Fantasy Baseball Today - Vintage Zack Wheeler, Pitching Risers & Brewers Promote Luis Lara! (7/8 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Zack Wheeler is turning back the clocks (2:30). ... Justin Wrobleski is getting better (8:57)! ... Ryan O'Hearn for THREE (13:53). ... What was that Mets-Royals game (16:30)? ... News (24:10): the Brewers promoted one of their top prospects Luis Lara. ... Taj Bradley and Ian Seymour are moving up the rankings (39:40). ... Where are we on Paul Skenes (49:40)? ... Henry Bolte has been solid (58:27). ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpens and streamers (1:05:26).Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for the newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters

Instacart lets you get groceries just the way you like with no markups at select retailers. Now that's a win-win. A win-win that can snowball into more wins. So sink into the big chair, recline all the way back. And hey, while you're at it, finish the crossword you've been putting off. The hard one. Do it in pen.

If you get it wrong, so what? Instacart is helping deliver the groceries you want right to your door. So no matter what, you're already a winner. Want no markups just how you like? Download the Instacard app today. Fees and in-store-off exclusions apply. Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. And first pitch, Washington, welcome.

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. Vintage Zach Wheeler. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, July 8th. I am, for example, joined by Scott.

and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we have four pitching risers in the rankings right now. Ryan O'Hern, one, two, three homers here on Tuesday night. The Brewers promoted

one of their top prospects, Luis Laura, and much more. Let's jump in. Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness, gracious, the players of the night. And we will start with

Zach Wheeler. Chris, do you think he's a little ticked off that he's not an all-star? So I'm wondering if He just turned it down. Because, like, they've passed on him multiple times now, including for Hazerziozio, who has not been as good. I saw a quote after the game that apparently because he's scheduled to pitch on Sunday,

he's ineligible to be in the All-Star game. Yeah. Which he was complaining about afterwards. Well, yeah, because, like, just name him an All-Star and then pick someone else. Right. Like, isn't it? And I probably should know this, but the whole process has become, convoluted. For most of my life, the manager picked the reserves and pitchers.

And that was a very straightforward process. The managers picked them. But now it's like a, there's like a voting system where votes are weighted differently, you know, a lot of its players, a lot. So I would imagine, because it is that way, there's not subjectivity. I mean, there's subjectivity in the voting, right, but not in the counting of the votes. So if, if Wheeler had the most, was the next one up in terms of, of voting when they were selecting alternates, he would still get credited with an All-Star selection, even if he wasn't allowed to pitch. I mean, that's important for career accolades and Hall of Fame voting and all of those things, getting that credit that you

were selected for an All-Star game. So I don't know that the fact he can't pitch in it should prevent him from getting that accolade. I remember last year when Jacob Mizorowski got picked for the All-Star game and Christopher Sanchez didn't. And I think that was the explanation that Sanchez had pitched the last game before the All-Star break. And so he wasn't going to be able to pitch anyway. So they just went with Mizorowski. But I don't know if that's actually like it works.

Either way, Zach Wheeler should be an All-Star. And I just, look, there's not really anything actionable here. He got double-digitist strikeouts for the second start in a row. I think it's the third time since he came back. 14 strikeouts in seven innings of one-run ball. against the Reds. The Reds are obviously a very good matchup. 20 whiffs on 104 pitches.

Five different pitches got multiple whiffs. I don't really have a lot to say here as far as fantasy goes. He's a top 10 starting pitcher maybe. I don't I don't exactly know what the specific number is, but it's up there. And as long as he stays healthy, I don't think that's going to change. I just have to highlight, and I know we've said it multiple times this season, but what he's doing as a 36-year-old coming back from significant arm surgery, even if it's not as significant as the usual thoracic outlet syndrome, he still had surgery to remove a rib and like move the vein around in his arm.

And he is back and it's like he didn't miss any time. He has a 29.4% strikeout rate. He has a 2.9.4% strikeout rate. He has a 228 ERA. His peripheral stats are all within the same ballpark of where they've been the past few years. When we started talking about him as a guy who was likely headed to the Hall of Fame and we were worried that this injury was going to derail that. The way he's pitching right now, I mean, I know a couple years ago he said he didn't really want to pitch beyond either this year or next year whenever his contract runs out, he might walk away still very much at the top of his game.

And it is, it genuinely I've been watching baseball. I'm 38 years old. I've been watching baseball since two years older than Wheeler. Yeah. Yeah. He's a spring chicken. Since the Marlins became a team. So 93 was when I started watching baseball.

So 35 years, 33 years. I've been writing about baseball professionally for 15 years. This is one of the most remarkable things I can remember seeing. just one of the most genuinely unexpected things I've seen a player accomplish. It's astounding. I did not think Zach Wheeler would be anywhere near this good. I thought a successful return from this surgery would be like a top 30-ish starting pitcher. And he's blown that away.

He looks as good as ever. It's astounding. I hope it reconsiders the retiring after next. year thing. I mean, it's his life. You only get one of them. Obviously, it's his life. But it may be the difference between him making the

Hall of Fame or not. If he's still pitching at an ace level in 27 and doesn't come back for more, I think he'll fall a little short. Hey, pull the old Charlie Morton, right? Charlie Morton was retiring for like three years in a row and he just kept coming back and pitching.

So it's not impossible. But yeah, I just looked at the contract. It's supposed to expire after next season. And just another reason for baseball next season. Like, let's get another season of Zach Wheeler in there. That would be pretty awesome. I agree with everything you said, Chris. I just wanted to highlight again the vintage part of this

because I think when Zach Wheeler kind of went on this initial run, we're like, all right, he looks really good. I'm not sure if he's going to get back to the Zach Wheeler of old. And, you know, you could point to the swinging strikes and the strike rate not being as high as it was in the past. he now has a 16% swinging strike rate over his last four starts. So that's why I'd like to highlight vintage Zach Wheeler. Or the season.

We're talking semantics where, you know. Yeah. But I think you can make an argument that he's like a top five or six starting pitcher rest of the season. He has the second highest strikeout rate of his career now. It's great. For the season. Yeah.

Like that's it. Last year was like 33%. He's not there. but he's basically at 30% right now. He's at like a 24% K-minus walk ratio. This is by any measure one of the best pitchers in baseball, and he's doing it after significant arm surgery at 36 years old. It's just, it's incredible, man.

It's unbelievable. So he was one of the four pitchers I wanted to mention as someone who has been rising up the rankings. Another one is Justin Robleski. Now, Scott, I don't know which way you're going to go with this. I'll just throw it over to you, Justin Robleski just had another great start where he racked up a bunch of strikeouts

was against the Rockies, obviously, in L.A., but your thoughts on Justin Robleski? I owe Justin Robleski an apology. I was not familiar with his game. Not really. He changed his game. Yeah, you were very familiar with that game. I was very familiar with Robleski's game.

I was just doing the Shaq thing. Yeah, so, you know, dominated the Rockies, nine strikeouts and seven innings, one and run aloud. He got 13 whiffs on 94 pitches. That's plenty of whiffs for the number of pitches. Fastball was up 1.1 mile per hour. And I think that's the key.

