Fantasy Baseball Today - Vaughn Grissom's Debut, Beat the Waiver Wire, This or That? (8/11 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)
Episode Date: August 11, 2022The Braves unexpectedly called up top prospect Vaughn Grissom (1:00). Now what? ... Rank Paul Dejong, Grissom, Jose Iglesias and Luis Rengifo (6:25). ... How do we rank these projected two-start pitc...hers (11:10)? ... Waiver wire this or that (18:55)? ... Are Daniel Vogelbach or Charles Leblanc worth adding in deeper leagues (25:50)? ... News (32:05): Fernando Tatis had a big rehab game Tuesday night. ... What do we think of Joey Votto, Gleyber Torres and Yordan Alvarez (37:35)? ... What do we do with Sean Manaea (48:25)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (51:35). Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Get 20% off Fantasy Baseball Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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
Transcript
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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.
Where fantasy becomes reality.
Now here's Frank Scott and Chris.
Welcome to the big leagues, Vaughn Grissom, and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, August 11.
Frank Stample joined by C-PT.
Chris Towers.
Today on the show, we had a big prospect call up, beat the WaiverWire 2-Star Pitcher Edition.
A little bit of this or that for a lot of WaverWire hitters, including a closer, two closures that I want to talk about.
But anyway, what's up, Chris? How's life going?
Life's good. That's all. I don't really have anything to add.
Fair enough. Well, let's get into it.
Oh, my goodness gracious.
All right. I'm just going to steal this one, Chris, and start off with the Olive Garden Breadstick, who is the Braves top process.
Vaughn Grissom, who was called up to play second base with Orlando Arcea going on the IL.
21 years old, he got the call from AA, much like Michael Harris.
Earlier in the season, a very aggressive promotion.
Obviously, has worked out splendidly for Michael Harris.
We'll see if the same thing could be done for Vaughn Grissom here.
So far, so good.
Huge debut, two for four with a sock and a shoe.
Two hard hit balls, including his home run, which was 101.7 miles per.
hour off the bat, 412 feet.
And if you haven't seen it, this was an awesome home run.
The bat flip was just great.
This kid was oozing swag during this home run.
I absolutely loved it.
This season in the minors for Von Grissom, he was batting 324, 14 home runs, 27
steals in 96 games, just 22 of those coming in AA.
So it's kind of like a young 21 years old, really does not have much experience above
of AA. He's 17% rostered, Chris, and my initial reaction would be, okay, very excited to add
this kid, especially after this debut. He looks awesome. The problem is that Ozzy Albies could
be back by the end of the month. So how are you handling this whole Vaughn Grissom situation?
To a certain extent, you know, I want to just say life finds a way and, you know, when a team is
in a playoff hunt and, you know, they get a spark from a guy. Maybe. Maybe.
that is enough to leave them in the in the majors.
You know, I don't know if Michael Harris was necessarily guaranteed to stick in the majors,
but he played so well that it, you know, kind of forced them to keep him up.
And it's possible that Grissom does the same thing.
He's got a very contact-oriented approach.
He's got 135 strikeouts and 227 games in the minors, only 54 this season in 96 games,
54 and 87 games.
The previous season, and this year he's started to develop some.
power.
14 homers in those 97 games or 96 games.
899 OPS overall.
You know, the hit tool is considered the stronger skill.
The power is, you know, consider I think more average.
He kind of a little bit sounds like he's not a switch hitter, but a little bit like
Ozzy Albies.
You know, he has like maybe six inches taller than all.
Oziaubes.
He's six foot three.
But, you know, the kind of good hit tool, fringy-ish over the fence.
power that he can get the most out of because of the hit tool.
You know, that kind of sounds like what the potential best case scenario for Grissom could be.
And that's a really lofty comp.
So obviously, you know, take it with a grand assault.
I'm not saying he's going to be as good as Ozzy Albies.
But yeah, I think he's someone who probably needs to be rostered in in all category-based leagues at the very least,
just to see what we've got.
It's a skill set that could potentially be very promising for points leagues as well with his contact profile.
Yeah, I just looked up his minor league profile to see if he played any games in the outfield in his minor league career, and he hasn't.
It's just been the infield, second base, third base, and shortstop for Vaughn Grissom.
So I hear you, Chris.
I mean, usually these things find a way of working themselves out.
Maybe it's, I'm just trying to figure they could put Marcelo Zuna in the outfield.
They could bench Marcelo Zuna.
He hasn't been great.
Eddie Rosario, but who's playing in the outfield then?
between Albies and Swanson and Grissom.
I want to get excited about this kid.
I really do.
And it's just an awesome debut.
Lots to like,
as you mentioned.
But I just kind of worried.
But for now,
I mean, look,
even if it's just a two week period,
three week period where he's awesome,
I mean,
those are things that can help you right now
in your weekly head-to-head matchups
and obviously maybe move up the standings
in those Roto leagues,
especially deeper ones.
So Vaughn Grissom's 17% rostered.
Let's add him for now.
see where it goes.
And who knows,
like maybe even a setback
happens for Ozzy Albies.
There's,
yeah,
a million different things.
Yeah,
that's,
that's why,
like life finds away,
you know,
like that's,
it's,
I say it kind of jokingly,
but it's also like,
how many times do we worry?
I don't know if this guy's,
I'll never forget
when Juan Soto got called up.
I mean,
this is going back like five years now,
but I remember it like,
oh,
but we don't know if he's going to be a,
you know,
a guy who sticks around or if then it's like,
I mean,
if you hit like that,
that's obviously a very lofty
comparison. Juan Soto was arguably the best 19 year old hitter of all time. But if Grissom can
make an impact, he'll figure out a way to stay probably. And if not, you figure it out later.
He also has a really cool name. Can we just talk about that? Von Grissom. It's not related to
Marquis Grissom from what I saw Scott tweet about. So that that's not continuing the trend in
recent years, but still, Von Grissom is a strong name. That's a great name. It sounds like,
the lead character and some kind of action movie or...
Yeah, it does.
Video game character or something.
It's just a really cool name.
I'm getting like Nathan Drake vibes from Uncharted.
So it's just, yeah.
Cool name theory.
Definitely cross that off the list for Von Grissom and add him wherever he might be available.
Oh my goodness gracious for you, Chris, is someone we've talked about a lot recently.
He's given us a lot to talk about recently.
Paul DeYoung.
He's got what?
four home runs in about 11 games since coming back from the minors. He went four for five today.
He's been outstanding three hard hit balls, two doubles today, no strikeouts. Overall numbers,
still pretty bad because he was atrocious to start the season, got sent down, but he may have
figured something out along the way back to the majors. He had an 865 OPS and AAA. Struck out 52 times in
230 plate appearances, which is a manageable number.
