Fantasy Baseball Today - Young Hitters, Mitchell Parker & Cristopher Sanchez Injury! (4/23 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Noelvi Marte destroyed a homer and is hot all of a sudden (2:25). ... Agustin Ramirez and Luke Keaschall have impressed in a small sample (6:16). ... Mitchell Parker is 5-for-5 in quality starts (15:32). ... The Dodgers-Cubs game was crazy (19:50)! ... News (28:08): Cristopher Sanchez left his start with a forearm injury. ... Are we buying these breakouts (41:12)? ... Nick Pivetta and Jack Flaherty had a pitching duel (44:00). ... Let's talk waiver wire pitchers (46:40). ... Nate Lowe and Jorge Polanco have performed early on (52:02). ... These three hitters might be coming around (57:34). ... What do we make of these confusing pitchers (1:00:10)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpens and streamers (1:02:34). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CPTowers @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. What's up and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday. April 23rd.

I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers. Today on the show, young hitters who continue to impress. are we buying these breakouts, some potentially scary injuries to talk about, and much more. Let's jump in. Holy cow, how about that? How about that?

Cubs comeback win. We will talk about that in just a bit, but Chris, over to you for your player of the night. Yeah, let's talk about Noelvi Marte, who had the hardest hit ball of his major league career today, a 116.7 mile per hour home, run. And I don't know, he kind of, I mean, it's a really small sample size, right?

I think he's played eight games at the major league level so far. But only three strikeouts, two stolen bases, two home runs now. I don't know. He's starting to look more like a major leaguer than I expected. And I will admit, I was kind of out on Noel V. Marte, you know, the fact that his season went so poorly last season with the PD suspension obviously, but then just he was not good at either the major or minor league level even before the suspension and then after it. And then it never really felt like the Reds gave him a chance to win a job this spring.

So I thought they had kind of soured on him and maybe injuries are the only reason he's getting his chance. But look, he's taking advantage of his chance right now. and it's another high profile reminder that progression is not always linear, that sometimes guys need to fail before they can succeed. And remember, Marte was really good in his brief stint in 2020. He hit 316. The quality of contact was pretty good.

It wasn't like great contact numbers, but it wasn't disastrous. And then last season was obviously a disaster, but still a talented, player and maybe he's figuring it out. I mean, certainly, I think, is forcing the Reds to reconsider him as a part of their plans in at least the short term. Yeah, I agree with everything you said there. I mean, this is still just a 23-year-old player who had a ton of prospect pedigree. And I agree.

I mean, he was pretty tough to evaluate coming into the season. We just had no idea how he would fit into the Reds plans. but obviously life finds away. And, you know, they are, I would say, struggling overall as a team this season and they are looking for a spark. And he has kind of provided that here, started four of the past five games

and his last three games. It's eight hits, two homers, eight RBI, one steal, of course. I think two of those hits were off position players. Oh, yes. And one of the home runs. I think he got like two or three at bats off position players at the end of that game. But still,

they count. They count somewhere in the record books, but the question is, what do we do with this? Because he's 24% rostered. I think if you have a roster spot to just mess with and you want to shoot for some upside, sure, I don't know what the long-term playing time looks like here, but he obviously is getting an opportunity for now. So what size league would you be looking to add a Noveli Marte, if at all? Maybe he's just a scout team guy for now. I think it's any Roto League you can consider adding him. That's not to say he's a must add in any Roto League, but yeah, I think he's worth a look if you're looking for a spark, right? I think the likeliest outcome is still.

Marte's struggles eventually get sent back down. Clearly, he wasn't a big part of their plans coming into the season. But the athleticism, 93rd percent off sprint speed this season, 117 mile per hour batted ball. yeah, I'll take a flyer on those type of skills when the opportunity is there, as it clearly is for Marte right now. And I mentioned up top, I mean, just taking a look at young hitters who are performing early on here in a very small sample size. Nelvi Marte was one of them, but I did want to mention once again, Augustin Ramirez, of the Marlins, three for three with a walk and two doubles here on Tuesday. the doubles 106.7 and 11.2 exit velocities, respectively on each of those.

He also attempted another steal that's two tries and two games. He was caught stealing in this one, but I mean, he's clearly trying. He's ready to go. 23% rostered on Augustin Ramirez, and Luke Kishel batting third all of a sudden in the twins lineup, and he had another strong game, one for two with two walks, two steals, two runs scored. it's only four games. Incredibly small sample, but he's five for 14. He's got two doubles,

three walks to two strikeouts, he's got three steals total. Only one game at second base, three at TH. Doesn't matter on CBS because he already has that second base eligibility. If you play on NFBC

where you need 10 games at a position, it might take a little while here for Luciechial to get that eligibility, but really small sample, Chris, I've been very impressed by these two so far, Augustin Ramirez and Lucichael.

Yeah, absolutely everything you could want to see from these two guys in the small sample size, especially the stolen bases. I think for both of them, I guess with Ramirez, it's stolen base because he only has the one. Stolen base attempts. Two stolen bases and two attempts in two games is pretty impressive for a catcher. If the Marlins are going to keep letting him run,

the one thing I will point out with him is, while I don't think there should be any impediments to playing time, the Marlins do like Nick Fortez and he was off to a good start. Oh. And then look, I know, I know. I get it. I get it. And then Liam,

please Marlins, don't do that. Liam Hicks's situation is that he was a Rule 5 draft pick. Yeah. So they would have to give him back to the Tigers, I think is where he was. I mean, they can D.H. Ramirez. Or they can play that first base. Like, you know, it's. Not like they're loaded with talent.

So I totally get what you're saying just from the catcher perspective. But the fact that he has catcher eligibility for this season, if he hits, I think he's going to stick around somewhere. They'll use him at DH. They'll use him at first base. Yeah.

So I was getting a bunch of crazy questions here earlier on Twitter because, I mean, people are asking me if they could drop Yiner Diaz for Augusta and Ramirez. If people could drop like JT Rio, Utah. You all need to stop about the Yiner-D-S thing. He's going to be fine. if you were drafting him as the number two catcher four weeks ago,

stop asking if you can drop him. Just stop. History did not begin four weeks ago. I shouldn't have to say that. But look, there are a lot of mediocre catchers out there. There are very few with legit impact upside. And I think Augustine Ramirez has impact upside. That doesn't mean that's the likeliest outcome.