He just started throwing harder. The velocity jump came on May 29th. That was the first time. It was just shy of 95 miles per hour on the fastball, 94.9. Before that, though, it was more like 94, 94.5. now it's more like 95, 95 and a half. And that first started again on May 29th. So in seven starts, beginning with that May 29th start,

Justin Robleski has a 221 ERA and a 0.90 WIP. Now his ERA and WIP were good prior to that, so let's not focus so much on those numbers. I just want to point out they're still really good. What I want to focus on more is the K-per-9 and the swinging strike rate, because that is what's made the leap here. So prior to that velocity jump on May 29th, in nine starts,

Justin Robleski had 5K per 9 and a 7.2% swinging strike rate. Those are about as low as you'll see in 2026. The guy who has those numbers is barely hanging on and about to get demoted. In the seven starts sense with that velocity jump, Robleski has 8.5k per 9 and an 11.7% swinging strike rate. Those are still fairly average, but you can have a good career with numbers like that.

It also helps since over that same period of time, the 7 starts with the better velocity, 47% ground ball rate as compared to 37% previously. So even when he's allowing contact, it's the less damaging kind. So he's allowing a lot less contact, a lot less contact. And it's the less damaging kind. And he pitches for the Dodgers. I don't know. I think Justin Robleski might be worth keeping around after all.

It's probably still overachieving. Probably still overachieving. But, you know, it's not like the next time he has a bad start, you should be thinking about. dropping him. I think he's, I think he's earned some, some runway here. Yeah, I agree with that completely as well. It was pretty aggressive in moving Robleski up last week after that big start. I think it was like 11 strikeouts in that one. And I moved them up to around like SP 64. I think he should be closer to like a, not inside the top 50, but probably somewhere in that like 50 to

60 SP range. And Scott, you mentioned that he's still kind of overachieving. I think he might be able to continue doing that somewhat just because of the defense that plays behind it. If you look at the Dodgers defense by any metric, they're like a top three defense in all baseball. So that's something, we used to say this a lot for like the Cubs pitchers back of the day. They still have a great defense.

But or the Cardinals pitchers this year, when you have a great defense behind you, it allows you to kind of get away with more things and more balls in play, turning into outs and things like that. And now he is starting to get more whiffs. So all of that combined and getting the run support that he does with the Dodgers,

I think he's like a top of the top. top 60 starting pitcher, do you agree? Yeah. I want to check where I have him most recently. It's been due for an update, but yeah, I think I could get him inside the top 60 pretty easily. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, and I'm going to do my big update tomorrow, but just eyeballing it, I think, like, 57-ish. I think I'd go ahead of, ahead of Emerson Hancock, ahead of Will Warren.

Oh, yeah. probably ahead of Ryan Weathers, although that one's a little tougher just because of the strikeout upside. And then you've got like, I really love what we've seen from Sean Burke lately. I think there might be a higher ceiling there with him than Justin Rebleski,

so I might go with Burke. I think I'd go with Logan Henderson over Justin Robleski, but I think that's the right range. One guy I'm having trouble with is Tosh Bradley. I don't know if he's one of the four you wanted to talk about, Frank. Oh, he is. I have no idea what to do with Tosso. Bradley.

Yeah, we'll get to Taj Bradley a little bit later on. What I mentioned my player of the night. That is Ryan O'Hern for three. Four for five with a triple dong. Ten RBI in this game. I saw a hilarious tweet from either an Orioles fan or someone that's just trying to mock the Orioles. But in this game alone, Ryan O'Hern had three homers and 10 RBI.

He most recently played for the Orioles before he signed with the Pirates. Tyler O'Neill on the season has three homers and nine RBI. So Ryan O'Hern beat that in one game today. Yeah, he moved up from, I believe, 23rd in the majors in RBI today to 7th. Yeah. He has two multi-homer games in his last eight, Ryan O'Hern does. And on the season, he's now hitting 293, 16 homers, 61 RBI, and 851 OPS. His updated pace numbers obviously helped out greatly by this one.

28 homers, 106 RBI. I think I would pretty comfortably take the under on both of those, but just goes to show, I mean, the type of season he's having when he's played, he's just been awesome this year for the Pirates, great signing by them. The underlying stats, the quality of contact, the expected stats, do not buy what Ryan O'Hern is doing. So you can make a sell high case here,

but realistically, I don't think that you can demand much in a trade for Ryan O'Hern. So as somebody who one of your last picks... Set at that RBI, Frank, come on. One of the last picks in the draft or likely picked up as a waiver wire hitter early on in the season, I would just continue to ride it out, man. He's been very, very good all season. Yeah, I think he's going to remain a solid starter, even in three outfielder leagues. The pirates haven't been platooning him the way previous teams did.

And so correct me if I'm wrong, but their home venue is favorable for left-handed. I know it's one of the worst for right-handed, but it's favorable for left-handed hitters, right? So, yeah, his home-away splits. Was this game at home? I believe it was. It was, yeah. So 12 home runs at home versus four on the road.

So between that and a career-high pull-air rate, technically had a higher one in his rookie season, I guess, but close enough. One of the best pull-air rates O'Hern has ever had and a more favorable venue for a left-handed hitter like him. I think what he's doing is more or less legit. He may give up a few points of batting average there. But, yeah, even in three outfielder leagues,

I think you're going to stay happy with Rine Arn. The, oh my goodness, game of the night, the Chiefs defeated the Jets 16 to 12 in a paddle of field goals. Royals against the Mets, just one of the weirdest, wonkiest games that you will see, which started with a Little League home run, which was allowed by the Royals, which echoed something that you would see in like the bad news bears.

It was, it was insane. The most shocking thing about this was that the Jack Caglione throw. Where was that going? I have no, genuinely have no idea, because it looked like he just, he's off out and almost in right field, hanging up the ball

and he throws it basically directly between first home and third base. Yeah. And the thing that's most astounding about that is two years ago

that guy was a pitcher and a pretty good one in the SEC like not an ace but he was like I think the the league ERA and the SEC that year

was six and he had like a 420 ERA or something like he was an above average pitcher. 20 Green Command. Yeah. I mean that was that is why Jack Haggleone is no longer a pitcher. That was just bizarre.

What was that? It was not good there, but you know what? The Royals wound up winning this game, and there is, I don't think, anything we can do with this in fantasy, but we have to highlight Tyler Tolbert, who just tied the MLB record with a hit in 12 straight at bat.

Back-to-back five-hit games, the first player to do this since Roberto Clemente in 1970. D. So he went five for six with a sock and a shoe. And then on Monday he went five for five with a homer. I don't think it matters, but it was also. Absolutely nothing there, but phenomenal.

Yeah. Incredible, what can happen in baseball. He's only playing because Bobby Witt is dealing with that MCL spring and has, he's still playing. He's just a DH. Witt is. So they've had Tolbert start a shortstop the last two days. He's fast.

But there isn't a lot of offensive potential there. Otherwise, 28-year-old, look at his minor league track record. Yeah, there's nothing to get excited about here. On the Met side of things, a huge game for AJ Ewing, 4-4 with a sock in the shoe, four runs, three RBI, and over his last 22 games, he's hitting 3-11 with five homers, 12 runs, 16 RBI, two steals, three caught stealing as well during that spin. OPS over 900.

The biggest key for me is just a six. 16% strikeout rate during that stretch. Before that, it was up over 30%. So big, big key there. Seeing AJ Hewing improve as the season has gone on, getting those strikeouts down. He has power. He has speed.

He's 56% rostered. Scott, how would you rank Cole Carrig, AJ Ewing, as Merlin Valdez? Those kind of feel like the young, hot outfielder's right now. You just did. Carrick Ewing and Valdez. Now, Kerrig needs to play more consistently to live up to that. And I think he will eventually.