You know, that's below 25%.
So if he was able to do that at the major league level
with the kind of pop that Paul DeYoung has shown in the past,
you know, that's a player who has been worth getting excited about in the past.
Now, it's been very all or nothing before this game.
He had seven hits coming into tonight.
Four of them had been home runs.
Three had been doubles.
So a lot of pop.
the first two singles that he had,
he's had since getting called back up
where tonight,
but yeah,
I think so sorry,
it's been 10 games.
He's got four home runs,
11 hits.
He's been very good.
So,
yeah,
I don't know if this is a return to form for Paul DeYoung.
You know,
he was a pretty good player at one point,
his career,
but it's,
it's interesting enough that we can't ignore it at this point.
Yeah,
of course,
worth mentioning that his last two games
have come in course field.
so definitely could help out with this monster game here on Wednesday night,
where he went three for four with two doubles, a run, and an RBI.
Was going to save this for later, but since we're talking about two middle infielder's,
let's lump in a few more.
Jose Iglesias, we didn't get to him on yesterday's podcast,
but he has been on fire, and he had another good game here on Wednesday.
He went two for four with a double and two RBI.
He is 29% rostered.
He's got six games next week, including three in Corse Field.
Iglesias' last 30 games.
He's batting 377 with two homers, 21 runs, and 22 RBI.
So not much power, but the counting stats for runs in RBI are ridiculous right now for Jose Glacius.
The other one is Luis Renhifo, who I brought up a lot recently.
I just don't know that we're giving him enough credit.
He went one for five with his seventh home run.
It was a three-run shot.
He's batting third for the Angels lineup, which frankly is not a great lineup right now.
But 20 games in the second half of the season so far,
Renhifo is hitting 293 with two homers,
two steals and 12 RBI.
He's 20% rostered.
So Chris, how are you ranking these four?
Grissom, DeYoung, Jose Iglesias, and Luis Renhifo?
It would be Grissom de Young, Iglesias Renhifo.
Rehifo, just the quality of contact metrics are still so mediocre.
You know, he's got a 330-expected Wobo on contact, 290-expected Woba.
So even his 3-14 Woba is actually outperforming.
his expected stats right now.
So I just have a hard time getting too excited about that.
Iglesias is having a weird year because your initial reaction is,
oh, well, he's playing half as games at course field.
So you can just ignore it when he's not at home,
but he's actually been, let me double check this because this was what I saw yesterday
and just make sure that I saw the right.
Yeah, he's hitting 358 with an 850 OPS on the road.
Those are the numbers you would think like, okay, if he was doing a course field, that makes sense.
He's a contact-oriented guy who couldn't hit some line drives.
He's doing that on the road.
He's actually been pretty Jose Iglesias-e at course field, 272-695 OPS at home.
So I don't really know what to make of that.
It makes me think that it's pretty fluky.
And since he's not a base stealer and he doesn't hit over the pout for over the pout, over the fence,
hour, uh, that there's not really much reason to get excited, even during a hot streak.
All right. So head and shoulders above the rest. We've got Vaughn Grissom and Paul
the young as the two that we are actually excited about if you need a middle infielder moving
forward. Let's move over to some pitching and I've got beat the waiver wire two star pitcher
addition. Hopefully I'm not stealing the thunder of Scott for tomorrow because obviously this is,
uh, this is his thing. He does the pitching and the hitting planners and all the sleepers for the
following week, but at the same time, he's also much more accurate in terms of planning the two-star
pitchers, so this will be updated by tomorrow. But as of now, these are kind of the names that are
projected for next week to have two starts. Jeffrey Springs had a solid start at the Brewers.
He went five innings, two runs, eight strikeouts in this one with 16 swinging strikes.
Numbers this year have been very good. However, he has gone more than five innings just once
in four starts since returning from the IL. Josiah Gray, he needed a bounce back performance,
And he was solid at the Cubs.
Six and a third.
Two runs, five strikeouts to zero walks.
He had an ERA over seven in his previous six starts before this one.
Johnny Quato, just another quality start.
Six innings, three runs, two of them earned.
With four strikeouts, he has gone.
Six plus in 14 of 15 starts this season.
Jose Cantana, I told you not to start him at Cores Field.
I apologize because he was pretty good.
Six innings, two runs, six strikeouts there.
And so far, so good with the,
Cardinals since coming over there with him.
He's 58% rostered.
And then Justin Steele, a quality start up against the Nationals,
six innings, two runs, nine strikeouts to zero walks.
He's quietly been very good Justin Steele.
3.63 ERA, all the FIP, X FIP, kind of lines up with it,
over a strikeout per inning for him.
He is 30% rostered.
He's got the Brewers and the Nationals next week.
And he's Spark eligible.
So, all right, Chris, lots of names here.
Who are, let's say your top three of this.
this group, Steele, Kintana, Quato, Josiah Gray, and Jeffrey Springs.
Steele might be my favorite among this group.
And part of that is he's got good matchups next week.
You know, if he makes those two stars versus Milwaukee at Washington, obviously
Washington team he had a very good start against today.
16 swings and misses nine strikeouts.
I think he's someone that I absolutely want to start,
especially with Spark eligibility, any points league or any league where that matters.
That's a that's a big.
deal.
Kind of like Jose Cantana next.
You know, the, I have, I've been skeptical for most of the season, but the underlying
numbers largely support what he's done.
And again, great matchups versus Colorado at Arizona.
That's two, you know, great matchup versus Colorado, great place to pitch at Arizona.
So I like that one.
And then I don't love any of the other three because of their matchups for the two start
week, but in a points league, I think I would go with.
Quedo with the edge over spring,
Springs,
is SPARP eligible, right?
Yes.
So that helps,
but the lack of depth that he gives you
negates the value of that.
You know,
the lack of quality starts really is a hindrance
and a points league again.
That matchup at New York,
he had a decent start against the Yankees
earlier in the season.
I distinctly remember being concerned about that start.
I think he was one of the streamers
that we talked about for that week.
And he was pretty good.
He actually had a quality start.
against them, but I just, I think it's unlikely to expect that again. So I would, um, I would
probably go steal Kentana Quato. I think I would take Springs over Quato, but that one is pretty
close. It's really just a measure of volume versus effectiveness because I do, I think you would
agree that Springs is the much better pitcher. It's just we feel better about Quato giving us more
endings, obviously. But he does have to face the Astros, one of those starts for Johnny Quato, the
Astros and at the Guardian. So I don't really love those. That's one that I wouldn't do in a
roto league. I would be more likely to do springs in a roto league. Yeah, I mean, I think if we're,
if we're just kind of splitting hairs here, Quedo and points and springs in categories, I think
that's definitely fine. And I agree with the, the first two that you mentioned. Justin Steele,
he's weird because he doesn't have a high swinging strike rate, but over a strikeout per inning
the season. And I noticed that he doesn't throw hard with this fastball. He has a left-handed pitcher.
