Fantasy Baseball Today - Why Chris Is Lower On George Kirby, Jackson Chourio & Walker Buehler! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:02 Who is Chris lower on in his 2024 rankings? Find out next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT in five on Saturday, January 20th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris Towers, and we will start things off with George Kirby, who I will admit, I am the high guy on, I have him as my SP9. Chris, you have him down at SP15. Scott even lower down at SP 18. Why are you looking to fade George Kirby at his cost? I think the biggest thing is just in an era where strikeouts are so important. He just doesn't get very many of them. He was under a strikeout per inning last season. And if you look at the second half versus first half splits,

Starting point is 00:00:45 on the surface, it looks encouraging 25% strikeout rate after the All Star break versus 21% before. If you look into the game logs, it's kind of fake. He had a three-start stretch at the end of July with 26 strikeouts, I believe in 50% innings. From August 1st on, his strike rate was 22%, which is right around the average. It would have been an improvement over the first half, but not the big improvement that it looks like if you just look at the overall second half splits. I think really good fastball, great command, obviously, still looking for that swing and miss secondary pitch. The splitter showed signs of that in the second half, although as he started throwing that

Starting point is 00:01:28 Splittermore in August and September. As I said, strikeout rate wasn't really all that great. I just, you look at the peripherals, they all suggest George Carby was more like a mid to high three's ERA guy. And I just, I look overall at the, at the profile.

Starting point is 00:01:45 And I just think it's, it's a decent SP3 or SP2, not an SP1. I will fully admit, ranking him inside my top 12, you are banking on strikeout progression. And if that doesn't happen, and he probably will be a letdown,

Starting point is 00:02:00 but hoping that we see more of that splitter here in 2024 from George Kirby. Chris, you have Jackson Chorio down at outfielder 37 compared to number 21 for Scott. Obviously, Churio, big name, top prospect. Why do you find yourself a little bit lower on him? So I will say this is one I find myself a little squishy on. And if I moved him up six or seven spots in the ranking, I'd still be lower on him, but it wouldn't really change how I feel about Jackson Trio. One, we aren't 100% sure he's going to have an opening day job.

Starting point is 00:02:34 I think he will because he signed that contract. But the other thing is this guy doesn't turn 20 until about a month before the season. And you just have to look back at Jordan Walker and anti-Vulpy last season. And now, Jackson Turyo may be a better prospect than both of them. Certainly Jordan Walker, it's pretty close in the overall rankings. But those are two examples of how, even though they were, ended up being decent fantasy options. They weren't immediate superstars.

Starting point is 00:03:00 It's really, really hard to make that jump from AA, where Jackson Trio has a high 700s OPS over the course of parts of two seasons. It's just really hard to make that leap to the majors and be an immediate contributor. So I just, I feel like there's a lot of volatility there, but obviously the upside is significant. All right. Let's wrap up with another starting pitcher, Walker Bueller, who you have is your SPC. 37. You might have moved them up to SP 35. We were talking about it on the

Starting point is 00:03:30 full lane podcast. Scott has him around SP 24. Obviously Bueller not coming back from his second Tommy John surgery. Chris, is that the main concern or is there anything outside of that that worries you on Walker Buehler? Well, there were some performance concerns before the Tommy John

Starting point is 00:03:46 surgery. His strikeout rate dropped from 2020 to 2021, then from 2021 to 2022, an even bigger drop. Actually, a below average strike hour rate. in 2022 before the injury. How much of that is just he wasn't healthy versus, you know, some changes in the sticky stuff ban.

Starting point is 00:04:07 I think that played a part in it. You saw real declines in his spin rate after that ban went into effect. So I just, I do think there are some performance concerns here with Walker Bueller, in addition to just not knowing what he's going to look like coming back from his second Tommy John surgery. So it just scares me off a little bit. One thing that I noticed as well in Walker Bueller's profile, the fastball velocity has continuously dropped too.

Starting point is 00:04:32 So something that could be a concern, 20-20 short in season. He averaged around 97 miles per hour with the fastball. Then it was 95.4 in 2021. Still pitch really well. And then it was down to 95.2 in 2022. So something to watch with Walker Bueller here in spring training. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast,

Starting point is 00:04:55 the Odyssey app or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball today in five, and we'll be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - Why Chris Is Lower On George Kirby, Jackson Chourio & Walker Buehler! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

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