Ewing, if he starts running like he did in the minors, could overtake Kerrig. But was this is second steel or third steel? Well, he doesn't have that many, actually. A guy who stole 70 bases last year. AJ, Ewing, he has nine on the season. Oh, okay. It's more than I thought. It's been slowed down, considering.

the last like three weeks. The steals have come down. The steals have come down for Ewing. He's been caught, he has three caught stealing in his last 22 games. He's just hitting a lot better during that stretch. Okay. I think I was thinking of Cole Carrig.

Cole Carrick is stolen only two bases, even though he had 30 in the minors just this year and 46 last year and 53 the year before. So Carrick needs to get back to running like you did in the miners, I think to remain ahead of Ewing. But I think he will. But I will point out Ewing, has started, I think it's 47 of 53 games since his promotion, including 10 out of 15 against

lefties, so they're not really platooning him. It's not every day, but it's increasingly looking like it. And he's been hitting at the top of the lineup lately. I think it was two games in a row at leadoff. It seems like it's maybe when there's a righty, he's a leadoff hitter or in that range, and then they drop in like fifth or seventh against lefties. But yeah, there's a lot of runway here for AJ Ewing to really, take off. I think he's got to be viewed as like a top 45-ish outfielder. Yeah, I think definitely most roster the way that he's playing right now, the upside that he possesses and just, you know, the names that have let us down this season, just veterans that come to mind, George Springer,

who has come off the emergency family emergency list and, you know, hasn't started two games in a row and he just hasn't been good this year. Jaron DeRan having a terrible down season as well. So, you know, the veterans and obviously all the injuries that we've suffered as well, like, yeah, AJ Ewing, I think definitely must roster at this point. And man, line up protection of Juan Soto hitting behind you. It's just huge, huge upside, I think, there for AJ Ewing. Before we hit our first break, just a reminder to subscribe to the FBT newsletter. If you haven't already, if you're watching on YouTube, you can scan that QR code.

It will take you right to the website, CBSports.com slash newsletters, where you can sign up for free, and you will get all of Chris's work delivered right to your email inbox every weekday of the season. Let's take that break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back, Fantasy Baseball, today. The news and notes, and we got big prospect news here as the Brewers promoted outfielder Luis Laura. He is 21 years old.

He was having a great season at AAA, hitting 321 with a 432 on base, 9 homers, 24 steals, a 902 OPS in 78 games. He had more walks than strikeouts. And he made his debut in game two of the double header here. He hit second in the lineup. He went one for four with a walk, a run, and two RBI. He's 30% of roster, so widely available. But Scott, is there a spot?

Is there consistent playing time here for Luis, Laura? I think there could be. It just depends on how committed the Brewers are to playing him. Garrett Mitchell has held up pretty well in center. So I doubt they're just going to remove him from the equation. But he doesn't really play against lefties, right? I don't think so, but obviously we want Laura playing every day if he's going to be of use in fantasy.

So Jake Bowers, they've seemed reluctant to play in the outfield, but that's the only way to play him in the outfield, but that's the only way to get him and Andrew Vaughn in the lineup at the same time since Yelich is occupying DH. If they remain in more of a split role there and not the two of them, if the brewers aren't committing to Bowers, an everyday outfielder,

then it's pretty easy to see Louise Lara taking South Freelick spot. Freelix already, they've already started to face him out. I think Laura could be really good. He's lacking, particularly at age 21, the sort of power you expect from an outfielder in 2026. But he did have nine home runs in 78 games at AAA. The thing is, he's young, like I said,

five foot seven, the exit velocities aren't that impressive. The contact skills are insane, and he walked more than he struck out, and he's very fast. He has shown that he has some over the fence power. It's just a question of how much he gets to at this point in his career.

I think it could be similar to AJ Ewing, frankly. The offensive skill set looks comparable. I think the fact that Louise Lara immediately becomes the best defensive outfielder the Brewers have. gives him a chance of securing every day at bats,

even if there is a bit of a crunch there. So five outfielder leagues, definitely somebody to target. We've been talking about Luis Lar for a few weeks now on the bonus. What do we call that? Fantasy Baseball Express, the podcast one Frank and I do every week. He's been one of the top prospects to stash for a while now, and now he gets his chance. I have to imagine he's behind the names we just mentioned, right,

just because we've seen them do something at the major league level so far? Yeah, I still am of the opinion as Merlin Valdez is not going to remain in our sights for long. But until he bottoms out, I think he deserves to be rostered in five outfield release because there's always that chance that he doesn't. I'm just expecting he will and Laura will be more valuable in the long run. All right, Connor Griffin was placed in the aisle with a torn tendon in his left ring finger, and apparently he's going to wear a splint for six weeks and is expected to be sidelined for eight to ten weeks, and that brings us to early to mid-September.

So, look, you could always beat timelines right. I saw people talking about how similar injury to what Uri Perez was dealing with, and he came back a lot sooner than expected. Wasn't Uri Perez? Maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was Uri-Prez in a different season, but that basically, he could potentially be back sooner than this, but it's not a guarantee.

So I'm not sure that we'll see much more of Connor Griffin the rest of this season. And if it's, you know, what we've got so far, 276, 5 homers, 20 steals, obviously looks like he's going to be a very dynamic player for fantasy. Wonder what his ADP will be for next season.

I know it's like very early to talk about next season, but considering we might not get much else from Connor Griffin the rest of the way, he'll be an interesting, case for draft season next year. I think he's a top 50 pick in Roto at least. That's where I was leaning as well. I was just, if

Roman Anthony was the top 50 pick this year and Connor Griffin has more, I guess, Roto skills than Roman Anthony, then I absolutely see that happening. Yeah, I think he could end up a third round pick by the time it's all fun.

I think you're going to see that at least. At least occasionally. I'm not going to say. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you may be right. And he was impressed. He was kind of low-key impressive as a rookie,

Connor Griffin. I'm using past tense. It does sound like he's going to contribute a little at the end of the season. So maybe I shouldn't say was. But he has been low-key good as a rookie. He hasn't blown the doors off in a way that would make him like, oh, he's a top five shortstop. now.

But he did enough, I think, that there's going to be plenty of enthusiasm for him. It's just there are so many stars that are more established. That's where I get a little squeamish in putting him that high. I was thinking round five maybe, but it might depend somewhat on how Gunner Henderson closes out the season, among others, how Francisco Lindor closes out the season, how Vladimir Guerrero closes out the season, how Vladimir Guerrero closes out the season. season, Fernando Tatis, is Connor Griffin going to be able to leapfrog those early round stalwarts? I think their own performance will say a lot as far as that goes.

I think how his rookie cohorts close out the season could factor in as well, right? Kevin McGonigle and JJ Weatherholt, obviously they've had fantastic seasons. But if they keep that up in the second half, I think those guys will probably be considered top 50 picks next year as well. So we shall see. Jacob de Grom left his start after five innings and 80 pitches because he was dealing with a hip slash leg thing and he said he's not particularly worried and thinks he'll be fine before his next start.

He threw five innings of two-run ball, seven strikeouts, 13 whiffs on 80 pitches. He was solid all around, but yeah, I'm going to watch and see if Jacob de Grom makes his next start. The Twins placed Byron Bucks in on the aisle after re-agravating that hip injury over the weekend. It kind of felt like this is where,

things were headed. We'll see if he is ready to go right after the All-Star break. Walt Weiss said Ronald Acuna could begin a rehab assignment next week. And if that goes well, Scott, you think we could see maybe Acuna first game after the break? That seems a little aggressive to me. He's about a week away from rehabbing is what Weiss said, right? So, you know, you would imagine he'd need three or four games down there at least. I'm not long after the break. Certainly before the end of July. It sounds like barring a setback.