He's basically just four seam and slider,
but his fastball's in the 94th percentile
and spin rate this season.
So it is kind of one of those sneaky,
deceptive fastballs Justin Steele has,
and he's pitched very well with that.
So I do agree.
I think I would put Kintana first on this list,
but yeah, I think him and Steele are the top two
that I would be looking at.
In deeper leagues, J.P. Sears made his Oakland A's debut,
and it was a solid one.
He was up against the Angels,
five and a third, three hits, two runs,
zero walks, three strikeouts,
only five swinging strikes on 72 pitches.
It goes really hard after it with the fastball.
He throws it like 60, 65% of the time.
Also mixes in a slider and a change-up.
Very good numbers in the minors this season for J.P. Sears.
1.70 ERA, 0.73 whip.
60 strikeouts over 47 and 2 thirds.
And again, this is for deeper leagues, you know, 15 teamers, anything like that.
6% rostered and he's got the Mariners and he's at the Rangers next week.
So not terrible matchups, Chris.
think about J.P. Sears? Not entirely clear. He's a starter in long term. He's been used kind of in both
roles, reliever and starter in the minors during his time with the Yankees. Um, average like five
innings, a little less than five endings per start this season. So, you know, not sure you're
going to get a lot out of him. And given that it's, you know, the A's wins are going to be, you know,
pretty hard to come by. But yeah, he's interesting. He's, he's certainly worth keeping an eye on.
the stuff looks pretty solid, you know, based on the minor league track record.
So I'll keep an eye on him.
But even, you know, with a two-star week next week, I'd be surprised if you got, you know, set the over-under on quality starts at 0.5.
And I think I'd take the under next week.
So not a super high upside play.
Chris, I have to pause everything that we're doing right now to let you know that the Joey Gallo just hit a three-run home run for the Los Angeles.
Adgers. And obviously it's been a big week for the song.
Yeah. Joey Gallo. For those
for those out there who have heard the song, you know that that is about Joey Gallo.
But I love Yankees' Twitter.
That comes him as many hits as Andrew Benintendi since joining the Yankees, right?
I don't, I don't know.
I'm just Josh and you. Andrew Benintendi has a whole seven hits in 12 games.
Oh, gosh.
This is just so frustrating, too, because it's an opposite field home run for Joey Gallo.
And just last, like, his first game with the Dodgers, he goes opposite way, too.
And it's just like, where was that with the Yankees?
I just, I don't get it.
It's so crazy to me.
But the Dodgers, the magic that they work with not only their pitchers, but I guess with Joey Gallo as well, good for him.
I hope he gets back on track.
It's just, it's crazy.
Chris, remember earlier in the season, you're like, I can't wait until the middle of the summer when, like, everything is crumbling for the Yankees and all their fans go crazy?
Yeah, I'm at that point right now.
So just let you know.
This was the obvious outcome.
This was always going to happen because the Yankees fans freak out anytime they go five and five over a stretch of 10 games.
And especially when they thought they were going to have the best season in franchise history two months ago.
It's been a little bit more than 10 games.
I think they've been pretty bad now for like the past 30 games, but whatever.
They're fine.
It's all, it's baseball, right?
They're like the second best team in baseball instead of the,
fifth best team ever. They're fine.
Sure. I hope you're right, Chris.
I'm rooting against them, to be clear.
Oh, I know. I know. But they're fine.
Nice shirt, by the way. My buddy was in, was in Miami recently, and he picked me up an exact
shirt. Well, not exactly, but similar to that, it's a Sandy Alcansura jersey that is red
like that. I haven't gotten it from him yet, but yes. I'm very excited. All right, let's get back
into the actual action. Waverwire this or that. And I've got a, but,
a bunch of names here on the list. Stephen Kwan or Tommy FAM. Stephen Kwan went two for four with a
triple and a run scored. He is now betting 300 overall for the season. He's 74% rostered. Could
be out there in some shallower leagues. And Tommy Fam, I know we spoke about him yesterday,
but I just want to reiterate. He's been good so far with the Red Sox. It's been really good.
One for five with his 14th home run. He's now homered in three straight. He's let off in four
straight. And Chris, he had four hard hit balls in this game, including two over 105 exit velocity.
That is Tommy Pham. He's 61% rostered. Who would you rather have, let's say in a points
league, Kwan or Pham? Even in a points league, which I think is Kwan's better format. I would
rather have FAM. And this is why. You go from the start of June, which is 60 games. So most
of his season now, he's hitting 326 with a 783 OPS. That's really good.
His 162 game pace during that stretch would be 86 runs, three home runs, 40 RBI, 19 stolen bases.
He just, he doesn't, like he gets singles, and that's all he does.
And so even at a points league, which is probably his better format, although, you know, listening to those numbers, 19 steals over 160 game season, that would be pretty good.
Tommy fam can do a lot more.
What if I told you, Chris, that over the last 28 days, Stephen Kwan is the eighth best outfielder,
points. That's not surprising.
Outfield remains a disaster.
Yeah. It's so bad.
It's really bad.
But I
would still rather have Tommy fan.
What is Kwan averaging in that span?
He is...
It's got to be like
right around three points per game at best.
3.3.
Okay. That's a solid number.
Maybe I'm giving him
not enough credit.
Look at this list right here. The top eight
in over the last, this is insane, the last 28 days.
So Aaron Judge is first with 155 points.
The next closest is Mookie Betts with 91.5.
That is just bananas.
But after bets, we get Juan Soto, Juan Succo, what happened to that?
Teosker Hernandez, Randall Gritchick, Anthony Santander, Ahmed Rosario, and Stephen Kwan.
That is your top eight over the last 20 days.
So what that tells me is there have been four good outfielders over the last 28 days.
It's crazy. I was updating my rankings Wednesday. I was trying to move J.D. Martinez down. And I couldn't do it.
It's really hard. I'm like, who am I going to move ahead of J.D. Martinez? That's been the struggle at Outfield all season long is it just like you've got these guys who aren't performing and you want to move them down, but you don't actually want to move anyone up. Yeah, it's been a rough season for Outfield. Very rough. All right, let's move into two more outfielders here. I guess prospect edition. Riley Green,
went two for five with a double and a run scored.
He now has multiple hits in four of his last eight games.
