn't because of control.

or walks. He was genuinely unlucky. He gave up two like blue hits, but whatever. It gets us one step closer to Michael King. So I'm kind of rooting for that. For the Guardians,

Emmanuel Class A got the ninth with a one run lead. He gave up two hits and an earned run to my man Willie Calhoun. For the White Sox, Kendall Graveman, pitching the eighth inning

with a one run lead. Who would get the ninth? Ronaldo Lopez is injured right now. Canaan Middleton. That's right. He used to pitch for the Angels. He walked one, struck out three.

for his first save. I don't think it's going to last very long because obviously Liam Hendricks should be back soon. Welsh, the Cardinals, there is something very wrong with this team right now. Ryan Helsley recorded four outs

across the seventh and the eighth innings with a one-run lead. Giovanni Gallegos comes in for the ninth, gives up three runs, two homers, a blown save and a loss. It's not often that you hear Cardinals fans

boo their own team. That was like the first time I ever heard it. Like those booze were raining down on Giovani Gaiegos. Now, I don't think we're going to see Gaigos in the ninth and too much longer. I don't, I think that experiment or that mess around the fireman, I don't know, man. Like I get the logic of what they were doing and maybe that was an important spot that they wanted Hellsley, but get him in the ninth man. You get Gaius out of there. Yeah. For the angels, Carlos Estavis struck out two for his seventh save and like Alex

Lang, Sivaz all of a sudden has these awesome numbers. 115 ERA 0.96 whip and he's 67% rostered again if you need saves in a shallower league let's wrap up with to stream or not to stream you see the names listed here Welsh and we'll start with Thursday this might be the worst day that I've ever seen in terms of I thank you I don't know that I could actually recommend one I have one but I don't love it I think it's Griffin canning at the Cardinals that's it yeah that's the one I think so too. Yep. Like Vince Velasquez at Tampa. I know he's pitched well, but the rays are just on fire right now. Brian Bayo's interesting, but going up against the

Blue Jays. Hate it. Too risky. I think Griffin canning is the only one. Griffin canning is the only one that jumped out. This is a whole you said it the best. It's a horrid list of streamers on Thursday. On Friday, uh, scrolling through here. I think Billy over at the Guardians is fine. Josiah Gray. I know I, the Diamondbacks are playing well, but like Josiah Gray is. also pitching well. So I think that one's okay. Edward Cabrera at the Cubs. It's tough, man, because like the guy could give you 10 strikeouts. He could also give you like a, a whip over two. So I think my play. I think you said on my Bailey over Josiah grade. Those are the two that jumped

out. Rich Hill jumped out to me just like a tiny bit, but that's Toronto. So no thanks. But there's no Matt Strom. There's no fun thing like that. I'm avoiding most of this. Edward Cabrera maybe is number three on this, but I would stick to those two. And I think I would rank it Josiah Gray won and Bailey over two. I was thinking about Brad Keller up against the A's, but it kind of feels like I'm getting too cute. So I'm going to say no.

We're going to wrap there for The Welsh. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.