Wyatt Langford ran at high intensity Tuesday and hopes to be reinstated before the All-Star break. J.T. Ginn left his start on Tuesday after just four innings and 61 pitches due to an illness. His velocity was way down between two and a half and three miles per hour. So hopefully it was just illness-related and nothing arm-related with J.T. Ginn. Hunter Goodman was scratched from the last. lineup Tuesday due to a wrist injury. Ranger Suarez, who left Sunday start with left adductor

tightness, is hopeful that he will avoid the IL. George Springer, as I mentioned earlier, out of the lineup two days in a row, despite being active from the family emergency list. Is it just, is it like performance-based? They want to see what other players can do. Do you guys think Springer is just legitimately losing playing time? It's kind of weird. Could be. Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be undeserved despite his track record. And the Blue Jays are, you know, the Detroit deadline's 23 days away.

The Blue Jays are, they're like eight games under 500. They're having a pretty bad season. Seven games under 500. My preseason World Series champion pick. Yeah, they kind of got to figure out if they have anything here, or at least try to try some guys out and see if someone can catch fire. So yeah, I do think it's possible that they're just kind of phasing him out or at least giving some other guys a look just because he's been kind of useless all season.

We had some A's news. Jacob Wilson was activated after missing two weeks with right thumb inflammation. Tyler Soderstrom is progressing well from his hip injury and could be activated, quote, very soon. Nick Povetta has progressed to throwing bullpen sessions. he's 68% rostered. I'm not sure if I should ask you guys about Nick Povetta because last time I did a YouTube chatter laughed at me. So do you have any interest in Nick Povetta?

They're laughing at you every day, Frank. I know. You can't. I know they were commenting on the way eat hot dogs the other day. I don't know what's going on. Do you eat a hot dog on the podcast? No.

Somebody said Frank looks like he eats hot dogs sideways. And I just thought that was. was funny. I don't know what that even means. Exactly. Just, but yeah. Well,

we'll file that under the, we'll file that in the same, same conversation as Nick Povetta, I guess. Tommy Edmund returned to the lineup after seeing. You take one bite of it and it would, you'd have two hot dogs at that point, right?

Like, how do you, well, I mean, you can't, like, you can't eat it sideways for long. I got corn on the cob.

Oh, like that. But then you're just getting time. A little bite. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't think it really makes sense. I don't know.

Tommy Edmund returned to the lineup after missing two games following that hit by pitch on his right foot. He went one for four with his second stolen base. Two steals in his last four games. I think that's pretty encouraging for Tommy Edmund. Andy Rodriguez was out of the lineup Tuesday as he deals with that hip issue that he suffered on Sunday. The Mets activated Jorge Polanco from the 60-day IL.

31% rostered. Any interest in Jorge Polanco? I'm curious to see how he does. we were kind of excited about him coming into the year at the state of second base and first base is such that you have to be a pretty deep league for you to invest a roster spot in him at this point.

I don't think there's much reason to do it until he shows us a reason for it. And here's a deep reliever name to watch. Felix Batista has apparently looked really good in his bullpins. He had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder last year. And we know that Ryan Helsley

went down again on the aisle with elbow inflammation. He's seeking a second opinion, so that doesn't sound very good. Tyler Wells picked up two states over the weekend. He's looked really good, so it might not matter if Tyler Wells is really good. Maybe he just kind of runs away with the job.

But if he falters, maybe, you know, Felix Bautista, a former amazing reliever for Viancy. I will say, Batista is probably at least a month away, if not more. I want to say he did a live BP or a, I mean,

he did a bullpen recently. Yeah. I don't think he's faced hitters yet. So he's still a ways away. And I do want to point out, okay. Bobby Witt as a rookie had 20 homers, 30 steals, and a 30-8 Wobah. Entering his second season, he was 10.6 in ADP. Connor Griffin, he only ended up, he, you know, he's only played 59 games so far,

five homers, 20 steals. So much better stolen base pace, although in an era when stolen bases are less valuable. was probably a better hitter than Bobby Witt as a rookie. Less power, but 325 Loba to a 308 for Bobby Witt. And, yeah, top 50 probably underselling where Bobby Witt's going to end up in at least in those NFBC drafts because they really get excited for the young guys. How high did you get Connor Griffin in your rankings this year? I think once we knew he was making the team or close to it, he was like,

No, no, no, I'm not talking about preseason. I'm talking about in season. How high did you get Connor Griffin in your ranks? He was actually playing. 10. I think I got him up to like 12. Yeah, 10 to 12 range. He was eight before the injury for me at shortstop.

So what will have changed between now and then that you're going to rank them that much higher? What changed between the end of Bobby Witt's rookie season and the start of his second season? The biggest difference, though, is that Bobby Witt played 150 games in his rookie season. Well, I think the biggest difference is, the fantasy baseball landscape was very different than. And we were more starved for five category performers. Look, it worked out in Bobby Witt's case. So it's hard to, I know, I know none of us,

I don't think any of us were, we're thrilled with him being a first one. I'm not saying I'm going to rank him there. Yeah. I think Bobby, Connor Griffin's going to be a second round pick at least next year. Second rounder. Mm, planting the flag.

I don't, yeah, I probably would still lean closer to Scott, like fourth or fifth rounder. That's where I would rank him. I'm not saying that's where he's going. going to go. Those are separate discussions, to be fair. I think he, at least in NFBC drafts, which tend to be those younger hyped guys, like, look, if Carter Griffin's a third round pick next year at the start of spring

training and he hits one home run, he's a second round pick, you know? And one of my frustrations with that is the NFBC, you know, that platform has its own biases. Yeah. People are playing for an overall title, so they're going to aim for, if Connor Griffin can be a 2040 guy next year, that might not be the likeliest outcome, but they're going to aim for that, you know?

But because it's some of the earliest available ADP data, it kind of sets the, it kind of sets the narrative. It kind of locks in, we're all discussing, where players should go in drafts based on how they're going in early NFBC drafts. So that might serve to inflate Connor Griffin's value in a way that there's no coming back from. So, yeah, I mean, I should probably prepare my heart for that

and then be in the unfortunate position of having to speak against Connor Griffin, which it's an unfortunate position. You don't want to be there because he's insanely talented. But, you know, you only get, you only get. get one first round pick, one second round pick, one third, like how big of a gamble do you want to take with it? Yeah, and we'll find out soon into the offseason because if, hopefully, we're out at first pitch Arizona again in November, I always do at least one draft when I'm there just to see

what does the first draft board look like in the off season. And so we'll find out pretty soon into the off season. Pitching risers, we spoke about a few already. Zach Wheeler rising up the board, Justin Robleski, the way he's pitched. Todge Bradley, he's a name we already mentioned, but he was awesome against the Guardians. Again, very good matchup. Seven innings of one-run ball,

10 strikeouts to zero walks, 25 whiffs on 1001 pitches, back-to-back starts with double-digit strikeouts here. He used more cutters and splitters, and that's now two starts in a row. He's done that. I think it's a fantastic decision for Tage Bradley. I still think he comes with his own volatility

with like command and things like that, but it's hard to argue with how he's looked lately. So where are you guys at on Todd Bradley? I mean, for me, it's tied to the splitter especially, and maybe that's just where my focus has been. And so, you know, I haven't observed the change in the usage and the other pitches as much. But it was leaning on that splitter heavily early on

before going on the IL. First eight starts was throwing the splitter. 15 to 25% of the time had a 287 ERA 119 whip 10k per 9 came back from the I.O was hardly throwing the splitter at all. More like 10% less than that sometimes got crushed. Last four starts he's gotten that splitter usage back up over 15%. It was 32% in this start. And since doing that, four starts, 225 ERA, 0.88 whip 12K per 9. So like, okay, he throws the splitter a lot.