Not really hitting for power, stealing bases.
So I'm not overly excited, but he's doing something.
He's getting hits here.
He's got seven games next week.
And then Alec Thomas went two for four with two runs scored.
He is 64% rostered.
He's got seven games next week.
And he also has a big series coming up in Corse Field.
So I think Alex Thomas is frankly going to have just a monster weekend.
and then we're going to be looking to add him.
But Chris, what do you think?
Who would you rather have Green or Thomas?
My gut reaction is Thomas,
and I just wanted to check one thing between the two of them.
Yeah, they're both batting first and second in the lineup.
So not really much of a gap there.
Their quality of contact metrics are very similar.
Greens have been a little bit better,
but he's striking out a lot more.
So, you know, that's kind of making up for it.
wish both of them were running more than they have been.
Yeah, Alec Thomas last 30 days, zero steals.
Yeah, he got off to a pretty good start in that regard, but yeah, he slowed down.
I would go Thomas.
You know, I think it's pretty close.
I like both of them, but I think Thomas played discipline at this stage in their career gives him a little bit of an edge.
Yeah, I will point out with both.
I dropped them outside of my top 50 outfielder, is they really have not done much over the
past month or so.
Yeah.
But once you get into those five outfielder leagues, obviously I still think long term,
they have a lot of upside.
And Thomas, for the reasons I mentioned, I think he's about to have a big weekend.
So this is almost like a preemptive ad before other people do it with him.
Two closers.
I mentioned I wanted to get to.
Sir Anthony Dominguez struck out two for his eighth save here on Wednesday.
David Robertson pitched yesterday, and he also pitched on, I guess that would be either Sunday
or Monday.
he could have been available. Sir Anthony
Dominguez also pitched yesterday. That's now two
games in a row where he has picked up
the save and
we're just kind of left
closer by committee with the Phillies right now
I guess moving forward. Maybe
kind of favoring Sir Anthony Dominguez but he's
50% rostered and then
Jonathan Hernandez looks like
the Rangers closed her. He pitched the
I think it was the bottom of the 10th inning once
the Rangers just took the lead in that game but
they put up a bunch of runs in the top
of the 10th so they didn't. It wasn't a
opportunity anymore. I like Hernandez, but it sounds like Joe Barlow is getting ready to return.
Who would you rather have between Dominguez and Hernandez? The thing is, is Barlow going to be the
closer when he comes back? Not necessarily. He was removed from the role right before that injury. So,
you know, it's possible that like the injury was as much a let's get him back on track kind of thing.
But, you know, given the fact that he was removed from that closer's role, I, I, I think.
think Hernandez's job security is a little safer.
You know, Robertson only has one save and four appearances since going to the
Phillies. So, you know, clearly he's not the closer, but this is a team that has
had trouble at times settling on one guy. You know, there was a stretch earlier in the
season when we thought Sir Anthony Dominguez was the closer. And then they, you know,
went back to Corey Canable at one point. So I still think,
that's probably a committee and I would rather have Hernandez.
I agree with that assessment.
Hernandez, I believe, pull up his roster rate.
I know Dominguez.
It's a real low.
Dominguez is 50%.
I believe Hernandez is 36%.
So he's actually available in more leagues.
And I agree.
I would take him because I do think he is more entrenched in that role for his
respective team.
So Hernandez over Dominguez for me as well.
We already mentioned the middle infielders earlier,
so we will pass up on that.
Just some names I wanted to mention in deeper leagues.
Anything here or maybe just throw them on the scout team for now.
We'll start off in the infield.
Daniel Vogelbach went two for five with a double and three RBI.
He now has four multi-hit games in his last seven,
and in 15 games with the Mets,
Daniel Vogelbach is hitting 341 with two homers and 10 RBI.
Somebody let me know that he now walks out to the song,
milkshake, when he walks out.
phenomenal.
So that is, yes.
Just embracing being a big, beefy baseball boy is one of the best things.
A big beefy baseball boy in the city.
You gotta love it.
You gotta love it.
Dan Vogelbach is 19% rostered.
A gentleman named Joey Meneses has homered in three straight for the Nationals.
He is a 30-year-old, but was playing well in the minors this year.
286 batting average, 20 home runs.
And then Charles LeBonk.
Chris, what can you tell me about Charles LeBlanc?
He plays for the Marlins.
He went two for four with an RBI.
he has played 10 games with them so far.
He's batting 429 with one homer and one steel.
So deeper leagues, what do you think of these three?
Vogelbach, Manessus, and LeBlunk.
I'll make the same joke I made on Twitter
that the Marlins have somebody wearing
the number 83 batting cleanup for them right now,
which means we are getting spring training started early,
I guess, for them.
I don't know.
But there doesn't seem to be anything there with Charles LeBlanc.
His quality of contact metrics and the majors are pretty middling,
despite the fact that his overall production has been pretty good.
So I assume there's not much there.
Keep an eye on him, I guess.
You know, late season stuff like Patrick Wisdom last season,
and Tommy two hits or Frankie two hits, that can happen.
So I don't want to say there's nothing there,
but my guess is there's nothing there.
It'd be the same thing with Manessus.
I want to say Manassas, but that's a Civil War battlefield.
And Vogelbach has started 13 of 16 games since getting to the Mets.
So, you know, it's not a part-time role, at least not a fully part-time role.
I don't know how many times they've faced the lefty.
I would think that's probably going to be one of the determining factors in whether he plays most days.
But he's the most interesting of this group, you know, for sure.
And he's the most rostered of them as well.
and I think 19% rostered is probably, you know, maybe a little low.
Maybe there's some 15 team leagues where you can add him,
but I don't think it's a high priority.
Speaking of Vogelbach and the Mets,
they have eight games next week,
and it looks like, as of now, just one lefty on the schedule.
So that could be useful as a streamer, sleeper hitter.
I would be surprised if he wasn't on Scott's list next week.
I was watching the Marlins game earlier,
and they had a really cool nickname for Charles LeBlanc,
and I can't remember it.
But I feel like you're really good at finding stuff like this, Chris.
I tried to do a Twitter search.
I couldn't find it.
Did they call him Joey?
No, it was like Chuck something, Chuckie something for Charles LeBlok.
I can't remember what it was.
But maybe he's this year, this year's Frankie two hits.
We'll go with like Chuckie two hits or something like that.
Yeah, it might be, look at the minor league track record.
It might be more of a Patrick Wisdom situation because he strikes out a ton.
But yeah, we'll see.
All right.
Some outfielders in deeper league.
Tyler Naquin went two for four with his 10th home run.
And like Vogelbach, since joining the Mets, he is hot.