The likeliest outcome is he's probably a 10-10 guy this season, which would still be super valuable. But that's probably the most likely outcome. But man, with these exit velocities, I'm kind of dreaming. I'm dreaming already. He was 25, 23 last year, I think, or something like that. He's a super interesting player. I've got my group chat with my Marlins fan friends.

And they've been, oh, they were so mad when they traded jazz chisholm. And now today, a couple of them were like, ooh, this Guston Ramirez kid's pretty exciting. I was like, I remember. I remember. Chris has his receipts. We'll print out the Peter Bendix apology form. A couple of names that I think I would be okay dropping for Augustin Ramirez.

Hunter Goodman has done some nice things this season. I think Ramirez has more upside. Anybody lower than that in the rankings like Jeffers, Kirk, Joey Bard, Jonah Heim, like obviously, yes, drop those guys. In one catcher leagues, you know, someone asked Cabot Ruiz. or Augusta Ramirez. I think it's a good question. Ruiz is off to a nice start.

I think it's kind of... But it's just batting average, right? I think it's kind of floor versus upside, too, because I think Cape Ruiz is still a pretty good floor. But if you want to shoot for upside in a one-catcher league, I don't think I have an issue with going with Ramirez over Cape Ruiz if you wanted to do that. Like, Gabriel Moreno is kind of up and down career.

He's still young, and maybe he could do some things. But, like, I don't know. We haven't really seen a complete season out of him. So again, in a one-catcher league, I think you can make that argument. Austin Wells is another one where he's off to a really, really bad start here, Chris. And I'm in a one-catcher league head-to-head points. I dropped them for Sean Murphy a couple of weeks ago. And if you just want to ride the hot hand, I think I'd be okay with that one, too,

dropping Wells for Augustin Ramirez. Yeah, I think all of those are fine. I think it mostly just comes down to if you don't have a definite impact player at catcher or even someone with impact upside. Because I don't think Sean Murphy's a definite impact bat, but certainly has the upside to be one. I would still, I think I would still take Murphy over Ramirez, though.

Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. I think there aren't many catchers with impact upside. I think Murphy has that. So I would hang on to him, but like Gabriel Moreno, like he's fine, but he's never anything more than fine. So if you want to take a chance on someone more than potentially being more than fine,

I think it's okay. It's not like the best option in the world, but I think I'm open to it. I also want to point out, Chandler Simpson has two hits today. And he's, I think he stole a base as well. He's also among the top prospects doing what we wanted to see.

He has at least one hit in each of his first three games. So good signs for Chandler Simpson as well. That is a good call out because I did kind of just, breeze past that game because the raise only put up one run. But yeah, that is a good mention on Chandler Simpson, who obviously should be rostered in all Roto leagues. And at 58% rostered, he probably is in all Roto leagues already. And then any head to head category leagues where you need help and steals,

like, yes, Chandler Simpson obviously should be rostered and a nice game from him as well. Luke Kishel, just getting back to him for a second, 29% rostered. I think all Roto leagues, obviously, If you need a middle infield spot, like in a roto league, you could find someone bad enough on your team to drop. Once we get into, again, points league, shallower formats. Yeah. I think you can drop like a struggling Jonathan India for Luke Keishel.

And let's just see where this goes. Because if India picks things back up, I mean, he doesn't have the biggest upside in the world. You could probably just pick him back up. But if you lose out on Keishel now and he just has a huge season, you're going to regret that. No, I think that that's one of those things where, one, the fact that the twins already moved him up to third in the lineup feels like a really good sign for how much they like him.

And two, it mostly just comes down to like I like Jonathan India. I think he'll be fine. But I don't think you'll ever regret not having him around. Like even the best case scenario for Jonathan India is not a superstar. I think it's really unlikely. Lukiechel's a superstar. But there's at least some of that mystery box. potential. And when you're talking about a

relatively unexciting player like Jonathan India, it's totally fine. All right, let's hit our first break. And when we return, we'll get to My Player of the Night. That is Mitchell Parker who had another great start. We'll do that right after this quick commercial break. Welcome back in Fantasy

Baseball today. My Player of the Night is Mitchell Parker, who is now 5 for 5 in quality starts. Up against the Orioles, 8 shutout innings, one hit, two walks, four strikeouts, 10 whiffs on 99 pitches, and taking a deeper dive into his pitch mix and his arsenal and just trying to figure out what's going on here. I do think the secondary pitches are pretty good for Mitchell Parker. Some questions about the fastball, he doesn't throw it

particularly hard, sits 92, 93 with that pitch, but from the left hand side, 19 inches of induced vertical break, it hasn't really performed well, but just the fact that he is a lefty and there's that much IVB on that pitch. I think it's at least intriguing. And again, the secondaries are pretty good here. He's allowed one earned runner, fewer in four or five starts. Chris, I know the underlying numbers are not really buying it here with Mitchell Parker, but when I dug in a little bit, I kind of came away feeling a little bit better.

Like, I think the tools are there for Mitchell Parker. Like, whether or not he can ever put them all together, I don't know. But what do you think about Mitchell Parker? you know I'm not in you like you know this is exactly the type of player I'm not going to be in on a control pitcher with just decent control who doesn't strike anyone out relies on

having a funky arm angle and weak contact I just like that that's not to say it can't be useful he was very useful for decent stretches last year he had like a 350 ERA at the end of June last season. I just, I think there's no upside here because of the lacking strikeouts.

I think he is very unlikely to ever become a must start pitcher. He faked it for two months last year and maybe he can do it again. But I don't know. I have no faith in this being a anything more than a streaming type. I mostly agree. But again, I will just point out. like splitter, curve, slider, 30% width rate or better on all three of those pitches. And I think the fastball is at least interesting.