He's putting up borderline A's numbers. The problem is even when he's doing that, it's with high exit velocities, it's with a high fly ball rate. That is a dangerous combination. And it has me one foot in, one foot out on Tosh Bradley. Like, I see, I see the power. here for him to be a impactful fantasy pitcher,

but I don't want to undersell the downside risk. Can I make a comp that may make Scott mad? Of course. Probably not mad, you know, maybe like mildly and we're like, ah, you're being unfair, you know. That's my Scott White impression. Is he just Gavin Williams? Come on.

Is he... Maybe. Gavin Williams' dad. isn't that bad, like in terms of no, his average EV and barrel rate are really, really bad. Yeah, 91.1 mile per hour average axis velocity, 455

XERA. He doesn't put the ball on the air nearly as much, does he? No, he puts, he's more of a ground ball. Yeah, he's more of a ground ball picture. Yeah, so the batted ball profile is different. But I do think they're both very volatile pitchers. Yeah, I mean, I think it just

I will never be able to buy in to Todd Bradley as like a dependable must-start fantasy option, I'm not sure I feel great about trusting Gavin Williams as that. But if you set your expectations at like where they're both at, which is right around a 380, 390 ERA for the season, a lot of strikeouts, some really, really good starts and some really, really bad ones mixed in, I think you'll probably be okay with having them around. And to be clear, I have Gavin Williams ranked much higher,

but the skill sets aren't that much different. Williams, I think a little more strikeouts this year, a little fewer walks, but yeah, it's close. I could see him going on a run here too because so far in Tosh Bradley, all we've known is streaks.

He goes on really hot streaks, really cold streaks. He's had both of those already this season. And so perhaps he's getting ready to go on another one of these hot streaks. And I think as long as he can get those secondary pitches in the zone enough,

I think he could be pretty effective. His cutter was just disgusting. He had 17 whiffs on that cutter. So really, really nice direction here for Taj Bradley. The last pitching riser I want to mention is Ian Seymour, huge strikeouts here against the Yankees, five and a third. Three runs allowed. He did give up a three-run

Homer to Ben Rice, but 12 strikeouts to zero walks. 17 whiffs on 94 pitches. and now in his last three games, it's 18 innings, four runs, 27 strikeouts to two walks. He's 67% rostered. I don't know if you guys agree,

but to me, he has vaulted to the top of all the waiver wire pitchers we've been talking about in the past couple weeks. I think Ian Seymour is at the top of the list for me. Really close with Sean Burke because I like what he's doing too,

but to me, Ian Seymour's at the top. I think he's right there. I think my top six. 60-ish at starting pitcher sounds right to me. And I do... Before or after, Justin Robleski.

Probably after. I think the upside is higher. Those are weird prepositions to use. Higher or lower. That's a tough one. Those aren't even prepositions. I think I would go with Robleski, and I think part of it is

the Dodgers weirdly do trust him to pitch deep into games. Like, he has racked up a couple of, like, he's had a couple of stuff. starts go like close to 100. I think it's pretty strong before this one. He got like 111 pitchers or something. So they give him that rope.

But I do, I think there's a chance Ian Seymour's the second best raised pitcher in fantasy the rest of the way. Because he has already thrown 90 or more pitches twice in what four starts I think he's made or one of them was a relief appearance. But basically since he moved to the rotation four starts ago, he has thrown 90 pitches twice.

That is as many times as Shane McClanahan and Griffin Jacks combined this season. They've been starting for a lot longer. So I don't know if there's that much of a difference in talent between Griffin Jacks, Shane McClanahan, and Ian Seymour at this point. And if they're going to give Ian Seymour a longer leash, I think he might be, yeah, I think he's got that chance. I mean, it's the if, and you're saying their early indication. that they're would. My biggest hesitation

with Seymour is just I don't necessarily trust the race to do the best thing for his fantasy value. I agree. Obviously they did it at the start of the year. And this is only a recent development, but it's gone as well as it could have gone. Seymour has obviously done his

part. It's always tricky with these sort of non-prospects who dominate in the miners, unconventional type pitchers like Seymour. He was dominant in the minors. But he was never much of a prospect

because it was unconventional. I'm just repeating myself at this point. What makes them tricky to assess for fantasy is you just don't know how the parent club is going to implement that. You know, it's it takes

you don't know what their own internal marks are for him. You don't know how how seriously they're going to take him out, how well they say he translates to a particular role. And with Seymour, I got the impression early on, okay, the race, he's not a big deal to the race.

But, you know, he's done as well as he could to change that over these last three appearances. Would you guys put him ahead of Sean Burke? Do you agree that he's near the top of that list? I think I'd give Burke the edge. well Seymour in points leagues because he's spark again it's hard because of like Sean Burke has a spot in the white sucks rotation he's not losing it seymour I think I think I would have to give Burke a slight edge because of that all right let's take our final break winner your turn I've got a temperature check here on Paul Skeens I have a potential pitcher to buy for the second half of the season we'll do all that right after this temperature check on Paul Skeens, who turned in a quality start against the Braves, six innings of two-run ball, four strikeouts to one walk.

He did allow eight hits in this game, eight hard hits as well. He had 12 whiffs on 95 pitches, eight of those on the fastball, average 97 miles per hour on that fastball, which is right at his season's average, which is down like 1.2 miles per hour from where it was last year, which is also down a little bit from where it was the year before that. But, you know, there has been a lot of Paul Skeen's. propaganda on the interwebs over the past week or so,

you know, rolling charts of his velocity throughout his career and his spin rates on his fastball. So just wanted to check in with you guys and see, where are you at on Paul Skeens right now? I think he's the third best pitcher in fantasy. What did you call that stuff that's come out about him? Propaganda. Propaganda.

That's the word you used. Pauli propaganda. I find some of it compelling. I don't disagree. I'm susceptible to propaganda, apparently. Particularly, what was that tweet you shared? It was the one about the spin rate. Yeah.

It was John Bowman, who used to work for Sportsline. He worked for the Blue Jays. As a data guy, he said, one of the leading indicators of impending arm injury was a sudden drop in spin rate. His spin rate was back to normal in this one. Yeah. Was it? thought it was down from his

season average. It was down 42 RPM. It was down a little bit from his season average, but it was up like 200 RPM from his last start. Look,

isn't it normal to lose some spin rate when you lose some velocity too? Because his fastball is down slightly more than a mile per hour from last year, right? Yep. There are so many directions I could go with this.

One of them is, okay, has he reached, like he still has a ton of velocity but for every pitcher it's not apples to apples but for every pitcher there comes a point where if there's a tipping point

or if they lose enough velocity they become much more hitable and is skeins verging on that tipping point is it is it was it ever reasonable to think he could average

98 miles average 98 miles per hour on his fastball for more than a couple years, just because who does that? So, Skeens is one of the rare pitchers that I do think has more in the tank than he lets on. Like, I think Skeens could, my sense of Skeens at least has been he could average 99. And he's just intentionally holding back because he's more for a guy who threw 98.2 miles per hour last year. he is, I think, more of a command pitcher than a power pitcher in his approach. He just, he's a command pitcher who happens to be six foot six, two hundred and sixty pounds. But I think his approach, he's not like a chase strikeouts guy all the time.