367 batting average, three home runs in 10 games.
Looks like he's playing every other day as of now.
He's 20% rostered.
Sam Haggerty went one for three with his fourth home run.
And over his last eight games, he's hitting 423 with two homers.
Just don't know where he's going to play once Julio and Jesse Winker are both healthy again.
And then J.J. Bladay, he was scuffling, but now two solid games in a row.
He hit his second home run on Tuesday, and then he went three for three with a walk on Wednesday.
Not sure that you need to add him, but maybe just pay attention to it.
Chris, what do you think about these three? Bladay, Haggertie, and Naquin.
Yeah, I mean, Naquin at 20% roster, that feels too high to me.
So I definitely don't think he's someone who needs to be added anywhere.
And Bladay, there's still potential there, but he hasn't shown very much.
So I'm still okay, you know, kind of leaving him on waivers.
All right.
hit the break, just want to let everyone know.
We're about 200 YouTube subscribers
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Tap the notification bell, so you can watch
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We haven't seen the cats.
How are they doing?
No, I kick them out.
I could invite them on sometime soon.
All right.
Before the season ends, for sure.
When we get to 15K, that will be our celebration.
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Help us get to 15K.
Let's hit the break, and we'll get to the news and notes after these messages.
The news and notes.
Fernando Tatis had a big game at AA on.
On Tuesday, not sure if he played on Wednesday because they were in a rain delay.
I went to check that earlier.
But anyway, on Tuesday, he went two for two with a double, a triple, two walks and two runs scored.
I was calm up.
Yeah, let's do it.
This weekend?
Nah, probably too soon.
Maybe next Monday?
Next week, I think.
Yeah, the start on next week, let's do that.
Oh, it's going to be, how do you think they're going to align this?
You think they're going to go, do you think they lead off with Tatis?
Go Tati Soto Machado to start?
I would think so. Yeah, I mean, yeah, pro far's been leading off. You can get him out of there. You go, Tatis, Soto, Machado. That's, yeah, that's an all-time trio right there. That is just bananas. ProFar, by the way. ProFar has had a good year. Yeah, he's having a good year. It's just, you know. He's not Fernando Tats.
So I think Profar will move down the lineup and you kind of trade off some run scored for RBI, but regardless, it's still an amazing lineup. Wander Franco could be ready to resume live batting practice.
as soon as Friday he had surgery to repair a fractured hamate bone
in his right wrist about a month ago.
Franco could be back by the end of August.
That's the hope.
Dustin May will make one more rehab start on Sunday
before rejoining the Dodgers rotation next week.
He struck out eight over five in his fifth rehab outing on Tuesday.
He built up to 68 pitches and is 76% rostered.
Dustin May could be floating around in some...
Really, really exciting.
Yeah, yeah, you definitely need to add him wherever he might be.
Remember, he was a guy who in 2020 was in their rotation, a 25070 array, despite only 7.1K per 9.
He wasn't a strikeout guy.
Came out in 2021, only made five starts, but he had 35 strikeouts in 23 innings.
He's got ridiculous stuff.
He's got this sinker that moves like, I mean, he looks like, like Bruce Starr-Graderol from their bullpen.
He looks like that, except he's a starter.
But he was starting to get swings and misses with his breaking balls as well.
And he's continued that on this minor league rehab assignment.
26 strikeouts and 16 innings in the minors.
I'm very, very excited.
Dustin May has top 30 starting pitcher potential.
Yeah, I guess it just comes down to how cautious they're going to be with his workload right out of the gate.
But maybe one or two starts gets those under his belt.
Then they start to let him go, 85, 90 pitches.
And if they do that, I think he could be really good for fantasy purposes.
Speaking of the Dodgers, Ryan Pepio was recalled to start on Wednesday night.
He went four and a third.
He gave up four runs, four strikeouts to three walks.
But I imagine that maybe he'll make one more start this weekend,
but he'll probably be sent down once Dustin May is ready to join the rotation.
Lance McCullors will make his season debut on Saturday against the Oakland A's.
And in four rehab starts, he had a 6.75 ERA,
and a 1.73 whip.
I believe Scott mentioned
he read somewhere that the velocity
has been a little bit down
for McCullors as well.
So he's 81% rostered.
That's more than Dustin May.
I'm assuming that we like Dustin May
more than Lance McCuller's, Chris.
A lot more at this point.
Yeah, I mean, I think McCullors
can be a good pitcher, but I'm just very skeptical.
This is much more of a,
I mean, for both of them,
like I'm not going to start either one of them
right out of the gate, but McCuller's for me,
given the nature of the injury,
the fact that he didn't have reconstruction surgery,
it's much more of a,
I need to see it situation.
Oh, right. Paul Blackburn went to the IL
with an inflamed right middle finger,
and that's what allowed J.P. Sears
to get called up here on Wednesday.
Chris Flexen, this one kind of surprised me,
Chris. He will shift to the Mariners' bullpen,
which means that George Kirby
will remain in the rotation for now.
So, I don't know, maybe we
Maybe we were a little bit too early
on dropping George Kirby here because
if he's back in the rotation, I think he's going to be pretty good.
He was really good his last time out as well.
71% rostered is George Kirby.
Reds manager, David Bell, said prior to Wednesday's game
that Hunter Strickland will be moved out of the closers role,
which is really not surprising,
considering how bad he has pitched recently,
and I guess all season long.
Alexis Diaz makes the most sense
as the Reds Closer, the replacement there.
He's just 19% rostered.
So if you are chasing saves,
I think Diaz is the name to follow there.
Kyle Lewis was optioned back to AAA
to make room for Dylan Moore,
who started here on Wednesday.
Spencer Howard was placed on the IEL
with a right shoulder impingement
and a prospect note.
Orioles pitching prospect,
Grayson Rodriguez,
one of, if not the top pitching prospect
in all of baseball, threw off a mound Wednesday for the first time
since he suffered a grade two lat train at the beginning of June.
It's extremely unlikely that we will see Grayson Rodriguez at any point this season,
but he could be in the mix for the Orioles opening day rotation next year,
which is very exciting for Keeper and Dynasty Leagues and even redraft.
If he's out there from the start, he's definitely going to be someone that we're excited
about as a breakout for next year.
that is Grayson Rodriguez.
All right, we have random hitters
that I want to get Chris's thoughts on
whenever Chris returns,
but in the meantime, I will introduce
some of these players. Joey Votto went two for three
with a double, a run, and an RBI,
and post-all-Star break.
Joey Votto is hitting 231 with five homers,
and an 844 OPS.
He is hitting the ball hard.