Not going to say it's good, but I think it's interesting. So it's one of those things kind of like Tyler Malley to me, Chris, where I don't know, I didn't really buy it. I don't know that I still, like, I don't know if I completely buy it for Tyler Malley. But if you picked him up, I think you just kind of like ride it as long as it goes. And all right, once he starts to struggle, just drop him. But if you have him, like, why not just stick with it? you know sure i i'm just saying like i'm writing the waiver wire piece for tomorrow's newsletter

and parker's already what 75% rostered 70% i have no interest in in adding him where he's available at this point like i don't know maybe he can keep getting away with it but you know like 30% whiff rate on the splitter curb on slider well it was 26% whiff rate with the curveball last year slider and splitter had good with rates they were 35% but the fastball had a 12% whiff rate last year. I think the fastball, like, it gets a lot of IVB, but the thing you have to keep in mind is he comes from a really over-the-top arm angle, which means there's going to inherently be a lot more rise on the pitch

because he's coming, he's getting more backspin on it. And one thing that I think a lot of the research is showing is that it's not so much the movement profile of the pitch on its own, but it is what the hitter is expecting from the arm slot that the pitcher is throwing from. So if you throw from a lower arm slot and get a lot of rise, that can be an outlier thing. With Parker, I would guess his movement profile

is pretty much what you'd expect from his release. So that probably explains along with the low velocity, why the whiff whiff rate has been so bad the last two years. All right, we have some other waiver pictures later on, so we will compare Mitchell Parker to those as well.

Oh my goodness gracious, game of the night. Dodgers at the Cubs, 21 combined runs on 26 hits. The Dodgers scored five runs in the seventh to take a 10-7 lead. The Cubs just kept chipping away. They wound up winning that game

in extra innings. Tommy Edmund continues his tear. Two for four with his eighth home run, for RBI. Chris, you and I were in on Edmund. This is not what we were expecting.

I can't even take, I can't take credit for this. There's no way. Like we expected 15 home runs by the end of the season. He has eight home runs like four weeks into the season. Like this is not what we were expecting.

How is he getting to this power? He is doing things that are more conducive to hitting for power. So career high fly ball rate, career high pull rate, career highs and average exit velocity and barrel rate. Will these things continue?

I don't know. But at least so far, that explains why he is hitting for power. I don't know if it will remain though. I would probably bet against it, but. Yeah, I mean, I'm inclined to say that this is just a hot streak. And like he's hitting the ball.

Like when you look at the bat speed, it doesn't look that much different than it did last season or in 2020. He swings a lot harder from the right side. I know he's destroying lefties this season. Yeah, actually, weirdly. So he has three home runs. He only has a 724 a PS against lefties because he only has three hits that aren't home runs.

Wow. Okay. It felt like all of his home runs came against lefties so far. Well, yeah, that's because that's all he's doing against them. But yeah, I don't know. I'm, I'm in. to think that this is a fluke. And that's not to say you should trade Tommy Edmund

because I don't know if anybody out there's really buying it. And if the power stops, I think the steals will be there. And I think he'll be a good source of batting average. And so like 270, a 15 homer pace the rest of the way and, you know, 20 steals. I think that's still, he might be a 2020 hitter. Well, likely. Yeah, he might get to 2020. Yeah.

I just, I don't think he is a 2020 guy. And that's just because, look, when you have a 29-year-old with 2,500 plate appearances coming into the season, that's where the underlying stuff, that's not to say it doesn't matter, but you should be very skeptical when the underlying stuff is so much different

than what we've seen. Absent a swing change, which I don't think has happened for Tommy Edmund. Will Smith is not a name that we've talked about, but he is off to a very good start this season two for four with his third homer. He's betting 350 within OPS just over 1,000. Kyle Tucker continues his great start. I mean, he is licking his chops, man.

Seeing what Soto got last offseason, Vlad Jr. got $500 million in an extension. Tucker's a little bit older than Vlad. so he, like, I don't know if he'll get that, but man, three for four with a sock and two shoes. He is now batting 320 with seven homers, 24 runs, 25 RBI, six deals, any 1070 OPS. I mean, it is the complete package, just a, like, five category contributor plus. The interesting thing about Kyle Tucker is like, I think if you were doing like the old, the old scout head, like, you know, grading him on a, an 80 grade scale on the five tools.

I don't necessarily know if he'd be like an elite player in any of the five tools. He's just good at everything. Like there's just no weaknesses in Kyle Tucker's games. And, you know, last season he took this big step forward with his plate discipline. And he did it without having to sacrifice quality of contact. And that was the big question, right? Could he keep that up? And so far he's doing exactly that.

he has the best expected Wobah on contact of his career, a career, what would be a career low strikeout rate and the second highest walk rate of his career. He once again has more walks than strikeouts. He's incredible, man.

He's awesome. And his expected stats entering today, 307XBA 641 expected slug. And that's before this game, so it's probably only going to go up. All right, Chris, it's time to talk about peak Crow Armstrong, three for five with his fourth home run. He is betting 276. He's got 20 runs scored,

eight steals, and 834 OPS. And when I dug in a little bit, I didn't really see much that's changed so far this season. He's hitting a good amount of line drives and fly balls, but average XIVor velocity, barrel rate pretty much in line with where they were last year. Expected stats don't look very good for P. Croix Armstrong. The only thing that I will throw out as a possibility here, Chris, is that Pete Kroa Armstrong might be such an elite athlete that he can

outperform expected numbers. And we saw this from guys like Javier Baez early on in his career where like the underlying numbers never looked good, but he just always put up these huge seasons because he was just a freak athlete. Who was the comp you made? Javier Baez. Okay. It's not a

perfect comp, but just in terms of the athleticism, it might allow Pete Kromchr to kind of overplay some of these numbers that we kind of look at, usually under the hood. Yeah. So when you're looking for players who will overperform their expected stats, what you'd be looking for, I mean, there's a lot of different ways you would go about it. But yeah, athleticism, the ability to turn infield out into singles, occasionally, the ability to turn singles into doubles, doubles to triples, et cetera. That's one key way to do it. the other would be some kind of outlier batted ball profile.

Isaac Paredes, his huge pull pulled air skills. And that is one thing that Pekar Armstrong is doing really well this season. Is he pulling the ball in the air a ton, 20% of the time on his batted balls. Maybe there's something there. Maybe, you know, he can continue to hit for decent power without huge underlying. metrics, although Wrigley Fields are really tough place to make that work, as he sock parade has found out last year. I'm still pretty skeptical.