You know, we see stretches where he seems to be deliberately pitching to contact, throwing his non-swing and miss pitches. But I guess my thing about all of the Paul Skeen's discussion has been the last, what, seven starts, nine starts, whatever it is, bad. And there have been some warning signs here with the velocity dropping again and the spin rate and a couple of starts. And then you look at the season long numbers and it's a 30% strikeout rate and a 5.6% walk rate and a 276 XERA, which is basically dead on what he did his first two seasons. And I just think the whiff rate on the fastball for all to talk about the fastball.

29% same as last. And so I just, I'm not going to say there's nothing there. As long as he's healthy, I think he's going to figure it out. And it's an open question, I suppose, whether he is healthy. There are certainly some red flags there. There is no concrete evidence that he is not healthy. So I'm just going to assume he's healthy and is still one of the best pitchers in baseball. I was on a podcast earlier today, fantasy baseball now.

with Sean Martin and Mike Nelson. And I think it was Mike who brought up the idea that Skeen's fastball is so good. Like, is the problem just that Skeens is taking this kitchen sink approach with his arsenal as is common of the day to have six, seven pitches? Yeah, thank you. Like we've talked about with all the Mariners pitches, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, their fastball's so good, why did they have to broaden their arsenal out that much? And it actually ended up working against them.

Could something be similar? Could something similar be going on with skeins? Maybe. I don't have a good sense for why things have gone wrong for him. So it's possible he just lost his feel or was dealing with something. But I think on the whole, all of the indicators suggest that he's still. an absolute monster. If you want to have Christopher Sanchez

and Jacob Mizirowski ahead of him in your personal rankings, I'm not going to argue with it. I have it that way too. If you wanted to have Terrick Scouble ahead of him, that's the one I was thinking about. I think I'd argue with that

because Terrick Scobble has been really good since coming back from his elbow injury. But it's been a lot of five-inings starts. This was the most encouraging start yet, though. Oh, and I'm not like, Terik Scouble is my number. number four starting pitcher. I'm not worried about him. But I have not seen enough. I think you could

put Cam Schlittler up there for sure. I mean, you could put Zach Wheeler. Yeah, that's the next, talking point. Yeah. I think those guys, if you wanted to, you know, I've had sale in Yamamoto in my top five. I think I'm going to move them down. I think I'm going to bump them down. Yeah, sales being, his starts are being spread out so much. brought it up the other day with Fantasy Feud, that we were surprised not having 120 strikeouts. The K-per-9 rate's great. It's just a lot of five-inning starts

and a lot of like seven-day periods in between them. So I don't think Chris Sale needs to be anywhere near the top five. I mean, he needs to be in the top 10. So maybe anywhere near is not the best way to put it. But yeah, I think the lowest you could justify ranking schemes is five. with Scoopal and Schlitler and Mizorowski and Sanchez being in. And even that, I just, I think it'd be an overreaction. It might be.

For all this talk about the fastball, I mean, you guys brought it up. Entering this start, his batting average, his slug, his average EV, his ex-Woba, all better this year with his fastball than it was last year. And it's, it was really good last year. It's still really good this year. So kind of feels like maybe it's being overblown a little bit. but when a pitcher throws this hard for two or three years in a row, like your mind is always going to wonder a little bit.

And I mean, I think we could do that with any pitcher, but obviously a pitcher who throws us hard, it's like, all right, you know, let's pay attention. But, you know, obviously turned into quality start. His first win since like early June or late May, so that was pretty wonky for him. But good to see Paul Skeen's back in the win column there. A potential pitcher to buy for the second half,

Matthew Boyd, he looks. great here at the Orioles six shutout inning, seven strikeouts, 15 whiffs on 93 pitches. His fastball velocity was up one mile per hour in this one. It was pretty good for him. His slider and curve were both really good as well. His slider was a little bit different. The velocity was down ahead, four more inches of drop. And the overall numbers still don't look very good, but the swinging strike rate, the K percentage is up the season. He has a really good defense behind him. Questions about whether he could stay healthy. I think those are always there with Matthew Boyd, but

based on the underlying stuff, I think he might be a pretty good pitcher to buy for the second half. Matthew Boyd. Yeah, I think he's like a 350-E-R-A guy. And I think you'll be happy to have him around. I was surprised his roster rate is still close to 90%. Yeah. Which is good. I think it should be.

So, I'm proud of everyone for not giving up on Matthew Boyd. I do have some waiver options here. It wasn't the greatest night for waiver names outside of AJ Ewing, who we spoke about earlier. But Henry Bolte, homered off of Terrick Scobel, his third home run. And he has started every game since June 15th.

He is playing more with Tyler Soderstrom on the IL. And he's been solid. Hitting 292, 3.73 on base, 3 homers, 11 steals, 45% rostered. Do you guys think that number needs to be higher for Henry Bolte? I don't really think so. Is he clearly behind all the other outfielders we've talked about so far? Yes. Ewing, Faltez, Cole Carrig.

Boltee or Luis Lara? I'd lean Lara, but obviously the playing time is a big enough concern that if you wanted to go, Bolte, I think that's okay. What is it about Bolte? Because every time you bring him up, I'm always surprised to see how good his numbers look and that he's playing every single day. He hits the ball hard and he's very athletic. But like, why does he not feel like he's that impactful? And, you know, the run and RBI totals are pathetic. I don't know what's going on there.

And he's got, he also, he's on like a nine homer pace. Bats towards the bottom of the lineup too. So that probably affects the run production. So he's played about 50 games. So just triple this. Well,

I mean, he has fewer than 20 runs and RBI. So that's less than 60 of each over a full season pace. Like that's. Yeah, really it's batting average and stolen bases are the two places he's been impactful so far

and his XBA is 236. That's why I, I've been a little iffy on him. I think he's a fine ad, but I think Luis Lara's probably a more talented player. It's just a question of the playing time. I definitely think, well, as Merling Valdez is mostly just a,

well, he's hot now. Let's see if he can keep it up. So if you wanted to go with Bolte over him, I think that's fine too. But yeah. I would lean Valdez over Bolte, but I do think it's close. And yeah, I think Bolte is interesting.

He was when I was kind of digging in a little bit. Yeah, the underlying numbers don't buy it, but he is really athletic, and he'll be an interesting one to see how he finishes out the second half. But I think for next season, too, there's a lot of, like, really young, exciting hitters to consider for next season. Obviously, you know, we've got to still a whole other half of the season to get through.

I do have two middle infield types here who are hitting well. I just don't think they're that impactful for fantasy yet. Cole Young last 23 games, he's hitting 286, with six homers and OPS over 800. And Colt Keith, all seven of his home runs have come in the past 20 games, only hitting 237 during that stretch,

but seven homers, two steals, OPS over 850. They're hitting better. I just, I still don't see enough impact yet. Yeah, and Colt Keith is like one of the most true platoon guys in baseball.

He has 17 plate appearances against lefties. So there's just not a lot you can do. Guess who dropped, Cole Young from his first place Tout Wars team a week before losing Connor Griffin to a long injury. This guy.