He's got a 12% barrel rate during that time,
and he just got off to such a slow start.
It's really, really hard for him to recover
from those numbers.
And he's really old.
Let's just call it for what it is, right?
Like Joey Votto pushing 40 years old.
And I think we kind of just called lightning in a bottle last year in terms of how much power he showed.
He frankly never really showed that much power.
Chris, we're talking about Joey Votto here.
Just some random hitters I wanted to get your thoughts on.
What do you think has changed the most from one year to the next?
Or is it just age?
Yeah, I mean, he's not hitting the ball with the same kind of authority that he did last season.
And he's kept the kind of loss of strikeout or plate discipline, I guess, would be the way to put it, you know, that we've seen, you know, last year he had the 23.8% strikeout rate. This year, it's 26.3%. And he had made a conscious decision over the last couple of years to stop trying to control the strike zone so much and just hit the ball harder. Well, this year, max exevalo, average exealow, hard hit rate. They're all decent. You know, they're all above average, but they're all down.
from last season when they were elite.
And that's, I think, the biggest difference is that
when you're cheating to hit for power,
you'd better hit for power.
And he's hitting for
decent power this season, not great power.
He's actually been pretty good lately,
but, yeah, definitely not the guy we expected to see.
Something else that stood out to me is that last year,
he crushed fastballs, and this season he's just been okay.
So this year, it's 250 batting.
average 520 slug against fastballs last year, 306 batting average, 678 slug.
And it kind of seems like he's selling out for fastballs.
And it kind of just throws off its timing for everything else because against breaking
and off speed pitches, he's been terrible each of the past two years.
So, you know, he's getting up there in age.
Yeah, like that's exactly what you would expect to see from a guy losing bat speed, right?
Exactly.
Cheating to try to hit.
This is something I remember, like, we're probably four years removed from it.
But I remember seeing this similar trend with Paul Goldschmidt.
We were starting to see some signs of him having to, you know, potentially cheat to catch up to fastballs.
And then, you know, nobody ages the same, right?
And Paul Goldschmidt, it turns out, is, you know, having one of his best seasons.
So, yeah.
It's possible Joey Votto bounces back.
I think he's still a useful fantasy option.
but clearly not the difference maker we were hoping he would be.
Glauber Torres, along with those Yankees, is scuffling right now.
Post-all-star break, he's hitting 192 with two homers, a 540 OPS, a 30% strikeout rate.
His fly ball rate is also over 50%, so it might be trying to sell out a little bit too much for the power.
And he is still 96% rostered.
Chris, how are you handling Glaver Torres?
Do you think he's droppable anywhere?
You're 12-team points leagues, sure, he's not a must-raster player,
but I think he's still probably in the corner infield discussion, you know,
that there have been...
Middle infield.
Sorry, middle-infield, yeah.
There have been some guys like, you know, Luis Garcia,
who we've liked and have touted,
but who aren't necessarily doing a whole bunch more.
So, you know, I don't know how many guys there are that I would drop Glaver Torres for.
I don't think I would drop him for Von Grissom.
So, you know, that kind of tells you that I do still think labor towards is worth keeping on your roster.
Would you do it for your boy, Niko Horner?
That's an interesting one because it does depend on what your team needs.
They're entirely different players.
But Nika Horner is his batting average up to like, in like, 305 for the season now.
He's been amazing.
So I think it kind of depends on what you need.
but I think that's an okay one.
It's not a must drop,
but Niko Horner is going to give you more batting average for sure and more speed.
So, yeah, I think that's fine.
Nico Horner now exactly at 300 for the season with seven homers,
12 steals, and an 11% strikeout rate.
He makes a ton of contact.
Yurda Alvarez went one for five with his 30 first home run.
Chris, did you see this homer?
I did not.
Please go to my Twitter right now and watch it
because it was 114.6 miles per hour
off the bat which tied a season high.
This thing was a missile, a rocket,
whatever you want to call it.
It was out in like four seconds.
Insane home run.
But I did want to point out that since returning from injury,
Alvarez has been dealing with this hand injury off and on
for like the past month, maybe month and a half.
Since returning, he's batting just 250 during that time.
I noticed his walk rate is also 20%.
So it seems like pitchers are really, really being cautious with Yurdan Alvarez.
He's still hitting the ball really hard during that time.
95 mile per hour, average XIVA velocity.
But he's been unlucky in terms of Babbup as well, just 268.
So what do you think?
There's no, like we're not dropping or trading Alvarez,
but have you lowered expectations just based on maybe him playing through this hand injury?
I don't really think so.
it's possible the hand injuries limiting him somewhat,
but you would think that we would see that in the strikeout rate or the whiff rate
or the average exit velocity,
none of which have really gone down.
He averaged 95.5 miles per hour in average exit velocity in the month of July
with seven home runs, 286 batting average.
August, you know, small sample size.
He was only hitting 148 entering this game.
299 expected batting average, 96.4 mile per hour average, average eggs
velocity. So I
don't really see much
that's materially impacting his game, but
obviously it's entirely possible.
There's something there with a hand injury.
I just, you would think we would see it
more than just in the bad average.
Would you, I'm asking for a friend,
trade Sandy Alcansora for
Yerdon Alvarez?
Points league.
Roto, 15 team.
I would rather have Alvarez, but that's close.
Okay. Someone may or may not have offered to be
that for Sandy Alconcer.
That's a, that's a tough one, but I still think Alvarez is the is the guy to have there.
It's tough because in that league, I need offense and been great in pitching.
I've got Sandy.
I've got Shane McClanahan on that team, but I'd much rather trade McClanahan.
Yeah, you'd rather train McClanahan.
Try that one.
I, yeah, I emailed the person back, but I don't think it's going to happen.
Like, you know, we talk about this.
Smart people realize what you're trying to do, right?
Like Shane McClan.
They had a couple stickers in a row.
They're aware.
Yeah, they know.
MJ Melendez is hot right now.
He went three for four with his 14th home run,
three hard hit balls,
including one that was 109.4 miles per hour off the bat.
His last 30 games,
Melendez is hitting 268 with eight home runs,
22 RBI,
average exit velocity around 92 miles per hour.
He's up to 77% rostered.
Chris, I think that number needs to be close to 100.
Like, MJ Melendez just needs to be rostered.
in all one catcher leagues?
I think so.
Yeah, I mean,
he's playing every day.
He's batting lead off for them.
He's been awesome this season.
I did want to make check to make sure he has played enough to get catcher
eligibility for next season.
He's actually a couple of games away from outfield eligibility for next season,
which I don't think you would necessarily use him there.
Although if he's playing every day in the outfield next season,
you know,
you'd still rather use him a catcher.