The underlying numbers, as you said, are not great, even if he overperforms the expected stats. You know, you would expect it to be more in batting average with the athleticism than in power. So I'm inclined to think, at the very least, the power that he's showing in the early going is probably not something you should count on. But if he hits 265 and he's a 15 homer guy with the stolen bases, that's going to be really valuable. He's never going to sit because of his defense. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty dumb about my Pekar Armstrong skepticism because I thought,

I thought he might be a bad hitter. And he doesn't look like a bad hitter so far. Now, plate discipline is still really bad. his swing decisions are not good at all. He chases 39% of the time. That's one of the highest marks in baseball. League average is 29%. I think that's going to catch up to him in the end,

but I also definitely feel like I undershot on Paker Armstrong and calling him a bust feels pretty silly right now. One thing in the plate discipline that I will say looks really good is the zone contact percentage is way, up and the swinging strike rate is way down. So those two things are, uh, look very good early on here for Pete Carr Armstrong, who yes, might actually just be a legitimate, uh, breakout. At least he is early on in the season.

Let's get into the news and notes. And I mentioned we do have some scary injuries here. Christopher Sanchez left his start early with left forearm soreness and the velocity was down in this one. Sinker was down 1.2 miles per hour. The change up down 1.8 miles per hour. And notably, his velocity was up quite a bit this season. So that's something that can correlate with, you know, a forearm injury or, you know, something much worse than that.

I would almost guarantee an I else didn't hear, Chris, with the possibility that this is much worse. So there was a quote after the game. Let me see if I can find it. There was a quote that's hinted at the possibility that he wouldn't. require an IL stint. He's going to get testing. Okay, yeah, I can't find it right now, but that was one thing that I saw.

Not expecting any structural damage was what Rob Thompson said. We'll reevaluate. We'll know in a few in the next couple of days. So yeah, I think an iL stint is certainly the most likely outcome. Anytime you're dealing with a forearm strain, teams just aren't likely to take that risk, right? Just sit them down even for the minimum if you have to. The thing I struggle with, right?

Because whenever these injuries happen, people are always like, I knew he was going to get hurt when I saw him throwing harder. And it's like, well, okay. One, no, you didn't, but sure, let's grant that you knew he was going to get hurt when he started throwing harder. But also the reason to get excited about Christopher saying, Sanchez is because he was throwing harder.

Like, this is the constant struggle when it comes to fantasy baseball because you, people, a lot of people will do the like, oh, throwing harder. That's a red flag. And it's like, yeah, but you have to draft someone. Yeah. Right? Like, the thing is like, okay, there's always that graphic that goes around of like the leaders in velocity with the red X over them.

And see, we, we knew. there, but it's like, right, but that's also mostly a list of the best pitchers in baseball. And at some, like, you can just build your whole staff out of Jose Cantana, but like at some point, you have to get good pitchers. And good pitchers tend to be guys who throw hard. And a guy throwing harder is a reason to be conservative because of the apparently higher injury risk. But you're also going to miss out on pitcher breakouts if you don't target guys who are throwing harder because if they can keep it up, it's like what we're seeing with Max Meyer, where he goes from not even a major league caliber pitcher last season to looking like a legitimate breakout in large part because

he's throwing a mile, a mile and a half harder. That's not all of it. But like, we wouldn't be as upset about losing Christopher Sanchez if he wasn't having a breakout season because he's throwing harder. That's the thing that's always tough. And I don't know what the answer is, right? Like, I'm just talking out loud here. But I just, yes, it is

potentially a risk factor when a guy's throwing harder. But you also can't just take those guys off the board. Maybe it's an argument for not pushing Christopher Sanchez as high as we did in drafts, you know, where he was going like 160 early on and ended up like a top 100 pick in some drafts by the end. And like, I think his ADP was like 120 over the final week. Maybe you can argue that we should be a little more hesitant with that, but it's also the only reason we're that upset about him getting hurt is because he looked like an absolute ace, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's incredibly tough. I mean, this kind of push pull that

we have between chasing velocity and looking for breakouts and wanting talented pitchers on our team, but also trying to find this balance of like who's going to get hurt. And I still don't know that we really have any answers. Like, do we really know who's going to get hurt every year? I mean, you know, after the fact you could say, all right, yeah, well, like, you know, these guys that are throwing harder, like him and Ryan Weathers, that, you know, they both go down with injury. There might be a correlation there. There's also a correlation with throwing harder leading to success and just being a better pitcher. So I totally get why pitchers are doing that.

I kind of wish it wasn't the case because I think that has contributed to a lot of pitching injuries. Oh, absolutely. Look, man, these guys don't have the longest shelf life and they're trying to get paid. They're trying to make money. And the best way to do that is to perform well on the baseball field. And again, throwing harder, it's going to give you a better chance of performing better on the baseball field.

So like, I don't blame pitchers for doing that. And here's the thing. if hitters are geared up for 94 mile per hour fastballs now that's the average the average fastball is 94 miles per hour i've been watching baseball long enough that that still blows my mind because like if you sat 94 20 years ago you were legit hard thrower and now it's that's just normal everybody does that if you could magically tomorrow make every pitcher average two miles per hour less on their fastballs. The likeliest thing that would happen is they all get bombed. We have a huge like,

we would have a huge offensive output season. This is the problem with, it's an arms race. And pitchers are always trying to throw harder and add more spin and add more break on their pitches. And hitters catch up every year. And that's like that's the thing is that it you can't undo the trends that we're seeing. And until someone finds a way to make a 92 mile an hour fastball that's as effective as a 99 mile an hour fastball with the same movement characteristics, that's people are going to keep chasing velocity. And that includes fantasy players and fantasy analysts and you should.

Yeah. It's just you do have to keep. Keep in mind that it's not all positive. You know, there's no one weird trick that solves pitching forever. One thing I wanted to add on Christopher Sanchez, if this does turn out to be a long-term injury, maybe this accelerates Andrew Painter getting to the big. So that was something that I thought of.

Maybe not. Maybe he's still like just coming up in June or July, whatever it might be. But maybe. There's a chance. He did look crazy good. And his, I don't know, has he made two starts yet? I only saw the one.

Yeah, I only saw him. He looked outrageously good in that. And it was a very low level of the minor. So I don't want to put like too much on it. But, you know, one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. And we will see him at some point this season. Corey Seeger left Tuesday's game with right hamstring tightness. And unfortunately, there's no surprise here because he has dealt with a bunch of hamstring injuries in his career, grabbing at the hamstring.

while running and I would be surprised if this one does not wind up in an IL stint as well. I would too. That's kind of generally the case with hamstring injuries. You expect them to end with an aisle stint. Even a relatively low grade one, if you're going to miss a week, just put them on the aisle. You know, it's 10 days for hitters.