Oh, okay. You did. I avoided the bad drop in that league all year, which might be part of the reason why it's doing well. But I think that has to go down as one because I'm not going to find a middle infielder as good as Cole Young and a 15 team rode a league.

Spent some of that faddle. Get him back, Scotty. The ship is sailed. I tried, I tried, but I got outbid. Gotcha. Frank, can I name one more waiver wire header? Yep, yep. We did not mention, did you mention Dominic Kinzone?

I did not know. Okay, Jerry DePoto, he's, Dominicin's own has been playing more against lefties lately, and Jerry Depoto, Jerry Depoto came out and said there, he's going to be basically an everyday player moving forward, which I've seen a lot of excitement about. for good reason. Dominic-Kinzone has been awesome this season. He's got like a 900 OPS for the season, I think. He's probably going to be worse now that he's playing every day against lefties.

You just hope the counting stats make up for what he loses in the pace stats. But yeah, that's one. I think he's 60% or so rostered in CBS leagues. Now that he's going to be pretty close to an everyday player, I think that probably should be a little higher. All right. some waiver wire pitchers and two streamer types. Andrew Abbott and Shane Boz,

they both turned in quality starts. And Abbott over his last 13 starts has a 286 ERA, a 126 whip. Underlying numbers do not buy it at all, but that's kind of just what Andrew Abbott does. And Shane Boz over his last 10, a 330 ERA, a 125 whip. They're both between like 75 and 80% rostered.

I think they're fine. I think they're okay. streamer types, but not much more than that. They're both in a category where it's like, yeah, they're good enough to roster, I guess. But if they imploded tomorrow, it would not be the least bit surprising. We got a big start from Robert Gasser. I'm just not sure that he sticks around seven and two thirds innings, two runs, four strikeouts here in game two of their double header.

Yeah, he got called up for this specific reason to start the double header. I just, I don't know if he's six rounds got. I don't know either. I was just fact-checking myself. You know, it would be surprising if Shane Bosson, Andrew Rapid imploded tomorrow because they just pitched today.

Not going to pitch two days in a row. It would be very surprising if they imploded tomorrow. So, just a little correction there. I have a couple drop candidates here. Will Warren, a big old stinker at the raise.

Four innings, six runs allowed, three homers allowed. only had three swinging strikes total in this one. And in his first seven starts, he had a 239 ERA in his last 11, 534. 91% rostered feels way too high for Will Warren. Yeah, I mean, we couldn't really understand why he was getting

so many strikeouts early on in the season. He's always been a pretty average swinging miss guy. And as it turns out, low average. Yeah, as it turns out, he's really come back to Earth. So, yeah, I think Will Warren is someone who can him pretty easily be dropped. And Hurston Waldrop, he's not rostered in many leagues at all, but if you picked him up in a deeper league, he got destroyed. Velocci was down in this one, and he has not had that splitter working so far,

which was a really good pitch for him last year. Pretty much has always been his best pitch. So I think if you picked him up in a deeper league, you probably can go ahead and move on from Waldrop. He might matter at some point, but obviously not right now. Some pitching leftovers, aces being aces, the Miz. Jacob Miziarowski, another double-digit trikeout start, seven innings, three runs,

11 strikeouts to zero walks. And Terrick Scoobel, he racked up the whiffs against the athletics, five innings, one run, nine strikeouts, 22 whiffs on 96 pitches. Anything on the Miz or Scoobel? I mean, they're great. I mean, Ms. Yarowski, if you were watching it, it kind of looked like this was going to go sideways for him pretty early.

You give up two runs in the first inning. think a double on a homer. He ended up with seven innings and 11 strikeouts. He's ridiculously good. He's the best pitcher in baseball. I don't really... I love that the poor control that defined his whole

professional career just suddenly disappeared. Is it two straight starts, I think, with 10 walks, 10 strikeouts, no walks? I didn't look up his previous one, but wouldn't surprise me. But he's partly been walking anybody all year and it do be like that sometimes. I feel like Clayton Kirshall was sort of that way too.

Famously, a tremendous control pitcher. He wasn't in the minors. Yeah. Yeah, that is consecutive starts with double-digit strikeouts and zero walks for Mizirowski and three of his last five with double-digit strikeouts and zero walks. He also had one about five starts before that. Scott has already taken the plunge

and he has moved the Mizz up to his SP1 overall on the season. I don't think I could fight it anymore. Chris, are you moving the Mids up to SP1? That is my number one starting pitcher in at least Roto. Points, probably. We'll figure that out tomorrow. An ace who was not an ace here. Another subpar outing on the road for Brian Wu at the Marlins.

Five innings, nine hits, four runs, of those earned five strikeouts to one walk. The updated home road splits for the season. 210 ERA.0 whip at home. 628 ERA on the road with a 143 whip. Did I say whip twice? 628 ERA 143 whip. I don't really know how to explain it.

Like yes, obviously Team Mobile Park, great place to pitch, but the splits should not be this drastic. It is just annoying. One of those things that happens, I think. I don't really think. there's any, any there there. Like, maybe he's more of like a four ERA guy on the road. And even then, this is way out of whack.

So I have no real concerns here. He is struggling with runners on base this season, which feels kind of fluky. Like, typically that is something that just regresses to the normal as season goes on. And 62% left on base percentage. Last year was 80% for his career at 74%. So I just think, Maybe he's had some bad luck with runners on base this season for Brian Wu.

Well, it's weird about that is one thing he has continued to do well this year is not put many runners on base. So even if it has gotten worse, his home run rate is way down this year, which normally explains a discrepancy between ERA and WIP. If the ERA is much higher, well, the guy's giving up a lot of home runs. That's usually what it means. But not in Wu's case. There are a lot of conflicting data points here that makes me think like Chris is saying, okay, this is all bound to regress. I would consider Brian Wu an obvious by low candidate at this point.

I do have four other pitching leftovers. I won't read off the lines. Just mention the names here. Max Meyer, Joey Cantillo, Jose Soriano, and Peyton Toley. Do you guys have any notes, anything you'd like to mention on those? for Tolly, Soriano, Canillo, and Max Meyer. Tully's been very hit or miss lately. But good to see him bounce back.

Nine whiffs on the four seamer. That's always going to be the key for him. When that four semer's working, he's awesome. He, did he have like one whiff or something on his fours smear on his previous start? I remember it being a weirdly bad start. So the previous start was his biggest miss during this hit or miss period, and now he gets his biggest hit during this hit or miss period. What I had observed after that

A really bad start last time Is the collapse in his swinging strike rate Which was 13.8, amazing In his first eight starts But then in his next five, 9.1 It was pretty bad. So I was especially encouraged by him getting all those whiffs In this start 15 on 91 pitches,

including nine on the fastball, like you said, Chris. I'm very encouraging. start for Tolly. Very encouraging start for all of them, frankly. I mean, Soriano's velocity was down by more than a mile per hour on most everything.

But he limited walks and is a great groundpaw pitcher so he got a good result that's two starts in a row where, you know, if he's not beating himself with walks, Jose Soriano, I think he's pretty good. Obviously you can't predict going in to start how that's going to go

with the control. But it's definitely justification to hold on even for as rocky as his June was. Cantillo continued to lean on that curveball. It continued to throw it harder. In five starts now since making that harder curveball, his primary pitch, Joey Cantillo has a 155 ERA 110 whip 10.2K per 9. Still walking too many guys, which is why that whip is a little high relative to everything. else. But, you know, if you picked up Kintillo, I'd say you're still happy about that.