But, you know, he looks like exactly the kind of impact player.
We were hoping he would be coming up.
The power is exactly what we would hope.
We hoped it would be the, yeah, I think Mandjimilandas definitely needs to be started in all leagues.
You know, typically, Chris, the catcher position is very bad.
And I would probably say that for this year as well.
There's seven or eight guys that I really like.
And then it's just kind of blah after that.
But I think we're about to go through a kind of...
Famous last words.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're probably right.
I just jinx the position for like the next decade.
But there's a lot of...
I was thinking the same thing with Alejandro Kirk.
We're in good hands right now.
We've got Kirk.
We've got Ruchman.
We've got Melendez.
And we have all these catcher prospects coming.
Francisco Alvarez and Gabriel Moreno and Henry Davis with the pirates and Tyler Soderstrom.
I think he's probably going to move off the position.
But there's a lot of really interesting young catchers coming.
I think the position is going to be pretty good, but you're right.
For sure.
Probably famous.
I had the same thought.
I just, I don't want to actually put it in, put it out there and jinx it, you know?
I get it.
Max Muncie, last one I wanted to mention here, he hit his 13th home run, and over his last
14 games, he is hitting 294 with four homers, 94.
94.6 mile per hour average exit velocity, a 23% barrel rate.
And I believe this was a YouTube comment on one of our videos.
Somebody kind of speculated that
Miguel Vargas was called up to light a fire under Max Muncie.
And I don't know how much you could buy into these things,
but maybe.
Maybe it actually did because Muncie's...
This stretch started like, you know,
a week and a half before Vargas was actually called up, right?
So I don't know how much there is.
I mean, look, maybe.
I don't, I don't know.
But I know Scott was going to mention him yesterday.
I don't think he ended up getting to it.
But the average eggs of velocity,
the quality of contact metrics have all been much,
much better over the last, you know,
14 games, it's an arbitrary sample size,
but when you're talking about a player like Max Muncie,
who has shown so little to be excited about this season,
we'll take any arbitrary sample sizes we can get.
And yeah, this, you know, definitely enough
that if you were dropping him, you know, consider not dropping him.
Yeah, I agree.
I think I saw that he actually left the game here on Wednesday,
took a pretty hard ground ball, like off of his,
chest or shoulder area, so hopefully he's
all right, but yeah, he's
been playing really well lately. That is
Max Muncie. What to do with
Sean Mania? Just kind of jump back over to pitching
here, Chris. Another subpar outing
here against the Giants. He went five
innings, he gave up four runs, three of
those were earned, 11 swinging strikes
on 79 pitches.
Interestingly, he gave up the six hits
in four runs, only one hard
hit allowed, with a
33-bab up against. So
maybe a little bit unlucky here in this one.
I noticed his slider velocity was up 2.4 miles per hour,
and he threw his sinker a lot less in the star.
Less than 50%.
He threw more changeups, and he threw his slider more.
His slider's a really good pitch.
I never understand why he just doesn't throw it more.
I'm sure there's something else that goes into it
that I don't understand, like, sequencing or just any old, like,
pitching theory.
He's a lefty.
Yeah, but I just, his sinker is just so mediocre.
Like, it does get whiffs, which is weird for a sinker,
but it gets hit pretty hard
and his slider's good
so I just don't understand why he doesn't throw it more.
Anyway, his last seven starts,
he's got an ERA hovering around seven,
he's giving up a lot of hard contact.
It's been brutal.
The overall ERA is pushing five right now for Sean Minaya.
He was going to ask, do we drop him?
But then I realized his two starts next week
are against the Nationals and the Marlins.
No, you start him.
I think we've got to hold on for at least one more week.
Throw them in your lineups, you know,
and hope for the best.
He kind of has, and this is not just because he's a lefty,
although these two other pitchers I'm going to calm him to are also lefties.
But he's got some Andrew Heaney Stephen Mats in him in that he is a sinker baller primarily,
but he tends to throw his sinker up in the zone,
which is something that Heaney especially in his time with the Angels did.
And allowed him to get decent whiff rates with it.
It also just made it so that when he didn't get whiffs,
the pitch tended to get hit hard.
And like you said, the slider historically has been a pretty good pitch for him.
It's just, you know, it's been, especially this year, actually, this is a big change.
He's throwing the slider very rarely to right-handed batters.
You know, last season, he actually threw more sliders to right-ies than he did lefties.
This year, he's thrown almost more than twice as many sliders to lefties than righties.
So, you know, that pitch becoming more of a just platoon pitch for him, that could explain some of it.
Because it's been his best pitch.
And, you know, maybe the fact that he's not throwing it to right, he's, you know, is a possible explanation for why Mania's not been as good this season.
You know, that's kind of looking at it.
That's kind of the biggest thing that stands out to me.
The control has been weirdly off this year for him, too.
He's always been a great control pitcher, and this year he's well over three walks per nine.
So that's been an issue, hard contact.
A couple of those things together, and it's just, it's something that could really just snowball out of control.
So I'm holding on to Sean Mania for one more week here in Chalower Leagues,
start them with those great matchups.
But if he does let us down one more time, I could see starting to drop Sean Mania in some leagues.
Some leftovers from Wednesday's action.
The hitting leftovers, Roddy Tellez hit a game-tying home run off Colin Pochet in the ninth.
it was Telez's 23rd homer of the season.
Brandon Jury went two for five with his 22nd home run
and his second homer since joining the Padres.
He should have three, but I saw that
last week he got robbed by Sam Hilliard, so...
Sorry, Brandon Jury.
Aaron Judge went one for two with two walks
and his 45th home run.
I mentioned this for Alvarez earlier,
the walk rate being way up.
In the month of August, Aaron Judge has a 24% walk rate.
Opposing pitchers are being very cautious,
and they have good reason to be.
John Carlo Stanton is hurt
and Anthony Rizzo has been in and out of the lineup
so they don't really have to pitch
to Aaron Judge right now which
why would you?
Kyle Schwerber went 3 for 4 with a double and 2 RBI
Chris you'll be happy to know
two more batted balls over
107 miles per hour
for Kyle Schwerber in that game
Andres Jimenez went 2 for 4 with his 13th steel
Corey Seeger went 3 for 5 with an RBI
his overall batting average is now up to 254
and he is batting 314
since the start of July.
So I hope you bought Corey Seeger
when we were telling you to buy him all season long.
Salvador Perez went three for five
with a double and two RBI.
He has played very well since returning
from injury. Nolan Aronado
went three for five with his 23rd home run.
He had an awesome defensive play as well,
just really showing up the Colorado Rockies,
which good for you, Nolan Aronado.