So even if it's not that serious, I would expect him to miss some time. But if it's anything more than a low grade strain, you're probably looking at four to six weeks at least. Spencer Shrider, who went on the aisle Monday, was diagnosed with a grade one right hamstring strain, and that kind of feels like the best case scenario. The best case would have been, okay, there's no injury.

No injury here, but we knew that wasn't the case. HGM, David Forst, said Tyler Soderstrom will get some looks at D.HN. left field with Nick Kurtz being promoted. Kurt also was not in the lineup against a lefty on Tuesday, and their GM reiterated that Kurtz will not be in a platoon, but they wanted to give him a day to get acclimated. I was a little surprised that he didn't get like a pinch hit opportunity. I don't, yeah, I don't.

I don't know if I buy that. I hope I'm wrong and he just plays every day. I don't know. That was kind of weird. The one thing I will say, I'm very excited about Nick Kurtz. I think he's a must roster player pretty much everywhere. There's a lot of pressure for him to hit right away. Because getting him in the line,

it's either going to require Brent Rucker playing in the outfield, which they're clearly not that comfortable with, or a converted catcher who has never played anywhere but catcher or first base in his career, playing either third base or left field regularly. And like, look, if Kurtz comes up and has an 850 OPS the rest of the way, it's not going to matter. They're going to be happy to have him in the lineup. And that's a juggling that you'll do because the alternative has been like Miguel Anduhar.

But if Kurt struggles, I do worry that there might be a relatively short leash here just because of the pressure having him around puts on the rest of the roster. I agree with the premise. The A's aren't really expected to be good. Sure. Like, yeah, I don't. Is there really that much pressure? Like, I don't know. like, they can kind of just let these guys figure it out, like on the job, you know?

Like I said, the alternatives are like, Miguel and Duhar and left field and, you know, yeah, like, it's probably still better than the alternative, but that's just one way in which it could go wrong. John Carlos Stanton took batting practice on the field Tuesday. Let's see how his elbows respond in the next couple days. Royce Lewis did some sprints on Monday and then ran the bases again on Tuesday. He is on the aisle.

with a left hamstring strain. Lane Thomas was placed in the aisle with a right wrist bone bruise, and that likely explains why he was out of the lineup the previous three days. Yvonne Herrera began a base running progression on Sunday. He is on the aisle with a bone bruise in his knee.

AJ Puck is seeking multiple opinions after undergoing an MRI on his left elbow, which sounds pretty scary, and it could also lead to Justin Martinez just exploding from a fantasy perspective. Did you see he wasn't available yesterday because of fatigue. Hopefully if it was just like dehydration and not arm fatigue,

I only saw it described as fatigue, but hopefully that's all that was. Agreed. Brendan Donovan was out of the lineup after a rib popped out of place earlier in the day. That sounds a little scary. And Mark Viento's returned to the lineup after missing two in a row with groin discomfort. Let's take our final break. And then Chris, when we return, we've got to go into, overdrive here and try and get through all this stuff.

We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today. Are you buying these breakouts, Chris? Willi Air Breu, 3 for 4 with a double a walk and two steals. He is hitting 299, 951 OPS. Expected stats look great. The other name here is Brandon Fott, who looked good once again, this time against the raise, six innings, one earned run,

excuse me, five strikeouts to zero walks. He has allowed one earned runner fewer in 30. three straight outings, and it's a 273 ERA 101 whip early on this season for Brandon Fott. What do you think, Chris? Are you buying it with Wiliyar Brayu and Brandon Fott? Brayu had been pretty cold before this, right? Because he had like four home runs in the first, like eight games of the season or something. And in his 51 plate appearances before Sunday, he had a 31% strikeout rate, and

like a 544 OPS if I'm doing the math right. So good to see him getting back on track, but it's not like he's just been crushing it consistently all year. I'm pretty skeptical that he's going to matter in all fantasy formats, but he should be must roster right now at the very least. What about Brendan Fott? I am working on a piece to Mark. five breakouts I buy and five I don't or five early season whatever

breakouts whatever you want to call it brand of fad is definitely on the I don't buy it list I know you buy it I know you're not not completely because I mean he has no you're a Foddy he has a 92% left on base percentage which is not sustainable and his expected ERA entering this start was 528 so yeah that's mostly where I come down I just last year was a weird season for Brandon Faw because he had a 24% strikeout rate, but it was extremely hit or miss. He had 40 strikeouts in his final six starts over 27 innings.

He had two starts in his last six and three in his last 10 with double-digit strikeouts. He only had one in his first like 22 starts with more than nine. So he's just super feaster famine. And I think it mostly comes down to like the lineup he's facing and whether it has a lot of righties and whether he can lean on that sweeper a ton because that's usually his best swing and miss pitch. I, yeah, I just don't buy it.

I don't know. All right. Let's get it to some pitchers duels from Tuesday night. It's time to do, do, doodle. Nick Povetta, against Jack Flaherty. Povetta, seven shutout innings with six strikeouts here, a 120 ERA

0.77 whip early on and Jack Flaherty, six innings, two runs, nine strikeouts to zero walks. He had 15 whiffs on 96 pitches. 263 ERA, 102 whip, 11K per 9. Just keep this guy in Detroit forever because whenever

he's there, he's just looked really, really good. I guess Povetta could be another one of these like, are you buying the early season breakout, Chris? What do you think? It's so tough with I want to say Flaherty fully by it. 10 swing strikes on 14 curveball on 14 curveball swings today. The slider and curveball have both been as effective as you'd hope for. And yeah, Detroit clearly agrees with him.

Let's keep him there. Pivotta, we've just been burned so many times by him that whenever you think he, he's going to work out, he tends to not. And before this start, he was at least generating a lot of weak contact. Not so much today where he had 10 batted balls on his four seamer today. Let me make sure I have that number right. 10 balls in play on the four seamer with a 96.5 mile per hour average exit velocity. It didn't burn him in this one.