And that's it. That's everything I have to say about this group. Some hitting leftovers. Jordan Walker, a nice doubleheader, 3-4-8 with his 21st home run, two runs, two RBI. Last eight games following up that slump that he had, 3-46, three homers, nine runs, 11 RBI, and a steal. So nice to see Jordan Walker bouncing back. Ben Rice looks like he might be picking things back up. He hit his 26th home run. It came off of a lefty.

It was off of Ian Seymour. He has four homers in his past seven games. Enjoy it while you can, Frank. Enjoy what? There's nothing to enjoy. Enjoy Ben Rice being good while you can. Oh, the home run derby's going to wreck his season. Home run derby curse.

Home run derby's going to get his season back on track. I'm very annoyed that he's doing the home run derby just because he's not a 941 OPS bat. And he's going to have like an 850 OPS in the second half and still be an awesome player. And I'm saying, oh, home run derby ruined him. Well, I mean. Well, James Wood got ruined by the home run derby last year, Chris. Here's the thing. Okay.

I know we're an hour, nine minutes into this, but I got to get this off my chest. Uh-oh. People are going to be very disappointed in the home run derby this year. I agree. Very disappointed. because I remember the before times before they introduced the clock. I understand the frustration with the clock. Oh, they threw another pitch before the last one landed.

Okay, get a spotter. That's easy enough to adjust for. Changing back to an out system where you're counting outs, the hitter gets a certain number of outs before they're done, means there's going to be far fewer home runs, far fewer, many multiples, fewer home runs. And there's going to be a lot of dead air by hitters taking pitch. after pitch after pitch, it's going to be a snooze.

And it's going to mostly eliminate this narrative of a home run derby tires out the hitters because they're not going to take nearly as many swanks. I hope you're right. Ben Rice, keep it going. Do you hope I'm right? You hope I'm right about half of that. Yeah, I hope you're right about, you know, I don't think that's obviously going to affect the hitters, but.

I hope they go back to the clock. It's probably not going to be, yeah, I agree it's not going to be as enjoyable. of an experience. I do agree with that part of it. Shohi Otani hit another home run, his 20th of the season, the 300th of his career, and he is the fifth fastest to 300 home runs behind only Aaron Judge, Ralph Kiner, Ryan Howard, and Juan Gonzalez. Showingotani, pretty awesome. Call to the bullpen for the Brewers in game one with Trevor McGill working Tuesday, Monday night. They went to Abner Uribe, who got the ninth with a one-run lead.

He walked one but picked up his sixth save. For the Cubs, Jacob Webb entered with two outs in the seventh. Bases loaded a four-run lead. He gave up a two-run single and then struck out Gunner Henderson. It was Trent Thornton, who got the ninth with a three-run lead and picked up his second save. And since Daniel Palentia went down with injury, Jacob Webb has two saves, Trent Thornton has two saves, Jordan Wicks has two saves, and Ryan Rawlinson has won. So the Cubs do not have a closer, and they never will until Daniel Palentia's back. For the raise, Brian Baker got the ninth with a two-run lead. He picked up his 24th save.

For the Astros, Josh Hader came on with two outs in the ninth. One-on, a three-run lead. He gave up a single and a walk. Then struck out Dylan Cruz to pick up his tenth save. For the Phillies, Yawand-Daron picked up his 22nd. For the twins, Taylor Rogers started the ninth inning with a two-run lead. Two of the three hitters coming up were lefties. He got the first two.

He walked, chased the water. and then Ewenries Gomez came on and struck out Gabriel Arias to pick up his 10th save. I guess this is just a slight reminder that the twins might still be a little annoying here and there, but Gomez is still mostly the guy. And then for the Padres, Mason Miller picked up his 23rd save. And for the Rockies, that's right, man. He is back. Jordan Romano got the ninth with a one-run lead.

No idea how he got out of this. He gave up two base runners to start. dart the inning in a one-run lead, and it was facing the top of the Dodgers order, and retired them in order. So, Jordan Romano. What a guy. Second save in a row with the Rockies. Yeah.

No only leads, leagues, barely. I think he's their closer. I saw a video where they had the whole closer-style entrance for him when he jogs out to the mound. Jordan Romano? Yeah. He just got to the team like a week ago. They already have an entrance for him? They already do.

What? By the way, we brought up Felix Bautista earlier. I think that's still my favorite closer entrance of all time. I hope he gets back to closing just so they can bring that back. I think Yohan Duran comes out with like the Undertaker theme song and a big like white horse up on the screen. Am I making that up? I feel like that's a thing. But I might be making that up.

Maybe you're someone else. I have no idea. But I am. I have to admit I don't know either. I mean, the Mason Miller one right now is top-notch. That is amazing. Like, whenever I see him coming out, I just have to stop everything I'm doing with the rundown and just watch it happen.

Actually, I've never heard of him. Based on fantasy feud. I think we're doing this too much. What? I'm sorry, Jordan Romero does not need a big entrance. Pete Fairbanks does not need a big entrance. No. It should be like, it should be like the,

the closers who make the All-Star game, you're allowed to do a big light show entrance and everyone else, you can just play a song. I almost think that it should be a requirement that if you are one of the lockdown closers in baseball, you should have some kind of sick entrance. Why not?

Yeah, but like David Bednar does not get one. It's, it's, you can't manufacture the hype. Yeah, that's one of that. He comes out to renegade, but yeah, it's nothing crazy. The dramatic entrance needs to trickle down from the pitching. Yes.

It's not going to trickle up. the dramatic injuring and make him a great closer. One can hope, Scott. One can hope. To stream or not to stream on Wednesday, we have Dean Kramer against the Cubs, Troy Melton against the athletics, Grant Holmes at the Pirates, Christian Scott against the Royals,

Connor Prelip against the Guardians, Michael McGreevy against the Brewers, Jake Bennett at the White Sox, Walbert Arainia at the Rangers, Rokies Soki against the Rockies in L.A. Troy Mountain's the only one I trust, but I would also be fine with Walbert Irangie. I know you guys like him more than I do

and Dean Kramer. Jake Bennett, man. Oh, yeah, yeah, Jake Bennett, yeah. I like him. I would put him ahead of Dean Kramer. Yeah, I like Melton. I don't trust Dean Kramer against the Cubs, I will reiterate. Melton, Bennett, and Rainia.

I could see... Did you say pre-lip? I think that could be okay. I was going to say him in McGreevy. I could see having okay starts. Yeah. Then on Thursday, we have Merrill Kelly at the Padres, Brady Singer against the Phillies,

Andre Palante against the Brewers Anthony K against the Red Sox Sean Mania against the Royals Mitch Keller against the Braves You know this is almost A full slate of games on Thursday I think it's And 19 13 games

13 games on a Thursday Oh and have fun with that guys Yeah not enjoying well yeah Scott's leaving us I'm not going to be here I if I had to choose on Thursday I would say Palante and Merrill Kelly

proceed with caution. Yeah. I would not be shocking that Perkins was good. But yeah, I like Wednesday more than Thursday. All right, we are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris.

I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Mount Podcasts. Everything has to come to on here. Now streaming, only on Paramount Plus. The acclaimed series The Shy reaches its final chapter. You're from Chicago. It's my home. From Emmy Award winner, Lean Away. There are two types of people in this world.

Those that reach for more, and those that just enjoy what they got. This is shy. Anything's possible. Singing this song to you. The Shy, the final season now streaming. Only on Paramount Plus.