You love to see that.
Also showing me up, which you also,
I mean, many people love to see.
So, yeah, look, while we're on that, like, we're going to get things wrong, guys.
Like, we're trying to forecast baseball and fantasy baseball.
As long as you get things right a little bit more than he get things wrong,
then you should be pretty good at this game.
But yes, it was, it was obviously a pretty bad call.
Yeah, I don't know, Cardinals fans on Twitter want me to, I don't know, self-flagellate in the streets.
I'm sorry, guys, I got it wrong.
I don't know what you want for me.
Well, you've been talking to Paul DeYoung, so that makes up for it, Chris.
Exactly.
Nico Horner, who I mentioned earlier,
he went two for four with his seventh home run.
He's 62% rostered.
He's got seven games next week.
He still could be out there in some leagues.
We got an email from Craig,
who was looking for a Matt Carpenter replacement
in a 14-tead points league.
He asked,
Morel, Christopher Morel,
Chris Taylor, Nico Horner, Adam Fraser,
Jose Iglesias.
Who would you take from those five, Chris?
I think it's Horner.
I do want to see Morel.
I know he has been sitting against some right.
lately.
Yeah.
But I don't know how consistent that is.
He slowed down to.
Yeah, I would just go with Nico Horner there.
Yeah, I responded to this email and I said Nico Horner as well.
So a little confirmation bias.
I appreciate it, Chris.
Pitching standouts part one.
Justin Verlander makes it eight straight quality starts.
He was up against the Rangers, six innings,
three runs, seven strikeouts in that one.
Brandon Woodruff makes it four straight quality starts for him.
He was up against Tampa Bay.
Seven innings, three runs, five strikeouts.
there.
In eight games since returning,
he's got a 2.43 ERA
and a 14.5% swinging strike rate.
And our guy, is he our guy?
I don't know.
Mr. Tai Pants, Robbie Ray,
he had a quality start against the Yankees,
six and a third,
two runs, five walks,
don't love it,
seven strikeouts.
Okay, pretty good there.
And his overall numbers
still don't look great,
but he got off to a really slow start.
I think Robbie Ray is fine.
Chris, what do you think about these three?
Do you have anything on Ray Woodruff Verlander?
No, I mean, if Woodruff's not a top 10 pitcher
the rest of the season, he's right on the cusp of it.
He's right in that discussion.
He's awesome.
There was definitely some concern there for a little while,
but he's healthy and he looks great.
I got him back inside of my top 12.
Yeah, I have him at 10th.
Scott has him at 8th, and you have him at 12th.
So yeah, right there on the cusp.
Starting pitcher standouts part two
Taiwan Walker bounced back with a quality start
Up against the red six innings two runs
Five strikeouts there
Nestor Cortez with his third
Double-digit strikeout game of the season
He actually took a no-hitter into the sixth
But does wind up giving up three runs
In that sixth inning he
finishes with the 10 strikeouts to just one walk
He had 18 swinging strikes in this game
And I just want to give Nestor Cortez credit
Chris because you know he kind of had that blip
In the middle of the season he's gotten back on track here
His last five starts, a 2.47 ERA during that time.
Noah Cinderguard, his first quality start since June 27th.
Facing the Marlins, definitely helps.
Six innings, two runs, four strikeouts there.
And then Kyle Wright, with a nice bounce back at the Red Sox.
Sixthnings, one run, five strikeouts.
But his sinker velocity was down two miles per hour.
Fastball velocity down 2.4 miles per hour.
And he was limited to just 77 pitches.
So let's just kind of watch this with Kyle Wright.
I didn't see anything after the fact,
but I'm kind of curious.
So anything on these four, Chris?
Kyle Wright, Cindergarde, Cortez, and Taiwan Walker.
No, like you said, with Cortez,
really, really good to see him bounce back.
Yeah, he's been really, really excellent for most of this season.
Cindergarde, I think it was mostly getting to face Miami.
but you know, he can still be useful against the right matchups,
but we've seen the early season excellence decay since then.
Yep.
Sandy Alcantara is indeed human.
He was at the Phillies.
He went seven and two thirds.
He gave up four runs with just four strikeouts to one walk.
And sometimes, Chris, it seems like Don Mattingly is almost scared to take Sandy out of the game.
I get it.
Look, I don't want to get yelled at.
He never wants to come out of the game, but there are just,
some situations like watching this game it was the eighth inning there was first and third with no
outs just leave sandy in i think he was at like 85 pitches so i like their their bullpen is not good
but i don't know it's like sometimes i think it it kind of works against sandy alcon for it too so
yeah but you also you give that guy the yeah the benefit of the doubt when he wants it i get it yeah
I mean, it's just like a blessing and a curse sometimes.
You know, third, fourth time through the lineup.
It's, you know, any offense sees you that many times.
It's, you know, they're, they're going to be much better later on in the game.
The Colts of the bullpen for the Brewers, Devin Williams pitched a scoreless ninth and wound up with the win.
For the Cubs, Rowan Wick recorded the final four outs for his sixth save.
He's 21% rostered if you need saves.
And he now makes it 10 straight scoreless outings for Rowan Wick.
For the Mariners, Paul Seawald pitch a clean ninth for his 15th save.
For the Guardians, a manual class A struck out two for his 26th.
And then the Pirates, they had a two-run lead.
Obviously, David Bednar is on the aisle.
Will Crow pitched to eighth inning.
He came back out for the ninth.
He picked up the first two outs, and then somebody named Eric Stout,
a left-handed pitcher.
I'm guessing he came into face a lefty.
He picked up his first save of the season.
So, I don't know.
Kind of messy, but I think Will Crow is the...
the one that you want to roster there for saves.
To stream or not to stream,
we'll start with Thursday.
Edward Cabrera at the Phillies,
Kyle Gibson versus the Marlins,
Zach Plesack at the Tigers,
Zach Rankie versus the White Sox,
J.T. Brubaker at the Diamondbacks,
Drew Smiley at the Reds,
and Nicola Dolo versus the Cubs.
Yeah, I like Cabrera.
Gibson against Miami worked out already last week, I believe.
Yeah, I think it was eight innings, one run?
Yeah.
The rest of them, I don't love Lodolo, probably the best of the bunch.
I agree.
On Friday, we have Mitch White versus the Guardians, Spencer Watkins at the Rays,
George Kirby at the Rangers, and Dane Dunning versus the Maritors.
Kirby would be my favorite of this group.
I agree.
All right, we're going to wrap there for Chris.
I am Frank.
Thank you all for listening and watching.
Fantasy baseball today.
We'll be back again tomorrow.
Bye-bye.