I have to think it's going to catch up to him at some point because that's the story of Nick Povetta's career. A lot of strikeouts, even when he has good control, it just tends to unravel because he gets hit too hard. And I buy it in that I think he's going to have the first sub four ERA of his career. I don't buy Nick Povetta as an ace all of a sudden, you know? I think that's totally fair. I mean, I know you and Scott kind of liked him as like a sleeper slash breakout.

He could have his best season in San Diego. And so far, it looks like that might be happening this year. I guess you can argue that, all right, if you can turn him into a top 25 or top 30 starting pitcher, then maybe he's a sell high. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's definitely a sell high opportunity here, even if you do believe, like I do, that he's going to have his best season. And that was the hope coming in. his career is long enough that you should still bet on pretty significant regression here.

All right, let's get into Waverwire pitchers. Part one, we already spoke about Mitchell Parker, Jose Cantana, a quality start at the Giants, six innings, one run, only three strikeouts here. One earned run or fewer in all three of his starts. Don't really know how he's doing it outside of like veteran guile or whatever he's got going on. And Brian Beow, who was solid in his season debut up against the Mariners, five inings, one run, three strikeouts here, and threw more sliders in this start compared to last year.

And it did look like a pretty good pitch for him in this one. He's 49% rostered. Chris, how would you rank those three, Parker, Kentana, and Brian Beow? I would go Beio, Parker, Kintana. And with Beio, it just comes down to he's always had a good sinker. You know, keeps the ball on the ground, limits damage on contact, always had a phenomenal change. And then it's just been finding that third option.

And today he came out after his layoff and was throwing his slider a lot more and had significantly more break on it. Four more inches of glove side break, four more inches of drop, while throwing it one mile per hour lower, which is not nothing. I think typically you'd rather throw harder. But in the context of his sinker velocity being down. 0.6 miles per hour, it's not really that big of a drop. So I think that was interesting. And if that can be a consistent weapon for him, it really ties the whole thing together. Because he's going to get those easy outs with the sinker.

Changeup's always going to be there for whiffs, unless, you know, it wasn't great for him today. Maybe, you know, he didn't have the feel for it. He was rusty, whatever. But if that's not there, then it kind of changes things. But if the change up can be a good pitch and the slider takes a step forward, I think, he starts to look a lot more interesting. WaiverWire Pitchers part two, Griffin Canning, solid up against the Phillies,

five innings, one run, five strikeouts, 12 whiffs on 84 pitches, and his velocity was up in the start. He had everything working. The fastball looks much better this season. Years past, it was getting crushed. Yeah. Looks much better.

Mets pitching lab might have done it again with Griffin Canning. Nick Martinez finished one out short of a quality start at the Marlins, five and two thirds, two runs, four strikeouts. did have 14 whiffs on 79 pitches. And then Will Warren looked good at the Guardians. Five plus two runs allowed.

He actually left with no runs, two runners on base, relievers allowed them in, but five strikeouts to one walk here for Will Warren. And, you know, he threw more fastball, sweepers, and changeups in this one. I remain intrigued by Will Warren. I don't know that he's ever going to go deep into starts, but like there was some prospect pedigree.

There's interesting characteristics on some of his pitches. So I don't know. Maybe I'm being a homer, Chris. You tell me, do you have any interest in any of these? Will Warren, Nick Martinez and Griffin Canning? Martinez, I think only as a spark at this point. I think he's pretty dropable outside. I had to head points leagues.

Because even a decent start against the Marlins is less than a strikeout per inning. And, you know, a whip above one. That's not that exciting. Canning, I really think that the issue with Canning is just going to be that he, isn't going to get to pitch deep into games. You know, the Mets have done a good job of getting the most out of him and Tyler McGill and then some other guys, David Peterson, over the past couple of seasons, but they tend to have a pretty short leash with all of them.

And those two things are probably not unrelated, right? Like avoiding that third time through the order penalty. It's going to help a guy like Griffin Canning look better. And so I think there's a limited ceiling there. Warren, I need to see more. You know, like I can see myself getting talked into him. There's some prospect category, like you said. Wasn't great minor league production last year.

In fact, if I remember correctly, it was pretty bad. Yeah, it was bad. So we need, I think, like, it's good to see a good start from him. I need to see a great start before I start advocating for Will Warren to be worth adding. Yeah, so I would put canning at the top of that list. I would probably take Canon over Kentana as well from the previous list as well. Sure, yeah.

Yeah, I think he's a little bit more interesting. There's like more whiffs. He's getting a lot of ground balls the season as well. Again, that was Griffin Canning. What about the dropometer, Chris? Are we okay dropping any or all of these pitchers here? Jose Soriano, Jordan Hicks, Osvaldo Bito. Yeah, yeah.

I wanted Hicks to happen. Velocity's still been there. There's still been flashes. is, but yeah, he's, he's not throwing the splitter very much. I don't, I don't think it's going to happen. And then Soriano, he had that one, like, I think he had 17 whiffs in one start. I don't think he's had more than seven. He's had, he had two seven inning outings that I think were one run or less,

but his other three have just been terrible. And the, the, I think he had, I think it was 17 whiffs in one of those starts, and he hasn't had more than seven or eight in any of the other ones. So, yeah, that's, um, I think we can drop Soriano. Let's run through some Waverwire hitters. And Nate Lowe is off to a nice start with the Nationals, one for four with his fourth homer,

batting 293. He's got 19 RBI, 870 OPS, 57% roster. I just, how can we do it? There's so many first basemen right now. It's like, how can I advocate for Nate Lowe when I would take all those other first basemen over him that we've talked about recently? Here's the thing about first base, though.

Let me call up the most updated stats because I looked at this about a week ago. And first basement on the whole, right now have a 104 weighted runs created plus. Last year, I think was the lowest in Fangraph's database, which goes back to 2002. And it was 107 collectively, way to run to create a plus. So first basement on the whole have still not been very good. there have been these handful of lower end breakout guys who are looking really, really good. But there are a lot of them who look pretty bad still, especially guys who were drafted

pretty early. Christian Walker showing some signs. I think Tristan Kossis hit his second home run in first in like 22 days. Yeah, today. So I'm not giving up on those guys, but Nalo's quality of contact looks really good. he's got a ton of RBI the top of that Washington lineup looks pretty good

I think Nate Lowe's fine I think he's a pretty useful player yeah I mean useful for sure which I think is more helpful in a deeper league but you know if we're looking for kind of like standout upside type guys with like Aronda and Ben Rice

and Torkelson and Nick Kurtz and just all these names that of emerge I still would take those ahead of Nate Lowe for now Jorge Polanco continues his fine start to the season 1 for 4 with a walk and his fourth home run. He is betting 339 with a 945 OPS. The strikeout rate is way down.

He's pulling the ball, hitting it hard. 50% rostered. I think it's too low. I was going to say that kind of feels right, but all right, talk to me. So look, he's probably pretty for Ingena Points League. I mean, with a strikeout rate that low, right?

If the strikeout rate's going to be that low, he's going to be playing pretty much every day. And, you know, like, I think the depth at second base is pretty good. But the depth, I mean the like 10 through 20 range doesn't have a lot of differences. Which means that if Jorge Polanco is in that 20 range, doesn't take a lot to push him up to 12 or 13. So I do think Polanco is probably a little underrated. I would say the way he's swinging the bat right now,

very useful in any Roto league because of the middle infield and corner infield eligibility. That's just a nice player to have a round. Would you take him over Luke Kishel or Caleb Durbin? Not Kishel. Maybe Durbin

just if I need a starter right now. I feel better about Polanco, even if I don't know, Durbin probably has more upside in Roto because of the steals. Would you drop Kyron Paris for Jorge Polanco? Yes. Yeah, I mean, that was fun.

The word has turned on that one. That was fun. I mean, look, I'm not going to say he's done. Yeah, like maybe he bounces back, but. But yeah, you shouldn't have a long leash with, look, the only thing is it's going to hurt if you dropped 180, 250 fab on Cairo Paris, as a lot of people did. But yeah, I don't think he's someone you need to stick around. Yeah. What about Pavin Smith?

He continues to impress two for three with a walk and his. his fourth homer, he's betting 397 with a 500 on base percentage. Four homers, 1259 OPS. He's only starting against Ritey's hitting the crap out of the ball. The expected numbers look good. He's 41% rostered. I think should be rostered in all five outf other leagues. And I think maybe daily lineup leagues too.

Like if you're on top of it and just throw him in there whenever he's in the lineup against a Ritey, then you might have an awesome player with Payman Smith. But that's one that I think is probably like what you said about Nate Lowe where it's just it's hard to get too excited about him because the playing time just means that there's a relatively low ceiling there no matter how good he is. All right, wanted to quickly mention Lars Neupar.

He's not a waiver wire hitter. He's 84% roster. He had a big game two for five with a sock and a shoe. His fourth home run, his third steal. But his previous 15 games before this, he was batting 145 with a 535 on base OPS, excuse me. Is Lars Neupar a hold, Chris? Obviously, after a good game here, but what do you think?

Because we had some pretty bad struggles the two weeks before this. Yeah, I mean, it's, this is a specific type of player that's always tough to value in fantasy because he's probably more well-suited to points leagues with his skill set. Walks a ton, probably not going to hit a ton of homers, but a lot of doubles. is he one of the 36 best outfielders in points leagues? That's where it's trickier, right? He's probably pretty fringy there. I would say hold, but I can see a world in which he's not a must-raster player

in a points league, unfortunately. Three hitters who might be coming around. Dylan Cruz hit his third home run and in his last four games, three of those were in Corse Field, I will point out. Six hits, three homers, two steals for Dylan Cruz, only one strikeout in his last seven games. I think that is very encouraging. Wilson Gattreras may be coming around.

Two for four with two walks. He has three straight multi-hit games. Only four strikeouts in his past four games. And Marcus Semyon moved down to fifth in the Rangers lineup, and he responded by going two for three with a walk, a homer, and four RBI. We need to see more. We need this to be prolonged for Marcus Semyon.

But it wouldn't surprise me here, Chris, if maybe the by-low window can close very quickly on all three of these. Dylan Cruz, Wilson-Kutreras, and Marcus Simeon. Yeah, absolutely. And especially with Cruz,

like, the strikeout rate was really high early on. It hasn't been nearly as high after the first week or so. It's not like he's been hugely productive throughout that, but this is still a very talented young player who's still running a lot. He still has good skills. I think patience has always been necessary with all three of these guys. There was no world in which I was dropping Marcus Simeon or Wilson Contreras.

I don't think anybody should have dropped Dylan Cruz, although I know some people did. He's only 66% rostered on Yahoo. It's a long season. I understand that when you're looking at a player and you see 545 OPS, that is hard to stomach. but just because it happened at the beginning of the season doesn't mean it's going to be the case forever.

And if Dylan Cruz or, you know, I think Wilson-Contreras is a better example of this. If Wilson-Contreras in June had a 20-game stretch with a 564 OPS, you might not even notice it. And so that's the thing you have to remind yourself is just because it feels more meaningful that it happens at the beginning of the season doesn't mean it actually is. Like getting off to an especially slow or especially hot start.

And I need to pull up the, I did research on this last year. I think I wrote something about it. It really has almost no predictive power. Like an especially hot or cold start just really doesn't matter. Even though it feels like it should. It tells you very little about what a player is likely to do moving forward that their projections didn't already tell you, you know? Let's take a look at four confusing pitchers so far this season.

and maybe a quick thought on each of them, Chris. Tanner Bybee, who did turn in a quality start, but the whiffs are just not there for him. Bailey Ober, solid start against the White Sox, six innings, one run, six strikeouts there. Bryce Miller, just the walks have been a huge problem so far this season. And Renel Blanco, a nice bounceback start, but mostly bad before this.

Where are you at on these four, Chris, Bybee, Ober, Bryce Miller, and Renel Blanco? I'm pretty out on Renel Blanco. the underlying stats. You were before the season, though. Yes, I was out because the underlying stats were not very good last year. Yeah. And he needed to show that he has some kind of ability to outperform his underlying

stats. And he hasn't done it. Like I guess he did today. But overall this season, the underlying stats continue to be bad. And also now the, the underlying stats are bad. So I'm pretty out of Rinal Blanco. Bibi, I think he's just tinkering. There was a quote from him the other day, something to that effect.

There was a piece on pitcher list talking about it where he's kind of, it seems intentionally not trying to chase whiffs, trying to find some more pitch-to-contact stuff that can work against both lefties and righties. I think that explains the increased sinker usage, which he went away from today. I think he'll be fine, but Taina Rivey is not so proven that you can't have any concerns about him. it's kind of the same thing with Bryce Miller where my best explanation for why Miller is struggling is just maybe he has too many pitches. And that's not that's not to say he has too many pitches. It's just, you know, throwing six or seven pitches pretty regularly, I think is what he does. Changing your pitch mix as often as he does.

I think the curveball, he just started throwing like last July, like at the end of July. I can see that just like being hard to keep up. But he only had five starts last year with more than two walks. He's got three already. Like that he has not been nearly as good. The walk rate has been a problem for him. I would guess since it was so strong the first two seasons of his career, they he'll bounce back.

But I'm discouraged by what Price Miller's done so far for sure. Some quick hitting leftovers. Aaron Judge is just super. man right now. Four for four with his third stolen base. He's betting 411 with a 509 on base percentage. Not getting much help from his teammates right now. Ellie Dela Cruz starting to get into one of those running binges lately. He had two steals on Tuesday. He's got five steals in his past four games and is up to nine overall. Christian Yelich looks pretty good early on. Two for five with a grand slam, his fourth home run of the season. The batting average is lower, but the OBP is really good. There's power. There's

speed there for Christian Yellich. And then Wyatt Langford, who when he's played this year, he's kind of looked like that breakout. He had a sock in a shoe, his fifth home run, his fourth steel, batting 292 with an OPS over a thousand. So some big names there doing what is expected of them. The call to the bullpen for the Guardians. Cade Smith got the ninth inning with a one-run lead. He converted his second save, and he got the save on Monday as well.

Emmanuel Class A pitched three days in a row over the weekend including 30 pitches I believe on Sunday So yeah Just feels like they're giving him a break and Cade Smith is really good Hopefully nothing comes of this I don't think that there That anything will like I think it's still a manual

Class A's job but yeah You know look if we have another just terrible month Of Class A like They might have some decisions to make at that point But I don't think we're anywhere close to that yet For the Padres Robert Swarres struck out one for his 10th save, the first reliever to 10 saves this season.

I think he was the first to 10 saves last year, too. Might have been. Actually, maybe Ryan Heldsley was. Oh, that might be, yeah. Yeah. For the Marlins, Anthony Bender got the eighth inning with a one-run lead, facing four, five, and six in the Reds lineup.

He gave up a hit, and that was it. And then Calvin Foshae got the ninth. He struck out one for his second save. I still don't know here, Chris. I don't know. the way that Bender was used here, eighth inning one run, hard of the Reds lineup.

That still kind of makes me feel like he's the highest leverage reliever. I think there's no closer here. Yeah. For the Royals, Carlos Estevez, got the ninth inning with a two-run lead. He gave up three runs on a hit and three walks, took his second blown save.

Luckily for him, the Royals scored a run to tie it in the bottom of the ninth, and then they won in extras. Who did they score that run off of? Well, it was Seth Halverson for the Rockies, who gave up a run on two hits, took his first blown save.

It's a 519, 519 ERA, and a 185 whip for Seth Halverson. The Rockies are just so bad. They're not good at anything. It feels like they have not been able to close out a game for the past two years. You can't even blame Corsefield here. No. They were in Kansas City. It's basically the opposite.

For the Dodgers, Tanner Scott got the ninth with a one-run lead. He gave up a solo homer, took his second blown save. and the Dodgers wound up losing in extras. For the twins, Yohan Duran got the ninth inning with a three-run lead. He gave up one run but picked up his second save. For the Rangers, Luke Jackson got his seventh save. And for the Pirates, just wanted to mention three-run lead, David Bedinard pitched in the seventh inning.

Perfect inning, one strikeout. So clearly not the closer again yet. Maybe he gets there. The Pirates tacked on more runs in the ninth inning, so no more save opportunity. but I'm assuming it would have went to Dennis Santana there. To stream or not to stream on Wednesday, and the best options that I could find,

Reese Olson against the Padres, David Peterson against the Phillies, Tomoyuki Sugano at the Nationals, Michael Lorenzen, home against the Rockies that's in Kansas City, David Festa against the White Sox, Andrew Heaney at the Angels, Eduardo Rodriguez facing the raise,

Kumar Rocker at the Athletics, and J.P. Sears home against the Rangers. The Angels have had, I think, four games with nine strikeouts against the starter in the past, like, 10 days. And Heaney's doing some. One of them might have been by Heaney, actually. Was his 10th start? He had like, did he have a 13 strike? Am I making that up?

He had a huge game against someone. It might have been the Angels. Let's find out. So I think he's in the mix. I would go Eduardo Rodriguez, David Festi, and Trujini. And then if you really want to live life on the edge, Kumar Rocker at the athletics, because there's real strikeout upside in that start.

He could also give up five home runs. Yeah, I honestly want to stay away from Sacramento. It might be a launching pad there, man. I don't. I think I'm, I think I mentioned J.P. series yesterday as like a maybe. No, I'm staying away for now. I like Eduardo Rodriguez.

I think Andrew Heaney is fine. I like David Festa. If you're feeling crazy, if you're feeling froggy. Michael Lorenzen against the Rockies, I could see having a good start. They're not good at anything. Andrew Heaney, by the way, that 10 strikeout outing was against the Yankees.

Oh, that's right. That was a really good one. And then on Thursday, Shane Smith at the Twins. Chris Paddock facing the White Sox, Chase Dolander at the Royals. Landed Roup, home against the Brewers. Tyler Anderson home against the pirates. Yeah, I think Roop and Dolander

are the two most interesting here. And then look, Chris Paddock has been much better since that start against the White Sox when he got destroyed early on in the season. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I'm not going to do it, but I will just say he has been better. Yep.

Yeah, I can't, I cannot do it. Chain Smith at the Twins, I think, is totally fine as well. And I know the pirates performed well on Tuesday, but outside of that, their offense has been abysmal. Tyler Anderson has been good. So I think Rup is at the top. I think I would probably put Tyler Anderson second

than Shane Smith. Dolander, I could see having a good start, but I do think there is definitely some variance in... He's only made one start on the road. And it was good. Yeah. It was like seven strikeouts in five and two-thirds innings with two runs, I think. I hope it's good again. We will find out.

And we are going to wrap there. For Chris, I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy ball 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. Paramount Podcasts.